Caffeine Crash
The combat had paused, but the tension was thicker than ever. Below where Adam stood atop the yacht, Ruby, Yang and Coco appraised one another in this new light. Further away, Weiss and Yatsuhashi were raising their blades, ready for the second round. It was a mental countdown to an entirely new fight, and Adam took those precious seconds to finally glance at the score. It could've been better: most of them were now hovering near half of their aura, Yang being even lower. Using their Semblances to their limits had a price.
Coco and Velvet were almost at full. Only Yatushashi was not, with Weiss actually having managed to strike away a third of his aura. In a way, it was equal. But they had four to their three. The second phase of Ruby's plan was in effect: never let a member of CFVY be in a fair fight for long.
Someone moved a fraction of an inch too much. The tension snapped, auras flaring, guns raised.
Adam was gone in a flash for the stern of the ship, Wilt slashing across where he knew Velvet would be. It struck a glowing shield, but it wasn't the standard hard light from Energy Dust. He had already deflected two return stabs from a familiar hoplite shortsword when he recognized them: Milo and Akouo.
Pyrrha's weapons?
He raised Blush under his arm and fired twice, ice blooming on the shield and weighing it down enough for him to stab forward and shove Velvet back. Both the shield and sword looked identical to the real article, yet they were a ghostly, grainy blue, flickering and fading in and out of focus like old camera film. As Velvet rushed forward and Adam sheathed his blade, he caught the source: that camera of hers sat at her waist just behind her. It was projecting the weaponry.
The camera flashed, and Adam's eyes widened. Narrowly, he leaned out of the way as not Pyrrha's shortsword, but a copy of Yatsuhashi's greatsword came down close enough to brush down his coat. He supposed that was a pro of her weapon: hard light weighed exactly as much or as little as you wanted it.
Which was why it was so difficult to duck under the follow-up aimed for his head.
Finally, Yang thought: getting hit wasn't part of the plan anymore!
Yang swung for the ground and fired, sending her spiraling over a stream of minigun bullets that tore a chasm in the already-cracked arena. A couple jabs to her sides, and she was flying through the air, boosting herself past Coco's attempts to track her until she was already too close in. Coco stood just next to the water. Even two steps back would push her over the edge. There was nowhere to run.
She fired herself into a spin for momentum. Coco spun as well, minigun collapsing into her mace of a handbag. Normally, Yang would've earned herself another trip to the edge of the arena.
But Ruby's scythe came down in a blur, knocking Coco's swing off-balance and leaving Yang free to drive her elbow into Coco's cheek. At the same time, Ruby had already spun Crescent Rose around, swinging for her side. Coco's foot slid back and water splashed against her boots. Growling, she leaned with Yang's strike, barely flipping over Ruby's swing from the other side and landing with her minigun already deployed.
The two sisters dived away, and the forcefield of the arena behind the two sisters flashed constantly from the sheer impact of Coco's Semblance-empowered shots. Yang jumped to her feet first and rushed forward. She drove her fist into Coco's stomach, but the fashionista refused to budge. If anything she pushed forward, re-converting her minigun and driving Yang back with another quick set of swings: Yang wasn't risking taking that head-on again.
"Yellow Rose!" Ruby called out from behind her.
A single burst of buckshot to blind Coco, and Yang hopped forward as Ruby swung Crescent Rose under her feet, hooked it behind Coco's ankles and fired. Coco was knocked back just as Yang landed a flying punch that blasted her not into but through the yacht's hull.
"I've got Velvet! Keep an eye out on Weiss!" Ruby called, and with a shot behind her, she was off for the yacht's stern, where Yang could still see Adam and Velvet clashing.
Yang turned and jogged for Weiss, reloading her gauntlets with explosive slugs on her way.
"I can hold him until you stop one of the others!" Weiss shouted as she flipped over a swing that left a platform cleaved in half. Hopping from glyph to glyph, she danced around Yatsuhashi and peppered him with slashes along his sides: he was clumsy with gravity pulling him this way and that, but these floating platforms were her home.
This was all to her advantage.
Which was was why she was caught by surprise when gravity pulled Yatsuhashi sideways to another platform, and a rain of shells pounded him down onto his back. Weiss twisted her glyph around so she could glare down at Yang.
Yang winked and jabbed another shot at Yatsuhashi.
"Typical." Her instincts called to her, and Weiss strafed to another glyph as an emerald rush of energy destroyed the one she was just on. When Weiss turned around, it was in time to see Yatsuhashi slam his elbow into the surface he laid on, cracking it. Weiss rose her rapier, charged it with Fire Dust and sent a wave of fireballs to join Yang's bombardment.
Yatsuhashi dragged himself to his feet, ripping half of the platform off in his grip in the process. A Gravity Dust-laced chunk of glowing earth the size of a car was thrown at them with the speed of a meteor, absorbing the shots and leaving it a flaming meteor instead. Weiss could feel the pull and heat of the gigantic projectile as she dropped herself down onto another platform. Her hand twisted. She thumbed over to her yellow Dust. The point of Myrtenaster aimed at Yang just as a streak of gold bolted from it.
Yang, not fast enough to dodge the platform, suddenly found herself just quick enough to dive out of the way. A golden glyph in the shape of a ticking clock was visible beneath where she stood for a moment before the meteor wiped it and a good two meters around it out.
Weiss' aura flickered from strain. She forced herself to roll out of the way of another slash of aura. The lights of the platform flickered and went dull as it was cleaved in half. Maybe, she thought, a little bit of help might be useful, after all.
"Copycat!" Ruby shouted as she ducked under a swing of Velvet's projected Crescent Rose.
In a pair of twirls, the two deflected swings from one another until Velvet twisted in place and swung behind her. Adam slid underneath the strike on his knees and closed the gap, springing up with Wilt lashing for her the second he was too far into her reach to respond: he'd dealt with Ruby many times before.
Velvet threw a jab and blasted Adam's blade back with a copy of Yang's own Ember Celica. Still twirling her projected scythe, she swapped it to her other hand, turned and parried Ruby's incoming swing with an gun-boosted uppercut. By the time the two had swung again, Velvet had flipped the scythe down and lifted herself up like a pole vaulter at their apex, leaving both of their weapons to bounce off the hard-light construct. As if she'd grown up with Crescent Rose all her life, she hit the trigger, fired herself up onto the railing of the next floor's balcony and fired herself back down just as fast, spear-kicking Adam into the railing beside Ruby.
"She can use two?" Ruby exclaimed, caught between wanting to call it unfair and wanting to call it the coolest thing she'd ever seen.
"Focus!" Adam snapped out a thin slash of crimson aura to force Velvet back. She blocked it with her faux Crescent Rose, but Adam noticed something: not only had she dropped Yang's gauntlets, but the holographic scythe was trembling and warping. Scratches along the surface. Sometimes pieces fading altogether. It was decaying.
"It's temporary!" He fired Blush in his other hand. Velvet's sudden decision to dodge and strafe was no coincidence. "Keep her defensive!"
Ruby burst forward, rose petals trailing as she swung at Velvet with all of her might.
Velvet leaned out of the way, letting Ruby plow right past her and through the door of the cabin behind her. She looked at Adam with a quirked eyebrow and an amused smirk.
"Red Bull!" Ruby launched right out of the hallway behind her, scythe sweeping for her left leg, Adam blurring past Velvet with his straight blade aimed at her right.
Velvet winced as they both flashed by, but their hits were shallow: it wasn't anything to worry about... the first time. But as they blitzed past her from opposite sides again and again too fast to dodge, those hits started adding up. She tried to strike back with her own scythe, but every time she caught one or two of their blows, they'd just pincer in from a new angle. And so she was left to focus only on her defense, the holographic Crescent Rose a flickering, azure blur around her. It wouldn't last for long: her hand was already starting to slip through the fading haft. It needed reinforcement.
So she took a slash from Wilt to her arm with a grimace to snatch a thin, red disc from a pouch at her waist. One ounce that, even as a lesser tournament-grade, cost as much as a pound of pure, powdered Dust. Velvet slid it into her camera.
Adam flipped over Velvet as the holographic Crescent Rose sliced just past him. Flames trailed behind it. He and Ruby rose up beside one another and turned to make one last dash for Velvet, but her weapon was now a pinwheel of flame: impenetrable and hot enough to leave the wooden floors scorched around her. There was no getting past that.
Velvet brought her twirls to an end, holding her copied scythe behind her. Blisteringly-hot fire surrounded it, and a ruby-red projection flickered just beneath. She winked to them.
"Impressed?" she teased.
"Uh, yeah? Duh!" Ruby answered, grinning. She shot a look over to Adam, who nodded back to her and stared past Velvet into the room past her beyond. They had the same idea: if the scythe got weaker when it hit something, then if they got her inside, those wide swings would be her downfall!
Ruby rushed ahead to take the lead, and their clash continued.
Across the arena, shining glyphs lined the path Weiss spun around Yatsuhashi on. Her rapier bit into the back of his leg, driving him to one knee, and rather than counterattack, he was forced to slam his sword down at his side to absorb another volley of shells from Yang. She wasn't committing to the fight, but that didn't mean she wasn't a problem for him.
He lunged as Weiss flipped over in front of him and swung for her legs, but she jumped atop a glyph. Putting all he had into speed, Yatsuhashi stepped forward, pressuring Weiss with swing after swing. He twisted and turned to avoid Yang's blasts, putting that momentum into a series of rapid slashes that Weiss danced around. Finally, she blocked his greatsword with her rapier and swung them together, using that very momentum to throw him off.
He flipped his grip on the gigantic weapon into a reverse grip and swung it down with all his might. Weiss gasped and struck up with her rapier, Dust glowing bright-red within. The clash left the entire platform splintering. It was the closest he'd gotten to striking her: in truth, Yatsuhashi hadn't landed much of a blow at all on Weiss, but she was burning through her aura and Dust fast.
Yatsuhashi hunkered down, taking the fiery brawler's shots to his armored shoulder and pressing down all the harder on Weiss. She grunted, foot slipping and aura waning.
The gravity shifted, throwing the two sideways to land on a levitating wall. Any reprieve Weiss was granted, however, was taken away by her harsh landing.
And deep within the yacht on the other side, watching out from a darkened window with her chaingun whirring, Coco was waiting for just that.
Providing fire support from below, Yang felt the rain of bullets cut past her cheek before she heard Coco's gun. Her eyes widened and she twisted to look off at the attacker, but she wasn't the target.
Weiss jumped to her feet and, with a wave of Myrtenaster, lit up the arena with a vast, cyan glyph charged with Energy Dust to take the incoming fire. It flashed, crackled and already began to fade away from the force, but Yang was already rocketing herself off for Coco. She only needed to hold on for a little longer.
Yatsuhashi ruined those thoughts, running in with his greatsword trailing behind him, carving a clean line through the Dust-laced wall they stood on. She was stuck in place. He was getting used to the shifting gravity. She tried to take a step back, but even that left the glyph above cracking enough for a bullet or two to slam down around her.
He jumped to close the distance, edge of his blade glowing green. Instinct had Weiss throwing her free arm out, a glyph rapidly spinning to life. Yet this one was different: candles sprouted from its center like the spokes of a wheel, each tipped with stylized flame. It was precisely what she needed to survive the next attack... but her stomach twisted: what would Winter think? Let alone her father?
Doubt in her mind, Weiss let the glyph dissipate as quickly as it formed and reformed it into a weaker forcefield. There was no way it would hold up, she thought.
It didn't.
Yatsuhashi's greatsword ripped through it like it wasn't even there at all. Weiss flinched.
The buzzer rang.
"And it's even again as Weiss Schnee goes down for the count!"
Ruby rolled past Velvet and jumped back up next to Adam as the flaming copy of her weapon obliterated the ground and wall near where she stood. The hallway they stood in was coated in flame, with gashes in the walls around them and bullet holes across the floor and ceiling. The heat drew sweat to their foreheads.
Adam growled under his breath. "There's gunfire right below us!"
Velvet twirled the inferno in her hands, but when she slammed it down to take aim, it shattered into embers.
"Now's our chance! I'll get Coco, you get Velvet!" Ruby swung Crescent Rose behind her and took aim, ready to sprint off.
Adam widened his stance and crouched low, crimson light flickering to life around him as he grabbed onto Wilt's hilt. Yards away, Velvet copied his exact stance and, with a flash from her camera, held a burning copy of his sword. Yet, the flames were already dying down. They swung once, a slash of aura and fire impacting to blast out the walls around them and leave embers raining down from the blackened ceiling.
Twice, and Adam's aura beat the weakening flame, blasting hardwood floor to embers and ripping a hole in the ceiling, but not harming Velvet.
"Now!" The third time, every inch of red on Adam flared bright. Ruby fired herself forward, Velvet dropped everything the projection had into her slice, and the world flashed crimson as Adam's rugged wave of aura ground through the hallway. The explosion from their clash was visible even outside the yacht as a pillar of aura bursting through the ceiling, leaving only blackened petals falling.
Velvet and Adam now stood across a pit easily ten feet across. Their feet were only inches away from the decaying edge. Wilting petals fluttered around them from where the walls once stood and the ceiling once was, half of a lounge behind them barren, its contents disintegrated. It made the ruby-red petals trailing down from beside Adam and into the pit left behind all the more bright. The gunfire had stopped, replaced with muffled shouts from Ruby and Coco both below.
With an impressed hum, Velvet reached out. "Smart move." A new holographic copy of Wilt and Blush formed in her hand. Now, it was tinged purple. "Good thing you've given me a lot of spares."
Coco wasn't the fastest Huntress-in-training by a long shot, but when the ceiling above her flashed red, she was flipping out of the way in a second. Yang could wait.
The floor erupted into rose petals, and the color in the world hadn't even returned to normal before she was collapsing her minigun to a purse and slamming away a swing from Ruby. Water burst up from a hole blasted into the floor and wall where she once stood, slowly filling up the room as she weaved and ducked under Ruby's ferocious attack. It was smart. Smart and a real problem: she'd posted up in a bedroom, and while it had a tall enough ceiling for Ruby to have mobility—especially with the hole—it didn't have a lot of space for her to move around.
Still, she was a bit of a momentum fighter too, following the sweeps of her heavy bag and throwing that weight into a powerful sweep of her leg or hammering down of another swing. Every dodge was power she used to slam Crescent Rose's blade into the walls and dresser. Every deflected blow just redirected to a kick just as strong. But the small space left them at a standstill. A standstill in a room rapidly filling with water. Great, she thought.
A loud explosion echoed from outside, and as Coco leaped over another attempt to sweep her off her feet—fool me twice, shame on me—Yang came bursting in through the hull.
Great, Coco thought as she used her bag as a shield against Yang's leading hook. The blast of gunfire still sent her flying through the wall into another bedroom altogether. She rolled to her feet, and Ruby was already on her, shouting and swinging her oversized scythe. With her bare hand, she slapped it up by its side, leaving Ruby bouncing right off of her with a surprised squeak.
She spotted Yang rushing in behind her, but that wasn't what interested Coco. What interested her was the rapidly approaching emerald light: good old Yatsuhashi. He might not've been fast, but his attacks could close the distance. She ducked and weaved out of the way of Yang's punches, drawing them deeper into the room and out of sight of the incoming aura. Just as Ruby came in from the other side, Coco twisted and smashed her back with her purse.
She would've been wide open for Yang if the entire room wasn't flooded with light. The blonde blasted herself backwards, but even that didn't get her completely clear of the wave of aura that sent the entire yacht rocking back. The two sisters got their bearings as the boat rapidly tilted the other way, but by then, Coco had loaded her minigun back up. She grinned.
The sisters paled.
Ruby swept Yang out in a rush of gold and red, minigun fire demolishing everything in its path from dresser to floor to wall behind them.
A stream of gunfire shredded through the floor in front of Adam, shooting dust and splinters into the already ember-filled, hot air. Velvet precariously landed atop a leather chair on the other side of the room. The entire yacht was tilting now, but he had the 'high' ground against Velvet. He spun Wilt in his hand in the brief time of rest. He tightened his grip, holding it in reverse. Aura sparked across his blade.
In a second, four thin slashes of aura were slicing cleanly through the ground. Velvet weaved through each one with ease, flipping entirely over the last one. He sheathed Wilt and brought it up to block Velvet's spinning kick, aura flaring from the strain. He was staring down the purple, Gravity Dust-laced boots of Mercury. And the barrel in the sole.
His head snapped back from the explosive shot. Velvet went flipping back for the lower side of the room. Growling, Adam didn't give her time to land: sprinting ahead, he lashed out with Wilt, sending a shadow of himself forward with the swing. Velvet could block one, but when the shadow sent another lunging forward into the next strike, and that into the next, she was overwhelmed. She could only curl up and brace herself when Adam bolted through the aura clones, gathering them into himself and kicking Velvet through the window.
She crashed onto her back against the railing and rolled to her feet to dodge the crimson blade cleaving through them. The ship was going down, now. Standing not on just on the deck but the railing itself their ankles were still beneath the water. It didn't slow Adam down, Wilt sending water splashing and chips of wood flying when it carved through the deck for her. Velvet did all she could to lean and stumble out of the way of each strike.
Velvet reached for her hip, but the light of her camera only flickered. The impact must've knocked the Energy Dust inside loose. She grimaced, then cried out as Adam caught her in the stomach with a shot from Blush.
Both caught Yatsuhashi approaching: it was hard to miss the giant. Adam turned and sheathed his weapon, ready to leap back.
Ice flashed across the sea and up Adam's legs, trapping him. Velvet grinned, Ice Dust crystal in her hand.
Yatsuhashi crashed into the yacht in one split-second. His greatsword smashed into Adam in the next, launching him through ice trappings and steel railing into the waters below.
The buzzer didn't go off. Yatsuhashi clicked his tongue.
Coco crept up the ruins she'd left behind inside the yacht. With the entire boat tilted onto its side, her 'floor' was a wall. It groaned ominously with every door she had to hop past, debris still tumbling down. Behind her was the rapidly-raising waterline, submerging almost a quarter of the yacht. It had risen enough to make it a hike to get up this far. There was a loud crash outside, a splash, and then it was quiet. Too quiet.
Her grip tightened on her minigun as she scanned it across the hall. A door on the 'ceiling' burst open. Minigun fire raced to meet it, but the only thing torn to shreds was a falling chair. Coco didn't have time to recognize it for a distraction: Yang swung out from a door just behind her. Coco turned and Yang's fist crashed into her jaw, the gunfire leaving her blind and her head ringing.
A shot from Ruby left her collapsing to one knee. In desperation, she let her minigun loose blindly, and in a stroke of luck sent Yang flying into the water below. Coco ducked and leaned out of the way of the sniper fire until her sight returned: Ruby was using one of the rooms as a perch, staring down from a door now on the ceiling.
A flash of fiery light left her looking back. Yang slowly stomped out of the water, steam coiling around her, hair flat and matted down.
Beside her, Adam skulked, soaked and not looking much better than his furious teammate. He must've swam in from the hole flooding the yacht. Worse, he was already beginning to glow.
Yang pointed to her, eyes blazing-red. "You just ruined my hair." A declaration of death.
Surrounded by the entire enemy team. Her team would probably have trouble getting down here. That was game over for her. But, as Ruby came rushing down the hall, Yang sent herself flying forward and Adam raced forward alongside her, Coco did have another thought: this yacht was modeled pretty accurately.
The entire enemy team was here.
If it was accurate enough to have Dust engines...
"FINALE!" A final, shouted warning if her own team was coming for her. They knew what it meant. She twisted, pushed her Semblance to its limits, and aimed straight to her side. Aimed to what was once the floor. Aimed to where she knew all that Dust would be loaded further down.
Ruby swung her scythe down. Adam drew his blade.
Coco pulled the trigger.
Yang wasn't a fool. She knew exactly what Coco was doing. And she knew she had a choice. She saw it clearly: if she just pushed herself a little harder, she could land that punch. Just one, and Coco's aim would be knocked off. With enough of her Semblance behind it? It might even take her out right then and there. She'd easily save the entire team. On a more selfish note? It'd be obvious it was her, and she needed that: she needed to come out of this with something.
But it was a gamble. Her other option? Protect Ruby and Adam. She knew she could do that, but only at the cost of herself.
In that split-second before impact, Yang let the fires of her Semblance surround her. No one would know it was her fault if they all lost, but what was more important? Proving herself to her mother, or making sure her sister had the chance to earn her own victory?
She focused her Semblance, not letting it run wild and free, but containing it down to a single moment. An unstoppable force, or an invincible shield for only a moment.
She made her decision.
The crowd shouted in shock and awe as the yacht flickered, then detonated in a geyser of flame and electricity. The forcefield all around the arena flickered white from the thunderous wave of force that followed. Velvet and Yatsuhashi shielded their eyes from the flash and heat, having landed on the arena not a second too soon. The buzzer, if it rang, was lost entirely in the cacophony.
Coco crashed down along edge of the arena hard enough to crater it, her purse skidding along the cracked tiles behind her. Her caramel aura flickered and twisted, then gave out. Singed and with parts of her precious outfit torn, she was barely unconscious.
But they hadn't won.
A flaming, blonde comet flew over them, spinning out of control. Yang's downfall was much less controlled, smacking into the ground hard enough to bounce, golden aura exploding off of her in a final, fiery burst, before rolling to a halt, unconscious.
Velvet frowned when she struck the ground the first time, and not just from how painful it looked: in Yang's arms, she could see flickers of black and red dropping away. Two of them carried, shielded by the blast.
Adam and Ruby rolled smoothly to their feet, hands on their weapons and kicking up dust as they slid back the last few meters. They glanced back at Yang, then shared a look. But the two remaining members of RWAY didn't move yet. Neither did they. Velvet's eyes locked onto Yatsuhashi.
He nodded to her, then pulled the glove on his right hand free.
They were at half aura. Ruby and Adam at a third even with how much they'd regenerated. Rushing in would only get them a loss. Velvet knew Yatsuhashi wanted to hold onto his Semblance until later, but right now?
They had no clue if they'd even make it.
"Sooo, remember that team attack idea we had?" Ruby didn't take her eyes off of their opponents. The two were muttering plans to one another: only fair they do the same, right?
Adam glared over at her. "At your aura level? Are you insane!"
"It's a sure-fire win!" Ruby didn't care: winded as she was, she was grinning like a madwoman.
"It's untested."
"That's why we're gonna test it now!"
"It's trying to get yourself injured!" Adam exclaimed in a hushed whisper.
Ruby swung her scythe behind herself. Yatsuhashi threw his gloves behind him. Velvet drew a pair of Gravity Dust crystals. They were out of time.
"Well, if you wanna wait until you don't expect me to do it..." Ruby let the cheeky threat linger just long enough.
Adam grunted and settled into his combat stance, red glowing to life around him. "Whatever Yang tries to do to me after this, it's going right back to you."
"Mmhm, yep, sure. Ready?" Ruby glanced over to him, giddy excitement dancing in her silver eyes.
Adam didn't answer, letting the last tense seconds tick down. Velvet and Yatsuhashi were waiting for them to make the first move. Bad choice.
Ruby decided that was her victory. "Wilting Rose!"
Black and crimson aura rushed out around Adam, and with a sharp crack that shattered the ground beneath his feet, he went forth like a bullet.
Right into Velvet's trap.
He saw the pulse of black from Velvet's Dust surround him, dragging him down in enhanced gravity enough for Yatsuhashi to have shoved Velvet behind him by the time he'd closed the distance. Yatsuhashi lunged. His bare hand reached out for him, aura flickering to life around it. Adam ripped Wilt free from its sheath, the force he needed to overcome the practical gravity well Velvet had trapped him in leaving bright-red energy crackling from his blade.
Ruby rushed between them. Adam was already mid-swing.
Yatsuhashi's eyes widened. He twisted to bring his armored shoulder in the way. Velvet lost her focus and stepped back in shock. Without the well of gravity holding Adam back, his swing finished faster than the eye could follow.
The world was eclipsed by the wave of crimson light, and everything between Adam and Yatsuhashi exploded into a rush of rose petals: the debris, the ground, and Ruby herself.
Any thoughts running through the minds of Team CFVY's remaining fighters halted. Rationality shouting that couldn't have just actually happened was instead replaced with primal confusion for only a second in the bloody light. Yet that single second, where countless petals blew across and past Yatsuhashi and Velvet, was all that the two needed.
For as Adam twisted away from him and twirled his blade, it was terribly hard for the two horrified upperclassmen to notice how many of those rose petals weren't wilting away at all.
Adam's blade clicked back into its sheath, and color returned to the world. Hundreds of bright-red petals hiding among the wilted roses coalesced, leaving Ruby right behind Velvet, still flying forward with all the momentum of her sprint. Crescent Rose was the last thing to reform, blade curled right around Velvet's stomach.
With a single gunshot and a swing, Velvet was whipped through the air. She'd snapped out of her confusion only when her back was an inch away from the wall, far out of bounds.
Yatsuhashi stood bracing for an attack that never came: a chasm had opened itself in the area, edges still peeling away into blackened rose petals, yet it ended an inch away from him. Dazed, he looked behind him at Ruby, alive and well, twirling her scythe around her and getting ready to charge. Ahead of him, Adam slowly turned around, smirking.
He looked down at the chasm trailing into nothing but an abyss. Looked to the jagged slash in his blade. Looked to the two who were each as fast as Fox.
Yatsuhashi stabbed his blade into the ground, laid his hands atop it and, turned to Ruby with a rare smile.
"I forfeit."
