Here's chapter 92, everyone.
Willow was holding a training sword that Raven gave her. She had on her gear, and her aura was ready for use. She let out a deep breath, as she watched it in the cold, and Raven was watching her from the side of the cabin.
At the moment, Willow was focusing on the way to use her sword. Getting a feel for how to swing the blade. At first she wondered how hard it could really be, thinking that the slashes themselves didn't need to be precise, but the power involved.
Raven was quick to break her out of that mindset, since precision mattered greatly in battle. "Have you figured it out yet?" The black haired huntress called out, while testing to see if Willow would be distracted.
She wasn't, so Willow took a breath and held the training sword in her left hand, as the training dummy Raven brought over was in front of her. Not a moment after taking a breath, Willow swiped the blade at an angle, slicing the torso of the dummy.
Seeing that, Raven walked over to examine it. "Hmm, better, but you still need work." The cut was clean until near the end of it, where it went a little crooked.
"I know." Willow responded, looking at the cut as well. "I can't get myself to finish the attack properly… But I'll continue to try."
"Good." Raven walked back to watch from the cabin, while Willow was holding her blade again, taking a step to the side so she would be in front of another dummy, wanting to use a clean one.
It wasn't an immediate attempt, since Willow wanted to try other slashes, and not just diagonal ones against the chest. She looked at the arm, remembering her deal with Raven.
"Just going for the arm wouldn't be enough… I have to remember that she'll be able to easily keep me from hitting her arm like that."
A swipe to the legs with her own feet would be good, but with Raven being a trained huntress, she would also be able to counter that. And Willow wasn't confident enough with the strength she had to even successfully knock her down.
Physically, Willow was easily outmatched, but the white haired woman did have one thing Raven could never have. Glyphs. Willow had thought more and more about how to implement her glyphs into disarming her.
"Simply holding her arms isn't good enough. I can't just keep her locked and remove her weapon… I need to be able to do it the right way. Not take the easy way out."
Raven was wondering what the other woman was doing, since she was just standing there. "Is she going to make a move or what?"
Willow continued looking at the dummies, and since she was only using a sword in one hand, her other was free to use a glyph. She was even able to imagine Raven in front of her, as she plotted out points of where she could use her glyphs to her advantage.
Even so, it wasn't only tactics. Willow wanted to work on her power as well, so she gripped her training sword a lot tighter. She lifted her arm up and slashed down, aiming for the arm as it cut halfway, and Willow gasped. "Damn it…"
Raven walked over, sighing as she could see Willow wasn't happy with the slash she made. "It's not a bad cut. Grimm with no aura would be pretty damaged from it, as long as you don't hit the armor, but from how you look, I can see you're not completely happy with it."
Willow shook her head, pulling the blade up and off the dummy. "I wanted to cut the entire arm off… But I'm not physically strong enough… Any time I watched my daughter train, she'd end up slicing through the dummies with ease."
"Don't forget she's trained for years, while you've trained for a couple of months. And it's not always about being physically strong. Yes, it does help, but the blade in your hand is also an extension of yourself." Raven said, remembering Summer's words.
"Hmm," Willow knew of those words as well, and she nodded. "I can't say I know exactly what I can do, but I also would rather you not give me the answer."
"I had no plan to. Figuring things out is your job, but maybe we should call it on this session." Raven suggested, and Willow sighed.
The white haired woman handed Raven the training sword and nodded. "I suppose stopping now is fine. Would you like to go out and get something to eat?"
Raven wasn't expecting Willow to ask her that, as a light blush appeared on her face. "Um, I don't really care. I mean, we have food in the cabin we can eat instead…"
"Oh come on, Raven Branwen. When was the last time you went out and had a nice dinner at a restaurant?" Willow teased with a smirk, and the black haired huntress rolled her eyes.
"Some of us aren't given all the money on Remnant from their family's dust company." Raven reminded.
"I'm pretty sure a huntress has enough money on her to afford buying themselves dinner at a restaurant." Willow countered. "And maybe buying someone else dinner."
Raven was taken aback. "Why exactly would I buy one of the richest woman on Remnant dinner when she can buy the entire restaurant?"
"Because clearly it's the kind thing to do as my instructor, rewarding me for a job well done… And because I'm trying not to use as much of Jacques' money." Willow answered with a hint of venom in her voice.
"Is that right…" Raven sighed. "Fine, but don't go overboard on what you order."
"Does this figure look like I go overboard?" Willow questioned and crossed her arms, as Raven looked away, not wanting to say something that would get her a slap to the face.
"J-Just change out of your gear…" Raven said as she walked back to the cabin, and Willow simply smirked to herself as she followed.
Jaune, Yang and Nora were sleeping on the airship, seeing as the trip to Mistral was a long one, while the others were just on their scrolls to pass the time. Ruby was holding Zwei in her lap so he wouldn't slip around the airship, while Weiss was silently taking pictures of the dog in her girlfriend's lap.
"Good thing Jaune is sleeping, huh?" Ruby remarked. "I mean, remember how he got his nickname after all." She giggled a bit at the memory of her first day at Beacon.
Pyrrha spoke up. "He's getting better dealing with it in my opinion. People with motion sickness almost can't even fall asleep in moving vehicles in the first place."
"Yeah, I guess that's true. Not that I'm complaining. Barf is gross." Ruby noted while rubbing Zwei's ears, and the dog wagged his little tail.
Weiss looked to Ren, who had Nora laying against him. "Will you be okay when we get there?"
Ren nodded, assuring the girl in white that he'd be fine. "We've been there a few times before. The only difference is how much more damaged it is, but we'll be okay."
"You know if you need time to yourselves there, we'll do what we can to keep you covered." Weiss said, while continuing to think of how Ruby would talk.
"Thank you. We might need a moment or two, but we won't make you all wait too long. It's still too risky." Ren stated.
Weiss nodded in agreement. "Okay."
Klein was hearing their conversations as he continued to pilot the airship to Mistral. He was glad to hear how Weiss was still wanting to help her friends, while the white haired teen was simply trying to better herself by learning from Ruby.
"Hey, Weiss, I was thinking that when we get there, maybe you can use your semblance to sniff out any Grimm we've fought." Ruby suggested.
"That's what I was planning to do, but it still uses a good bit of my aura, so I may have to stay that way for a little while." Weiss said.
"You've used it for way longer, so I don't see a problem with that." Ruby let out an eager smile, since she still wanted to try out team attacks with Weiss' wolf abilities.
"Yes, well I don't completely want to use my wolf semblance, Ruby." Weiss said, wanting to hone her skills in more than one way. "Anyways, that's for later."
Pyrrha chuckled a little. "Not to take one side, but during our sparring match, you were doing well as a wolf, Weiss."
"Maybe so, but I've thought about it a lot. I relied only on that, my wolf semblance… I want to learn how to truly fight without it too." Weiss explained. "Like you, Pyrrha, you've shown a lot of promise with your skill alone."
The scarlet haired huntress in training would tend to get complimented a lot, but she was understanding why Weiss was comparing her to herself. "To be fair, I also work on my semblance too."
"I know, but seeing how you ALL fight was a wake up call." Weiss said as she looked down at her lap. "Ruby is a pro with her scythe… Yang can break a Grimm's hand if she wanted to with just her strength, and Blake is nimble and her attacks are deadly…"
Ruby spoke up at that point. "Weiss, you know you're just as strong too. Remember that I've watched you train without you using your wolf semblance, and during initiation, you didn't use it all the time."
Weiss sighed. "Because I hid that from you during initiation, Ruby. If I wasn't trying to hide it, I know I would have used it from the beginning, and I've also only recently started training with my glyphs."
"I still think you're doing fine…" Ruby mumbled.
"If we run into Grimm here, I would at least like to try to fight them as I am now." Weiss said, and Klein tensed up a bit when he heard her, but he wouldn't say anything, knowing Weiss would argue to not worry so much about her.
Ruby shifted a bit in her seat. "Alright, but… You know that we all have our strengths and weaknesses, Weiss. You're really strong when you use your wolf semblance. And before you say anything, you know I'm garbage without Crescent Rose. So we all have work to do for ourselves."
Weiss knew Ruby didn't exactly like the idea of hand to hand combat training, so her difficulty of fighting against her weaknesses was even tougher than her own struggles. "Ruby, I didn't mean to-."
"It's fine, Weiss. I know how it feels to want to improve, well, I mean it's something we all want to do after all." Ruby smiled, and Weiss blushed a little. "You'll get better with fighting as you are now, just like I'll suck it up and get better at fighting without Crescent Rose."
Blake was listening in, feeling less inclined to join in on conversations with the team ever since she told them of her past with the White Fang, but as she listened, she thought to herself on her own weaknesses.
"There's a lot I can think of… But one specific thing is hard to pinpoint."
Pyrrha folded her arms on her lap and nodded. "It's true about everyone having their strengths and weaknesses, and while you work on them, remember Weiss, no one is perfect."
"Hmm… Yeah." Perfection was something she didn't have to worry about, but at times she'd hear Jacques speaking with Whitley about how he needed to be perfect, to be the 'proper' CEO.
In his eyes, Jacques Schnee did believe he was perfect, and Weiss hated the idea of him trying to force Whitley to strive on being perfect.
Zwei barked a few times, snapping Weiss out of it as he woke up Jaune, Yang and Nora. "Gah! Are we there?!" Nora yelled, having been startled by the dog's barking.
Klein chuckled a few times. "Not just yet, but I believe young Miss Rose's dog may be hungry. Miss Schnee did mention that you'd bring him, so I took the liberty of bringing some treats. There's a bag up here if you want to feed him."
Yang groaned and stretched a bit, choosing to be the one to walk over. She looked at the bag and leaned down. "Man, I was having a good dream too." She walked back over and handed the bag to Blake, who looked confused since she wasn't expecting to be given the bag. "Gonna go back to snoozing."
Blake watched her partner close her eyes as she sat back, and Ruby smiled at her. "So, Blake… Wanna give Zwei one of the treats in the bag?"
The cat Faunus' eyes widened as she looked at the dog, who was eyeing the bag, and Blake was praying that he wouldn't jump at her.
I still love writing out Willow and Raven moments, since in canon, they're not characters I believe will ever interact, and I wanna see it here. So I hope everyone is enjoying their scenes like I am.
To JJ- Klein is best dad, and with Ruby and Yang knowing Weiss for years, they've easily picked up on it, which is why I wrote Yang explaining who Klein is for Weiss. So I'm glad you liked that she was the one explaining. As for Blake and Ruby, well, I see no reason why Ruby would hold anything against her, so yeah, she is able to forgive her for keeping that secret from them.
I hoped you all enjoyed chapter 92. Remember, reviews are welcomed, but not required. See you all in chapter 93.