Waking up daily at 6 in the morning again is a... "fun" experience.
Fun is in quotes for reasons you should already know.
So as it turns out, aura doesn't supplement lost nutrition. What it does do, however, is prevent the negative effects of a bad diet... to a certain degree.
Alcohol's effect is significantly less significant, which explains how Qrow still manages to kick ass despite being half drunk all the time.
On the topic of Qrow... He isn't at Signal.
He was stated to have been a Signal teacher in like the first 10 minutes of the show, so I have literally no idea why he isn't at Signal.
Except for one, deceptively uncomplicated explanation. Occam's Razor has been put to work.
He hasn't been employed yet.
Why he hasn't is what I have been stumped on. Maybe he was on a mission? Or, applying the Razor again, he simply hasn't applied for a job?
Whatever the case, I hope he signs up soon. I would like to learn a few things from him.
As for Qrow's niece... Well, she's not the most entertaining individual you would meet. Not yet at least.
She seems pretty timid and at times insecure.
It's quite a disappointment, but that's what I get for putting an "average" human on a pedestal. It was the second week after orientation that told me all of this.
So, the story thusfar: Desiree had met another girl that she made good friends with pretty damn fast. Her name was Katrina Lobelia, and she was a wolf faunus.
We hadn't really been hanging out with Yang mostly because I had been trying to see what she would be doing.
And that's pretty typical stuff. Talk with friends. Do homework. Train.
But it was the first day that Mr. Palm decided to have us spar.
In the days before that, those who did not have their aura unlocked had them unlocked. Some were removed from the school for having what is called a "passive" aura.
Parents can choose to unlock their child's aura at a young age. However, having an aura in your youth and not using it causes it to... atrophy? It gets inordinately weaker because of disuse. When an aura is too weak to properly exercise, it is called a passive aura. Attempting to do so results in absolutely massive mental and emotional trauma, so it isn't even worth trying to recover.
After filtering out the "passives," Mr. Palm decided to intimidate us yet again.
"Good morning class," he greeted. "Today we're heading to the gym."
This wasn't a surprise to us, since every day we had been going to get some physical activity in. We were all pretty sore from the spartan training he was putting us through, though I am proud. I am in better shape now than I ever have been.
When we got there, he brought us out to a boxing ring area. Instead of working us out, we were going to have at each other.
Sounded good to me, since there was this one guy that I wanted to deck for stealing my homework for civil studies once.
He took 2 people and put them up against each other. No weapons, just what you had on you. That is, your fists and legs and auras. He refereed the matches and made sure no one got too violent.
After a few rounds of fighting, Mr. Palm's decision making chose me and Yang.
Now, this wasn't the first guy versus girl that day. We were to avoid punching the girls in the chest for 2 reasons that I will not be going over.
I essentially got my ass handed to me in a single punch to the stomach, which was a humbling experience. The rest of my class let out a low 'ooh!' after seeing the impact.
However...
"Oh my gods! I'm so sorry!" Yang apologized to me, who was hunched over.
"Get up Argent! You guys aren't done!" Mr. Palm yelled at me. I nodded and stood straight up. My head became light and my gut was smarting with a pain that could only be described as being scooped open. I looked Yang in the eye and she stepped back a little.
"Why are you apologizing? We're sparring." I raised my fists and the small beep from Palm's stopwatch began the fight.
Yang bobbed and weaved in front of me. I settled on an old tactic I once used: push into them.
I took massive strides towards her and got up into her face. The speed of my counterattack took her by surprise but didn't throw her off; Yang was still swinging at me.
A few punches made it past my arms and into my chest, but aura blunted most of it. I kept pushing her back until she hit the ropes.
She let out a small yelp and brought her hands up. It was my turn.
Yang didn't let me punch or kick her. She was doing really well deflecting my punches down and my kicks from her side. An overcut from over her guard went straight into her shoulder and she gasped in pain.
I kept going over her guard and she cowered behind it. She made some shots for me, but I mostly tried to ignore it, painful as it was.
The last attack of that fight was Yang's. It went under my arm into my ribcage, pushing me off of her. Then Mr. Palm's timer beeped.
"Time." He pointed to the center of the ring. We moved as indicated, facing him. He pointed his fingers inwards and we faced each other.
Yang's eyes were red, but she didn't seem angry.
"Shake." Yang and I shook hands. "Go." We left the ring and sat next to each other on the ground.
As the rest of the class fought it out, Yang leaned towards me.
"Hey, sorry about that punch." Again?
"Seriously, don't apologize. We were both there to fight and we both fought." She hummed and watched 2 other girls fight.
And that's the reason why I think that she's unimpressive right now. She isn't at all what she is like in the show. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's just amazing meeting her in person, but quite underwhelming.
She was certainly good, definitely won that fight. However, it seems she was not expecting to hurt her classmates. It told me that some sort of event or training would cause her to break out of this stupid shell and make her "normal."
Moving on.
Weapons training has begun. What that consists of is a shitload of training dummies getting chopped, slashed, bashed, slammed, stabbed, and more by the students using basic form weapons. The teachers obviously wouldn't let us use the complex multiform weapons because they are inherently dangerous to the untrained.
The point of weapons training is not so much to find out which one you prefer, but rather get familiar with all of the types of weapons available.
One week we practiced on the dummies hand-to-hand. The next, we tried out small blades. Eventually, we made our way through a whole fucking medieval armory. Maces, swords, clubs, batons, axes, and the like were all subjects of practice and a pretty hefty amount of humanoid targets were battered.
Yang found her penchant for punching things.
"Hey, Gray!" she said beside me. "I think I like punching things!" she said, throwing a cross so wicked the dummy was thrown back so far it fell backwards. She's definitely doing the right thing.
I, on the other hand, wasn't. I was sort of just hitting a bag hard and it was barely moving. The problem was that the bag was hard as fuck. It felt like it was made out of concrete.
"Try using aura on that one," Mr. Palm suggested, making his rounds. He was inspecting everyone and how well they were doing.
I called upon aura and everything felt... better. My fists and shins didn't feel so sore, and the bag actually swayed a little. It felt real good to make a dent in concrete.
Figuratively. The bag held up very well.
Desiree had a bad time. She was on a softer bag, one that was actually filled with sand. The only thing it was doing was spinning around and around since all of her hits got deflected to the side.
I felt bad, but she wasn't the only one doing bad. There were other students hardly making a difference.
Katrina was a fast hitter though. When we practiced with the longarm weapons like spears, she was great! The tip was a blur and you could only see the wounds sustained by the dummy appearing.
All this training and development wasn't boring, but it really wasn't entertaining. We'd get drills that are fun and engaging but sooner or later end up tedious.
Which is why I welcomed Dez's invitation to the local mall over the weekend. It was a shopping center near the bridge leading to the main continent. We were accompanied by Katrina.
"Hey G," Desiree said in front of me as we roamed. You brought your lien, right?"
"Yep." I pulled out the plastic card. All Signal students earned a monthly stipend and free tuition via government funding. It's an excellent deal, though morbid after graduation perhaps.
Therefore, the "honor" of paying for lunch would fall to me.
"So, Gray," Katrina asked as we filtered into some restaurant. "How have you been?" Small talk? Great.
"I'm fine," I noncommittally answered. The menu was more important to me than my sister's friend. Courtesy came second nature and I asked, "And you?"
She said something neutrally positive enough. The talk between her and Dez picked up, allowing me to retreat to silence.
A waiter came, food arrived, and we - I - paid. We decided to go do our own thing so I went to a clothes store to pick up a few things.
There was a talent show going on involving dust in the middle of the center. Spectacular interactions like a mist created in an instant and arcs of lightning moving within the mist were showcased, awing the crowd.
"Woooooow! That was cool!" I heard a little girl exclaim. She was riding on the shoulders of whom I assume was her older brother.
"Yeah it was," the guy spoke, utterly awestruck. "Alright, though. That's all we have time for."
"Aww... okay." The girl's head dropped onto her brother's head.
I wouldn't have made this encounter seem important if it weren't for the fact that the girl was a faunus... With the most goddamned adorable panda ears.
The brother, on the other hand, wasn't. He didn't look the slightest bit like a faunus.
They walked in the direction that I was going for a moment before the brother pulled out his wallet and tried to count some lien.
Keyword being tried. As soon as he brought it out, some shady guy grabbed it out of his hands and ran.
"Hey!" The brother turned around. Putting the girl down carefully, he told her, "Stay here." Time to be a huntsman.
I laughed to myself.
"I'll take care of it." Taking off, I sprinted after the thief a ways, narrowly avoiding other civilians, until we made it into the parking lot. There, it was only a few aura-enhanced strides before I was able to catch up to him.
A quick kick to his exhausted legs sent him tumbling.
"Ah! Fucker!" He got up to his feet and readied himself for a fight.
A fight that didn't even last a few seconds. He kinda just threw himself at me and I took the opportunity to sidestep a long punch and bring my knee into his jaw.
A loud clack and him falling forward told me all I needed to know: he was out cold.
2 mall security guards came running up seconds after our scuffle, weapons drawn.
"I got him, I got him." I flashed my scroll's ID tab to the guards to let them know I was a huntsman-in-training and they thanked me for taking care of the guy. "I'll bring the wallet back."
The adrenaline rush died as soon as it came. Grabbing the wallet, I made my way to the 2 siblings.
"Here's your wallet. I don't think he was able to take anything, but just let me know if he did." The brother received his wallet and pulled out a card of lien.
"Thanks man." He held it out to me. "Here. For your troubles." A nice card of 20 lien was being offered, but as much as I wanted to take it and be 20 lien richer...
"No, that's fine. Buy some ice cream for the little miss here, if anything." The girl brightened up and looked up at her brother expectantly. He sighed and said,
"Alright. Thank you so much dude." I waved him off and began to move on, but before I could get too far, the brother said one, oh so simple thing. "Let's go, Phoebe."
I stopped in my tracks and felt my heart sink, for whatever reason unknown to me.
I feel like an adventure I knew had come to an end.
And I was trapped in my thoughts for the time mine would too.
(A/N: And that is my final farewell to Reiteration.
Hey all! Rico here. As some of you may know, Reiteration, this story's inspiration has been discontinued. The excellent story that gave me a reason to write will no longer be updated.
Thankfully, it remains on this site. I advise you to check it out for yourself if you haven't already. In other words, I'll miss Enten and his family.
So it's with this chapter that I hope to carry on the torch Reiteration started. Thank you for reading, and thank you Phailen for inspiring me.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
Cheers, Rico.)