[X] Miltia had been upset last Yang saw her, and the yellow haired girl thought she should talk to Miltia about it.
There were a lot of requirements to being a good Hunter. Skill. Weapon use. Semblance use. Strength. Speed. But this varied greatly, from Hunter to Hunter. Everyone had a different Semblance, and not everyone relied on them heavily. Almost everyone used a weapon differently, and to different degrees. Some people had to focus in some areas to compensate for a natural weakness in others.
But there was one aspect to being a Hunter that was universal.
Aura. The strength of the soul. All Hunters had to have a good management of it. Even those with a weak Aura had to learn how to manage it well, in order to really progress through life as a Hunter.
There were two different aspects to using ones Aura. It's strength, and how it was used.
The first was self explanatory. The strength of ones Aura is their natural talent. It was the equivalent of muscle mass, really. When someone strains their Aura, it repairs itself. While it repairs itself, it becomes ever so slightly stronger.
Naturally, like muscles, going too far has diminishing results. If you tried to go too far, your Aura breaks and leaves you defenceless, and it takes way too long to naturally regenerate for it to be efficient for training it up.
The second aspect of Aura, the use of it, was more complex. Signal had a lot of lessons regarding Aura exercises, training your control over your Aura. With enough of that, even an unnaturally low amount of Aura could take a big hit with minimal damage. It was why bracing yourself for a hit was so much more effective when you had Aura as opposed to otherwise. Because you were able to focus on the incoming hit, not as much Aura was expended to nullify it.
Yang had been drilled on these lessons a lot, and it had been something she'd been thinking about a lot recently.
She needed to be stronger. Her fight with Dito had taught her that. When it came down to it, someone like him had been able to tear through her so easily. That meant she wasn't strong enough.
Ruby had needed her, and she'd looked so weak in front of her. She needed to be stronger, so her little sister could rely on her.
She'd been doing her best. There was a training gym in town that was effective enough, if only for the variety in how she could train. The moving training dummies programmed to shoot at her until her Aura fell low enough. Good for training to dodge while hitting, fighting a lot, all sorts of things.
But she needed more than that. She couldn't spend all her time in the middle of town, not when it would worry people. So most of her training ended up being by herself, mostly so her father wouldn't worry too much.
Though, punching training dummies was only effective to a certain degree. It helped her hit harder, made her a bit stronger. It wasn't good enough. She needed to learn to fight better. Fight actively. Take hits as good as deal them, and keep going.
Combat training wasn't something she could do on her own with a training dummy, even if she tied a broom to it so it hit back. So Aura exercises it was.
It was... Somewhat late, when Yang walked into the forest. The sun was going down. Her father and sister knew she was going to train a bit, so they shouldn't have to worry too much. It only took a bit of time, to get to the location she was going to.
A small river flowed through the forest, a few minutes walk from Yang's home, and she only had to follow it for a few minutes more to find an area where it was deep enough that she could stand at the bottom and be submerged.
One of the Aura exercises she had heard about, but never really practised herself, was staying underwater. With the right application, you could use it to keep the water out of your lungs and find oxygen in the liquid.
It was a high level practises, so she'd likely not be able to manage it, but it was a goal to aim for. But before she did that, she wanted to practice something else.
A few minutes more from that place, Yang came to a waterfall. It wasn't a big one, the water barely dropping three metres, but there was a lot of water flowing down. Enough that if you positioned yourself under the rocks right, it'd be hard to breath. Combine that with the cold water making it hard to concentrate, it'd be an effective way of getting use to the trick of it, before she started walking underwater.
But that wasn't enough. So, Yang thought, she'd have something else to do.
Taking a breath, her Aura flared, burning up. Flames flew off her recently shortened hair- And it still stung, thinking about how Dito had cut it short just to demonstrate how powerless she was- And Yang moved towards the waterfall.
Keeping her breath even as the water made it hard to breath, staving off the cold, and trying to maintain her flames even as the water douses her out.
See if it did her any good.
It was weird, just going to school again after the month she had. It was more...
Well, it felt weird. Everyone was talking about the trips they had been on outside the kingdoms. Some students were talking rather excitedly, telling stories about their trips and how cool the things they had done were. Others seemed kinda quiet, contemplative. Probably the ones who had had experiences more like what Yang had, before she had returned.
When Yang went back to Signal, it was a bit weird. It was mostly refresher courses, making sure everyone remembered the work from last year and giving them the chance to adapt. Yang had been a bit surprised that there hadn't been any talks to share experiences, but when she thought about it, that had probable been covered when Yang was still recovering.
Technically, she was still recovering. She carried around a cane still, in case she needed it, and she did occasionally lean on it. Usually after some combat training, when her Aura was low, she'd start feeling a bit of pain and decide to stay on the safe side. She did her best not to rely on it around Ruby, though.
She didn't usually see her father or Uncle Qrow in school. Qrow mostly did combat classes, which were Wednesday and Fridays, and never seemed to be around long beyond that. Since losing his arm, he hadn't shown up at all, though. Yang heard a substitute was taking care of his classes until he got a replacement arm and got used to it.
Her father, on the other hand, was still teaching. He taught second year students mostly, so Yang didn't see too much of him, but he had made it a habit of taking over the role of monitoring the cafeteria at lunch, and would always confirm that Yang and Ruby were in the room before he ate.
Yang...
Might have gotten overprotective, really. Sat around her at lunch, ate with her, kept an eye on her, and didn't really pay attention to anyone else. But she needed to be there for Ruby. Look after her sister. Keep her safe.
She wasn't going to fail again. She didn't want to leave her sister alone and have something bad happen again.
It wasn't long before Qrow finally turned up again by inviting himself to dinner. He hadn't gotten a functional prosthetic limb yet, but he was doing the best he could, judging by the wooden arm with a hook on the end.
It was a bit late, when dinner finally came.
"So." Qrow began, as he picked at his vegetables like a child not wanting to eat his greens. "How have things been?"
"Alright." Yang replied, putting down her steak for a moment. "I mean, at first everyone was kinda sad, but everyone's moods Rose before long."
Ruby looked up at Yang, and down to beans, then back up at Yang, as if contemplating where to aim for the most comical effect.
"Huh." Qrow noted, looking up. "Funny, nobody answered me."
"I can try a different pun, if that would help." Taiyang grinned.
"Hey Ruby. "Qrow spoke up a bit more. "Isn't it funny how both your father and sister have gone mute mysteriously?"
"It's strange." Ruby agreed.
"Hey Ruby, if you don't want me taking all your ice cream after dinner, say something."
Ruby's eye twitched, but she did her absolute best to ignore Yang.
Qrow nodded. "We'll all steal Ruby's ice cream." He agreed.
"Uncle!" She objected. "You're supposed to stick up for me."
"Well, you obviously don't want it..." Taiyang pointed out.
Ruby suddenly noticed something about her corn that was apparently very interesting, giving how much she stared at it.
"So, anyone seen the news?" Qrow asked.
"Not recently." Yang replied. "I've been busy recently, with..."
...She didn't want to draw attention to how much she'd been training recently. Hell, she'd been making sure to bring her Aura down to at least half so that it's constantly regenerating and strengthening, at this point, and it would be nice if people didn't notice that.
"...Stuff." She shrugged.
"Well, there's a bit doing down in Atlas." Qrow noted. "There's been a group pushing to expand borders, establish a few new settlements."
Taiyang raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"There's been a bit of backlash, because it's failed every time people have tried, but the push is getting momentum. Saying that they know enough about Grimm that they could manage it. Named a few big areas they think they need to hit to drive them off for long enough to get set."
"Really?" Ruby asked. "But wouldn't that mean trying to hit places with, like, the crazy strong Grimm?"
Qrow nodded. "Yeah. Grimm as old as your dad's sense of fashion."
"Or as old as Qrow looks." Taiyang countered.
Yang chuckled a bit.
"It's probably not gonna go through." Qrow continued. "A lot of support from minor groups, but the Atlas military higher-ups are fairly against it. Unless we see Schnee money thrown around, it probably won't lead to anything. Too much at risk."
Ruby sighed.
"Speaking of Schnee." Taiyang spoke up. "It's been a while since there was anything from the White Fang. Like, Jacques made his declaration of war, and then they go silent."
"I heard there were some heavy hits up in Atlas." Qrow noted. "And the groups down here had more pressure put on them. Whatever Jacques did seems to have hit them hard enough that they've stopped to lick their wounds."
There were nods from around the table.
"...Yeah, I'm just gonna be blunt." Qrow decided ."I'm no good with small talk. How is everyone coping?"
Yang froze, as she looked over at him. She took a moment to answer.
"...Everyone's doing alright, I think." She claimed. "How about you?"
Qrow shrugged, showing off his hook hand in the process.
"There's a joke I wanna make here." He noted. "But I feel like it's inappropriate round kids your age."
"Kids my age never get the fun stuff." Yang complained.
Taiyang smiled. "Oh, really? And I suppose that means that I was imagining it when I gave you permission to go to a nightclub."
"In the middle of the day so I can talk to Miltia." Yang countered.
"Excuses." Taiyang waved off. "Back in my day, I didn't get to go to nightclubs at all. For entertainment, kids would look over each others homework for spelling errors. And then we're walk five miles in the snow to pass them to the next person, uphill both ways. And if we didn't get home by three in the afternoon, we didn't get our half hour of television. Kids these days."
Yang finished up her meal, before standing up.
"Thanks for dinner." She said. "I'm going for a quick jog."
"This late?" Qrow asked.
"Just heading up to the waterfall and back." She noted. "Won't be long."
"Bye!" Ruby called, as she ran out the front door.
It was by noon, when Yang stopped by the apartment complex Miltia was staying in. It didn't take long to remember which room she was in, and Yang made her way there before long.
There was about three seconds from Yang knocking on the door to the door opening, and Miltia looked back at her, with a red dress on.
"What do you want?" She asked.
Yang didn't bother trying to smile.
"You didn't seem too well off, last time we talked." She said. "I thought I'd come and check in on you, see how you're holding up."
Miltia sighed. "Come in."
She stepped aside, and went to sit on the couch. There was a show on the television, but it was currently in ads, saying something about...
...Schnee brand pet shops? When did that become a thing?
"Why are you even bothering with me?" Miltia asked. "You barely even know me. Wouldn't you rather spend time with your sister?"
"...Yeah." Yang admitted. "But I already have enough I'm feeling bad over. Knowing that you got beat up as much as you did because I invited you, and haven't gotten the same closure I have? I'd have to be a right bitch to not care about that."
Miltia looked towards her, before looking down.
"...How's Melanie?" Yang asked.
"Terrible." Miltia replied. "Last time I saw her, she hadn't heard the song in a while, so she started lashing out when I tried to talk to her. Demanded to see Two or Five. And then they did call in Two and she stopped even noticing I was there."
...Ouch.
"I'm sorry." Yang said.
"Why?" Miltia asked. "You didn't do anything."
"Doesn't mean it sounds like your situation isn't terrible." Yang noted. "You said she was the one you admired, didn't you?"
"Yeah." Miltia replied. "Why wouldn't I? I'm the terrible sister."
"You're not terrible-" Yang tried to assure her, before Miltia looked up at her with sad eyes.
"She went and got herself addicted to Five's song." Miltia noted. "Didn't tell me. Didn't bother saying goodbye when she left with you, before she disappeared with Five. Didn't contact me while she was gone. I tried to talk to her in Mountain Glenn and she beat me down like I was just a random stranger."
...That sounded bad. Yang couldn't blame Miltia for being in a bad mood if that's the kind of thoughts she's been alone with.
"You're not terrible." Yang interrupted. "That doesn't mean there's anything bad with you, that just means that Five messed her up bad."
"I... I don't think I want to believe that." Miltia sighed. "How would you feel if your sister was like mine? Would you rather think your sister, strong willed as she is, was broken down to the point where she would alternate between attacking you and overlooking you? Or would you prefer if she just hated you?"
Yang's breath caught in her throat, as the mental image came to her.
...No, she wouldn't accept it. She wouldn't accept the idea of Ruby being broken down or hating here. She refused to accept something bad like that happening.
She refused to let it happen.
...And she had no real way of making Miltia feel better, did she? She had no idea what to say.
But maybe she could try action instead?
[X] Yang should try offering Miltia a distraction. The two of them should rent out a room in the training gym so they can punch each other for a while, take their minds of things.
[X] Yang should help Miltia like she was helping herself. Get stronger, feel better. Try sneaking into the Emerald Forest and get stronger by fighting Grimm for as long as they can.