[X] Propelled herself to the rooftops. Two could handle the people here, and Winter was in the building. Yang was the only one who saw someone on the roof.
The explosive sound of Ember Celica echoed, as Yang leaped. Her foot hit the side of the Schnee manor before long, and she continued to fire, sprinting up the side of the building and propelling herself to the rooftop in only a few heartbeats.
Not the most subtle way of getting up, yeah, but now was hardly the time for subtlety. The building was burning, and there was someone on the roof, acting suspicious, right after a suspicious fire had started. Something wasn't right here, and given the context, Yang wasn't going to just give the benefit of the doubt.
And besides, between Two and Winter, there were several people here more qualified to pull people out of a fire than Yang. Thinking about it, Winter could probably evacuate everyone herself, with her summoning. Two is just the sort of person who'd refuse to sit aside while people she cared about were in danger.
Rocketing up towards the roof of the building, Yang tilted Ember Celica back, and jumped off the building as she fired. The different angle of the recoil sent Yang forward in a burst of movement that, given the distance between her and the building, was just enough to put her on a trajectory that let her slam into the rooftop a moment later.
Refusing to hesitate even a second while the building around her started to burn, Yang immediately pushed to the side, rolling to the ground and instantly moving away from her landing position.
She felt the air shift above her before she saw it, as the sickle slashed the air where her throat had been a moment ago.
Pushing off the ground as she rolled to jump back to her feet, Yang fired Ember Celica in front of her, denying her opponent time to close in more than she was making an offensive move, and dropped into a defensive stance.
She knew it. There was something fishy going on here. If she was being attacked, then the burning building was hostile action.
Behind her, Yang knew the smoke was thick, and the heat was burning hotter by the moment, as Yang looked forward at her attacker.
It only took a moment for Yang to recognise that half-burnt face.
"Blake." Yang growled, her posture shifting slightly into one better suited for an offensive move. Still slightly defensive, but that defence was less dodging and blocking, and more countering and smashing.
"I remember you." The girl dressed in black replied. She was wearing that White Fang mask again, covering her eyes, making it hard to get a read on her emotions. "You were the girl from Vale. If-"
She didn't get any further, before Yang sprang forward, fist jabbing straight ahead to smash into the Faunus. She took a step back as she was knocked away, before vanishing into a black replacement.
Yang had nearly forgotten how annoying that Semblance was.
Curling her fists, Yang let out a cry as she flared her Aura. At this point, the building was already on fire, anything she contributed would be minor at best. The flaming element to Yang's Aura spread out explosively, causing a gust of wind that ruffled at Yang's jacket, buffeting it back away from her body.
Blake burst through the flames, hanging low to the ground as she did so, and before Yang could react, Blake swiped at her leg, and she collapsed as he stirred the spear and spread the pain through her leg.
"Man, this must suck so much!" Dito laughed, laughing at her failure, at the idea should could have ever saved Ruby-
Yang cried out as she jumped away, and as she hit the ground, her hands reached for her leg, rubbing the scar etched into it as it began burning.
What had jut happened? Yang had just been hit there once and-
"You're with the Intoners, aren't you?" Blake asked. She didn't push the offensive, but as she spoke, Yang could see the constantly blurring motion as she darted to the left and right, her shadow decoys being left behind each time. "In which case, I'm sorry."
Yang charged, firing both of her gauntlets at the left and right target as she threw herself at the middle one. She smashed through a shadow replica, and she she stamped her left foot into the ground, she used her momentum to spin around and face Blake again.
There was a flash of steel, and the sickle curved around her neck. The white armoured man held her in the air, gently this time, and held her to face the man in black. As he approached, the man in black picked up the harpoon which had stuck Yang from the back, the same weapon which had killed a child because Yang had given him time, which was going to kill her because she fought alone-
The yellow-haired teen recoiled back, and as she did so, her legs were swept out from under her, forcing her to the ground.
"If I had known you were with the Intoners the last time we met..." Blake continued, as she stood over Yang. "I would have killed you then, and spared you the pain."
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Yang asked, firing Ember Celica to send her flying back and away from the cat Faunus.
Whatever that sickle weapon of hers was, every time it hit her, Yang ended up remembering one near death experience or another. Was that why Blake was using it? It was very different to the sword she had used before, and Blake wielded it with even less experience, but if it had some sort of supernatural property like that...
Well, no matter. She just needed to not get hit. And for now-
"Don't you know where this is?" Yang asked, as she watched Blake carefully, ready to avoid that fucking sickle once it started arcing through the air. "There's children here! And you're burning it down?"
"Children in the care of a woman like that." Blake continued. "It's... Unfortunate. But they are as good as dead if she survives."
"Bullshit." Yang spat.
"You wouldn't understand." Blake declared. "No, more than that. You're the girl that Ilia saw in the fight club, aren't you?"
Yang swung her arms forward, firing Ember Celica in a successive fashion, first the right and then the left, over and over again. The cat Faunus disappeared into another black shadow, and the world in front of Yang became a dancing pattern of yellow and black. Blake danced through Yang's explosives like she had been doing it all her life, and even when Yang tried to lead her shots, Blake would leave behind her shadow clone and re-appear in another, unexpected way.
In the air one moment, then flat on the ground, then to the left when the right would have gotten her closer faster, than twisting around to just narrowly miss an explosive shot-
For a split second, Yang tilted her left fist to the right, only slightly. Enough to alter the trajectory of that one left Dust round, just enough that it collided with another just as Blake flashed into appearance next to it.
The explosion threw Blake off her feet, and Yang capitalised on the opportunity, closing in as fast as she found and kicking the girl in the stomach while she was still rolling on the ground.
Yang had the advantage now, and she couldn't afford to give Blake time to use her Semblance. Once she did, Yang lost that advantage. If, on the other hand, Yang could keep her too in pain to focus enough, then the fight was already won.
Her Aura reflected again, setting Yang ablaze as she smashed her fist down, slamming Yang into the steel roof with enough force to make cracks appear in it. The rooftop was heating up, and even if the fire hadn't spread this far yet, it had started weakening the metal.
No issue. Yang grabbed Blake's arm, and kicked at her hand, forcing the sickle away from her.
The smoke was thickening, Yang noted. The only scent she could smell was the smell of something burning, and it was starting to get impossible to see the edge of the roof past the smoke. Even from her current position, there was enough smoke to start obscuring Yang's vision.
Jamming her heel into Blake's stomach to knock the air out of her, Yang reached for Blake's face, tightening her grip down on the cat Faunus' head, and took a step to grind Blake against the roof.
A sudden explosion in heat made Yang cry out, and in front of her eyes, smoke started rising out of Blake's burn wounds. Then, after a moment, the small wisps of smoke rising out of the corner of her eye exploded, and Yang's hand retreated out of shock and pain as the heat skyrocketed.
The smoke production matched the rising heat, expanding fast enough to completely conceal Blake in an instant and as Yang backed away, it shot outwards with unnatural speed for flowing smoke, forming a circle around her. Yang tracked it growing for a moment, and started running for the gap before it sealed up, before she heard a footstep behind her.
Turning on her heel, Yang looked back to Blake just in time to see the terrorist shoot out of the smoke, still letting it trail from the burns along her face. Her White Fang mask was gone, likely knocked off in the scuffle while Yang hadn't been paying attention, or else thrown off when Blake had started producing the smoke.
Cocking back her fist, Yang swung forward, moving to hit Blake in the stomach. At the last second, she vanished, replaced with another one of her shadows. Yang's fist punched through the fake, and it collapsed into smoke along her arm.
What the hell was all of this, then?
The smoke enveloped Yang, and before she knew it, she was practically blind. All she could see was smoke, thick and choking, and the heat it was giving off had moved past uncomfortable at this point. Yang wiped some sweat from her brow, but couldn't afford to use any of her Aura to cool down just now, not when she didn't know where Blake's next attack would be coming from.
Blake's Semblance had been the shadow thing, right? So how in the world had she gotten some sort of power based on producing smoke? And it didn't look like just normal smoke production either, it had specifically been the burns on Blake that had been producing all of it. Had she been able to do this the last time Yang fought her, and just kept it hidden?
If that was the case, then Blake clearly considered burning down an orphanage like this to be more important than the Dust heist that she was pulling last time.
Looking around to try and see if she could see something through the smoke, Yang dropped into an evasive stance, ready to jump aside the instant she managed to identify something through the-
"And now you're doing it again!" Ruby nearly shouted, the hurt evident in her voice. She'd done so much just to be able to protect her so she could smile but Yang couldn't even let her smile when she wasn't in danger because she was just so stupid and pathetic
Yang cried out as she whirled around, grabbing towards the area of space where the sickle had stabbed into her shoulder blade, and Yang heard a grunt of exertion, as Blake leaped away.
Yang fired after her, the path of Ember Celica's dust round parting the air for just a second, before the smoke moved in to fill in the empty space. With the projectile thrown at her attacker, Yang took advantage of the second of distraction by turning and running, trying to find the edge of the roof. She couldn't fight up here, not if she couldn't see, and if Blake was quiet enough that the first Yang knew that she was being attacked was when Blake stuck again, and Yang was forced into the wall slightly, as it crumbled around her.
"La la LA la laaaa..."
Melanie giggled her song, taking amusement in Yang's powerlessness while she couldn't do anything and Yang cried out again as she curled forward, around the blade that had been thrust into her stomach.
Blake had gotten in front of her that fast? Couldn't she even escape, without being shut down that easily? Damn it, she wasn't even strong enough to run away anymore-
No, Yang decided, as she stood still and closed her eyes. Blake's sickle, whatever the fuck it was doing, it was getting to her. She needed to ignore it.
Ignore how she was being overpowered again, how she always ended up getting overpowered like this because she was too weak and that she couldn't even get strong without hurting people-
Enough.
Curling her hands into a fist, Yang tried to focus. There had to be a way she could figure out Blake's approach. Some sort of tell, or some way to get around the smoke. She'd be able to win this still.
Acting fast, trying to come up with a plan before Blake hit her again, Yang-
[X] Fired around her wildly. Her bullets could part the smoke for an instant, and Blake would want to avoid them, so spreading them everywhere could be helpful.
[X] Smashed the floor beneath her feet. She'd taken some hits, so her Semblance should give her just enough to break down the damaged floor and gain distance in the building.
[X] ...She hadn't tried to use it in ages, but the weird magic thing Qrow had taught Yang involved reaching out with her soul. Maybe if she half-did that, she'd be able to figure something out.