[X] ...But the kids were still in the path of danger. Stay back, watch Taiyang fight, and stick near the children to make sure the woman didn't attack them.

Yang gritted her teeth, as she turned away from the woman fighting her father.

Her dad wasn't doing well right now, but he was still her dad. He'd pull through, some how. Right now, people needed her more.

She couldn't run with the orphans right now, not with how the woman in red was able to shoot at them so easily. But she still needed to protect them. These orphans didn't have enough people looking after them, and right now, Yang was the only person here for them.

"It's going to be okay." Yang assured them, with a confidence she didn't really feel herself. She knelt down, next to Carmine, who was clutching her bleeding ear and whimpering.

Quietly, Yang reached for the sleeve on her shirt, and carefully ripped it off, making sure to make it into a strip in the process.

Maybe it'd be better to try and cauterise the wounds, but Yang wasn't sure she had enough control to do that herself, and exposing Carmine to heat enough to cause burns wouldn't exactly help her mental state right now.

"Can you move your hand?" Yang asked, feeling her voice hitch a bit. Damn it, she needed to stay calm. She needed to be a good example for everyone. She couldn't afford to panic now, she had to be strong for them. "Let me try and wrap the wound, so it doesn't bleed too much, okay?"

Carmine didn't respond, but after a moment, slowly lowered her hand, sobbing as she did so.

She wasn't trained for this. Cent had mentioned that she wanted to be a Hunter like Yang, but she hadn't gotten any training. She wasn't used to pain like this, she shouldn't be in pain like this, especially since she had been pierced straight through the hand and ear. If they could get her to a hospital, most of the damage should get fixed up, but she was so young. You don't take a wound like this without some kind of mental scar, especially not that this age. Yang wouldn't be surprised if this was bad enough to leave some scars on her sense of identity.

Worse yet, she'd been shot in the ear. Chances were that her hearing would get damaged from that, and with how much Carmine was whimpering now, there was no way the ear was going to fully heal. That's half of her hearing gone right there, until she was able to get over this, and there was no guarantee that would ever happen.

Yang knew all too well how scaring a bad experience at a young age could be. Her attempt to find her mother, nearly getting Ruby killed in the process, was one of the memories she had the strongest grasp on. She could barely remember anything else around that time, but that specific moment in time, she remembered vividly.

She didn't stay it out loud, however. Carmine was already panicked enough, and all the kids around her were either watching Carmine, or the fight, in stunned silence. Wrapping the ripped off piece of cloth around Carmine's head, Yang quickly tied it into a knot. She wasn't an expert by any means, but she did know some basics in regards to medical aid.

"This is going to be a bit tight." Yang tried to keep her voice calm, vaguely motherly, but even she could hear the strain in it. "It has to be, to stop the bleeding, okay?"

Carmine didn't respond, as her breathing sped up, growing more panicked.

"Carmine, please." Yang could reply. "I need to know you're prepared for this. It might hurt a bit. Is that okay?"

It took a few seconds for Carmine to react, and barely noticeable, she nodded.

Tightening the cloth and tying it in place, Yang watched the fox Faunus wince in pain for a moment, before growing used to it.

"I'm going to need to bandage your hand, now." Yang continued. "Is that okay?"

"It hurts..." Carmine whimpered.

"I know." Yang responded. "It's going to be okay. Trust me. I just need to bandage your hand so it doesn't bleed too much, okay?"

Carmine closed her eyes, tears running down her pain-struck face, as she stretched out her hand. The hole through the centre of it made Yang wince, and some of the kids around her whispered to themselves as they saw it, making Carmine's facial expression to close and the girl's sobs to intensify.

"It's okay." Yang reassured her, as she ripped off her other sleeve. "It's all going to be okay. Just trust me."

There was another exploding sound, and Yang felt a wave of heat hit her. Fortunately not accompanied by the flames this time around, but the heat still elicited a cry from the orphans around her. Carmine pulled away from it, and for a moment, Yang let herself look back to watch the fight.

Taiyang was further from the woman in red than he was when he started, even as the woman in red walked closer. The blaze behind her was growing larger, making it hard to see anything but her silhouette.

"You seem to be having some trouble." The woman in red noted, as she tilted her head. "Weren't you supposed to be a Beacon graduate? And yet you haven't even gotten close enough to touch me, yet."

Panting heavily as he stood opposed to her, Yang's father spat the ground before he spoke.

"That's fine." He replied. "You made a mistake, causing a scene in public. People'll have called the police by this point, and Atlas has the fastest response time in the world. I just need to hold you back until the military arrives, you can't fight it all off."

The woman in red chuckled.

"Oh, really?" She asked. "With the bulk of Altas' military fighting Grimm with the Intoners, they don't have much to go around here right now. And..."

She laughed, louder now.

"The military have much bigger problems to deal with right now than just me."

The confident, vaguely mocking tone in her voice sent a chill down Yang's spine.

"Those two aren't exactly subtle." She continued. "And as I recall, the path she was taking to the Schnee manor passed through the closest military base. I suspect that there isn't enough of a military, to come to your aid. Not anymore."

There was dead silence for a moment, as Yang and her father both reached the same conclusion.

"...Someone dangerous is on the way to the Schnee manor then?" Taiyang asked, his voice taking a harsher edge than anything Yang had ever heard. "Just what kind of people are you associating with?"

"Is that really the question to be asking right now?" The woman in red asked. "There's no point wondering how dangerous my allies are, when you don't even stand a chance against me."

Taiyang cracked his knuckles, as he looked ahead.

"In that case, I'm going to have to stop you here." He replied. "My daughters have been through enough. I can't just stand here while you make it worse."

For a moment, his Aura flared visibly, a white light surrounding him. Then, it focused down, hanging tight to his form and burning brighter, before returning to an invisible state.

When he moved, it was faster than anything Yang had ever seen from him before.

Flames darted at him like the claws of some great beast closing around him, and his Semblance pushed them away just as easily. The road beneath his feet buckled, as the heat seeped into the tarmac, before it surged up and clung to him.

He flexed his body, and the burning road trying to hang to him was thrown aside, scattering away as he continued his push forward.

Was this a result of his Aura manipulation? Focusing his Aura, increasing his abilities? He was stronger, faster, but there had to be more than that. If it was just straight-up a method of increasing his abilities with no consequence, then he would've used it earlier.

But that didn't matter right now. Whatever was going on, the woman in red knew enough to know someone was going after the Schnee manor, going after Ruby, that she could take advantage of it.

Yang wanted nothing more than to run into that fight herself. Charge in, and start punching until the bitch stopped moving. But...

She turned her eyes away for a moment, and started wrapping the cloth in her hand around Carmine's wounded hand. She winced, as the bandage tightened around her wound, and Yang found herself nearly looking away halfway through to observe the fight again. Biting her tongue to force herself to focus, Yang finished tending to the injured girl.

She had to be here, for the orphans. The woman in red had already shown she was willing to attack them, with ridiculous accuracy, and there was little Yang could do to stop her if she wanted them hurt. But she wasn't just going to give up, and even if she could only stop one in every three arrows, that was potentially one in three lives saved.

So she sat there, driving her nails into her palm to make sure she didn't do anything stupid, even as here father fought on.

He batted aside a half-melted car engine, and punched through the rest of the car when it was thrown along a moment later. The two halves of it fell either side of him, and as his fist's arc redirected his momentum down, he took a moment to roll on the road, before kicking back up with just as much momentum as before.

The woman in red clicked her fingers, and the burning wrecks from behind Taiyang shot upwards, before slamming into the ground around him. Each one detonated as it landed, and he darted to the side as they came at him, losing his forward momentum in exchange for not getting hit.

More fire danced around him, show towards him by the woman and redirected by his Semblance. His fists were fast enough to knock away any projectiles she might try to throw to get around his limitations, but the closer he approached, the slower the approach became. The woman was producing more fire by the second, and the more fire was around Taiyang, the easier it was for the woman to start slipping past his defences.

If he'd been prepared for a fight, Yang mused, he would have had some Dust crystals on him. Most of them wouldn't of been of any value, but he would have had at least one water or ice Dust crystal. With that, he could have extinguished the flames for long enough to get close. Hell, even with a wind crystal, he could have blown out the flames. But he wasn't even remotely prepared. He was making do with what he could.

More and more projectiles danced around him, and Taiyang wasn't able to get rid of all of them. He kicked away some shattered and melting glass, and in that instance, a wave of fire was able to push him to the ground. He redirected a second wall of fire, the superheated air distorting around him in the process, and the last remnants of a wheel slammed into his back, slamming him down more.

He threw it aside, and slowly got to his feet, his Aura visibly reacting to every projectile he was trying to ignore. He stumbled, once twice, before he got to his feet.

"Is this all you got?" He asked, laughing. One of the kids near Yang, a boy in a green shirt, made an awed sound. Why wouldn't he, after all? It might be a terrible situation, but the brave hero laughing off danger like this was something out of a movie.

But this wasn't a movie, and Yang had heard her father laugh often enough to know when it sounded forced.

Taiyang set off into a wild charge, bursting through a wall of fire and the next few projectiles that the woman in red sent his way. Glass danced around him, stabbing into his Aura, and he ignored it, focusing everything on that forward momentum.

Flames thrown aside, steel torn asunder, in that moment, Taiyang Xiao Long was an unstoppable force. He closed in on the woman in red, even as he drew deep enough into the inferno that all Yang could see of him was a silhouette. Five metres away. Four metres. Two.

All of a sudden, the woman in red moved, and Taiyang stopped. The woman held his chin with one hand, pulling him up to stand straight, and chuckled.

Th raging firestorm behind her closed inwards on her, and a burning flare shot out from her hand. Yang heard her father scream, as the entirety of the blaze was forced into his face, before he grabbed hold of it with his Aura, and threw it aside. The pillars of fire he generated were intense enough that the orphans around Yang averted their eyes, and even Yang had to adjust to the sudden brightness. The heat washed over them, more intense than before, like they had been standing at a beach on a hot summers day.

The flames only grew from there, as the woman pushed more of an inferno into him. Her other hand glowed red for a moment, as Taiyang continued to resist the attack.

Watching the fight quickly became like staring at the sun, and before long, Yang was the only one able to do it. Her eyes stung, but she had to watch. A wave of superheated air surged out, and several of the children behind Yang stumbled backwards, falling over from the force of it. Yang herself barely kept to her feet, as the heat became more and more unbearable.

Then the woman in red moved her other hand, and the fires stopped as she stabbed Taiyang in the stomach.

The small glass knife broke through his Aura like a rock through a window, and the pillars of fire that had been created by the redirection burning bright even as the source was cut off. All Yang could see was the silhouettes through the light.

Even then, when the knife suddenly expanded in size, it was hard to miss.

It was like a spear at first, as it stabbed through her father, before it expanded in width as well, quickly growing into a sheet of death that cracked through bone, from the top of his heart to the bottom of his torso. Taiyang screamed for a moment, but even that died away as the weapon crushed his lungs. Then it burnt away, and the woman let go of Taiyang, letting his body fall to the ground.

The world slowed down, as the fires died down. The woman turned away, as the burning light faded away. Colour became visible again, but it was barely noticeable. There was the faint clicking of heels on tarmac, but Yang blocked it out as her eyes fell to the ground.

Taiyang was on the ground, reaching towards the woman weakly. There was so much blood around him. Too much blood. How much blood did people have in their bodies?

A scream echoed out, blending sorrow with rage, and it took Yang a moment to recognise that it was her voice. She wasn't sure when she started running either. Her vision was narrowing, and there were only two things in sight. The wreck of a body that was barely clinging to life, and the woman responsible, walking to the edge of the highway, looking back with a taunting smirk as she plummeted off the raised road to the world beneath.

Yang didn't realise which she was running to, at first. In fact, she didn't know what she was doing at all, until she-

[X] Stopped by her fathers body, desperately screaming for help.
[X] Ran past the body to the woman, Ember Celica at the ready.