[X] "The top floor."
Ruby was near here, somewhere.
It would have been so easy, to just ask for the nearest medical bay. The one near the weapons testing. It would have been so easy to take the path which leads Yang back to her sister, confirms Ruby's safety, and works on getting her out of here as soon as possible.
It would have been so easy, to just condemn Nora to losing her arm, for the sake of her sister.
Just one sentence. One statement. That would be all it would take to make sure she could save Ruby, right here and right now. And it would all be so simple.
And all it would cost was the arm of someone she was trying to save. Someone who, right now, was relying on Yang to help her.
...Why couldn't the easy decisions ever really be easy?
Letting Nora suffer like that, intentionally, would be a terrible thing to do. And the fact that Yang was even considering it made her feel like a terrible person herself. But the fact of the matter was that the terribleness had no impact on Yang's decision, here.
It was all Ruby.
Ruby had made it clear, in the past, what her opinion is on Yang focusing on protecting her to the exclusion of all else. In that case, all else had referred to just Yang wearing herself down to get stronger, but this was worse, if anything. This would be Yang making the decision to let a good person lose their arm for Ruby's sake.
Even if Ruby wasn't idealistic, even if she would have hated Yang making a decision like that for her sake, she had already seen someone lose an arm in the process of saving her. Yang had too, technically. When Qrow had been found on Five's airship, Dito had blown his arm apart to torture him in front of Ruby.
If someone else lost an arm to save her, then how would Ruby feel about that?
"Top floor." Yang repeated. "That's the one with the better care, and we can't afford substandard stuff after what I did to your arm."
"Not your fault." Nora muttered into Yang's ear. "Just trying to help."
Yang felt the blood from Nora's everything dripping down, as she stepped forward, but tried to ignore it as she walked on.
"Nora." Yang continued. "You didn't give directions."
"...Sorry." She groaned. "Hurts."
"I understand." Yang assured her. "Just stay with me a moment, and I'll get you some help."
Nora shook her head. "Not gonna pass out. Walk straight, then when you can't, turn right. That'll go to the stairs."
Yang nodded. "On it. Let's go."
Right. To the stairs. Where they'd go up. Away from the ground floor. Away from the weaponsmith room. Away from Ruby.
No matter what that ended up meaning. Even if it resulted in Ruby running into the attacker, and getting hurt. Even if it meant that she spent longer being afraid, not knowing what was going on, with only Penny to keep her company. When Yang could be turning back now, going to find her, going to comfort her-
"So!" Yang called out, a bit too forcibly. Nora flinched on Yang's back, and the sudden movement, combined with the surprising amount of force this minute movement pushed into Yang with, made her stumble for a moment.
"What is it?" Nora asked, confused somewhat.
"Sorry." Yang admitted sheepishly. "I just didn't want to get stuck in thought, considering what those thoughts would be right now. Mind if we talk as we walk?"
"Go ahead." Nora confirmed, as the straight path came to an end, replaced by a crossroad. Yang turned to the right path, thinking of a topic of conversation as she did so.
"So..." Yang mused, as she walked on. "You and Ren are pretty close, yeah."
"Yeah..." Nora groaned, sounding a bit pained, and Yang paused to make sure she was okay. When Nora started talking again, Yang resumed walking. "We go way back. Lived in an old village. Met when it..."
She trailed off, and it suddenly occurred to Yang what would usually lead kids to leave a village without any sort of parental guidance.
"Sorry." She apologised again. "I didn't mean to bring back bad memories-"
"I don't mind." Nora replied. "Need to remember it every once in a while."
"You're sounding really serious about this." Yang pointed out. "Who are you, and what have you done with the real Nora?"
"Ha." Nora noted. It wasn't a real laugh, but right now, what Yang said wasn't really much of a real joke, so fair was fair.
"If you want to talk about it, though." Yang shrugged. "Your head is on my shoulder anyway, so feel free to cry on it."
"...Never really been able to talk to Ren about it." Nora continued. "He's the serious one. I'm the silly one. Me being serious would just make it depressing. Already too depressing anyway."
"If you needed to talk about it, I'm sure he wouldn't mind." Yang pointed out. "He seems understanding."
"He'd understand." Nora pointed out. "But... It's coping a bit, isn't it? I'm a silly person. I cope by not taking anything seriously. Ren's good to keep me grounded. Ren's a serious person. He copes by bottling everything up until something like that village where we met happens, and he can't. Me being silly can make him lighten up so he's not as likely to do something like that."
"Sounds like you got your whole dynamic planned out." Yang tried to sound playful, to lighten the tone herself.
"Maybe." Nora admitted. "Not too healthy though, is it?"
Yang took a moment to pause, turning her head to look at Nora out of the corner of her eye. There was still blood dripping from her forehead, so Nora couldn't see her anyway, but Yang looked back.
"Do I seem like the kind of person who can talk about healthy coping mechanisms?" Yang asked. "You literally had to knock me out to make me stop pushing myself. If that's healthy, then hold on, I'll see how well this wall works for you."
Nora laughed again, something genuine this time. "But that'd be mean, Yang. The walls didn't do anything to deserve it."
It was forced and it wasn't peak Nora, but it was still a sign that she was feeling a bit better, at least.
"But yeah." Nora sighed again, her tone dropping again, even if it wasn't as worn down as it had before. "Our village isn't here anymore. Though, wasn't really my village for long."
"What do you mean?"
Nora shuffled a bit, at Yang's question.
"Don't really remember it well." Nora admitted. "Mum and Dad lived in little hideaways outside of even villages. Not sure why. Something to do with bandits."
The two of them entered a room with a staircase in it, and Yang felt Nora shift on her back, pushing Yang's shoulder in the direction.
"This goes to the top floor?" Yang asked for clarification.
"No." Nora admitted. "Or, don't think so. Up two floors, but then around a corner from stairs that go up completely."
Nodding, Yang started walking the stairs, as Nora kept talking behind her.
"Where was I?" Nora asked. "Ah, right. Something to do with bandits. I don't really remember much about those days, but Mum and Dad always took turns leaving. Then Dad didn't come home one day."
Yang didn't say anything. There was two reasons behind a parent not coming home, and neither of them was one she was comfortable live. One more than the other-
His hand reached upwards, weakly, and settled by Yang's shoulder. Softly, he rustled at Yang's hair, and tried to smile. His teeth were dyed red, and he barely managed to smile for a second before he started coughing. Yang felt a spatter of blood hit her cheek, before his head tilted downwards.
-No, she had Nora relying on her right now, and if she couldn't even help Nora, she wouldn't be able to help Ruby. Forget about her own issues. Nora was talking about her own.
"It's a blur, after that." Nora admitted. "Mum went out, then came back quickly and told me we needed to run. I can remember some rain. Mum was scared. I saw someone following us, at some point. I told Mum, and..."
Her breath hitched for a moment, before she could finish her story.
"...It was just me when we got to Ren's village."
Nora was tearing up, Yang could hear behind her. She didn't like that. Not at all. Nora might have been hurt, and she definitely sounded like she needed a shoulder to cry on right now, but from what Yang knew of her, she was supposed o be a happy person. A silly one, as she herself had noted. The fact that she was sad, here and now, and that Yang couldn't think of anything to cheer her up...
"It's okay, Nora." Yang assured her. "You don't have to keep talking if it hurts too much. It'll be okay, okay? I promise."
"...Maybe I should." Nora decided. "Stop, I mean. Thanks, Yang."
"Hey, no problem." Yang assured her. "Just let me know if you ever need a shoulder to cry on after this, and I'll be there, alright?"
"Whatever you say." Nora noted, as she nuzzled into the back of Yang's neck in an effort to seek comfort.
They walked on in silence like that, for a while, as Yang thought on what Nora had said.
The village fell. Nora had mentioned that much. And even if Yang didn't know the full details, considering the circumstances, she didn't think it was too hard to figure out from there what happened. A small orphan comes in with the rain, with someone sinister following a step behind, and the village likely didn't like that. Another mouth to feed that could barely contribute, bringing sad thoughts and potential risk to the village.
If the village didn't fall to Grimm within the month, then Yang would be shocked.
...Would Nora have come to the same conclusion? Would she have known enough about Grimm to figure it out at the time, or learnt about them after that and put it together? Yang certainly hoped not. That kind of thing would have been a devastating for someone to find out, and even if Nora had pieced it together yesterday, it would've been a deep cut.
She deserved better than that, honestly.
Stepping up the last of the stairs in this area, Yang caught her balance at the top of the stairway. Making sure her grip on Nora was still secure, Yang kept walking, pacing around the guard rail in the process.
"Where to from here?" Yang asked. Nora pressed a hand into Yang's left shoulder, and Yang took that cue for what it likely was, turning around to the left until Nora moved her hand away. With her destination selected, Yang started walking.
"How much further this way?" Yang asked, for the sake of clarity.
"You'll see it." Nora murmured back. "...Hey, wasn't your sister in here?"
The question was like an icy spear to Yang's heart, and even if her body kept walking on autopilot, her pace slowed.
"She's here." Yang replied, shaking her head a bit to force herself past the sudden spike of fear that was gripping her. "She's... She's fine. She'll be fine. I'm going to finish helping you, and then I'm going to find her and get her out of here."
"...You're a great person, Yang." Nora noted. "Helping me when your sister's in trouble too."
Yang didn't have the heart to admit, that the crux of her decision had come down to what Ruby's reaction would have been.
"It's nothing." Yang waved off. "You would've done the same, right?"
"...No." The orange haired girl admitted. "I don't think I would have."
That was the end of the conversation, for quiet a while. In silence, Yang walked on, reaching the next set of stairs before long.
She was halfway up, when the constant stream of bullets sounded out from above her.
Eyes wide, Yang picked up the pace. There was some kind of fight going on, but Yang couldn't afford to put Nora down just now. Not with the idea of an enemy nearby. If Yang could help the other party out and the attacker ran off, and happened to find Nora immobile on the ground as they ran for it?
No. Yang wasn't risking that.
The sound of lightning zapped through the air, and Nora flinched slightly, but Yang didn't notice as she finished bounding up the stairs. A flash of red blinded her, for a minute, before the combatants came into view.
With her back to Yang, Coco Adel was firing. Her gun was echoing off with a sound loud enough to hurt Yang's ears, as a constant stream of bullets more comparable to a hose jetting water than any actual gun shot out.
On the other side of the hall, the figure armoured in silver stepped forward. The silver sword shone red, as it spun in front of the attacker fast enough to deflect the majority of the bullets. The remainder that did shoot through didn't deter the silver armoured figure, who kept walking forward as the crimson red lightning arced backwards and propelled them forward.
The helmeted head looked past Coco, as Yang and Nora came into view, and the armoured figure swore.
"Again?" A rough but feminine voice asked, as she slashed her sword forward. An arc of red energy fired off of it, sending the figure skidding back as it struck through and deflected all of Coco's bullets. "I thought I was done with you, hammer girl. What the fuck does it take to make you give up!"
With a roar and a flash of red, she crossed the distance, the deep crimson lightning jetting her forward in a burst of movement. Her fist slammed into Coco's head, sending the older girl's glasses flying into the wall. They shattered, and Coco's leg shut up to hit the girl in the stomach. For a split second, the heel on her shoes elongated, then flicked aside to reveal a blade. Stabbing it forward, Coco forced the dagger into the girl's armour, burning through Aura in the process.
When the elbow slammed down on Coco's leg, the blade detached, but Coco was slammed into the floor.
"How much worse am I gonna have to break hammer girl to make her stop?" The figure wrought in silver asked, as she stepped forward. "Or is it time I fought your friend instead? New weapon, working legs. Easy enough to-"
Nora fired her Ember Celica, the Dust round soaring past Yang's ear as it struck towards the armoured girl. A silver blade flashed up fast enough to cut the projectile in two, as Yang quickly ducked forward and moved back to keep her hold on Nora. Coco stepped forward, reaching around to the dagger stabbed through the armour, and twisted it.
A gauntlet clad hand grabbed Coco's hand and started squeezing, and even as her Aura flickered, the girl in the beret looked towards Yang.
"Right hallway behind you." She hissed out. "Third bedroom on the left. Lady Three is there. Wake he-"
An elbow slammed into Coco's face, throwing the beret off of Coco's head while Coco herself was thrown into the wall. While her eyes were drawn to the conflict, Yang's eyes looked past it for a moment, to see the sign labelling the door at the end of this hallway.
The medical bay. Right there, where Nora would need it.
Who knew what Three was doing, and why it was taking her so long to respond. Maybe Yang couldn't get her to react in time. But the medical bay was right there. Yang was fast, she could run most of the way and Nora was well off enough to crawl, at least. Yang could just run past, buy time, and let Nora help herself.
Or she could hope she could rouse Three into action and get to the medical bay while Three just tore this attacker apart.
Assuming there wasn't anything stopping Three from stepping into action.
Gritting her teeth, Yang made her decision.
[X] Get Three, now.
[X] Run to the medbay.