Rogue Huntsman
Condescension
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I can't begin to describe how utterly stupid these last few sequential events seemed to be. As if pitiful Lady Luck had taken up her hat and left, leaving behind eight teens and a useless blonde meat shield.
His skills were as sharp as his looks.
Nonexistent.
"Hey! Are you just going sit up there and watch?! We're getting attacked!" Someone yelled. She was the blonde from before, yanking large feathers from the ground as she javelin tossed them back into the sky.
Up at the nuisances with wings.
"I'm sure you have it handled!" Ano called back down with a supportive smile and a thumbs up.
"I don't think this is handled…" The boy with the pink stripe commented stoically, his fanged weapons doing next to no damage to the nevermores in the air.
"Nope, not handled! Definitely not handled!" Ruby frantically yelled, dashing in a red blur across the field below to clang harshly against the skull of the deathstalker a different redhead pulled aggro from.
"Come on! Can't you do anything? Aren't you, like, condescending because you're strong or something?!" Yang yelled up again.
Please stop talking.
"No, I think he's just like that." Ano waved off, dismissing the comment before turning her gaze to a nearby explosion, "Oh, would you look at that. There's a cute kitten out there too. Is she lost?"
"You can only get lost if you have a destination in mind," I muttered, my cheek resting on the support of my palm, elbow pushing into my leg. This was boring… The worst part of it…
Was that it didn't look like it'll stop anytime soon.
"Yang, I don't think Niro's going to help us…" Ruby came skidding back on her heels, kicking up dirt and grass as her sister plucked her from her carrying momentum. Setting her back down at her side.
"Like hell he won't. We're all supposed to work together out here." Yang cracked her knuckles together as I watched her aura flair up around her, eyes burning a violent crimson as she fixed me with a murderous glare.
How cute.
I turned my gaze away in disinterest, switching it elsewhere within the student fiesta down below. It's almost as if they drew in the entire grimm populous within the immediate vicinity of eight damn miles.
And Ano thinks I'm a grimm magnet…
"You know, I think this is your fault," I felt a soft finger poke my shoulder, the light tap carrying warmth with it that dispersed across my cold skin.
Don't do that.
"Fault by proximity is as much their fault as it is mine. Their mistakes are their own," I sighed, watching as a glint of silver flashed through the air. It swept downward before a pink explosion detonated out of a hammer's impaction with the shell of the scorpion, "Leave me to make my own decisions."
"I don't suppose one of those decisions is helping that little girl down there?" Ano asked, pointing to somewhere else in the rupturing field below.
I looked past the embedded feathers, kicked up dirt, cratered grass, and flailing teenagers with shiny weaponry. A young girl sat leaning against a tree at the forest's edge. She had one leg propped up, the other spanning straight out in front of her, as she clutched the grass between her delicate fingers.
She looked 16.
Ano hummed in my ear and made sure I was looking in her general direction, "Doesn't she look hurt?"
I mumbled an incoherent yes, "Fractured ankle," I deduced, watching the occasional wince flash over the girl's face as the ground quaked beneath her battered leg, "Three ribs cracked, minor bruises along her legs, aura drained to a quarter remaining, and her consciousness is drifting."
"She won't be awake for much longer, so you might as well list the last thing I know you noticed," Ano kicked her legs idly, letting her heels bounce back into the stone beneath our vantage point.
"She's losing blood through a deep gash in her side and multiple puncture wounds in her arms and legs," I replied, another sigh slipping out of clenched teeth as I shifted ever so slightly on the rocky ruins.
"The kids below have their hands full, I doubt they've noticed her. Why don't we do something about it?" Ano asked, plucking the obvious insinuation out of the air and throwing it skillfully my way.
"Her partner will handle it," I replied, my lime green eyes watching as blurry golden-orange irises fell into half lidded struggles. She was fighting to stay awake.
"I don't see anyone near her," Ano pointed out with a chuckle. That loving, humorous, lethal chuckle that she always carried when she was about to bleed a contact dry of information.
When she was about to get what she wanted.
"Then she was weak on her own," I countered, ignoring the argument Ano seemed to be trying to make.
"Everyone's weak at first. Not everyone's as unique as you-"
"Cursed." I corrected.
"Nope," Ano flicked my cheek with a slim finger, a light flash of fire simmering against my flesh before I extinguished it was a shimmer of lime green aura, "You're unique. There isn't anyone else like you in the world. Out there, down with the rest of the students, leaning helplessly against that tree is an injured young girl."
"Faunus girl," I corrected with a grumble, switching cheeks now so I could prevent any future flicks. I quietly rested my other cheek into a new hand as a salvo of deathly feathers fell in clusters across the ground below.
Three of them got bashed aside by Yang, leaving several others to be countered by a glacier ripping out of the ground next to a girl in white.
"She's still a girl, Niro," Ano pointed out.
"By definition, she's a faunus girl. And she has 21 minutes before her aura fully drains and her wounds become lethal," I replied, pinpointing the moment her aura would enter a critically low state. Low enough to shut off all active processes and only preserve what little remains it had left in its reserve.
Aura was safe like that. It kept your vital organs protected with its final remnants of energy, leaving the rest open to the world.
Its dulling properties would seep away, bringing down a world of pain when it abandons your defenses.
"Well…" Ano let out a long exhale, pressing her palms onto the flat stone surface as she leaned back, head turning slightly upward to look at the sky, "If we're going that far. Do you know what kind of faunus she is?"
Her eyes traced the clouds. Where the three nevermores flew.
"Fox-yōkai," I replied as quickly as the question was asked. What kind of neglecting entity would even consider dropping a mythological creature into a world of grimm and humankind? She was brought into this world for the sole reason of gathering attention.
Her very form was sculpted in such a way to be petite and lithe, slipping over curves and soft skin to create the attractiveness every prick with a boner for a heart would fawn over. She was 5'2, bringing her nose to the level of the average person's chest.
Two white fox ears sat atop her head, large and partially matted in blood. Their pristine white fur lay slicked back, weighed down by the life essence of its owner as they twitched and fluttered in the fleeting wind.
Three white fox tails coiled around her waist. They were doing everything they could to resist moving. Extensive bruising and minor scratches littered their surfaces beneath the soft fur.
Her black leggings clung to her, splits in its cloth running with blood as a white aura tried everything to close those wounds back up. A pair of black combat boots shifted in mild agonizing movements on the ground, white laces dripping with small traces of red.
The scratches in her thin light blue sweater whipped in the beating wind, its looseness leaving a wide opening at its neck to reveal some of her pale shoulders. The thin sweater showed off the thin straps of her white tank-top nestled near her collar bones.
Her breathing was slowing now.
I felt each of her hot breaths crash into a white scarf her chin was softly settled inside, wrapped into a thin bundle around her neck as her long frost-white hair cascaded behind it.
"She's quite rare," Ano commented again, "I don't think I've seen too many fox-yōkai before, but I know an adorable kitsune when I see one."
"Rarity is only as precious as the beholder making it out to be," I responded harshly, knowing my tone held an icy tinge to it, "She's not my problem. This is Remnant, people die all the time."
"People die because no one's there to protect them in their time of need," Ano retaliated with a smile, brushing a lock of raven hair behind her ear as she glanced at me.
I looked away.
"You're not proving any points-"
"WATCH OUT!"
A shrill scream and a violent whistle split the air and ruptured the particles around me, tearing into my ears and my vision. The piercing tip of a large feather flashed before my eyes as a sudden pain ripped through my chest, slicing through sinew and muscle before plunging through my lung and jamming itself into the stone behind me.
Blood spewed as my heart lurched, the end of the feather still swinging back and forth as I cast my gaze above the trees.
Where is that asshole…?
Smoldering red eyes cast a heart-wrenching gaze into my soul, large beak squawking in mocking triumph as it flapped its wings and hovered. It was reveling in my pain, shaking its feathers as if stricken with glory and bloodlust.
"Oh my god… N-Niro?!" Ruby's voice squealed from below.
"D-don't look, sis… he's…" Yang's voice cut in now too, "H-he'll be fine."
Quiet. Just… be quiet.
I narrowed my gaze, growling into my enclosed throat as a ruthless presence washed over me. An immense rush of energy flooded into the air, burning in invisible wisps of flame and mist as I bore a hole into the nevermore's skull with my vision alone.
"Nevermores should know their place in this world," I spoke lowly, a calmness present in my voice that should've been replaced with panic. I reached up and gripped my fingers around the sharp feather embedded into my chest, its hard and razor sharp edges cutting into my hand as I pulled it slowly forward.
Blood covered every inch removed, smothering the feather's length as I yanked the rest of it from my chest with a nasty squelch. Stones shattered from where it was once embedded as I stood up, the hole in my chest closing itself as I felt my respiratory systems restore.
"Nevermores were meant to fly for one reason," I growled, whipping the feather to the side and splattering blood across the ruins to my right, "And one reason only."
Green aura cracked out of my fingerless glove, shattering across the feather as it glowed in streaking cracks of shining lime green light.
"The creator gave you wings," I paused as I took a step back, "They gave you flight," My grip tightened around the feather in my hand, blood slowly dripping to the stone at my feet, "You can fly… so you can fall. Torn out of the sky like the winged demons you were born to be."
The bird flapping in the sky squawked again as I spoke. Its companions flew around it, watching me with evenly leveled stares as I drew back the feather in my grasp.
Die.
I lunged the feather forward, piercing the barrier of air in an instant that sent a rupturing shockwave out around me. The black feather streaked in a light only my aura could provide, traveling at a speed no nevermore could even hope to achieve, as the projectile closed the distance between lime green and smoldering red in a fraction of a second.
All sound in the battlefield seemed to stop as the nevermore's head rocked back in a backward whiplash, wings suddenly going still as the feather shot through its skull and exited the back.
Then it fell from the sky in silent bewilderment… plummeting in a soft fall before crashing into the opening below.
Its dull thud more apparent than a bomb in a barren desert.
"I-it…" Ruby squeaked, watching the lifeless corpse of the bird begin to degrade back into the clutches of its sinister origins.
"…it's dead," Yang spoke instead.
"Uhh… hey, guys?! I think the other two are getting angry…" The other blonde shouted out, just before the wind of the forest began to kick up and the shrill shrieks of the nevermores filled the sky.
"I don't suppose we can ask for your assistance now, friend?" Ren asked me with that glimmer of hope I learned to shred at a moment's notice.
My gaze silently shifted from the smoldering corpse of my kill to the girl, fallen unconscious against the tree in the distance.
Damn it…
Ano smiled.
Damn you Ano…
Ren's smile began to form.
…damn it all.
I dropped off the vantage point Ano and I had been resting on, crushing the ground beneath my boots as I walked forward. The pillars and pedestals around me shattered, getting them out of my way as I brushed past the combatants dispersed across the field of grass and embedded feathers.
16 minutes… 13% aura capacity… Death imminent.
The young fox-yōkai wasn't going to survive this initiation.
Death. I scoffed at the word. Death didn't touch grimm like the world wished it did. Grimm are far too privileged to experience such an end.
Whatever. If the world couldn't see that they were still coming back, after all these ages of fighting this monstrous incursion, then I'll take pleasure in putting them down myself.
Time to put an end to this.
"You," My voice carried a calm steel edge, my eyes switching to the raven-haired girl standing slightly off to the side.
Her amber eyes widened for a moment, black bow fluttering in the rushing winds from the soon to be rampaging nevermores above. The clash of steel and ice split that very air, cluttering the atmosphere again from the sound of battle.
"Me?" The girl asked, her hands holding her elbows in a reserved crossed state at the front of her chest.
"Go stop that girl's bleeding. You're useless in this kind of fight," I said, nodding toward the tree line and the slumped form of the faunus in white.
"Hey, whoa! My partner's not useless!" A fist careened into my senses from the side, Yang's blazing aura firing up again as the gears in her golden gauntlet shifted.
Loud. Predictable. Weak.
I reached up and glanced her punch across my forearm, letting all the strength behind her strike blow past my head as I kept my stare leveled into the golden irises of the girl in front of me.
"Go."
"Yang, it's alright. This isn't really my matchup anyway." She spoke quietly, backing away from the group as she turned around.
Don't try to justify it.
"But-"
Yang's retaliation was cut short as the cat-faunus took off a moment later. She ran straight for the girl I needed her to tend to. That was the first step. It stalled that timer for long enough to handle the rest of the creatures here.
"Names," I took my arm away from Yang's and turned my gaze to the few who stood around me, "Now."
I doubted they could follow a simple order without their own name being called with it. Integrity was lacking in youth, these days.
I wasn't going to be giving them extensive orders, either. It'll be just one.
Yang withdrew her fist, the sound of a careening dust flair impacting the ruins in the background sounding out as she bit her lip in agitation. It was evident now…
She was starting to drop whatever fantasized image she had of me from the beginning.
Good.
"Nooorrrra! And this is my partner, Ren!" A bubbly voice, the kind you wanted to drill holes into and put six feet under, hollered out from off to my side.
I turned only to regard her face for only a moment before looking toward the next person.
"T-the name's Jaune," The useless stack of wasted carbon in white crested armor spoke, but his unlocked aura slammed into me before his voice could reach my ears.
When did he…?
"Pyrrha, my partner, is off fighting that deathstalker over there with Weiss," Jaune said, stepping over and sending a glance down the field. The two girls in the background fought to keep a deathstalker engaged in a dance of misery and pain.
A glacial spike had ruptured its soft underside, cracking through the shell of its back as it scurried and swiped in its pinned place.
At least someone's a little competent with their semblance.
"That was my partner you just disregarded, by the way. Her name's Blake," Yang spoke up, "If you even cared."
"I didn't," I replied evenly, flicking my gaze past Ruby. She flinched slightly, silver eyes avoiding my own before I walked past her.
Yang growled, crimson eyes shining, "What do you want us to do?" She asked, gritting her teeth with anger so prominent it burned the air hotter than her fire was chemically capable of.
"Set the forest on fire," I answered simply, "It'll flush out the grimm and burn all that remain to ash."
"That's crazy!" Yang threw her hands to her sides, staring at me with a mixture of rage and disbelief.
"It's efficient," I responded simply, "The fire won't spread far. We'll be able to clear out this immediate area with ease, slaughtering whatever grimm that shamble out of the blazing trees. Weiss is more than capable of dousing the flames when we're done."
"How do you know she'll be able to?" Ruby asked quietly, staring at the ground between her feet.
"Because if she can't, then she's as incompetent as the rest of you," I replied, "She has enough aura and enough dust to disperse a wide expanse of airborne ice. It'll collect in the air like mist. I'll handle the rest."
"And we're just supposed to trust you? After the way you've been acting?" Yang growled, her knuckles white.
"I wouldn't go so far as to trust him," A new, lighter, warmer, voice spoke up from behind me. Then the soft crunch of grass quietly sounded out with the new arrival of my own partner, "But you can trust his word. He may be cruel and harsh, but he's right more times than wrong. You can believe that." Ano spoke, placing a soothing hand on Yang's shoulder and calming her down.
"Ano, you can't expect me to-"
"No one expects anything of you," Ano was quick to silence Yang, tapping her lightly on the nose, "I'll handle the fire, honey. You can handle another task."
"You shouldn't be dragging yourself into this mess," I fixed my partner with a hardened stare, but she simply brushed it off.
"And miss out on the action? Where's the fun in that?" The thief asked with a tip of her cowboy hat, running her fingers along the rim of it as it burned orange.
"Whatever. Burn the whole damn forest to the ground. I'm going to go protect my partner from grimm threats," Yang spoke in defiance, having enough of my words as she began trudging across the grass, "Rubes, come on."
Ruby's eyes snapped up to her sister, before casting a worried glance back to her partner on the field, "Sorry Yang, but I think I'll stay and help Weiss," Her gaze then fell back onto me as I felt Yang's presence stay for a moment… before getting further away. She gave me a meek smile, "We don't necessarily have to kill all the grimm in the area. Just all the ones that matter, that way we can make it back to Beacon."
"Your naivety will get you killed," I said, coldness bristling my words again, "You're thinking short term. We'll be taking a chunk out of this area's grimm population that'll take time to refill. We'll be doing the school a favor."
"By burning down half the Emerald Forest?" Jaune asked, sounding like it was a bad thing.
It was. But it was a bad thing for a good reason.
"Not anymore now that Yang's not going to be the one doing the burning," I flexed my hand for a moment, cracking the energy in my glove as I looked up, watching as twin salvos shot into the ground all around us.
A solid burst of aura erupted from my hand after I raised it into the air, a sphere of light spanning out around us in a momentary solidified burst, knocking away several projectiles with its timed emission.
"Let's just say that I specialize in fire, Jaune," Ano walked up to my side and placed her hands on her waist, "Only the ground will be burning. It'll be enough to flush out the grimm littering the forest floor."
"And then what?" Ren was the one to ask this time.
"They'll be corralled into this opening. We'll kill them here," I answered, sending out another deflecting burst as another salvo rained down on us.
"Wouldn't that just make them crazier and more bunched up?" Nora's voice piped in.
I was hoping she'd stay quiet.
"Yeah, how do you expect us to fight an entire legion of grimm?" Jaune tacked on.
"It'll put us all in danger if we do this," Ruby mentioned as well.
"You guys don't get it," I sent another radial burst out, this one wider and much more expansive as my aura surged within me, "This is your life now. You're being bred to become grimm slaughtering machines. The earlier you start, the less of a pipe dream you'll be convincing yourself about for life after the Academy."
"He's not wrong, but don't give up on your own dreams as well. We can't have you cuties giving up on hoping for a better life like mister lean, mean, and pessimistic over here," Ano commented with a light chuckle.
I'd be rich if I had a five lien coin for every time Ano brought comfort to a tense situation.
"…I guess we could give it a try," Ruby spoke quietly, her small form jumping every time the sudden sound of ten or twenty feathers struck the walls of my bursts of aura.
"What if it goes wrong?" Jaune scratched the back of his head, his eyes adverting.
"I'm sure we have a fighting chance," Ren came up to Jaune's side and rested a hand on his shoulder, "Niro may be condescending, but he seems to have every reason to be that way. You saw what he did and what happened to him."
Jaune's unsure eyes soon met Ren's, before his shoulders slumped and he grazed the grass at his feet with the shining tip of his sword, "Fine. If we have to clear them out… then we'll clear them out."
"Good," I nodded, deflecting several more feathers before the nevermores seemed to give up and begin to dive, switching tactics to something much more direct… and all the more suicidal, "Then let's get started."
I apologize for the lack of action. The combat is going to be interesting to write for this story, which is why I cut it off there. It'll be a bit of a struggle due to how Niro thinks, so I might just switch it over to third person during that matter.
Or even another person's perspective altogether.
We'll see. That'll be next chapter.
It was more realistic for Yang to storm off like that after facing something as conflicting as Niro and his order. He also recognizes that Blake has experience in the field of self-applied medication, which suggests some aptitude in applying medical help to the faunus at the tree line.
She's a little hurt, after all. Poor girl.
I hope she gets better. I also wonder who her partner is. Hmm…
For now, Favorite and Follow.
I look forward to seeing REVIEWS for this. You'll be introduced to a LOT of concepts of mine. Feel free to give me your thoughts.
Cya XP