As I walked back down to the arena, Anora emerged from the prep room. I inwardly realized that I didn't change out of my own armor. Examining my new opponent from afar, she was the very definition of female knight. Her brass plate armor protected almost her entire body. Unlike Sol, her neck was well-protected. The only thing exposed was her head. Even then, her kite shield would do well to provide additional defense to her body. Her longsword was almost twice as long as my shortsword. She wore brass armored boots and leather gauntlets that would guarantee painful hits from in close.

"Ready?" Rama counted off, as both of us nodded. I drew my sword and my left hand, for a second, started to reach backward for some reason. Anora raised an eyebrow at this action, a small smirk on her previously calm visage. Didn't you use a shield in the Sanctum tournament? I recalled her question during initiation. I had faced a good amount of similarly armed students in Sanctum, but I had never gotten the chance to fight someone with the same training as Anora Orabelle. The Orabelle family is a family of renowned Hunters. I finally drew my dagger and gripped it so the blade pointed back. A moment passed, then our Professor announced, "Begin!"

I took the offensive this time. The key to winning against a well-trained armored opponent is to get inside their radius, then find and exploit any weaknesses. Usually, their backs have weaker coverage. This battle, however, would be very different. Upon my closing in, Anora slashed outward with her sword, forcing me to roll under the flying blade and go for a few blows until boom! a fist of hardened white leather met the side of my head and sent me out of her radius.

I stepped back for a moment to assess the damage; the punch managed to take a small chunk of my Aura level, but the wound itself hurt. A quick, confident smirk broke her intensely focused gaze before she charged herself, launching a self-defense instinct within me with the need for some distance. I pointed my dagger and very quickly fired three Fire Dust bolts that I left floating in a triangle formation. I felt my focused my Aura around my right hand and was quickly answered by a velvety feeling on my hand and wrist. Knowing that the process was done, I punched the floating Dust bolts with great force towards Anora. The force of the punch itself pushed me back, but also slowed Anora down and forced her to shield her face from the small explosive projectiles. With a quick glance, I saw that the explosive damage did find purchase as our Aura levels now matched once again. With her stepping back to reveal her face, she provided an opening. I took this opportunity and activated my Semblance for the third time today to find out what to do next. As such, time slowed down once more to let me think of a quick strategy.

She's very capable at close combat, I noted. And her outward defense is very strong as well. My face still hurt from where she punched me. I sighed mentally. The best I can do is hope to tire her out and whittle her Aura down as quickly as possible. Even with that, the outcome of this battle can go either way. She had better defense, and our offense was just about matched. My experience fighting with a shield was probably the only reason why I stayed in so long. With that, I deactivated my Semblance.

I dashed at Anora, hoping she was still off-balance from my last attack. Unfortunately for me, she was ready for me. In a surprising move that I've never seen from anyone other than myself, she launched her shield at me and I had to use my full strength to slam it away with my sword. It was a heavy shield as well, most likely steel. But I had no real chance to guess as Anora now took to the offensive and—was her sword even longer now? I noticed her longsword now looked like it added at least five more inches in width to now classify it as a claymore. I brought up my left hand to deflect as much of this next blow with my dagger. The blow itself was extremely heavy, and I could feel the full brunt of her strength behind the sword as the attack sent me slightly into the air. Luckily, I still landed on my feet. I dashed to meet her on her follow up downward slash and slashed at her torso. I managed to dodge her slash with a quick roll to her rear. Upon finding my footing, I jumped at her back and pushed off of it and leaving me airborne as she stumbled forward a bit. Shifting the grip on my dagger, I unleashed another trio of Fire Dust bolts and punched it at her and it exploded on her back. Upon my landing, there was still some smoke covering her general area.

Good, she's still recovering, I noted. Dashing in once more, I readied my shortsword for a rightward slash that would definitely take a good part of her Aura down. Until an impossibly bright light overwhelmed the smoke and blinded me. With eyes closed, I took a quick estimation and slash let my blade go. I winced as it cut through only air, and my head was knocked downward by what I assumed was her sword. Suddenly a harsh pain exploded in my gut as what felt like a knee slammed into my already curled-up midsection, pushing me off the ground.

"Oooh," a pained cringe and other sounds of observing pain echoed through the audience. While I was still in the air, another leather fist slammed into me and sent me flying to the edge of the arena, and the buzzer sounded.

"That's the match!" Roma announced. "Anora is the winner!"

I took my time to get up; I rolled over to see that she still had a little less than half than Aura left while mine sat a just below the cut-off point for combat practices. I got up slowly, keeping my winces low and clutching my gut. Looking at Anora, she looked to me with a smile, but spoke with a gentle tone.

"Are you alright, Railen?" Her amber eyes showing sincere care for me after a near-dominating battle.

"Yeah," I took a few shallow breaths. I looked to Roma to tell him,"I'm just gonna… head to the infirmary now."

"Alright," He said. "You still have detention with me later, Roame."

"Yeah, sure." I walked out of the arena, feeling the stares of the viewers on me the whole way up the stairs. Argos rose when I passed by and walked out of the seating section to join me. When I looked to him for an explanation, he just nodded and gestured that I follow him. "Right, thanks partner."

. . . . .

The nurse gave me some painkillers and some Aural boosters to let me recover in time for Roma detention. Wonderfully convenient, isn't it? It stopped hurting after a while but the nurse just wanted to make sure I had recovered fully before sending me back. Then, out of nowhere, Nero and Elysia came bounding into the large room.

"Hey, you all didn't need to visit little ol' me." I joked. Nero sighed and rolled his eyes.

"You took quite a few hard hits that the end there, Railen." Elysia commented. "Class just ended, and we just wanted to know, out of common courtesy, if our leader was doing better."

"I'm feeling alright," I reported. Nero was regarding me with a glare that wasn't accusatory, but moreso curious.

"Where did you learn to fight?" Nero asked. "I mean, while I could see the basic swordfighting can come from Sanctum's training, but some things you did are very… unorthodox in a way."

"Like?" I reached for an example.

"Like the throat strike." Elysia answered for him. Right, I recalled that fight. That was apparently overkill.

"Well," I began. "When you live in a rather dangerous place for a long time, you have to learn how to find a way to end all sorts of confrontations. Sometimes, it results in rather grisly endings."

"That's rather grim." Nero remarked. I immediately responded to him with a chuckle.

"I learned how to fight and take down other people before learning how to deal with Grimm." At this Elysia's eyes widened.

"In the Southern Juntion, correct?" She called the place by it's proper name.

"Yes, that, the Junks." I clarified. "You fight to survive, or you lose more than just the food and money on you at that point."

"You fight with a survivalist mindset, hoping to end the confrontation as definitively as possible." Nero said. "Rather harsh for a combat practice class."

"Force of habit," I shrugged. "Especially against an arrogant ass who thinks he's better than whoever he faces." My Scroll buzzed to show a message of agreement from Argos.

He did kind of deserve it.

"See?" I let Nero and Elysia read it. "Argos agrees with me."

"You might have also started something, though." Elysia said. "You appeared to have crossed the line with that last strike on Sol Freyr."

"I can deal with that then." I supposed. "If he tries to approach you guys, however, let me know."

"We can deal with bullies, Railen." Nero said. I shook my head.

"If he starts something, it's between me and him." I clarified. "If he goes after you all, that out of bounds and deserves reciprocation."

"You make it sound more eloquent that it truly is." Elysia noted. "Why?"

"Practice?" I shrugged again. After a few more minutes of casual small talk, the nurse passed by.

"Railen, you're good to go to detention now." She said. "Take care."

. . . . .

"What the hell was that?" Rama interrogated. I was sat in the front row of the empty arena classroom.

"You had me fight to win, and I won." I answered simply. My former trainer sighed.

"There is such a thing as respect, you know." Rama said. "You seem to lack quite a bit of it for others."

"I don't respect corrupt authority or cocky asshats." I responded honestly. "That Sol guy sounded like the latter." Rama's fingers pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You don't need to treat every fight here like a fight back home, you know." Rama shook his head. I chose not to respond to that.

"Then there was the glove." He mentioned what happened in the fight against Anora. "You're lucky no one here has quick enough eyes or a selective memory to recognize what that was."

"That… admittedly was my bad." I looked down at the desk. It was a pretty bad slip up.

"Listen," Rama poked a finger at my face as I looked back up. "I don't want to have to cover up for any fuck-ups here, too. I had enough conferences with the Council to convince them you weren't going to do anything illegal."

"Nothing was proven," I reminded. "They can't kick me out without substantial evidence."

"Then make sure you don't slip up like that again, Railen." He sighed again. "I can't bail you out every single time. You gotta watch your own back here." He took a deep breath before continuing with, "How are you feeling after that last beating, by the way?"

"I'm good." I shrugged. "I've had worse, Rama, you know that."

"Alright good." Rama said. "You're good to go. Just… be careful, Railen." I got up and left the room. I'd have to take the rest of the first week at Haven trying to work on keeping certain things I do concealed.

Little did I know that there was a certain Wolf Faunus listening from beyond the doorway.

A/N: BleachCadelina here updating from the college library. How y'all doing. Hope you enjoyed this chapter; that fight scene took a lot of thinking. As usual, thanks for reading!

Now update on the polls! The winner for the Crossover story I will write is:

RWBY X MYSELF

So, I will start writing this one soon, when I find some free time out of reading and writing for all 5 of my English classes. Hope you all check it out when it comes out!

As usual, thanks for reading. See y'all next chapter!