Pyrrha
"Blake Belladonna and Pyrrha Nikos." Upon hearing that, Blake, who was seated several rows below me, planted her head on her desk. I couldn't quite figure out why, as we'd never had any difficulties getting along. Maybe she had really wanted to work with someone in particular, or maybe she'd realised something unfortunate but unrelated to the project and the timing was a mere coincidence.
Either way, I was a tad disappointed about not getting to work with Jaune, but at least we'd still have our nightly practice sessions. He'd improved greatly since we'd started on those. Even Professor Goodwitch had noticed; she now had far fewer disapproving remarks concerning Jaune's performance in sparring matches.
"You have today's period to choose your target species and begin working. After that, you are on your own," Port told us after he'd finished assigning pairs. Sounds of movement suddenly reverberated throughout the room as everyone made their way to their partners. Blake showed no signs of getting up, so I headed towards her and sat down.
"Hello," I greeted cheerfully.
"Hi," Blake replied, avoiding eye contact. "Uhhh... What Grimm should we do?"
"Looks like Professor Port's writing the options on the board now," I told her, pointing. The veteran Huntsman was indeed in the process of listing several species of Grimm on the blackboard. When he was finished, I saw that we could choose Ursai, Beowolves, King Taijitus, Deathstalkers or Nevermores. "He said tougher Grimm are worth more marks, so I say Deathstalker or Nevermore. Both of us have experience with those anyway," I pointed out.
"Deathstalker. Blind it, remove its stinger, it's done," Blake replied. "Besides, we won't have to pin it down or anything like that." I noted that, throughout her speech, she sounded nervous about something.
"True. But we'll have to be more specific. Like, does one of us distract it and one does the attacking, do we both attack, that sort of thing, as well as the type of attack."
"Uh..." Blake said. She was acting very out of character. Usually, she could come up with an answer to a question like that extremely quickly. She had been off during lunch on Saturday as well. Curious. "With my S-semblance, I'd make a...a better distraction," she told me. "I can leave copies, be in multiple places at once."
"Right."
"A-are you gonna blind it first or take out the stinger?" Blake asked. There was an almost indiscernible quiver in her voice as she spoke.
"That's a good question. I don't know what's best," I replied truthfully.
"If we take out the stinger, it-it'll become less dangerous. O-only the claws to worry about," she pointed out.
"That's true. Also, blinding it might make it unpredictable. It's probably best if it can see you and your clones so you'll always know where it's going to strike."
"Mhmm."
"So maybe you keep the thing occupied as long as you can, then I throw Akoúo to sever the stinger. A few shots from Miló, and you can help with Gambol Shroud, and it'll be blind. At that point, it shouldn't be too hard to kill," I proposed.
"Yeah. If we avoid potential flailing claws and things like that, we should be able to exploit chinks in its armour."
"Yeah, the ones Port told us about. Oh, wait..." I trailed off, smiling. Blake found my joke rather entertaining. She laughed harder than I'd seen her laugh in a long time, and didn't stop for nearly a minute. It almost seemed like she laughed too hard, but I figured something must have been going on with her and it was influencing her behaviour. I also figured it would be best not to ask, as she wasn't exactly the "sharing" type.
The rest of the period was spent with Blake and I discussing strategies on killing a Deathstalker with just the two of us. Eventually, the bell rang and it was time for sparring practice with Goodwitch. I decided to sit this one out, because I'd fought several matches in the last few classes and on Friday I'd nearly given Weiss a concussion. Instead, the blonde Huntress called on Blake, who rarely participated in any matches. The black-haired girl gracefully leapt over the railing onto the combat floor and landed lightly on her feet, seemingly effortlessly, as Goodwitch looked around the room to decide Blake's opponent.
"I'll do it," Yang called out, grinning eagerly.
"Very well. Miss Long, come on down," the professor replied. Yang climbed down the steps and joined Blake in the middle of the room, whispering something in her ear as she passed. I couldn't hear what was said, but Blake attempted to give Yang her famous death glare. Unfortunately for the Faunus, whatever Yang had said had made her blush so much that the effect of the glare was lost. Meanwhile, the blonde smiled, apparently infuriating Blake further.
The lights around the outside of the room dimmed, leaving only the two combatants in the centre easily visible to anyone without night vision. Blake drew both swords while Yang activated her gauntlets, both of them taking up their stances as Goodwitch signalled the start of the match. Unsurprisingly, Yang went on the offensive, charging at Blake with her fist drawn back. That fist met one of Blake's shadow clones, while the real Blake flipped over the blonde's head and attempted to slap her with the flat part of her blade.
Yang proved to be too quick, executing a low spinning kick to take Blake's feet out from under her. The Faunus jumped over Yang's leg, landing just as the brawler began a rapid flurry of punches. Blake managed to deflect all of them then hit Yang in the stomach with the flat of her blade.
"Miss Long, you need to be more defensive. If this were a real fight you would now be dead," Goodwitch told the brawler. "Continue."
The fight continued for several minutes with no clear victor emerging. Throughout it, I found myself taking a slightly keener interest in Blake than usual. I noticed the extreme precision with which she placed her strikes, never wasting energy. The fluidity of her movements also caught my eye, but I figured it was all just the warrior in me analysing Blake's fighting style for when we would have to take down the Deathstalker together.
Eventually, Blake got lucky with a low sweep which knocked Yang to the floor. As the blonde moved to get up, she found a pistol in her face, and Goodwitch declared Blake the winner. The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Blake was even quieter than usual during lunch, rarely looking up from her book except to eat. When she had finished her food, she didn't look at or speak to any of us. Again, I wrote it off as something she had going on that was none of my business.
That evening, Jaune and I had one of our training sessions. I could tell his heart wasn't really in it for whatever reason, so I went easier than usual on him while we sparred. It got to a point where he thought he had the upper hand, but a knee to his crotch made him drop like a stone.
"Well done! Your sword play's improved immensely," I laughed, helping him to his feet.
"Couldn't have done it without you," he replied.
"So, are you ready to move on to Aura?" I asked.
"I'm actually thinking that maybe we skip Aura for tonight?" Jaune answered. "Maybe go on a jog or something."
"Come on, I know you get frustrated," I told him. "But you must keep trying. I'm sure we'll discover your Semblance any day now."
"It's not that. It's.." he hesitated. "It's dumb."
"What is it?" I asked, gently placing my hand on his shoulder. "Jaune, you know you can tell me."
"It's... Weiss." My heart sank, but I tried to remain composed for Jaune's sake. If anything did show in my face, he didn't notice.
"What about her?"
"I asked her to the dance and she shot me down," he explained. With a sarcastic laugh, he added, "big surprise, right?"
"Well, as they say, plenty of fish in the sea."
"Easy for you to say. You probably have guys climbing over each other just to ask you out," he said, oblivious to the details of my dating life up to that point. He has no idea, I thought bitterly.
"You'd be surprised," I told him.
"Please. If you don't have a date to the dance I'll wear a dress," he replied, dead serious. He then went inside, leaving me alone on the roof. A solitary tear dropped from my eye as I thought about Jaune liking someone else.
A/N: I'm back with another chapter. Sorry it's shorter than usual, but as my friend put it I "packed a punch with the plot development". I've also been busy with midterms coming up, so yeah. Actually, midterms have nothing to do with it because I don't give a fuck about them. I've actually been playing Saint's Row Gat Out of Hell and solving my new V-Cube 6 all week (that's like a Rubik's cube, only higher quality and 6x6x6 instead of 3x3x3). Anyway, now we know how Pyrrha feels. This could get interesting... Also, yeah, that was just a very slightly modified version of the rooftop scene from Extracurricular, and that was intentional. Nothing else to say, so leave a review and follow/favourite if you want.