Twenty meters.
Yang let go at the last possible second, soaring straight and true like an arrow towards the black gem just before the Demon crashed into Ruby Rose. Her last glimpse of the duo was a messy tangle of limbs with the young girl struggling hard to free herself from the rampaging beast, and while Yang was very concerned for her safety she had not forgotten how strong the former Executioner was. She should be fine.
Ten meters.
At the moment, Yang has something she needed to place her full priority on. More specifically, she was flying directly towards a giant of stone and gem at neck breaking speed with absolutely no way but one to stop. Perhaps she should've just taken the conventional choice and climbed her way up like a certain super hot female adventurer she played in a video game, but there seriously was no time left, and despite the unusual burst of Aura coursing through her veins like liquid fire mentally Yang felt tired enough to sleep a whole week. This had to end now. With a grit of her teeth, Yang retracted her good left arm into position and kept her body straight. Her fist was a rippling coat of concentrated golden fire which intense heat seemed to split the very air, and hopefully it would do the same to the target that looked far more likely to break her instead. No, stop, this isn't the time to feel weak. Two hits, Yang thought to herself, one for the left and one for the right. It's going to be slightly difficult trying to jump over to the other side after the first one, but I can do it.
Five meters.
I will do it.
One.
"HAAAAH!" With fear and with doubt, Yang Xiao Long nonetheless mustered the greatest courage in her heart and slammed her burning left fist right at the flattest surface she could find. Despite being an outdoors person, Yang had watched no small amount of cartoon and superhero anime as a kid, you see. She had always been fascinated by how the heroes could harness seemingly impossible amounts of power through love, courage and hope to defeat the ultimate villain, and she couldn't help but thought that she was now in the exact same situation looking bloody cool and awesome. Of course, her intentions were far from noble or strong as those protagonists', but surely, surely her immense resolve and maximum power was strong enough to crush this stone like it's made out of tofu, right? Her fists are absolutely invincible!
But reality disagreed. As soon as the punch connected, Yang felt every single one of her finger bones breaking apart, and if it wasn't for the perfect angle of her approach her arm would've already been torn clean off the elbow. Unfortunately, that might've been the far desirable and painless result as exactly a millisecond later, every bone in her left arm cracked under the sheer force of impact before her poor face and body slapped on the stone right after like dead fish. She was lucky to keep her teeth intact. The impossible pain stabbed into her brain like a thousand needles, and for a few seconds Yang completely lost consciousness before she realized too late that she had lost whatever little grip she had on the slippery surface. The brawler screeched out a million curses consisting of fourteen different languages she didn't even realize she still remembered then, but and as gravity finally took hold Yang closed her eyes in anticipation for what must be the most humiliating death in the history of Jiu Xu.
But she didn't fall. All the sudden Yang came to a halt as a sickening snap blasted her right into sweet oblivion and then back to suffer some more. The woman realized through the haze of stupid pain that despite everything her left arm did punch through the black gem, and had in fact gone so deep that it was buried up to the shoulders. She was stuck. It was also the only thing keeping her from falling god-knows-how-deep into the gaping maw below, and Yang thought she would've been thankful if her damn left arm wasn't burning like hell's mother fucking piss lava with a pinch of the hottest chili,
"Oh, fuck me and those stupid fucking fuck cartoons!" Yang whispered to herself with no small amount of despair. Forget trying to destroy this core, much less the other one, just how was she going to pull her bloody arm out without crying like a baby?
"…Am I really seeing what I'm seeing?" Ruby muttered as she sneaked a few glances at a certain suspended blonde idiot flailing frantic legs and cursing like a sailor. To be entirely honest, Ruby was very impressed by Yang's iron will. Any men or women who could destroy their entire arm without hesitation to achieve their goals deserved her respect. On the other hand there was a line between stupidity and bravery, and that was the absolute the stupidest thing Ruby Rose had ever seen in her life. God forbid, just who in their right minds would try to punch through a god damn boulder with her bare fist while flying at subsonic speed? It was a bloody miracle she didn't fail and drop a thousand feet to her death!
Now Ruby was in a dilemma. Obviously she could shout out some kindly advices, or try shooting a few bullets and see if she could help free the poor woman. And she would've done exactly that, except that this Demon must have guessed her intent and was using every ounce of its energy to keep her abay. Of course she could've just zoomed past it with her Semblance, but there was something she couldn't quite name nagging behind her mind that caused her to hesitate against the obvious method. It was also the only reason she hadn't gone all out – couldn't go all out – since the start of this fight. To have her strongest card sealed without even understanding why, especially against such a powerful opponent was infuriating to say the least.
No time for complaints. Its manipulation of Master Taiyang's Semblance is clumsy at best – I'll disable him first and help Yang later. In a single step Ruby cleared the twenty feet distance between herself and the Demon, and as she snuck into his blind spot the former Executioner fired off a bullet to propel her scythe in a thunderous swing against his legs. The Demon saw through her movements and easily elbowed the weapon to the ground, but Ruby wasn't daunted in the slightest. Feeling the broken momentum of her scythe singing shrilly in her arms, as she sought with every nerve in her body a way to repair its broken flow; to reconnect it with the dance of death etched upon her mind and befell it upon this enemy.
She found it. The girl lifted Crescent Rose just a fraction leftwards and up from the ground, pulled the bolt trigger, and allowed the recoil to zoom her directly behind Master Taiyang with demonic speed before cleaving her scythe like a snake up his vulnerable arm. Her blade cracked loudly against his iron skin and drew only a tiny scratch, but it did not matter to Ruby as she vanished once again from the Demon's view to trigger a thunderous slash across its chest. It did not matter if the enemy had incredible reflexes; it did not matter it his skin was tough as iron. As she ran rings around the Demon, speeding faster and faster with each squeeze of the trigger, striking blow after blows that only grew stronger with each change of direction, it was only inevitable that Ruby Rose would crack through its so-called impenetrable defenses. First they merely appeared as invisible lines across the Demon's skin. Then the blood started to spray and its flesh kissing the air in chunks until finally, the Demon could no longer withstand the fury of the onslaught and bellowed in an explosion of destructive shockwaves. The ultimatum finally cut through the incessant flow of her steel, but even as Ruby Rose floated above the air light as a feather, she felt the remnants of the flow tingling all over her fingers, begging her to sow the seeds of rebirth and drew forth yet another song of death.
But no. Her objective was achieved, and Yang Ju Long once again found himself paralyzed and forced to recuperate as all four limbs missing entire chunks of flesh and tiny bits of bones. There was truly nothing it could do to stop Ruby now as she landed safely back onto the ground and bounded towards the still struggling Yang with her back facing the Demon. The opening was just pretend of course; a ploy and risk of her own choosing so she could lure out more differentiated attacks from the Demon and learn to counter them later. Better to be hit in the back when prepared than the other way around. To save time, Ruby fired a couple more bolt shots parallel to the ground and zoomed in the blink of an eye to the edge of the crevice. With ease she sank the tip of her scythe deep into the ground as anchor, and spun circles in mid-air before landing gently on top of the long frame of Crescent Rose. Finally, she looked upwards to see Yang straining her neck to gawk at her acrobatics. Oh, no.
"Yang Xiao Long," Ruby started solemnly, "Please tell me that you did something while I was buying you time."
The obvious embarrassment on the blonde's face clued Ruby in that she was not; not in the slightest, "Ah, ahahahaha! I can't seem to free myself you know, so, I watched you to, er, get some tips?"
Wordlessly, Ruby pressed down her weight onto the hilt of Crescent Rose to aim its muzzle upwards and directly at Yang. The brawler flew into a panic and apologized profusely, "I'm sorry! But I just don't know what to do! I tried to break it, Ireally tried, I even tried my god damn fucking broken right –"
"Yang," Ruby began my pointing a thumb at her own head, then slowly moved her hands about in a series of very caring, very elaborate, and very sympathizing gestures, "Brain. Use. Semblance. Burn. Understand? Repeat?"
Ruby knew she was being petty, but it was still damn satisfying to see the blonde literally as Yang whined her last bits of resistance, "Oh come on, cut me some slack! I was hurting like fucking hell – RUBY!"
The young girl sensed it too. In an instant she turned around while still on top of Crescent Rose and she saw the Demon bounding on all fours towards her with unbelievable speed. What? How did it heal so quickly? With no time to spare Ruby kicked out immediately at the bolt trigger to fire her rifle and propel herself awkwardly to the left; narrowly dodging the charge that would've knocked her clean off the platform. As the girl hastily improvised on the fly and triple bolted herself across the platform like she's riding a rocket broom, Ruby finally managed steady herself before landing gingerly back to her feet. She glanced around immediately to check how far she'd pulled away from the Demon and –
"GET DOWN!"
It was too late. Somehow, someway, despite the completely randomized pattern of her escape, the monster had followed her perfectly before landing behind her and swiping directly for her head. She had no way for her to avoid it, not without using her Semblance, and despite the warning bells shrieking on top of her head Ruby forced herself to forego her instinct and summoned her tried to Speed away to safety. Suddenly her stomach ached with unexpected pain, and to the young girl's utmost horror her Semblance did not work. It was too late; the claws caught her firmly in an inexorable grip, and as it lifted her midair with its mouth splitting open into a terrible smile full of promises of vengeance, the Demon smashed her head against the floor in one downward motion. And again. And again. And again. All the while, Ruby struggled desperately to pull away, growing weaker and weaker even as she swung her gigantic scythe at its body only for it to bounce off the Demon's iron skin without so much a scratch. Thump! Her fingers slackened. Thump! Someone was screaming. Thump! It was getting really hard to open her eyes. Thump! She can't die here, she had to keep trying – Thump! She had… to….?
KRAKKKssssshhh.
The Demon opened its palm, letting let the girl collapse to the ground in a silent thud. It licked its blood drenched fingers, ate every piece of flesh off the surface before roaring triumphantly at the headless torso of its enemy.
Ruby Rose… is dead.
No.
Yang closed her eyes. Her breathing felt constricted; her heart thumped far too fast to be considered normal. The overwhelming dizziness that threatened to engulf her entire consciousness had nothing to do with her body condition. She had failed again. Again. Just like the last time, she was utterly powerless to save the person she cared. Her mother, her best friend, her Da and now this. If she hadn't been so incompetent that she neededadvice on how to destroy some fucking stone, Ruby would have been able to focus completely on the fight. If she hadn't needed to rely on a fifteen years old girl to win her own war, Ruby would never have died at the hands of her most hated enemy. She caused this. She killed her.
"Uuuuu… ssk!" Yang stifled her cry and forced down the rising bile in her throat. She had no right to mourn Ruby. The only thing she could do, the only thing she must do now was to use every bit of strength to destroy the Demon's cores no matter what the cost. And so she dug deep into her heart and searched for the golden flames of her soul. She dragged out every last bit of energy inside her body and poured it down her left arm, willing them to burn and scorch the very thing before her eyes into mere ashes, but despite watching it changed colors from deep black to burning red it didn't evaporate as she imagined, it didn't melt, it didn't even budge despite feeling her stuck arm loosening for just a bit. This level of power wasn't nearly enough to threaten the heart of a Demon that had survived hundreds of years through time, much less two of them. She needed power. She yearned for more than she had ever wielded in her entire life combined. She –
BANG!
"GAAAAAGGHHHHH!?"An excruciating scream escaped Yang's lips as her left shoulder exploded in a sticky mess of flesh and bones. Immediately the blonde turned her head to stare hatefully at the Demon looking up towards her from the edge of the platform, leering monstrously at her vulnerability. It was reveling in its victory, toying with its prey knowing that she could do nothing to stop it. And it was right. She could hardly think straight, her Aura was almost completely gone, and her left arm hurt so badly it was like having a scorching lump of liquid iron plugged her shoulder. Yang couldn't even remember how many times she had fainted and returned from sheer agony.
But her hatred kept Yang focused. Her hatred kept her functioning. Gritting her teeth, Yang forced her Semblance to create a layer of fiery protection over her back, just in time to feel another Aura bomb slamming into her back like a motherfucking cannon ball, and then another one. She had long since given up on holding back her scream, and it didn't take long for the entire cavern to become filled with the terrible howls of death. But she didn't not stop fighting. She did not stop pouring every bit of regenerated Aura down her arm, and even went as far as to draw the energy that kept her body alive to destroy the core. After all, what did it matter if she was going to die sooner or later anyway? The Demon will die. The Demon must die now, and she would do anything, sacrifice everything to see the damn monster undone!
Something shattered inside her mind, although she could not tell what it was. What she did know was that her Semblance suddenly fire burned tenfold, a hundred fold, a thousand times more powerful than it was before, and then the Demon screamed so loud that the entire cavern shook ominously with tremor. Yang did not know where this mysterious energy came from, nor did she care as she pulled her left arm once more and saw it rip through the Demon's core as easily as cutting hot knife into butter. Delighted by this unexpected discovery, she then enveloped her whole body in flames and felt herself sink into the heart, melting everything at the barest of touch.
Before Yang knew it she was already standing inside the melted hole of pure blackness, and with a grin filled with madness she raised both her broken arms and slammed bodily into the now crooked surface. Every time she did it pure white pain blinded her consciousness, and each time she came back to exact the full price of her vengeance. Die! Yang Xiao Long snarled as she ripped out the core piece by piece and evaporating it from existence. Fucking DIE and SUFFER in HELL for all ETERNITY! Suddenly the golden Aura darkened as if tainted by something sinister, flickering light and dark as if it was waging an unseen battle, and losing. But Yang did not notice a thing. Even if she did her mind was set on the destruction of the core and that alone, and before long even her crimson eyes became shaded with a strange, black corruption. She noticed not a thing. Abruptly the black core hugged her as if in tight embrace, and no matter how she tried to shove it away it just kept coming pushing towards her from all angles again and again and suddenly… suddenly she found that she didn't mind the black things. Why was she fighting them again? She couldn't remember. She opened her arms gently, and the tendrils of darkness clung onto her flames for dear life before dissolving into the fire as if it belonged all along. The blonde chuckled. Then she began to laugh. Before long her laughter was joined by the Demon's, and together they screamed, "You think to stop me, humans? I will destroy all that stands before me! I will kill EVERYTHING! All of you, die, die, diE, Die, DIe, DIE, DIe, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIEE –"
"Yang!"
Abruptly, she stopped shouting. What am I…? The woman blinked once, twice, looking around and found herself inside an empty round room. It was as if she'd just woken up from a nightmare. One that she wasn't about to leave forever until an impossible voice pulled her back from the brink.
"Yang, good job at killing the first core! Now destroy the last one!"
A couple of gunshots rang within her ears, swiftly accompanied by painful howls of the inhuman. Immediately Yang turned around and looked towards the source of the call, and one look was enough to wobble her knees and broke her into a shaky mess. She covered her mouth with choking sobs, unable to believe and yet infinitely grateful to see a crimson cloak streaking across the air like dancing butterflies, and silver eyes winking that everything was okay.
As the Demon howled in fury and confusion at the renewed assault of a supposedly dead human, Ruby Rose was gratified to see Yang getting straight to work by burning a hole through the statue to reach the second core. This way the blonde would be somewhat protected from ranged attacks, giving her the opportunity to whip this sonuvabitch that damned near killed her. Bu Si Mian tried to jump towards Yang to stop her, but Ruby Rose easily read its movements and swatted it back down to the floor like a bug. It was obvious from its slowed and weakened movements that the loss of a core was a huge blow to the Demon. Staring straight at the monster that was charging at her with blind rage, as Ruby easily dodged out of the way before she suddenly spoke,
"You really got me there. You had Ren duel nd hit me with his special move yesterday to disrupt my Semblance, didn't you? It's clever. If I hadn't forced it oute at the last second you really would've gotten me. Instead all you succeeded is to kill an afterimage. What a shame."
The Demon charged towards her again on all fours just as quick as it was before, but this time instead of running away, Ruby slammed the tip of her scythe into the ground and fired five Dust bullets in a row. Each and every one struck exactly at the center of its forehead, and the combined force knocked the Demon off balance and it ate gravel and came to a complete stop. Ruby sneered in contempt and struck the hammer of her scythe into its back; she would not fall for the same trick again!
"That being said, you're either quite careless or ignorant. You should've noticed that my 'body' had suddenly disappeared. I know that your brothers would; since some that I killed can sense heartbeats from miles away. So it's kinda strange that an ancient Demon as powerful as you didn't realize that I've run away. You even possess one of the strongest human body in the world! I wonder. Is is a defect from your premature awakening? Or maybe Master Taiyang resisted hard enough to mask my presence? Or is there some other reason?"
The Demon drew backwards as if sucking in a huge breath, then leaned forwards to spray out a huge column of destructive black flames. Even as Yang shouted out a warning, Ruby Rose had already jumped way ahead of the Demon to twirl directly above its head. The foolish monster seemed to have forgotten that her best trait was speed, and to use a slow move like that was like setting up its own execution. With a single squeeze of the trigger, Ruby dove downwards and swung her scythe to crush the Demon like a speeding truck. When the dust had settled, the Demon found itself buried chest deep into the floor, with Ruby pressing its neck firmly against her scythe with one Aura-empowered foot, and no matter how hard it struggled could not break free from mother earth herself. The Demon was truly and finally trapped, and the battle to save Jiu Xu was over.
But Ruby wasn't done. The young girl leaned in closer until her mouth was right beside its ears, and she whispered,
"I know you can hear me. I don't know who you are, what you are, how you found a way to control a Demon or what you're planning against Remnant. I don't care. What I want you to know is that if I ever find you, you evil scum who manipulate the Demons to torment people's lives and destroy them, I will kill you. I will destroy you. I will rip your very soul into pieces so that you'll never return to this world again. I swear on my master's name – I swear by the name of Rose. You, will, die."
Ruby Rose finally lifted herself up and looked towards Yang. She thought she heard laughter, but she did not care. Let the enemies come.
She'll kill them all.
"… It was you, wasn't it?" Yang Xiao Long murmured amidst the gold and black, fire and stone, light and darkness. She waited for a moment, hoping for an answer. But there was nothing.
"I am still incredibly weak, honestly. This power isn't really mine just yet, and it scares the crap out of me to think how it keeps growing endlessly with seemingly no cost to me whatsoever. But I know that can't be true. Nothing comes without a price, and perhaps I'm burning away at my very lifespan just like mother. But it doesn't matter. I've made up my mind."
She held herself upright and shifted into a stance. Right arms drawn in, the left held shakily just below the eyes. Then, with a single breath, she punched towards the wall in front of her, and the entire right side of thestatue, along with the final shattered into smithereens amidst the thunderous roar of fire. It was over. The nightmares, the suffering, everything – it was finally over.
For now.
"I want you to know that, if you're still out there – no, you must be – I'm coming for you, no matter what you say. No one ever runs away from the great Yang Xiao Long, and when I caught you there'll be a huge list of punishments waiting for playing hooky for so long. So you better be ready."
Yang looked down from where she stood, and saw a smiling Ruby Rose waiting for her to jump at the edge of the platform. On the girl's shoulder was her fainted father, and while the old man looked to be in a very precarious state, Yang was sure that he would be fine. He wasn't called the Wild Dragon of Vytal for nothing after all. The blonde gave her brightest and cockiest smile of the day and jumped high into the sky, flying.
I will find you, Lily.
And this time, I will save you.