"Death ends a life, not a relationship."
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
Chapter 20-
While some of the students were stunned Velvet acted immediately in an attempt to do something and quickly called out to Aria, "Aria can you get a signal out?" Velvet asked, moving to crouch beside Ruby and Neo, who the latter had tears running down her face but no other visible emotion.
"I can't, my range isn't long enough to reach Naomi." Aria informed her.
"Shit. Think back." Velvet said to herself as her memory sparked into action remembering one thing that Ruby had taught them all.
"All soldiers have the identical layout for their webbing so even one goes down and someone needs his ammo they know exactly where to look. I do the same however I have a few extra things like a high beam distress beacon."
Velvet remembered the lesson and when Ruby had gone through her own pouches or rather the Reaper had, it hadn't clicked yet that the two were the same person even with the mask laying broken next to them, but Velvet went straight for Ruby's pouch sitting on her waist.
Inside was a small cylinder device with a button on top and nothing else. Velvet immediately hit the button on top and it started emitting a faint but clear pulse every five seconds.
With that done Velvet turned her attention back to Ruby, the woman had several small cuts over her body but weren't bleeding too heavily that they could be ignored as her Aura would heal them.
But what stumped Velvet was the fact that Ruby's Aura, one of the strongest she had seen wasn't healing her wounds at all so instead resorted to the using bandages from Ruby's pouch to cover the wounds.
"Neo, Ruby needs you to be strong. The beacon's active so Naomi won't be far away but Ruby needs you strong." Velvet said, trying to get Neo to calm down.
"You don't understand, none of you do." Neo just mumbled as she held Ruby's head in her lap.
Velvet then chose to ignore Neo once she realised she was a lost cause as she focused on Ruby's wounds, covering the bleeding cuts as she heard engines come screaming in overhead.
All the girls looked up to see the raven fly away as Naomi brought her aircraft in overhead with the back ramp opening up just on the edge of the hole.
The hole itself wasn't far allowing all the Huntresses and Hunters to make the jump into the aircraft easily with Velvet and Neo carrying Ruby's body up into the aircraft.
Laying the woman down on the floor the rear hatch had barely shut when Naomi had blasted the engines at full power heading straight for Beacon.
As they left, Atlas soldiers arrived in their own Bullheads and securing the breach which was still open all the way along, although none of the Huntresses and Hunters remained behind to speak to them, all too worried about Ruby.
"Are her airways clear? Have you got a pulse?" Naomi asked to the pair as she piloted the aircraft up above the buildings and straight to Beacon.
Velvet placed her hand just under Ruby's chin to check for a pulse but only got a faint one back, "Faint pulse and breaths coming in short." Velvet informed the pilot as she did the needed checks.
"Got it, Aura level readings?" Naomi followed up.
"Aura levels?" Velvet asked, confused as it wasn't a normal thing asked for nor was it something easy to check on hand.
"Scanner in the netting above your head, turn it on and run it over Ruby's body and tell me the reading." Naomi informed her.
Coco reached into the netting and pulled out the required item, handing it over to Velvet who activated it and ran it over Ruby's body.
"This can't be right." Velvet mumbled looking at the display.
"What's the reading?" Naomi asked hurriedly.
"It's saying there's no Aura level, like nothing almost as if she didn't have one." Velvet answered, shocked at the thought of Ruby having no aura.
"Shit. Slap Neo." Naomi ordered.
"What?" Velvet asked, shocked again.
"Slap her, get her to snap out of whatever shit she's in." Naomi ordered as she switched from talking to them to informing Beacon.
"Beacon control, I have a Huntress down with no Aura levels registering and slow pulse and breathing. Require medical on stand-by." Naomi informed the controller.
"Copy, proceed immediately to medical dock one. Doc's on stand-by." The controller replied back.
Back in the cargo area Velvet looked towards Coco to see what she should do but Coco only shrugged in response as she motioned for her to do it.
Velvet turned and slapped Neo around the face in an attempt to get her mind clear but it didn't seem to do much to Neo as all she said was, "It's time, she said we had more time but we didn't. She lied. She knew." Neo mumbled again.
It didn't matter much because as soon as they landed barely a minute later, making record time back to the academy and doctors and nurses immediately swarmed the aircraft, picking Ruby up onto a cart to take her straight through.
Neo followed right next to them, making sure to not let Ruby out of her sight or even her touch as they rushed through and when they attempted to stop her from going further she made it known she was staying with Ruby.
Getting inside the operating theatre the doctors were prepping Ruby to be operated on although except for the fact that Ruby had an extremely low Aura and pulse but they didn't know what could cause it.
"An Aura degenerative disease, she's had it since birth and over the years it's slowly weakened her body and Aura but it also affects her health, slowly killing her. There's no cure." Neo informed them all.
"But we can surely do something? What about life support system or maybe a series of Aura injections in high concentrations to try and jumpstart her own Aura reserves." One of the doctors suggested.
"No. Ruby doesn't want anything done." Neo said to the doctors.
"She's unconscious, we don't know what she wants and with no relative or family member to make that decision we have to take steps to keep her alive." The second doctor stated while the first started preparing Aura injections.
"I am her fiancé and as such I can speak for her. She does not wish for anything to be done." Neo stated more firmly to the doctors.
"We can't confirm whether that is true or not. Nurse could you please get this woman out." The second doctor said to one of the nurses inside.
"Double dose Aura injection, ready to be administered." The first doctor stated as a nurse was preparing an IV.
Neo avoided the nurse who tried to get her to leave as she drew the sword hidden inside her parasol. "I said that Ruby's wishes are to be left alone and not to have anything done to attempt to extend her life, it will not work." Neo said, holding her sword up towards the medical staff. Her tone deathly calm.
"Calm down, we're only going to try and help her. If what you say is true then she's dying right now." The second doctor said.
"She's been dying since she was born as have we all, but she knows this will not work and does not want it so either you stop what you are doing or I will use force." Neo stated coldly, holding her weapon up.
"Alright just stay calm. What does she want then?" The first doctor asked, keeping the peace and understanding the wishes.
"Just transfer her to a room and just monitor her but nothing else. She wishes to be left in peace as she passes onto the next life." Neo informed them.
"Ok than. We'll respect her wishes." He said, directing the nurses to transfer her, "Take her to room three, less traffic in that area." He informed the nurses, directing them.
Neo followed as they took Ruby into another room and once they hooked up a simple heart rate monitor to Ruby they quickly left, aware of the deadly woman in the room.
Once they had left Neo sat down next to Ruby and finally broke down loudly, she was sobbing into the bed as she let her emotion out.
She didn't realise that the others were waiting outside alongside Mizu who had come as soon as she heard Ruby was in trouble but they didn't come inside until they heard Neo calm down a little.
They all crowded inside except for JNPR who decided to remain outside for the moment but WWBY and Mizu had all entered the room to see Ruby laying peacefully on the bed while Neo who had clearly been crying, although none of them mentioned how she looked.
"What happened?" Mizu asked upon seeing Ruby.
"Nothing. She held back the majority of the Grimm from breaching into the city and it was just too much. She has an Aura degenerative disease that over the years has slowly been depleting her Aura levels and affecting her health to the point some days she can barely move and requires a boost but now it's gotten to the point the injections won't work." Neo informed the whole group.
"Surely the doctors can do something though, can't they?" Yang asked, stunned at the news of what Ruby had, never once realising.
"They can't and even if they could Ruby doesn't want them." Neo said bluntly, all emotion vanishing from her voice.
"What? But what if it saves Ruby's life, she's dying isn't she?" Winter said, stunned at what Neo had just told them.
"Yes, she is. But she doesn't want them to do anything." Neo informed them.
"But surely if we can save her we should let them do it? You of all people should know that." Weiss said.
"Of course I fucking do. You think I want Ruby to die? I want her to stay alive until the end of our days together but she doesn't fucking want anything to be done to save her." Neo exploded at them, annoyed with them repeating the same questions each time.
"How do we even know that's what she wants? Only family can make those decisions for her and you're not family." Surprising everyone Mizu was the one who said this to Neo harshly.
"No I am not but I am the only family Ruby has here, we're engaged to be married so I think that fucking says something, not even Qrow knows about this. And as I'm the only one who knows Ruby's wishes I must speak for her." Neo said, standing up from her seat as she bite back just as harshly.
"Well it doesn't matter, I say we should let the doctors help Ruby." Mizu replied back, voices weren't being raised yet but it was close as all the others could feel the tension.
"It's not up to you, you're not in any way related to Ruby so you don't get to make a choice for Ruby. Now would you kindly leave." Neo said back, her voice deadly calm.
Mizu having had enough with Neo stopping her and with Ruby in the bed dying while nothing was done she couldn't help what she said, "It is. I'm her fucking father and I say we should help her." Mizu shouted at Neo.
A/N
So was that what you expected? I think you did, sorry if it's a little underwhelming but it's how it came out in the end.
Would have been up earlier but didn't have enough time sadly before my driving lesson. So I have a few things to request/ask.
One I am looking for prompts, this can be Ruby x Neo, Ruby x Winter or maybe Ruby x Blake depending on what it is. I've got a number of different things I'm writing but certain things I'm struggling to get motive to do it. So I welcome any and all prompts. You can PM me here or message me on Tumblr sgtranglin or RavenRose and I'll try and see the messages if possible.
Secondly something to know, I love and really interested in the human mind and different conditions and stuff. One such thing is the whole Survivors guilt and some aspects of PTSD. While they are horrible things they are also interesting and I'm thinking about writing about Ruby suffering with them. However with the recent tragedy in Paris I'm not sure about doing something like that at the moment, so I'm curious as to the wider opinion on this. So feel free to share them.
That's all I can think of really, I'm releasing the next chapter tomorrow all going well so please keep an eye out for that.
Anyway until next time everyone. ^_^