Hey, it's ya boy, some guy on the internet… Looks like I did it… I've actually managed to finish chapter eighteen of this story.
Sorry about the long wait, by the way. I've been working on a lot—a lot meaning two (they were both at least eight thousand words though(the first chapters at least))—new projects and I delegated the time I would normally use to work on this, to those two. Why? Because I needed a change of pace. Writing for the same story for the past two years can boring, y'know?
Anyways, now that I have both of them out in the world now, I should be able to spend more time on this story, so the two month update deadline I've been neglecting these past few months shall actually be enforced this go around, I promise it. ;)
Oh, and I recently just read the new chapter of TG:re (#125, if you wanna date this chapter), and BOI! Just… Just… BOI! MOTHER FUCKING ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR OUR BOI, KEN KANEKI! HE HAS FINALLY BECOME A MAN!
Pr.P.S: Thanks to FineChyna for beta-ing as always.
-Mandatory Disclaimer-
I seriously can't even muster the frustration to come up with something clever and aggressive to put here. Why? BECAUSE MY BOI JUST SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAASHED!
-Chapter 18: Struggle Chain-
As Blake looked down at the two combatants standing on either side of the arena, she couldn't help but feel as though there was something wrong. She could tell by how her teammate was glaring at his newfound opponent.
Blake had known Kaneki for a good amount of time. She knew that the only time that he would do something like that was when he felt someone to be a threat, so to see him do so right now definitely had to mean something. It worried her.
"Are the two of you ready?" Ms. Goodwitch asked. The two nodded: Kaneki's was quick, sharp, divisive, and Emma's was more relaxed–almost lackadaisical, yet with a sharpness in her eyes that made it clear that she was taking things seriously. "Alright, you'll begin on my go."
"One..." The two combatants stiffened, the weapons in their hands shifting in their tightening grips.
"…Two..." In Kaneki's hands was the collapsible blade that Ozpin had gifted him. Blake didn't know exactly when he'd drawn it: somewhere between Emma choosing him as an opponent and her entering the arena. Opposite to him, Emma held a rapier of similar simplicity. It had two defining features: a curved, wooden handle as opposed to a metal hilt, and a blade so thin that Blake questioned whether or not it could withstand being hit in the side with a rock, much less one of Kaneki's strikes.
"…Three!" With that, the spar between the two began-or, rather, it should've. Instead of charging straight at one another, Kaneki and Emma remained where they stood, clearly waiting for the other to make a move.
They remained like that for a while, simply staring one another down as the crowd watched in anticipation. Then, suddenly, after an eternity that only lasted a second, someone moved.
Kaneki, with a burst of speed that was barely traceable by the naked eye, shot off to his direct left. It took him less than a second to make contact with the rounded walls that made up the arena, bouncing right off of it and up towards the ceiling.
With the same momentum, Kaneki slammed into the ceiling feet-first and promptly launched himself straight down at his opponent. Even after seeing this, Emma stayed in her starting position, not a single sign of fear in her body language. Kaneki, probably seeing that his opponent had decided to meet his charge head-on, twisted his body mid-air and gripped his sword by the hilt with both hands.
Emma took a sudden step to the side and angled her blade so that Kaneki's swing was deflected over her shoulder and into the ground. There was a harsh clang, and suddenly the combatants were enveloped in a cloud of powdered floor and orange sparks.
The cloud was just thick enough to reduce the two combatants inside to silhouettes. Blake could see her teammate attempt to donkey-kick his opponent while on all fours, which she assumed was due to having just jumped straight into the ground. Emma dodged, and then the two dissolved into a flurry of action and movement that quickly cleared the air surrounding them.
Emma jumps to side, avoids kick. Still in range to attempt attack, recovers footing and does so. Lunge and stab at opponent with rapier—opponent still on all fours. Kaneki sees and uses legs to push lower body into the air. Now standing on hands, barely avoids getting stabbed in the side–weapon isn't long enough to make contact. Just barely missed chest.
Kaneki pushes against ground, twists body clockwise at the same time. Uses sword to knock Emma's rapier towards her left side. Still in air as he spins around due to momentum. Shifts lower body weight backwards, makes him land on his feet, one leg kneeling. Now facing his opponent face to face. All done in single, smooth motion.
Emma's side is now exposed for attack. Kaneki doesn't hesitate, charges in. Slash aimed for side. Attack is blocked. Prior barely recovered in time. Spins counter-clockwise with momentum of deflection and managed to turn all the way around. Intercepted blade with tip of shoe. Lack of height made it so that the kick had a slight upward angle to it. Tiny bit of aura lossage implies that Emma used Aura shield to deflect attack. That, or the damage was chip off from the hit and her shoes were actually steel-toed.
Emma goes back into offensive, repeatedly stabbing at Kaneki's now-exposed chest. No hits. All attacks sidestepped and dodged, but the pressure is forcing the half ghoul to move backwards. Grimace wide on his face. Clear that he doesn't like his current position. Getting closer and closer to wall.
Emma pushes opponent to wall. Opponent's back slams into it. Goes in for another—No. Feign. Kaneki falls for it. He rolls to his right, probably thinking that he'd be able to trick Emma into stabbing her rapier into the wall to give himself time and space. That thought is wrong. Tip of Emma's sword already on way towards the newly exposed small of his back.
Kaneki notices lack of metal in wall, eyes widening. Suddenly, he kicks against wall. Again, his lower body is propelled into air. His body's current angle is now completely parallel to the ground. At some point, he had stabbed his blade at shoulder-level into the wall to serve as an anchor to keep himself from flying up and backwards.
With that sudden dodge, the half ghoul managed to get the result that he wanted. Emma stabs her weapon into the wall. Not a second after, Kaneki curved his body back downward and landed both of his feet onto the thin strip of steel. Of course, the blade bent a little due to the sudden application of weight, but it didn't break–at least not for the split second that it took for Kaneki to turn himself on it and attempt a kick.
Attempt only gets halfway finished before Emma pulls her weapon from the wall and rips her opponent's footing right out from under him. He begins to fall. Uses momentum from kick to flip himself in air. Pulls weapon out from wall as he does so. Lands perfectly on his feet like a cat falling from a tree. Both are staring each other now. Just like the very beginning of the spar, neither seem at all willing to move. They remain completely still.
Seeing this, Blake took advantage of the first real moment of reprieve in the spar and inhaled deeply, before then releasing the breath after a second or two.
She's good. That was the only thought that ran through Blake's mind as she found herself trying to calm her racing heartbeat. She knew that this was a school-regulated sparring match and that neither of them were in any real danger, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something terribly wrong. She's really, really good…
Blake, wanting to see the reactions of her other teammates, glanced over at them. They were all enthralled with the spar, but for reasons that were clearly different than her own. They were enthralled because they were being entertained by what they were seeing, not because of some innate, random sense of worry that was welling up inside of them. She couldn't tell if that was a good or bad thing quite yet.
At that moment, the action picked up. This time, it was Emma who moved, with a sudden jump backwards. The moment her feet touched ground, she began to short hop around the arena, changing the direction in which she was moving with every hop. Then, with a single backward hop to the left, she surged forwards, rapier's tip pointed at Kaneki's chest.
Kaneki, whose eyes had followed the girl's every movement, was more than prepared for the charge. He attempted to parry the incoming stab, but right as the blades were about to crash, Emma's blade was pulled back and her body suddenly slid underneath the swing.
The next instant, Kaneki found himself falling to the ground back-first as Emma popped up from her sliding position, caught his swinging arm by the wrist, and pulled him into a headbutt square on the bridge of the nose, which was then immediately followed up by a solid knee to the gut and throw over the shoulder. Each and every attack took a bit off his Aura gauge (which, to avoid the rest of the students knowing that he had no Aura, was being manually operated by Goodwitch on the sidelines via scroll).
The half ghoul immediately moved to recover a proper fighting position. The moment his back met concrete, he rolled forward and turned his body, using the momentum from being thrown to make sure he would end up facing his opponent.
Seemingly not willing to put the brakes to her sudden offensive, Emma very quickly pounced on her opponent, only managing to reach him as he was already partially turned around. It didn't catch Kaneki off guard at all, as his sword had already been put in motion for the intercept.
A loud clang and a lightning-quick push up later, the two began to throw swing after swing at one another, each swing resulting in the other blocking it with their own. The two continued on in this fashion for a full nine seconds, before Kaneki took a step to the left to narrowly avoid being tagged by Emma again and sent her flying toward a wall with a roundhouse that connected square in her sternum, causing a little more of her total Aura to diminish.
Unfortunately for him, the same story played out once again as Emma started to recover from the attack in mid-air. This time, however, instead of simply regaining her balance and landing like how any normal person would, she flipped herself backwards and, mid-flip, threw her rapier at wall she was heading towards tip-first. Then, right as the blade impaled itself firmly into the wall, she somehow managed to grab the handle of her sword and pivot herself so that she ended up sitting down perfectly on the blade at the end of the sequence. With her legs crossed regally and everything. All in one motion.
"Woah…" With one word, Ruby perfectly summarized Blake's thoughts on the matter, watching everything go down up in the bleachers.
Alright, correction, she's really, really, really good, Blake thought to herself. She had no sooner thought that then another flash of movement caught her attention.
It seemed that Kaneki had anticipated she would do something like that–although how exactly he managed to correctly predict something like that was something Blake didn't know, but would most definitely ask about later–and had thrown his own weapon at the girl, right as she finished the very apex of her pivot on her rapier.
This, however, didn't prove to be a fast enough reaction as Emma got a glimpse of impromptu projectile right as she finished with her little show of acrobatics. She leant backwards, lying the entirety of her back against her criminally thin weapon and just, just, avoided being hit. Kaneki's sword hit the wall and stuck, maybe one inch above Emma's chest.
It was now Kaneki's turn to aggressively go on the offensive. He shot towards where his enemy was being sandwiched between two deadly pieces of metal and jumped up to about the same elevation in which Emma lay, spinning counter-clockwise. Sticking his right leg out, he simultaneously lined it up with the space where his adversary was nestled in between.
Once again, Kaneki's attack fell short of reaching its mark. Emma rolled to her right and slipped from her spot lodged in between weaponry, causing the tip of the prior's foot to smash into wall–a strike with enough force that it made another cloud of dust and debris explode out into the air. Even their weapons, which seemed to be firmly lodged in the wall, came popping out due to the impact.
Unlike before however, the cloud created by the half ghoul's attack actually made it unbelievably hard to see the two combatants. The only thing that could be heard, even with Blake's superhuman sense of hearing, was the slight sound of them moving around inside the plume and then, eventually, metal clashing.
The two continued to fight where no could see them for awhile, but they eventually exited it. One of them (Blake was pleased to see it was Emma) was sent shooting outside it and was driven into the wall, most likely after having been hit. After such a hit, her Aura was in the low yellow, nearing red.
Emma attempted to force her way back up to her feet, but before she could, Kaneki appeared directly in front, sword in hand and tip pointed at her face. Two words left his lips, cold and deathly serious. "Yield. Now."
The two of them stayed that way for a second, simply staring at each other. Kaneki was glaring down as if what he was currently looking at resembled garbage more than it did a person. Contrastingly, Emma was staring up at her oppressor with a weirdly defiant smirk. Then, suddenly, there was movement.
A sudden grab of the weapon being pointed in her face. A pull and it was no longer doing so. Emma suddenly begins to stand. Arms suddenly wrap around neck. Distance between the two closes and everyone's eyes, except for the one who initiated the action, widened out of pure shock.
Suddenly, for some reason, Blake found that she was getting really, really angry.
If Neo had to name one thing that she had always wanted to do but never got the time to, kissing Haise would be the first. Now that it was finally going down, she couldn't help but feel happy, even with Haise clearly not returning the sentiment. She didn't think he would anyways, with him being so wrapped around that kitten's little paw.
His lips, despite being chapped to all hell, still felt softer than pillows made from the softest feathers of baby angels. That sensation alone sent an indescribable wave of pleasurable energy down the length of her spine as she sought to take back what was rightfully her's.
Haise was her's, and the pleasure she felt from so brazenly reclaiming him reminded her of that. Sure, she'd had similar encounters with other guys before, but that was different. They were nothing more than wanton trysts to cover up the inconsolable longing in her heart, to replace what she had lost, especially when she'd initiate such acts when she was right in front of him. She knew that now.
The almost heart-stopping amount of joy that ran through her as she further leaned into his chest told her that. The way the slight coffee taste on his lips made her feel as ravenous as a starved Beowolf told her that. The way her heart ached a little when he pushed her away only after a few seconds of contact with a powerful knee to her hip confirmed it. Immediately after, she was forced to keel forwards when he put a shin into her gut.
Seeing her former partner lift his leg high up for an axe kick, Neo rolled forwards to avoid getting her face sent into the ground, knowing that she was successful in dodging when she felt powerful vibrations course through the ground under her. Unfortunately, she lost her balance halfway through and and came to a dead stop right as she reached her back. She managed to do so just, and she really meant just, fast enough to see that, in a second's time, Haise had significantly closed the amount of space that was between them and was halfway through with bringing his sword down on the center of her chest like he was a man trying to split wood.
Fortunately, Neo had her Aura shields to protect her from dying because of the attack. Otherwise, there wasn't a single doubt in her mind that she'd be soon to be dead, instead of soon to be unconscious. Either way, she still let a grin cross her features.
Why the sudden joy at nearly being killed/actually being knocked out? Well, to put it in very simple terms, mission accomplished.
It was safe to say that, after what she just saw happen between Emma and her…her…her teammate during their duel, Blake was entirely and unabashedly angry with the former's actions. With good reason, too. To do something as low and disgraceful as forcing yourself upon your opponent mid-battle, just to gain the advantage on them… The very thought made an insatiable fire burn inside of her. The fact that the one on the receiving end was someone she felt was close to her didn't help her keep her calm either. Though, the fact that almost immediately after said event took place, the perpetrator had been knocked completely unconscious by said someone did help to soothe her anger a bit.
"Well…um, that happened." Yang sounded surprisingly serious, if largely confused (and maybe even a little embarrassed).
"Yes…" Blake trailed off, taking in a deep breath in through her nostrils to help calm her down. "…It did, didn't it?"
The breath hadn't helped a lot, but it did a little—
"Hey, I know that it's probably unnecessary to ask you this, but, uh… are you gonna be…okay?" Yang asked, doing so at possibly the worst moment ever. Blake felt all her hard work in getting herself to calm down spontaneously combust and turn back into a torrent of flames. "O-Okay, that's my question answered!" The blonde chuckled awkwardly. "I'm just gonna, uh, quit talking now."
After witnessing team RWBY's resident loudmouth be silenced without a single word being said to her, the rest of those around the steaming Faunus seemed to get the message and decide to not even look at her at the moment, lest they accidentally incur her wrath–which was a smart move, seeing that she had plenty of at the moment.
Dammit, just calm down already, Blake berated herself mentally as she tried once more to calm herself down with more deep breaths.
Blake never liked to feel angry. She understood why the emotion was necessary, being a former White Fang member, but that didn't stop her from disliking it now.
Anger was such an easy emotion to be consumed by. In a lot of ways, it was a lot like wearing a blindfold. When one wore a blindfold, they couldn't see if the path they were walking down was in fact the right one, if those guiding them were leading them astray, or if they were being taken advantage of.
Anger was all she knew for a lot of her childhood, but it most definitely wasn't the normal kind. See, to her, anger was the sort of emotion that was so broad in definition, it needed subsections to more accurately imply what people were dealing with. Just like all other words in general, the subsections for anger all had built-in positive and negative connotations. To make a long story short, the kind of anger she had felt back then, when she was younger, was the positive sort: outrage.
Blake believed it to be outrage because the word itself implied having been wronged in some way or another by some force or entity other than them themselves, and hadn't that always been the story of the Faunus–being wronged? When she was angry at the humans, she wasn't angry for just her own sake. No, she was angry for all of Faunus kind. Basically, to her, outrage was a motivator—a motivator to make the human race acknowledge her race as equal to their own and live in peace and equality.
One could live being outraged most of the time. Then, other positive emotions could come in and take its place once it left you–accomplishment or understanding, usually. To her, outrage was more like a blindfold created from a linen so thin, it was near see through. One was still faintly aware of what they were doing and could pull back right when they sensed themselves starting to cross a line they never thought they would otherwise.
That was different from the anger she was feeling now, however. No, this type of anger was far from the positive kind that made her want to stand up for her race at rallies and protests. It was baser, more primal and chaotic in nature. One that would most definitely lead to ruin if she were to allow it to command her blindfolded self. To be blunt with it, what she was currently feeling was fury. Not just any kind of fury however, no what she was feeling was righteous fury.
What was the difference between fury and righteous fury? Well, it was actually quite easy to explain. The prior was a powerful anger that was severely unfocused. One could know who exactly they were furious at, but even then, their anger was so great that they wanted to lash out at everything and anything. Now, that differed from righteous fury because the word 'righteous' prefacing 'fury' implied a sense of feeling right in a situation in which one was furious.
That was a dangerous game to play–feeling right about feeling furious. It left absolutely no room for backing out without some outside revelation telling you so. It wasn't just a blindfold. It was a blindfold and earplugs combined into a single, sense-obfuscating item.
That's why Blake was being so hard on herself at the moment. She couldn't stand that she would have the gall to feel so angry and so right at the same time.
Sure, what happened with Kaneki and Emma during their sparring match was something she was well within her rights to detest, but that didn't mean he had to feel so…right about doing so. The kiss the latter forced onto the prior had felt like a personal slight to her for some reason, despite there being really no way of her knowing about Blake's…feelings towards the half ghoul. Emma most likely only did it to get the upper hand on him.
Still, Blake couldn't help but think there was a sort of intent behind the action more than an underhanded way of winning a spar. It was completely and utterly irrational to think in such a way, but she did so anyways.
Ugh, forget about the kiss already, Blake groaned at herself as she lay the back of her head onto the trunk of the tree she was sitting beneath. Desperate for a moment's peace, she was currently located in the woods that sat between Beacon's main building and the cliffs that overlooked the Emerald Forest. Unfortunately, just mentioning it mentally forced the memory to the forefront of her mind. Dammit! Stop that! You have much bigger things to think about than a stupid—!
"—Blake?" The sound of the very last person she wanted to talk to as of the moment suddenly rang out through the once-still air around her, disturbing her peace in more ways than one. "Blake, I know you're out here!"
Keeping silent in hopes of him passing her by, Blake listened to the sound of the half ghoul's footsteps. Hearing them comforted her a bit. She felt like, because they were sounding in search for her and no one else, that she had won the day somehow.
Of course, despite her attempts at avoiding him, the sound of Kaneki's footsteps still managed to find their way over to Blake somehow. "Ah, I finally found you," he said with a relieved sigh. "I've been looking all over the place for—"
"—What do you want?" The question left her mouth much harsher than she intended, but despite that, not an ounce of regret welled up inside her.
"Blake—"
"—Kaneki, what did I tell you earlier?"
"Alright, I understand that you wanted to go and be alone for awhile, but I just wanted to—"
"—Look, you don't have to explain anything to me, alright? I get it. You have no idea as to why Emma kissed you. That's not even the reason why I'm out here to begin with anyways, so stop worrying. Trust me, I have much more important things to think about than something as trivial as that."
The air was silent for a little while, before Kaneki let out a sigh and shook his head in what seemed to be a disbelieving manner. Then, suddenly, he walked over to her, and sat down under the tree.
"What are you—?" Blake began, before being cut off.
"—You said you didn't want to talk to me right now, so I'm not going to talk. I'm just gonna sit here and wait until you're ready to talk," Kaneki stated, his voice containing a finality that just screamed that he wasn't going to budge on the subject.
"What?" Her head shot over to where he sat near instantly. "I already told you that I understand—"
"—No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about something else—something I know you'll find interesting." He scoffed as he continued. "Besides, I feel like I know you well enough to already know that you wouldn't be interested in talking about things like that."
"What are you talking about?" Blake couldn't help but be interested in her teammate's words. He rarely acted in such a way, so when he did, she couldn't help but become a little curious.
Kaneki's eyes hardened. "It has something to do with that group of transfer students," he said. "I'm more than sure they have some sort of connection with Roman Torchwick."
Blake's eyes went so wide they nearly popped. "Wait, what? How do you know that's the case? Actually, how did you even get that idea in your head?"
"That Emma girl… I—no, this body's previous owner has seen her before. That kiss reminded me of the fact."
Blake went silent. Her mind quickly went to work thinking about what that could possibly mean. Then, her widened eyes narrowed and she directed her gaze back at the ground as she realized who exactly he was referring to. There was only one person in the world that Blake knew Haise–the original owner of Kaneki's current body–knew and had direct ties to Roman Torchwick.
"Well, if that's the case, what do you suggest we do about it?" Blake asked, her tone turning one that resembled Kaneki's own. "We very well can't let finish doing whatever it is they have planned, can we?"
"No, we most definitely can't," Kaneki said, a hint of amusement in his voice. A loud crack then split into still the air, seemingly causing the woods to burst to life.
-Chapter End-
Hey guys, do you hear that? That sound? What do you mean you can't hear anything? I can hear it one-hundred percent clearly. It's the sound of KEN KANEKI SMASHING, BOI! OH I'M SO FUCKING HAPPY!
(Chyna here. Hoping Death leaves this in. As a fellow Tokyo Ghoul fan, I also wish to congratulate the man of the hour. You all better start calling him Alice, because he has gone down the rabbit hole.)