A/N: Rewritten parts + the ending due to personal dissatisfaction. Apologies for any inconvenience caused!
Were Blake not there to guide them, Yang would most likely spend several hours being completely lost and only admit to that fact when they had passed the same landmark six times. Fortunately she was, and they made good progress following her through the trees, though the closer they got the less they needed her guidance, as the smell drifted on the wind like a carpet. It filled their nostrils with the vile stench of death, and although Yang and Blake had stomached it once before they still felt sick as the disgusting stink assaulted their noses.
Ruby and Weiss were much less prepared for it, and even though Weiss gagged and held a cloth to her nose, she held her guts. Ruby was far less composed about it. Yang watched with mild horror as silver eyes bulged to match her cheeks, rapidly realizing that Ruby was about to be sick on the spot. She shared one quick glance with Blake and Weiss and guided her sister as fast as she dared towards the trees, knowing full well that the sight of Ruby throwing up would most likely start a chain reaction.
Though neither of the remaining girls wished to imagine Ruby like that, it was hard not to as the sounds of violent retching reached their ears through the trees. And though they both tried not to think about it there was little else they could do. Weiss still held her cloth over her mouth for insurance, while Blake twisted her face into a frown only to wait for the end of the sickening sounds. The heiress turned to face her teammate and opened her mouth to speak, but she was interrupted by another heave from the bushes that sent her face an even brighter shade of red than before. She managed to swallow the lump in her throat and continue, though her voice was distinctly strained.
"How much further?"
Blake didn't answer with words, instead holding up her hand and pointing behind her, a sign which Weiss correctly interpreted as 'Five minutes, that way.' She nodded, somewhat dreading exactly what Yang and Blake had actually found, especially if this repulsive odour was anything to go by. A corpse? It certainly seemed that way, a thought only reinforced as she caught the faint but very solid buzzing of what she assumed were flies coming from the direction Blake had referred to.
Several minutes passed by and the noises of Ruby throwing up dwindled in both quantity and violence, until finally the two sisters slowly made their way back to their partners with their appearances earning them mixed responses. Weiss bit back a gasp of shock at the colour Ruby had taken, now so pale she could comfortably pass for being dead. Her eyes were heavy and her face miserable, a picture so pathetic is physically saddened Weiss to even look at her.
Yang was a little less drained, though she was noticeably less cheerful than before. Blake gave her a brief but warm smile, knowing that it can't have been easy to watch someone dear to you go through something as she had just done, especially as there was nothing she could have done about it but support the girl and give her reassuring words. It never really ceased to amaze Blake just how much Yang cared for her little sister, and while she questioned her own actions, she still took comfort in that fact.
They waited a minute or two for Ruby to recover as best she could before Yang gave Blake the go-ahead to take them further. None of them spoke after that, with Rubys outburst rather setting the tone quite low despite their knowing it wasn't her intention in the slightest. As Blake parted the fronds of a particularly large fern to let Weiss pass, she couldn't help but smirk at the heiresses immediate reaction to the strange sight that filled her eyes. That smirk only grew at hearing Rubys initial gasp of surprise that rapidly turned into one of awe and excitement, the girls cheer overcoming her sickness in a heartwarming change of emotions that took less than a second.
Yang brightened up a little at seeing her sisters enthusiasm, and while they kept their pace slow Blake could see the spring returning to their steps. She took one look at Weiss, who was still staring at something she couldn't quite make heads or tails of and hid her smile as the girl began to move. She turned to question Blake about this...thing in front of her, but only received a passing glance as the girl moved forward to follow the sisters. Weiss held her breath against the smell and followed, a little intrigued but suspicious at just what the two of them had found.
Ruby felt sure that she could've bounced on the spot with excitement but she didn't try, instead pointing with her free arm at pretty much every detail on the body that she managed to spot in her wild fervor. She had twigged pretty quickly that this was the corpse of a Deathstalker, but Yang couldn't tell if she knew the significance of the find beneath her childish eagerness. She decided to leave the thought for another time, and instead concentrated on answering the various questions Ruby blurted out one after another in her happiness.
"Is that a stump? Was there a leg there? Did something tear the leg off? Where is it now? What could have done that? Are those claw marks? Bite marks? Do you think it put up a fight? How cool is this? Can we take it back? What if I took a photo?"
Yang laughed, briefly halting the onslaught of questions from her sister to receive a quizzical stare.
"Yes, that's what remains of a leg. Something probably tore it off, it probably did put up a fight and no, we can't take it back!" She replied, unable to keep the joy out of her voice. Ruby pouted, feigning mock offense to which Yang nuzzled her cheek.
"Tell you what, if you sit still I'll see if I can find any bits of it that are lying around. Deal?"
Ruby took a second to think, nodded once with that overexcited grin plastered to her face and allowed Yang to ease her to the ground. She sat with her injured leg outstretched and her good one bent under it for support, waving to her sister as she left and turning back to the corpse in front of her, her eyes widening yet again. It was just plain cool.
Yang pushed her way through the bushes and began her search, deciding that settling on a twenty metre radius wouldn't be too difficult to cover in thirty minutes or so. She reckoned that if what she think had happened here was true, any body parts that were left would be tossed aside in a fit of rage, and so just by chance she might trip over the brilliant yellow stinger of a Deathstalker. It would be a strange thing to come across without a doubt, but it would make for the best present to Ruby short of...
She paused briefly, guilt quickly tightening her chest in its grip. She shook her head, deciding not to dwell on the thought and instead turning her attention to scouring the vegetation at her feet for anything that could constitute as 'awesome'. Yang knew that Ruby wouldn't be any the wiser if it came from a Deathstalker or a Nevermore, it could have been a particularly interesting rock for all she cared. As long as it looked cool, Ruby was happy. She could be so simplistic sometimes, but Yang had grown to understand that underneath her childish exterior and bubbly yet socially defunct personality there was a true warrior. She was calm in the heat of battle, she was incredibly skilled with her weapon and very fast on her feet - qualities that helped her get to where she was today, of that Yang was completely sure.
It was no coincidence that Ozpin agreed to let Ruby join his Academy two years early, but as much as Yang wanted to believe that was simply because of how naturally talented and gifted Ruby was, she couldn't help feeling the slight twitch in her stomach that told her this was a lie. Ruby was undeniably skilled, that was true. Ozpin probably saw it, that was true as well. But that wasn't why he accepted her, and that didn't feel right at all.
But why else would he? Maybe Qrow had told him about Rubys past, she just didn't know. Yang never got to meet Rubys mother, but if the cold refusal to talk about it was anything to go by their relationship was not a pleasant one for her to think about. Yang had given up trying to find out after seeing the tears building in her eyes, and instead vowed never to mention it unless Ruby asked her to.
That, amongst other things was one of the reasons Ruby grew to trust Yang like a sister, having rejected every friendly advance up to that point. She was always a quiet and lonely girl, and although she seemed to have broken out of her reclusive shell somewhat when she joined Signal, Yang could never quite shift the feeling that she was always forcing herself to interact with people, like she didn't really want to.
It was as though she would rather spend all of her time alone with her weapon than with other people, and from what Yang could gather Ruby was only truly happy when she was with her sister or her uncle. Everyone else she made herself put on a false front for, and Yang was sure she would sooner tell them to go away than to try and make friends. Of course, the situation at Beacon meant that she didn't have a choice but to try and be sociable, and while Weiss was by no means the easiest person to get along with Yang could tell she really did care for Ruby, even if it was only on a necessary basis.
Blake kept to herself, and though there didn't seem to be any hostility between the two girls there certainly wasn't any positive growth. Blake accepted that Ruby was her leader and was content to leave it at that, despite Yangs wishes that they at least tried to become friends. She so desperately wanted Ruby, and Blake for that matter to open up a little more as they were both severely lacking in the friend department. Although now that she thought about it, so was Weiss. Of the four, Yang seemed to be the only person who was physically able to make friends with more than a few exceptions, as Jaune had been for Ruby.
The two leaders day-one friendship helped to concrete the relations between the teams, and while Weiss was only interested in Pyrrha for her own agendas, Blake seemed to bond with Ren in the same way Ruby did with Nora and Jaune. Yang was fine not having a JNPR-partner, she knew that all of them would have her back if she asked them to in a heartbeat. Which in a rather morbid realization is more than can be said for her own team...
Ruby would leap at the chance to defend her sister, no doubt about that. Weiss would most likely only act out of the obligation of being a teammate, or perhaps to keep her partner happy but she would never do it out of the kindness of her own heart. If she possessed any of that at all.
On the subject of partners, there was Blake. Yang still wasn't quite sure what to think about her. Despite the recent moments they shared together, Blake remained largely a mystery. Yang didn't know where she came from, who she was affiliated with if anyone, or even if she had any friends before coming here. Nor did she know her past, or even her favourite colour. Even though Weiss refused to talk about her personal life there was still something to learn about her, but with Blake there was nothing. She turned up, passed initiation and was made to be a part of team RWBY.
The only thing Yang had managed to learn about her was that she grew up in a place similar to Forever Fall, and that at some point during her childhood - or maybe even her teenage years, something happened to drastically change her view of things. It didn't bode well as Yang recalled the underlying darkness in her partners words, especially when she remembered what Blake had said.
'The real world is not the same as a fairytale.
I made the mistake of trusting someone blindly because I thought they believed in the same things I did.
They lied, but I was the fool.
I've done terrible things, and I paid the price.
I was left with nothing. Everything I had was taken away and there was nothing I could do about it.'
In that moment, Yang was not with the cold, observant introvert who preferred a book to socializing, instead she was with the tormented girl who had suffered greatly for her mistakes and still did even now. It still hit her as a shock today, and while she knew that if she brought the topic up again she would be swiftly put down, the words they shared on that night were genuine, every single one of them. They were there for eachother, and the sooner Blake warmed up to that fact the sooner Yang could set about mending her partners wounds. She couldn't sit idly by while Blake was harbouring memories and feelings as painful as they appeared to be, but despite her recklessness she knew that Blake would open up in her own time and - as much as it pained her to admit it - there was no way at all that Yang could speed that up.
She sighed to herself, dragging her feet through the loose grass and leaves that littered the forest floor. There didn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary here, but once she started looking it became clear that something had happened around the area, and taking the nearby corpse into consideration, - of which she was reminded as the stench hit her like a wave - it was probably related. The earth was churned up beyond recognition at certain areas, conforming with her initial theory of a battle. She circled the clearing in a wide arc, switching her attention from body parts to more hints as to exactly what happened.
Sure enough, there was a fallen tree blocking her path that seemed familiar somehow. She checked the stump to find that it had been snapped backwards by an immense force, with splinters and dirt covering the ground around the base. She could very easily picture the cause in her minds eye, a swipe of the Deathstalkers pincer or even its tail could easily sever the trunk, she had seen the strength of those Grimm at initiation. While chasing Pyrrha it had smashed aside dozens, probably hundreds of trees as it pursued the young huntress through the forest. But as strong as it was, it didn't seem to be the strongest creature in the Emerald Forest anymore.
Another fifteen minutes of more fruitless searching passed, and while Yang found neither limbs nor anything to give to her sister in the earth, she did return to find Weiss seated next to Ruby and Blake carefully observing the tail stump, scrutinizing the wound with a nearly comical level of detail. Yang walked quietly to her partner, mindful of the two girls on the opposite side of the Deathstalker corpse talking in low voices about something or other that Yang couldn't quite hear.
Blake greeted her with a nod and pointed to the black flesh without giving her a chance to speak, voice riddled with intrigue.
"Look at this. The tail has been ripped off but amidst the tension marks there are these much larger, conical marks in the skin."
Yang leant in to inspect what remained. Blake was right, there were bigger holes that ran through the ripped edges.
"And." Blake continued, showing Yang what she was referring to while she was still looking at the marks. "They form a pattern, two rows on opposite sides. One facing down, and one facing up."
Again, she was right. It didn't appear to look like it at first, but Yang could see what Blake was referring to once she pictured it in her head. She turned to ask the question they were both thinking.
"Teeth marks?"
Blake nodded, the meanings behind their discovery affirming their suspicions beyond a shadow of a doubt. Something had bitten and tore the Deathstalkers sting off from its body, and most likely did the same to the missing leg and severed pincer. They shared an apprehensive glance and turned their attention to their teammates, watching as Weiss moved into their field of view with an unusually somber expression on her face.
Yang instantly felt her heart sink and her pulse quicken, and as she and Blake closed the gap she noticed the serious tone in Weiss's hushed voice with a rising horror.
"She's in pain. It's time we go back."
Weiss was unusually solemn in her speaking, a fact which only served to steel Yangs resolve. Blake too found it a little unsettling, though she was sure that Ruby would be fine.
Yang nodded once, rushing past the heiress immediately to aid her sister in an almost blind dash to the thing that mattered the most to her. Blake watched her leave, glanced between Weiss and the corpse and made after her partner, reminding herself that she needed to speak with Yang before Ozpin got ahold of her.
The only difficulty would be in getting her alone.
They left the clearing in a careful rush, each one of them taking extra care to make their journey as painless as possible. Blake scouted the path ahead for any obstacles that would otherwise cause problems for Ruby while Yang and Weiss carried their leader along, neither of them caring about the others intrusion of their personal space. All that mattered to them both was that Ruby got back to Beacon as quickly and as safely as possible, everything else was secondary to her recuperation.
Yang did her best to concentrate only on their footing, though beneath her immediate concern lay a simmering sea of guilty emotions and regrets that was only amplified by the pained whimpers Ruby let out through gritted teeth. Her injury was flaring up much worse than any of them expected, and as much as she didn't want to worry her teammates she knew that her current situation wouldn't be helping that case at all.
Instead Ruby kept quiet, feeling a pang of relief that all four girls shared at seeing the rockface rise above them. This part would be the hardest, but they were all determined and made it up in a little under an hour, although Ruby was physically exhausted by the time the terrain levelled out. Weiss too was almost completely drained but she refused to show it, any weakness now would only harm her image and her team. Yang didn't feel any different than before, entirely set on the task at hand with her usual perseverance. She could feel the strain on her back as Ruby clung on as hard as she could, and she could also tell that Weiss was tiring herself out.
She didn't have time to say anything about it, but Yang was immensely grateful for both Weiss and Blake being in their team, as she knew that both of them cared a great deal for Ruby - as they had shown in the past few hours.
The four trudged through the Eastern Entrance and made straight for their dorm, the few students they met along the way giving them a wide berth as they saw the clear pain Ruby was in. Blake opened the door to let her team pass and closed it behind her, watching Yang gently set her sister down on Weiss's bed as the heiress straightened her back. The fatigue was evident in her eyes, but her grim face made it plain that she was worried. Blake settled down on her own bed after fetching Ruby her bag of items and waited.
It had been an interesting day.