"I thought that class would never end." Ruby sighed as she sat down at the cafeteria table. "I thought I enrolled for Chemistry, not pointless lectures on how he did got his masters."
"It wasn't that bad Ruby," Weiss sat next to her, placing her tray down as she spoke, "Professor Port is a... riveting teacher but his information on Chemistry is great."
"Yeah, when he finally gets around to it." She placed her head on her arms and puts her hood over it, "What's next?"
"I believe that after lunch, everyone that applied for combat classes goes to the Sparring Hall,"
"Wait really?!" The brunette shot up with excitement.
"I do believe that we bring our custom weapons as well."
"After lunch we have a short amount of time to collect our weapons from our rooms in case anyone forgot," Blake joined in as she sat across from Ruby and Weiss.
"Hi Blake!"
"Hello Blake." Weiss followed up, "Where's Yang?"
"I believe she's still in line for-"
"Somebody called?" Yang plopped down next to Blake, "Sooo do you think that we're going to spar today?"
"It could happen but the chances so far are somewhat low." Weiss turned towards the excited red koala, "Speaking of which, what is your weapon?"
"Uhm...," the redhead suddenly became very quiet.
"What is your weapon Rubes?" Yang raised an eyebrow at her, "Even at home you kept your weapon a secret, from me and dad."
"I-I'll show it when it's complete." She looked away in embarrassment, "It's not done ye-"
"What do you mean that it's not complete?" Weiss glared at her, "All students must have their weapons fully complete and customized before even enrolling into the combat classes."
"Listen, I'll explain everything later okay?"
"You better keep your word Ruby," Weiss turned back towards Yang and Blake, "Should we start heading towards the training hall?"
"We should," Blake stood up with her bag on her shoulder, "See you in the hall Ruby."
"You too." Ruby stood up and walked towards the exit.
The training hall was filled with many students all ready with their weapons and armor. The sparring ring was shaped similar to a coliseum, a large arena in the middle with stands surrounding it from all sides with a huge holographic display overhead. Ruby sat away from most of the students feeling slightly unprepared as she was still wearing her school uniform while everyone else was changed into their armor. She got a couple of strange looks from the students around her, some she can barely hear talking about her. She was slightly wishing that she wasn't there, maybe she should just leave? No that would add to the commotion, should she just stay and watch? She was lost in her doubts until she felt someone tapping on her shoulder, she turned to expect another student but sighed in relief as she saw that it was Yang.
"You okay Rubes? You look a little pale," Yang was dressed in her biker's jacket and her very familiar golden bracelets.
"I'm fine Yang," She answered quietly, "I just feel out of place here."
"Don't feel too bad, many of the students here are also very nervous too," Weiss cut in, "Anyway does anyone know who's the teacher for this class?"
"I heard that the teacher is Goodwitch," Yang looked around for the blond instructor but couldn't find her.
"This is going to be interesting," Blake said in an irritated voice as she stared across the room, everyone followed where her eyes were and were annoyed with what they saw. Ruby and Yang both recognized the group of bullies that they met on the first day, all wearing armor that resembled knight's armor but with bird insignias on the chest piece.
"Great, they're in the same class with us?" Yang huffed as she sat down.
"Wait are they..." Weiss looked at all of them with confusion as she sat next to Yang.
"They're the ones who bullied Ruby and another student." Yang answered.
"Really?! Ruby was bullied by them?!" Nora popped up from behind them, startling all of them.
"Sorry, Nora was with us then she suddenly ran off." Ren followed behind her with Jaune and Pyrrha in tow.
"Hey Ruby? Why aren't you in your combat outfit yet?" Jaune looked at her to see that she was still in her school uniform with her bag next to her feet.
"I'll tell you after class okay?" She looked back towards the arena and saw that Miss Goodwitch was standing in the center looking straight at her.
"Miss Rose, you are excused." Glynda signed something on her scroll before looking up again at her.
"Bu-but," She tried to speak up but Glynda held up her hand to stop her. With a defeated sigh she exited the training hall, stirring up commotion behind her as she closed the door.
"Looks like the little girl couldn't handle playing with the big kids."
"You have to feel bad for her, getting mixed up with the advanced students."
"Do you think that someone else's transfer papers got mixed with hers?"
Yang could barely suppress her anger as everyone kept on talking about Ruby, her eyes changed from lilac to blood red and her hair looked as it was slightly burning. She almost lost it until she felt someone wrapped their arms around her.
"Yang, don't do it." Weiss was hugging Yang hoping that it would calm her down a little, "You know more than everyone that Ruby wouldn't want to come back with her sister in detention or worse expelled."
Yang looked at her for a moment, then towards the gossiping students for one last time. Her breathing returned to normal and her eyes changed back to lilac. "I swear that if I matched against them in the pit, I'm going to break them."
The group relaxed as they thought that Yang was going to jump out at the crowd, Blake looked towards the exit then back towards the arena as Glynda got everyone's attention.
"Alright settle down everyone, as most of you already know welcome to the combat course." Glynda typed something on her scroll, turning on the holographic display behind her. "For this week you'll be choosing your sparring partner, you may change partners whenever you want only once per day."
Glynda waited for everyone to quiet down again before resuming, "Before we get started I would like two volunteers to help demonstrate."
"I'll go, some people need to be put in their place after all."
Glynda straighten her glasses as she looked between he scroll and the student, "Cardin Winchester, is that correct?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Okay then, who would lik-"
"Ooh, ooh me pick me!" Nora waved her hand.
"Nora Valkyrie, alright then you two get ready and we'll start the sparring session."
Cardin and Nora both stood at the opposite ends of the arena from each other, both haven't looked away from each other's gaze as the timer was ticking down. Nora held a grenade launcher while Cardin was wielding his dust mace.
"Don't think that just because you're a girl that I'm going to go easy on you." Cardin shouted from across the arena.
"Please, you probably can't even kill a baby Beowulf." Nora retorted.
Both of them kept on glancing between the timer and each other, waiting for the buzzer to start the duel. As the timer hit zero, Cardin immediately rushes forward, sidestepping to avoid Nora's grenades. Nora shot twice at him only for him to dodge out of the way. Cardin slowly closed the gap between them and in no time he was almost in striking distance.
"You're mine BI-" He was cut off as he felt the air get knocked out of his lungs. Cardin was flung across the arena crashing against the wall, everyone winced at what they were seeing. Cardin used the wall for support as he was recovering from the last attack.
"As you can see students, each individual has their own level of aura as shown by Miss Valkyrie and Mister Winchester." Glynda pointed towards the projection revealing that Cardin's aura level has less than half remaining. "Your aura absorbs most of the damage, not counting elemental damage. Once your aura enters the red zone you lose, Miss Valkyrie if you would."
"With pleasure!" Nora wore a huge grin while wielding her Warhammer.
Cardin raised his mace trying to think of a way to counter her, in a desperate attempt he struck the ground hoping that some of the debris would hit her as he closed in, but Nora used her hammer to slam back the debris at him with one piece hitting him square in the face. Cardin's aura level dropped into the red as he slumped to the ground, signifying that the match was over.
"Thank you Miss Valkyrie, now then students." Glynda refreshed the projection and repaired the arena in record time, "Which pair would like to go next?"
"That was the most entertaining thing I've ever watched," Yang chuckled at the sight of Cardin being flung off into the distance by Nora's hammer.
"It's a shame that we couldn't do it ourselves." Weiss added, "Next time he volunteers, one of us should beat him to a pulp."
The trio were walking back to the dorms, with JNPR following behind them.
"He had it coming." Blake commented as she pulled out her scroll.
"Did you see the look on his face when I slammed him with my Magnhild?!" Nora was hopping up and down.
"Pretty hard to miss." Pyrrha chuckled as she remembered the sight.
"Do you think that he'll hold a grudge?" Jaune asked.
"Probably, Oh! Maybe we can break his legs."
"That would probably get us expelled Nora." Ren added as he swiped his scroll over the door lock, opening it in the process.
"Alright take care you guys." Yang waved them off as they disappeared into their dorm.
"That went rather well, in addition with an interesting show at the beginning." Weiss stood next to Blake as she opened the door to their dorm, "How do you think he'll recover from that?"
"Give it time, he'll probably make up a lame excuse for it." Blake stepped into the dorm, noticing how nothing was changed from when they left in the morning, "Hey, what happened to Ruby?"
Both Weiss and Yang stepped into the dorm looking to see if the brunette had left any indication that she left or not.
"Huh, did she leave a note," Yang checked her bed for a note, then checked Ruby's if she left her bag, "Did she go somewhere?"
Weiss knocked on Ruby's workshop door, not receiving an answer for a while, she knocked again but with no avail. "Should we call her just in case?"
Blake pulled out her scroll and began scrolling down her contacts list, she sighed in frustration as she put it down. "Did anyone get Ruby's number?"
"Let me chec- nope," Yang checked her scroll, rechecking her contacts list again, "I think we forgot to-"
"But she's your sister Yang!" Weiss spoke up.
"Hey, I forgot that they gave us these school-issued scrolls." Yang answered back.
"Should we go look for her at the very least?"
"We should wait, she's old enough to look after herself. Maybe she's talking with Professor Ozpin or something." Blake chimed in.
"But what if she's-"
All three girls were startled by the sudden knocking on the door.
"Uhh, is this Blake's room?" A male voice echoed from behind the door.
"Should we open the door for him?" Yang asked.
"Could you please open up? These boxes are gettin-"
"Yang! Weiss! Blake! Can you open up?! My arms are getting very tired from carrying these boxes." Ruby cut in.
Blake made her way towards the door and opened it, only to be greeted by a familiar blue-headed boy. "Hey Neptune, what's with the-"
"I was- helping her," He strained to tell. Both Ruby and Neptune placed the boxes near Ruby's workshop which when they dropped the boxes, they made a loud thump.
"Whew, thanks Neptune. Hey where's Sun?" The brunette looked around for the monkey Faunus.
"He probably got lost on the way here." Neptune wheezed as he placed his hands on his hips trying to breathe, "Ruby what are in these boxes?"
"Various parts for something, I'll tell you later."
"Alright, I'm going to look for Sun. Take care." Neptune stepped out of the room leaving the redhead with her roomates.
"Soooo Ruby," Yang spoke up, "Where were you?"
Ruby jumped at the mention of her name, Yang would normally use her nickname and only her actual name in serious moments. "Umm, I was at the forge when I left."
"Uh huh, So who's Neptune?" Yang kept her gaze on her.
"He asked if I was the one who helped out the Faunus on the first day-" She was sweating nervously thinking that if she said something that her sister didn't like she would be in danger of invoking her sister's wrath, "-And his friend, Sun might have mentioned Blake…"
Blake's ears twitched at the mention of her name, she looked at the nervous girl then looked away trying to hide the blush that had formed. Weiss looked at Blake in confusion, but pawned it off as she turned towards the nervous-wrecked redhead. "And what happened next Ruby?"
"I-I asked them if they could help me move these parts to the dorm, because when I left I had a lot of time to spare so I started forging the parts that I needed for my weapon but I made all the parts for the blade and trigger but it was too heavy to carry on my own an-"
"Rubes, stop rambling." Yang ushered her to stop and take a breath, "Okay so what you told us so far is that you asked them for help to carry your stuff back to the room afterwards correct?"
She nodded in reply.
"Okay, then I have no problems with them." Yang looked at the boxes that were stacked against Ruby's door, "Did you really need help to carr-"
"Yes, I do. Not everyone has crazy brute strength like you Yang."
"Jeez Ruby, what's in these boxes?" Yang picked up both at the same time, not even straining to carry them.
"Weapon parts for my weapon, could you leave them by the workbench?"
"Sure," Yang stepped in the room with Ruby in tow, leaving Weiss and Blake alone outside.
"What kind of weapon would need that many parts?" Weiss asked the raven-haired girl, "I mean, smaller weapons would use smaller parts like daggers or pistols right?"
"It could be a sniper rifle, most small hunters or huntresses would use a sniper in contrast to something that hits light."
"It could. But what sniper would require all those parts?"
"That is something I don't know." Weiss looked like she was going to ask more questions until both sisters exited the workshop with Yang having a shocked expression on her face.
"Yang?" Weiss asked as she waved her hand in front of the brawler's face snapping her back into reality, "You okay?"
"I have seen things that would make even the third-years envious of," Yang whispered, "And that it's in the hands of the world's youngest student."
Both Blake and Weiss stared at her in confusion until they heard someone knock on the door again.
"It must be Sun, I'll get it." Ruby said as she walked towards the door. She opened the door and was greeted by a very familiar monkey Faunus.
"Hey Ruby." He groaned as he was still carrying the box, "Could you take this for me?"
Ruby took the box off of Sun in which Sun sighed in relief, "You know you have to show it to me when it's finished right?"
"I am, and so to all my friends too." She waved him off as he left the room, then she turned towards her roommates once more, "Okay, I'll start at the beginning. Do you remember when I was excused from the training hall?"
She waited until both of them nodded in reply before continuing, "Well I'm excused until the end of the week so until then I have to finish my weapon."
"But how did you even get enrolled without a weapon in the first place?" Weiss looked at the younger girl in confusion.
"Well," She paused for a while, "I- may have gotten involved with stopping a heist at a weapons convention earlier this year."
"You mean Techcon that happened last month?"
"Didn't the police take care of the robbers though?" Blake asked as she tried to recall the news report.
"Kinda… I was there with my weapon at least in it's prototype stage. I was originally going to meet up with one of the experts on weapon transformations or rifles but-"
"The convention was attacked and criminals were trying to steal Atlas Weaponry." Yang finished the thought.
"Exactly, most of the people there were running as the Atlas robotics were being destroyed by them. I would've joined with them and ran but-" She looked towards the ground for a moment before returning their gaze, "-so many people got hurt and no one was doing anything about it. I stopped running when that happened, I looked back and pulled out my barely functioning weapon and tried to save as many people as possible."
"Was Ozpin there when it happened?" Weiss asked as she was trying to put the pieces together, "Is that how you got in?"
"No, no. Ozpin wasn't there at the convention when the attack happened. It wasn't for a while until Miss Goodwitch showed up and helped resolve the situation."
"So how did you meet Ozpin?" Blake questioned.
"Afterwards I was pulled away from the reporters by Goodwitch and later talked with Professor Ozpin which then I was offered the chance to enroll here." She sighed for a moment then looked back at the three girls. For a while they all stayed quiet until Yang finally broke the silence in the room.
"Hey Rubes, Jaune and his friends invited us for coffee in a couple of days. Wanna come along?"
"Is that what she said?" Pyrrha looked at the blond brawler with an eyebrow raised.
"Yes, she said that she needed to complete her weapon before she can relax. Otherwise she would have to drop the combat class." Yang answered back after sipping her espresso.
"It's amazing how determined she is at staying in the class," Jaune replied as he gave Ren and Nora their beverages.
"If anything I think that she's overworking herself," Weiss spoke up, "For the past couple of nights, she's been staying up while trying to finish it."
"Really? She should at least get some sleep. If she keeps this up she might suffer later in the future." Ren followed up.
"We've been telling her that, but she still stays up." Blake recalled all the times the they all told Ruby to go sleep.
"If she's taking so much time to finish her weapon, then what is it? I want to know!" Nora chirped.
"We don't know, she never mentioned what it was to us. Do you have any clue what it is Yang?" Blake looked at the blondie but she sighed as well.
"Don't know, the only clue that I know of is that when we picked up Ruby from the convention she was holding a huge broken sickle."
"She uses a sickle blade?" Jaune asked.
"Maybe, that's the only clue that I have."
"Is that's why she isn't here? She's still in her workshop?" Ren questioned.
"Yep," Yang took another sip of her espresso, "When do you think that she'll be done?"
Hopefully soon
Blake thought to herself.
Almost there-
Ruby had assembled most of the scythe, fully assembling the head of the weapon and the rifle had been fully tuned out. The only problem at the moment was the transformation process between the compact mode and the fully extended mode. After it transformed once it locked itself into place and couldn't transform back without maintenance. She replaced the bolts and checked the joints for any jams or if it got stuck but couldn't find anything. She sighed as she slumped back into her chair, looking at the clock on the wall.
5:46 pm
She sighed again as she rubbed her eyes. For the past couple of nights she lost lots of hours of sleep due to the construction of Crescent Rose and it finally felt as those lost hours are taking effect on her.
I'm never going to get this done in time
She shook her head, trying to think of what to do next to solve the issue but with no avail.
I should probably get some rest, maybe I'll get this done with a clear head
She stood up and made her way towards the door, she struggled to open the door for a moment and when she turned the knob she felt everything around her go black as she felt like she was falling.
The dorms were quiet during this time, most of the students were usually out at the forge or studying at the library. In Blake's case she wanted to sharpen her weapon and clean the chamber in her pistol due to yesterday's sparring match. She vaguely recalled Yang mentioning that Ruby was great with weapons and maintenance.
I wonder if Ruby could help with the fine-tuning
She had gotten a couple of glances from Weiss and Noraas she left early to ask Ruby while Yang had a strange grin on her face as she left. Blake finally arrived at the door, giving the door a small knock. She waited a moment before knocking again to get the redhead's attention.
Is she out right now? Or is she still working in the workshop?
Blake swiped her scroll and stepped into the room closing the door behind her.
"Hey Ruby can I ask y-" She stopped mid-sentence and dropped her stuff off to the side as she ran towards the collapsed girl on the floor. Blake turned Ruby over so that she was laying on her back and pressed her head against the brunette's chest. She sighed in relief as she heard her heart breathing and Ruby taking shallow breaths. Blake scooped up the young girl in her arms and carried her over towards her bed, laying her down gently. She looked back at Ruby for a second then shut the door to her workshop behind her as quietly as possible without disturbing the sleeping girl, she pulled out Gambol Shroud from her bag and started dismantling the weapon. Blake didn't know how long she spent in her workshop sharpening both blades or cleaning out the barrel and chamber until she heard the door behind her opened up.
"Little busy right now Weiss, or Yang," She didn't look back as she lifted up the frame of Gambol Shroud, closely examining the connector for the blade and pistol for any dents.
"Oh sorry for bothering you," Ruby began to close the door, "Yang told me you wanted help but-"
"Shouldn't you be in bed? You were passed out when I found you earlier on the floor." Blake continued with her work.
"I know, but I thought-" She paused for a moment taking a small breath before continuing, "I thought you needed help, maybe I should g-"
"Wait!" Blake quickly turned around to face the her, startling the redhead before she shut the door, "Um, could you help me with this?"
Ruby looked at Blake for a moment before giving her a small nod. She closed the door behind her as she made her way towards Blake, "What do you need help with?"
Blake laid down the rest of Gambol Shroud on the desk, pointing towards the pistol grip and the foldable katana blade, "The pistol and the blade were acting up for the last couple of days, I think there's a problem with the connector as it would slightly jam before folding properly."
Ruby picked up the grip and examined it properly, then she picked up the blade and tried to connect them. Blake flinched at the sight of Ruby struggling to assemble it, she usually wouldn't let other people touch her weapon but in this case Ruby was the exception if she would trust Yang about her being an expert at weapons. Ruby finally understood the mechanics and effortlessly connected them together, she pulled back the chamber noticing the slight resistance. Ruby quickly disassembled the connector and carefully examined each piece before she opened up a tool box. Blake watched as she was
already putting the finishing touches to the sword before handing it back to Blake.
"There, should be fine now." Ruby slumped back into a chair in the corner.
Blake examined the connector carefully, looking for what she changed, then she tried switching Gambol Shroud into both pistol mode and sword mode not even feeling any resistance. "Thanks Ruby."
"Anytime, glad I can-" Ruby stopped for a moment with a blank expression on her face then it lit up with a huge smile on her face, "Oh my Oum- thanks Blake!"
Blake looked at her in confusion as she saw her get up from her chair and towards the door, "Wait, what did I do?"
The redhead stopped at the door and flashed a smile at Blake before she exited, "Something was on my mind earlier and this helped solved the issue!"
Blake sat there in confusion as she watched Ruby leave, still trying to process what had just occurred.
"You seem awfully chipper today Ruby," Weiss and Ruby were walking through the hallway towards the Sparring Hall, throughout the whole trip Ruby was bouncing up and down in excitement.
"How can I not Weiss!" Ruby took out a lump of black and red metal that was attached to her belt in which Weiss stared at it suspiciously, "I can finally use my Sweetheart now!"
"Sweetheart? Don't tell me that you named it that."
"Of course not, so did I miss anything important for this class?"
"Well, besides the interesting performance in the being of the week all we did was choose partners in the arena and sparred against them."
"So nothing that important?" Ruby asked.
"Pretty much, come on we're going to be late if you keep on slowing us down."
"You're the one who proposed that we leave a couple minutes early during lunch, if anything we're going to be the first ones there." She groaned.
The rest of the trip was done in silence as they made their way into the Sparring Hall, the room was mostly empty as they entered with only a handful of students were present with Miss Goodwitch standing in the center of the arena.
"Ah, Miss Rose." Glynda's attention focused on the young student as she looked away from her scroll, "I take it that your weapon is complete?"
The brunette nodded in reply as she pulled it out to show to Miss Goodwitch.
"Splendid, Miss Schnee take your seat." Glynda typed on her scroll, bringing up the holographic projection above them with Ruby's profile in the left box. "Miss Rose you will be sparring in the first round, is that okay with you?"
"Y-yes, I'm fine with it." She tried to sound as confident as possible.
"Alright then, take your seat," Glynda said as the bells rang overhead.
Ruby made her way towards Weiss, taking a seat beside her. A couple of minutes had passed with students filling up the Sparring Hall, she spotted Yang and Blake giving them a wave as they looked their way. Eventually they all sat next to each other with Yang and Blake sitting behind Ruby and Weiss.
"So Rubes, you're going first?" Yang looked uneasy at the second empty box, imagining what opponent would she be against.
"Yep! I wonder who it's going to be." She also stared at the empty box along with Yang.
Blake was about to comment as well, but she stopped as her ears picked up on some of the conversations around them.
"Look, it's her again."
"Is she going to run off again?"
"Does the little girl think that she's grown up to be with us?"
Blake was going to keep quiet and ignore all of their comments about Ruby until a loud obnoxious voice boomed over the rest of the conversations.
"Hey everyone look! It's the little red brat who thinks that she's the teacher's pet!"
Some of the students laughed along with the person who shouted, it was no surprise when Yang and Weiss turned their heads they saw the very familiar grayish armor with Cardin in it.
"Everyone settle down," Glynda hushed everyone before looking back to her scroll, "Cardin Winchester, would you like to volunteer to spar against Miss Rose?"
"Sure I'll do it, so as long as she could handle a hit."
Weiss, Blake, and Yang glared at the idiotic student until he disappeared into the locker room, afterwards they turned their attention to Ruby who kept a blank face as she also made her way towards the locker room.
"Is she going to be okay?" Blake turned towards Yang who also had a concern look in her eyes.
"I don't know, we'll just have to wait and see."
Both Ruby and Cardin stood in the arena on opposite sides watching the timer ring down, Cardin was wielding his signature dust mace while Ruby still hasn't pulled out her weapon. She felt everyone looking at her, but she blocked them out as the timer was reaching the single digits. Cardin was wearing a stupid grin on his face as he spun his mace around in circles while Ruby wore a deadpan expression as she kept her right hand on her weapon behind her. As the timer buzzed, Ruby jumped back and extended her weapon into a sniper rifle, taking shots at Cardin while he tried deflecting a couple of them. One shot landed hit dead center in Cardin's chest causing him to sidestep to avoid a couple of shots, Ruby kept on firing while dashing around to avoid him getting closer making sure that she wouldn't be cornered as well. As Ruby tried to reload, Cardin slammed the ground causing a blanket of dust to form and cover both of them.
"All that suspense and her weapon was a sniper rifle?" Weiss spoke up as she tried to examine the battle through the dust cloud.
"It could also be something else." Blake responded, "The rifle did have a huge underpart."
"But what could it be? Most sniper rifles are limited with the weapons that they can transform into."
"Who knows maybe we'll see," Blake refocused on the fight as someone jumped from the cloud and onto the side of the arena.
"Nowhere to go, no one to help you this time brat," Cardin stepped out from the dust cloud, cornering Ruby who was looking for any possible escape routes past him. "Why don't you just give up and lose already."
Ruby suddenly stopped looking around and instead glared directly at Cardin, she loaded a new magazine with a cross symbol on the side and pointed the barrel behind her. In a flash she shot the wall behind her, using the recoil from the sniper to propel her at Cardin who was ready to swing the moment she got into range. Almost everyone looked away as they expected Cardin to slam his mace against the young student except for Weiss, Yang, and Blake. Everyone jumped as the room was drowned out because of the sound of metal clashing against each other. When everyone looked back, some gasped before the sight before them while the trio were left staring in awe of what they witnessed. As Ruby shot herself towards Cardin, her sniper rifle turned into a black war scythe with red tint. Both Ruby and Cardin struck each other's weapons but just as Cardin was about to recover, Ruby pressed the trigger on the hilt knocking Cardin off of his feet with the impact of the blade. He tried to swing at the her as he got up by immediately his legs were swept from under him and winced in pain by the impact of the back of her scythe slamming into his chest as he hit the ground. In a desperate attempt to flee from her, he slammed the ground again and hid in the dust cloud as Ruby jumped back from the impact.
"Tsk, always making things so difficult," She whispered to herself, she eyed the dust cloud looking for any signs of movement. When she spotted something move in the corner of her eye, she shifted the blade of the scythe to point upwards as a crescent spear then dashed at the earlier movements. She swung her scythe in a 180 degree arc, catching the poor boy on the other end and slamming him against the arena wall. As he tried to regain his footing, Ruby shot him square in the chest knocking him over and bringing him aura down to the red.
"And the match goes to Ruby Rose, maybe next time you fight someone closer to your level Mister Winchester" Glynda reseted the holographic board and looked back towards the crowd of students, "Whose up next?"
"Oh my Oum! I didn't know you had a weapon like that!" Nora kept on looking between Ruby and her scythe that she had completely extended and sitting on her lap. "It looks so cool!"
"T-thanks Nora, it took a while to construct it."
"How did you build it? Did you do it by yourself?" Jaune remembered the sniper completely transformed itself into a scythe in a blink of an eye then afterwards turned itself into a compacted lump of metal.
"It took a while to completely finish it," She recalled all the sleepless nights she endured to finish the prototype, "Afterwards it was easy to complete the finished model."
Jaune looked like he was about to go on until Pyrrha interrupted him with a question of her own.
"Where did you learn to fight like that?"
"Oh! That's easy, my uncle Qrow taught me at a young age and at Signal Academy before I enrolled here."
"Interesting, maybe we can spar against each other one day."
"Sure thing! Looking forward to it." Ruby closed up her scythe and re-equipped it to her belt as she left the Sparring Hall. She stayed behind to fulfill the promise with Nora about showing her weapon while the Blake, Yang, and Weiss went back to the dorm. The hallways were mostly empty as most of the students should already be back in their dorms or were out on the campus, she quickly made her way back to the dorms only to find the room mostly empty with only the raven-headed girl on her own bed reading with a stack of books beside her.
"Hey Blake!" Ruby closed the door behind her and scanned the room for Weiss or Yang before looking back towards Blake, "Have you seen-"
"They left a while ago, something about wanting to show Weiss a store or something." Blake didn't take her eyes off of her book as she responded.
"Oh, think they would be okay?"
"Who knows? Though Weiss certainly had an interesting face as she was dragged out."
"Really? I'll have to ask Yang how it went then." Ruby went into her workshop and mounted Crescent Rose on the wall, afterwards she jumped onto her bed and buried her face into her pillow. She stayed like that for a while before turning over onto her back and pulled out her headphones from her bedside drawer.
"Hey Ruby, why did you thank me yesterday?" Blake asked before Ruby began playing her music. Amber eyes drifted from her book as she looked at the redhead for answers, Ruby chuckled nervously at first before she replied.
"Well um, I had trouble finishing up Crescent Rose and... afterifixedyourweaponitthelpedmerealizewhereimessedup," Ruby mumbled at the end of her sentence.
"Oh, I didn't realize."
"Yeah, after I figured it out I kinda was too excited to fix it. Sorry for leaving without an explanation like that."
"Ruby I'm not mad," She placed her book on the side and placed her hand on her shoulder to reassure the nervous brunette, "Besides you finished it right? No more worrying about dropping out."
Ruby looked away from Blake for a second, then deciding on something then out of the blue pulled Blake into an embrace, "Thanks Blake, you're a great friend."
Blake sat there in shock, trying to process what was occurring at the moment. She returned the embrace and was very thankful that Ruby couldn't see the blush that had formed. "Anytime Ruby."