"Where'd Weiss go again?" Ruby asked for the eighth time that day.
"To Vale, Ruby." Yang replied.
"And why didn't she tell me herself?" She asked also for the eighth time that day.
"Because it was sort of sudden." Yang replied. "She said she forgot her scroll in our room and didn't have time to go grab it."
"O-kay…" Ruby turned away from Yang in frustration. As her sister, she knew when the blond was lying somewhere in her story, but what part of the story she was lying about she couldn't tell. Or maybe she was lying about the whole thing but Yang had the story fairly well done in comparison to the usual mess. The problem was, Yang was honest whenever she asked any other questions about specifics, meaning she could also be just as clueless as she was.
It was Saturday, and that meant they only had four days to crack the contract. One of which was apparently going to waste since Weiss was off shopping or whatever it was that she was doing in the city. But Ruby wasn't going to give up that easily.
"Blake, can you help me after class again?" Ruby asked as they headed to lunch.
"I already told you I would." Blake replied from behind a new book.
Ruby nodded more to herself than anything as her mind wandered desperately through the dozens of clauses she'd memorized as well as those she could recall hearing about from the others. Ruby knew there had to be a way out somewhere in that mess of a contract, but where that out was, she could only guess.
"Where are you going?" Yang called from somewhere far behind her and she spun. Yang was standing by the door to the cafeteria and Blake was beside her. Ruby looked around and found that she'd walked right past as if she was on the way to Winter's room.
"Actually, I'm not feeling well." Ruby lied. "I'm going to take the afternoon off, so I'll see you later."
"Bye." Blake waved and walked past Yang into the cafeteria.
"Hey!" Yang called but Ruby was already gone, her semblance leaving a trail of rose petals as she fled. "RUBY!"
"I have doubts that your sister can hear you at the moment." A voice spoke suddenly.
Yang spun to find herself facing the headmaster of the school. "Oh, sorry."
"No need to apologize, but perhaps I came at an opportune moment." Ozpin mused. "After all the damage you did to the faculty's office, I found myself wondering what made you throw your teammate's older sister so hard?"
"Uh… we had a bit of a fight." Yang explained, wondering not if she was in trouble, but how much trouble she was in.
"That much I managed to fit together, oddly enough." Ozpin replied with a smirk. "How is she doing?"
"She's fine, and we've managed to come to an understanding." Yang played it off with a wave of dismissal.
"I'm glad to hear it." Ozpin nodded, prying no further. "So in the case of your sister… I believe the person she needs right now isn't the one she thinks she does."
"Um…" Yang hesitated, confused at the headmaster's statement. She thought and then it clicked. "Right!"
"Then I'll take my leave and ask that you try to leave this school in the state you found it in." Ozpin smiled as he continued into the cafeteria. "Though I won't hold my breath."
Yang spun to see the very last of Ruby's rose petals blow along the hall as the ventilation swept them along. She started walking again, but soon found the trail go cold where Ruby had obviously decided to move at a more human pace.
Yang thought of all the places she would be and only two popped into her head as likely. Their dorm or Winter's dorm. Yang knew Winter was being transferred out of the school and into the care of her family at any minute now, and hoped that she'd keep her silence at least long enough for Weiss to do her thing.
They'd ended up speaking to each other far into the morning about their respective sisters as a way of bonding. Yang had found out about some pretty interesting stories from when Weiss was first learning fencing or when she'd get a new dress. In the process, Yang was able to gauge how Winter saw her sister, and how much she cared for her. In return, Yang had talked about Ruby's childhood and the things she used to do. In some ways, Winter seemed shocked about some of the things they'd done but Yang was quick to point out that they weren't supervised the entire time.
In the end, Winter seemed to accept Yang as a fellow big sister if nothing else, and Yang couldn't complain one bit. They'd already told each other how far they'd go for their siblings in the form of a fight, and now had an understanding that they'd work to make them both happy as long as they made each other happy. Yang couldn't argue with that logic, so they found themselves working for the same goal. At least for the time being.
Yang snapped out of her thoughts as she opened her own dorm. No Ruby. Yang suddenly had a bad feeling as she saw a shadow flit past the window. She snapped her gauntlets on her arms and rushed out of the room and up to Winter's.
As she climbed the stairs the sound of a large explosion echoed from above, ripping through the building and shaking the dust free from the ceiling. She came out on the top floor and heard several gunshots from farther down the hall.
She burst in the closed door of Winter's room just after another shot sounded loudly from the other side. The door frame shattered, sending wood splinters into the scene in front of her as it came into focus. Ruby seemed frozen in shock as half of the roof and far wall seemed to have been blown out behind her. But the real focus wasn't the hole in the wall or Ruby. It was the lone bullet frozen in ice that was plucked out of the air by none other than Weiss Schnee and then thrown from the building.
Weiss looked from Ruby to her sister and then to the fourth person in the room. She could be fairly certain it was an assassin hired by her father. His whole body was currently encased in a thick, frosted layer of ice from her rapier that she'd just managed to use right as he pulled the trigger. A millisecond later and Weiss didn't want to think of what might have resulted from the delay.
She tossed the bullet out the window and bent down beside Ruby who looked up at her. The fear still evident in her eyes.
Yang watched their lips meet, the feeling of unease that had been present at her house over the holidays remained, but now she found she was more happy than anything that Ruby and Weiss were partners.
"Sorry I took so long." Yang spoke up once their kiss seemed to start heating up, interrupting them. "Weiss, does this guy mean anything to you?"
"No, why should he?" Weiss asked indifferently.
"Great. Because he tried to shoot Ruby." Yang cracked her neck as she tried to keep her anger in check. "He's going to hope he doesn't thaw before Ozpin gets here."
Weiss simply nodded as a slight cracking noise rang out in the room, making Yang spin towards the encased assassin. Weiss dove to cover Ruby as the ice around the man's wrist started to break and another shot shattered the remaining ice off his weapon. Yang unleashed a powerful punch at the center of the block of ice, preventing another shot from ringing out as the gun was dropped. The man cracked into pieces at the hard impact while he was mostly frozen and Yang looked down at the red liquid that slowly spilled from the pile of ice and blinked. "Didn't see that coming."
"Nice, Yang. What did you think would happen?" Weiss scoffed as she passed to the door with a bag Yang hadn't noticed before. "Actually, never mind. Just know that I am definitely not cleaning that up. I'll see you later Ruby, I still have a few things to take care of and I'll meet you back at the dorm."
"Sure thing, Princess." Yang saluted as she left. Yang turned to a still slightly shell shocked Ruby. "How you doing sis?"
Ruby seemed to finally take notice of Yang and the otherwise empty room and that's when it happened. All the stress from the contract and the lingering shock from the assassination attempt doing what very few things had the power to do. The one thing Yang hated more than anything else. Ruby started crying.