AN: People keep asking me when certain parts of the Yakuza series will appear or who the RWBY version of a characters is. Yakuza was the inspiration with bits and pieces for this story, but I don't want to simply adapt everything wholesale. I hope you understand and can enjoy this story nonetheless, even if your favourite part of the Yakuza series might not appear.
There are also some lore changes I've never clarified so I put some of the most important here (Also posted in the first chapter):
-This version of Remnant has no Salem
-Ozpin is a normal human being
-There are no maidens or relics
Felt motivated and healthy enough to pump out the next part. Hope you enjoy!
RWBY
Finding Yang turned out to be harder than expected for Ruby. Right on her sister's heels for several minutes, the smaller and less stamina focused girl had to take a break from using her speed semblance, landing on a nearby clearing in the forest and watching breathlessly as the distance between siblings grew every second. She had no idea where was in relation to her goal, too focused on the pursuit to take note of her surroundings.
All she saw was trees, grass and rocks in every direction with no discernable way to locate her position. That and a guy staring at her with his arms crossed and waiting to be noticed. Ruby recognized him from earlier on the cliff, the one eating candy and asking silly questions.
Ripped jeans with heavy boots and no shirt, using only a large tactical vest with dozens of compartments to cover up his chest. The most striking feature was the bright yellow mohawk on the otherwise short trimmed short hair.
"Uhm, hello? Russel, right?" Ruby said with a small wave, trying to smile under his scrutinizing gaze.
"Of course," 'Russel Thrush replied with a deep frown. "From all the hotties in the bunch, I get the little girl to deal with."
Her shyness evaporated into thin air. "Who do you call a little girl, meanie?"
"You obviously. You are like what, twelve?"
"Fifteen-and-a-half! And my name is Ruby. Use it!" Sparkling silver eyes glared full-throttle into his lethargic blue ones.
Seconds ticked away, her being determined to win the staredown and him not caring one way or another. At the thirty second mark, she realized what that eye contact meant for her further career at Beacon. The thought of teaming up with a complete stranger made her really uncomfortable.
Russel quickly diffused that source of anxiety. "Relax, before you get an aneurysm. I already have a partner, so you don't have to settle for someone like me."
So much for being a normal girl with normal knees and not coming off as an elitist snob. "I didn't mean it like that…"
"Sure you don't. I don't care either way."
"I'll be on my way then..." Ruby turned to leave meekly, sad to have made such a bad impression, when Russel already stood in her way as if materialized out of thin air.
"How did you...?" A glance back showed him standing at his old spot again. Wherever direction Ruby looked, Russel seemed to have already taken position to block her path. She noticed no sounds, flashes of light or anything else that would indicate how he moved instantly around the forest.
"Cardin wants you guys to stay away from the temple. So make yourself comfortable, eat some candy and wait until this whole farce is over."
"Not a chance!" Ruby drew her weapon and transformed it into melee configuration, ready to jump into action with a sense of relief. Fighting against becoming a hostage sounded way easier than solving this mess of a social interaction. A teleportation semblance was annoying but manageable, because he had to engage with her at some point and Ruby had the speed advantage.
A second later, the familiar weight of Crescent Rose was missing from her hands. Instead she held a chocolate bar, the wrapper already peeled back for her convenience.
"Kids shouldn't play with sharp objects. Have some candy." Russel hadn't moved an inch, now holding her pride and joy. The teleportation seemingly wasn't limited to himself but included other items as well. He eyed the scythe in his hand from all angles, giving up to figure out how the complicated contraption worked after a few seconds.
"Finish your meal. It's rude to waste food."
"I don't care about the stupid candy!" Ruby pointed the sweet at Russel like a dagger, glancing at the wrapper between glaring at him. "I hate this brand anyway! Too much nuts!"
The chocolate bar changed shape and size in an instant under her eyes, the wrapper showing it's new strawberry flavor.
"Better?"
"Yes, but that's not what I want! Give me back my Crescent Rose, you big stupidhead!"
She saw him repeat the name under his breath and began grinding her teeth together when the words 'edgy' and 'silly' were muttered as follow up. "Temper tantrums won't get you anywhere. Did your mother fail to teach you any manners?"
"MY MOTHER IS DEAD YOU INSENSITIVE FUCK!"
The outburst rang through the clearing, echoing through into the distance when even the crickets seemed to stop their chirping. Ruby considered herself a calm and forgiving person in most cases, far more affable than Yang or pretty much most of her peers. The one exception for this rule being people talking badly about her late mother Summer Rose.
As such, she didn't like the sudden smirk on his face.
"Look at it from the bright side," he began musing loudly, stroking his chin. "The dead parent is already one building block for a great superhero origin, unless her death was mundane like falling down a flight of stairs or peanut allergies. Might wanna keep the details vague in that case."
A strange and unfamiliar feeling took hold of Ruby.
"Bonus points if it stays thematically consistent and involves Grimm somehow."
It felt like anger, but it simultaneously felt a thousand times hotter and numbingly cold. She wanted to make his mouth stop speaking words, wipe the grin from his face in the most violent way imaginable.
"We never found out how…" she pressed out between gritted teeth, getting overwhelmed by the influx of murderous thoughts flooding her mind.
"Even better! The mystery keeps it interesting. You're so lucky!"
Another snicker was the last straw to make Ruby fly into a fit of rage and use her semblance to rush him as a petal vortex. Mid swing towards his head, all sense of forward momentum evaporated and she found herself face down on the ground with a mouth full of dirt.
Russel wasn't grinning anymore."Ok, the last part was in bad taste. I can admit that."
She touched her forehead and felt something sticking on it. A quick glance at the reflection of her scroll showed a large band-aid for kids, the cartoon drawing of an elephant across the whole thing. In less than an eye blink, Russel had stopped her attack, put her on the ground and stuck something to her face.
"Let's forget about the whole dead mother part. Not my best material."
Ruby pounced again and the maneuver ended in the same result. There wasn't even any sense of being moved, just one moment being midair ready to rain floral devastation upon him and the next laying in a heap of limbs on the ground again eating grass.
And another damn band-aid on her left cheek. A cow this time!
"Look, I'm sorry. Can we drop this before I run out of animal band aids?"
It felt shameful to be toyed around like a minor nuisance. This Russel guy hadn't even drawn a weapon yet and she felt already more defeated than any other time in her life. Could this be the power gap between her and all the other students at Beacon? Had the fight against Torchwick been a fluke?
"I just want to find my sister…" she said with a shaky breath. "And I want my damn weapon back!"
No semblance from Ruby this time, just a rage-filled swing with her fist towards Russel's face.
Once again, she found herself on the ground.
Ruby stood up and swung a fist. Back on the ground.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Ten minutes of repetition later, Ruby's clothes were dirty with earth and grass stains. Her hair looked disheveled and stuck to her forehead from sweating. Every free inch of skin was plastered with band-aids, a whole zoo of cartoon animals.
Russel sighed after looking at the messy state. "Just take back the damn garden tool."
Ruby felt Crescent Rose back in her grasp and tightened it around the shaft hard enough to turn knuckles white. "Why?"
"Because you sucked all the fun out of this. Besides, I'm pretty sure enough time has passed for my bet to get through."
The situation had calmed down enough for Russel to sit down on a rock. Ruby followed suit on a nearby tree trunk, happy for the chance to catch her breath again and inspect her precious weapon for damage. Once this was over, she needed to look seriously into gaining more stamina.
"What bet?" she asked, conveniently finding a bottle of water next to her for a quick sip.
Russel had a bottle on his own. "We bet on who will end up with Jaune. I think Nikos will win, Dove locked in the Schnee, Cardin chose you and Sky put his money behind the blonde bimbo."
Ruby sputtered into her bottle."That's my sister Yang you're talking about! She's the greatest!"
She received a shrug from the boy. "Bimbos can be great too. Don't be a bigot."
"You're kind of an asshole," Ruby said, slapping a hand over her mouth in shock. She couldn't remember ever swearing that much in a single day.
And the day had barely started!
"Razor sharp deduction skill, Detective Obvious." Russel shot back, amused by Ruby's horror about her newfound tendency for profanity. "Do you want a cookie for that revelation?"
"What kind?" Ruby asked, looking down due to the new weight of an appeared red box in her lap.
"I only have store-bought."
Ruby recognized the brand. These were expensive. Russel knew his way around sweets.
"It will suffice." Eager fingers ripped open the package to get some chocolatey goodness. After a small cookie break the world would look much better. Between two bites, Ruby stopped to listen. "Do you hear that music?"
Both looked up towards the north when the beats of high energy techno were getting louder and louder in the distance, her expression full of confusion and his with great annoyance at the increasing audio spectacle.
Russel changed position to the top of a tree to get a better look. "Sky's having fun already."
Ruby rather stared directly at him, focused to finally get any inkling how his trick worked. She inwardly groaned when he teleported back to his earlier spot and her none the wiser, but the deciding piece of the puzzle came from listening to the music again.
Something felt off. "Could I get more water?"
Russel shrugged and made her hold a new bottle, but unbeknownst to him, this had been the last demonstration Ruby needed to figure it out.
"This isn't teleportation. You're messing with my senses."
"How do you figure?" Russel asked with intrigue, genuinely curious about her line of reasoning.
"The music gave it away. In an instant, the vocals and melody from the song have skipped forward. You somehow mess with my perception."
"Close enough," Russel grumbled, miffed that she figured it out but also not really concerned about her being able to capitalize on that knowledge. "My semblance shuts down all senses. The body can't compensate for the gap when they return and seamlessly continues from the last point it received sensory input."
That sounded simple enough. It explained how he could move around or put things in her hands without getting detected. Russel only moved when he had turned Ruby off. She understood the basics, although some parts needed further clarification.
"Then how did I end up on the ground? Did you push me over?"
The interest in his ability was a refreshing experience, so Russel decided to humor the girl and elaborate. "There are more senses than the basic five. Senses tell if you're balanced or where your limbs are on your body. They tell you if you're moving, in pain or help you track the passing of time. Turn them all off and you become a breathing meat puppet without any coordination."
Ruby blinked twice. "I stumbled over my own feet?"
"Pretty much? Momentum and gravity did the lionshare of the work though."
She mulled this new information over. "Thats…"
"Less impressive? More mundane than expected?"
Disappointment was a common theme among people hearing about his semblance. Everyone always jumped to time manipulation or reality bending, incapable to fathom being bested by something so simple like getting put into standby mode.
"Amazing!" Ruby stepped right into his personal space with sparkles in her eyes. On instinct he used his semblance again to gain distance, making her squeal in delight and chase him around.
"What's its drawback? There has to be one!"
"Any kind of serious damage ends it prematurely. Now stop running at me before you hurt yourself!""
"That's it?!" Ruby gaped at him in disbelief from the ground after another tumble. "No limited uses or time limit?"
"Nope." Russel said with pop, but thought about other weaknesses. "Although I have to see my targets or they have to look at me, so a blind invisible person could mess me up pretty bad. That counts right?"
"Barely!" Ruby threw her hands in the air. "You're practically unbeatable!"
"Now let's calm down for a second. I'm not that great." A blush grew on Russel's cheeks and Ruby deadpanned at the sheepish boy. For all his bravado earlier, a simple compliment almost made the cool facade crumble like one of her cookies.
"You could have easily glued grenades to my body instead of band aids, poisoned the cookies right between bites or changed the water to battery acid. How's that not completely busted?"
Russel paled from the mental image. The little girl wasn't as sweet and innocent as the cutesy exterior would have you believe. Cardin had been less than happy to get the little runt from the lot of candidates because of last pick. After seeing her grit firsthand today, their leader might have pulled the secret favorite to win this whole thing.
And the Emerald Forest had ample opportunity to prove it.
"We have company."
One glance south in the opposite direction showed Ruby what Russel meant. They weren't the only ones alerted to the noise, growls and movement getting closer towards the clearing. Grimm stepped into view between the treeline in big enough numbers to make Ruby doubt if she could handle them all on her own.
She looked towards Russel for feedback. "Do you want to do something about this with your freaky powers?"
His eyes scanned the pack of monstrous creatures drawing closer."I forgot to mention another drawback. My Semblance doesn't work on grimm."
She could agree about this limitation being a problem. An ability completely useless against the most common enemy of your trade didn't bode well for future success or present survival.
"Follow my lead. On three."
Despite that, Russel seemed unaffected by the bad odds. The guy practically exuded confidence from every pore during his exaggerated warmup stretches in front of the Grimm.
"Three!"
Ruby heard the call and found herself alone, Russel already ten steps behind her in full sprint. It dawned on her where the remaining count had gone and ran after him into the woods in full escape mode from the pursuing grimm.
"You chickenshit asshole left me behind!"
"It was only two seconds! I need the head start!"
"EAT A DICK!"