Chapter 7 – Kombat Klass
It was like Professor Goodwitch was on K's side. The first day of classes, she announced that she would be pairing up every student with a partner from a different team and having them spar in front of the entire class. The teacher was doing so in order to assess their level of combat competency, which just so happened to perfectly align with K's goals. If they could filter out the strong from the weak, they were one step closer to narrowing down the list of suspects.
"K. Remember," Ilia had said when they were alone before class. "Our main interest is our leader, her sister, Weiss Schnee, the Invincible Girl, and Jaune Arc, whose last name I remember."
"And Goodwitch, right?" Adam had asked.
"Yes, but she's a world renowned professor of the highest ranked hunter academy on the planet. I think it's safe to say she has the skill to kill a specialist."
The first pair that got called up was Sky Lark of Team Yellowjacket and Russel Thrush of Team Sword. Their fight was one of the shortest she'd seen in a while, and it was also the least meaningful. Russel Thrush was easily the more skilled combatant of the two, but he wasn't skilled enough to be the one they were looking for. His daggers and Lark's poleaxe might have been the right sort of weapon for the job, but they were just…too…
"Neither packs a real punch," said Adam aloud. As long as they didn't mention their particular interest in the other students, there was nothing untoward about critiquing their combat styles. Even Ruby was listening in. "They're both competent and could cut through waves of Grimm, but neither utilize any finishing moves, special abilities, heavy hitting attacks. They just parry and thrust and block and do basic maneuvers until they get a lucky strike in and whittle down their opponent's aura. Thrush is light on his feet, but he fights too defensively. He should focus on pressing ahead on the rare occasion he gets an advantage, but he always pulls back in fear, or perhaps overcautiousness. And Lark? Exceedingly reliant on his semblance, to the point of obsessiveness. He'll never be a real fighter until he shakes that habit."
"I think they're pretty good," said Ruby, frowning at the ruthless assessment.
"They're good, but they're just good. You need to do something great to win a fight," explained Blake. "For instance, Adam might wait until the perfect moment to unleash his semblance, or I might leave a clone and sneak up from behind. You have a scythe, but you don't just stab at your opponents with it. You flourish it, then you do a combo move, then you use your speed for a finisher. Those boys might have the basics down, but they clearly haven't explored their full potentials, and it's hurting them."
Lark won the match, despite being the inferior fighter. It didn't matter to Blake, though; the two of them were male human chauvinists with couldn't fight worth a damn, so they were pretty much interchangeable.
"Would Jaune Arc and Blake Belladonna please come to the stage?"
"Kick his butt, J– Blake!" cheered Ruby.
"You got it, boss." Privately, though, she exchanged a glance with the others. While it was probably in her power to easily end a fight, she would drag it out for as long as possible to give them a full view of Arc's fighting style, weapons, and semblance. If she could force him to use any mech-shifting or Dust capabilities, that intel could be invaluable.
The boy standing across from her was scraggly, tall, and dressed up in shining armor that was scattered over select body parts. His sword was absolutely the right shape for a decapitation (and yes, Blake was fully aware that most weapons tended to be, but not all of them – Lightning Lash's lack of a sharp edge would have immediately discounted Ilia, had she been a suspect), and his shield seemed comically oversized. Truth be told, he looked more like a kid dressing up as a knight to go hunt-or-treating on Huntoween than an actual armed warrior.
"The name's Jaune Arc." Blake desperately wanted to tell him to shut up, but anything he said to her could be a clue. After all, if he was the one she wanted, he had no idea that she was the one he wanted.
"Jaune Arc?"
"Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue. The ladies love it."
"I…see."
She actually did not see, but now wasn't the time.
Goodwitch waved her magic wand, and a buzzer rang. "You may begin when ready."
The battle began, and Blake quickly discovered that she was, in no way, ready. What happened in that fateful duel was incredibly painful for Blake. The agony, the sheer suffering that she had to endure…never again. Never again would she face someone at the level of Jaune Arc.
And by that, she meant no level. Not level 1. Not even level 0. He fought at level - ∞. Instead of assessing the situation like Blake might have, Jaune rushed in sword first. That in and of itself wasn't the foolish part; many fighters used blitz tactics, overwhelming the opponents with a sudden rush of aggression. No, the foolish part was how Arc had literally held out of sword straight in front of him like a javelin or a lance when he charged. Unless Blake had stood still, the attack was impossible to not avoid. Jaune had even closed his eyes as he charged.
Jaune then made the expert move of trying to body slam into Blake, who was now on his left, using his shield as a battering ram. After she'd kicked off of his shield and flipped backwards, Blake took the opportunity throw the cracked half of Gambol Shroud as a kama in between Jaune's legs. She hadn't found time to repair it from the damage it had sustained during initiation from that crocodile thing, but it still worked as a grappling hook with the intact ribbon. The weapon snagged around his right ankle, and Blake pulled him to the ground when she landed.
Arc lifted himself to his feet and turned his shield into a sheath. Blake observed the mech-shift with minimal attention; such a feature was more or less useless in actual combat. Regaining his footing, the boy gripped his sword with both hands and jabbed at Blake wildly. Oddly enough, his form was not like that of any swordsman Blake had ever seen. He solely attempted to skewer her with the point of his blade, ignoring the sharp edges entirely. It honestly seemed like he hadn't practice with these weapons ever before, given that he was treating them both like…something else…
Wait…
It has to be him!
Well, at least Adam knew for sure that it wasn't Jaune Arc. No human, Faunus, or Grimm on Remnant could be weaker than him. Adam had seen infants in the SDC camps with more coordination. Blake won the fight with ease after slowly chipping away at his aura. While he certainly appreciated the effort she'd taken to draw the match out for as long as possible so he and Ilia could watch from afar, Adam had been sure after the first two minutes. No, the first two seconds.
Blake sat back down, her eyes swimming with eagerness to say something, but there were far too many eavesdropping ears to even whisper it. He made a mental note to find out what she'd discovered or realized later.
The rest of the class fought one another, but only a handful stood out.
Yang Xiao-Long's duel with Cardin Winchester placed her at the top tier of fighters in the class. It also disqualified her as a suspect entirely. If she was that talented with her fists and gauntlets at the young age of 17, there was no way she also had enough time in her short life to master an edged weapon. Yang could probably have killed the specialist if she'd wanted to, but she wouldn't have been able to cleave his neck with those gauntlets of hers. Blow it off, sure, but not evenly slice it. Adam had asked his partners, and Blake and Ilia both remembered that she didn't even bring a secondary weapon during initiation.
Pyrrha Nikos fought some human male from Team Sword. It was impossible to tell the boy's skill level, as Nikos steamrolled him without breaking a sweat. It was more or less as he'd expected. Even in the White Fang, news of the legendary tournamenteer was never out of earshot. Were she the murdered, it might actually pose a problem. Adam felt that K could probably handle most enemies in a head-on fight, but she would be a test of their mettle. Ilia would probably have to use one of Lash's greater chambers.
Adam and Ilia had fought two generally unimpressive huntresses. Well, Adam would admit that the duo were acceptably talented for their skill level, but neither was at the level of the Faunus spies they had fought, nor were they present in the portion of the forest at the particular time of interest.
The first day of school had been an extra long one, for the sole purpose of allowing all students a turn in the ring. Thus, when only two remained, it was clear that they would be paired up with one another.
"Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee, please join me on the combat stage."
This was it. The most significant match of the entire day, between the most motivated potential culprit and the most likely potential culprit. Adam leaned forward in his seat in the bleachers.
Rose poked Adam in the shoulder and offered him a lopsided grin. "I guess it's my turn. Team Rabies represent, right?"
"Hmmm."
"…yeah. Wish me luck."
"Hmmm."
"A-Adam?"
"I already said yes. Now go – they're waiting for you."
Ruby frowned like she'd just sucked on a lemon. "K."
There it is again. I know it's most likely an innocent coincidence, but I can't help but worry she's mocking us, rubbing in what she knows when she's fully aware that we can't move against her. I hate this. I hate being powerless and unable to change that. I take it back about Nikos – this is worse.
Adam had to touch his hand to his back pocket to calm down, where the knife and the chess piece resided. Ruby, utterly unaware of the true significance the letter she so carelessly threw around held, marched on down to the stage to face off against the bitch. Schnee herself was receiving such a loud cacophony of cheers from her teammates that Adam had half a mind to shout some sort of encouragement, if only to make it clear that the audience's favor did not belong to Schnee entirely.
"Ugh, you. The pest who tried to blow me up on the first day."
"I said I was sorry!"
"Oh? And did you make any attempt to atone for what you did? I lost several thousand lien worth of Dust that day. A debt that still remains uncompensated, I might add."
"Well, I…I don't have much money. My family isn't filthy stinkin' rich like yours. But hey – you're got billions of lien, right?! Isn't that small loss of Dust just a drop in the ocean compared to your family's wealth?"
The comment only set Schnee off further. "It matters not whether I am moneyed or not. The principle remains the same!" Adam also figured that she was no longer nearly as rich as she once was. Previously, the SDC had been a steady source of income. She could spend freely and know that the losses and more would show up fully replenished in her family coffers the next day. Now, even though her fortune had been returned and she was a billionaire once more, any money she used was gone and never coming back.
"I…I guess I'll look into getting a part-time job…"
"Hmph. You had better. I shall send you an invoice."
"You may begin whenever you two are finished with…" Goodwitch paused and seemed to try and find the right words for their bickering. "…whatever this is." The buzzer sounded.
Weiss summoned a barrier in front of her in the split second before Ruby dashed towards her. Adam had sparred with Winter enough to have a complete understanding of Glyphs as a semblance, and he internally winced as Ruby banged her head into one at speed. That Glyph had been a support Glyph, as opposed to the three other types: summoning, projectile, and enhancement. Its sole purpose was to imitate a brick wall, and Ruby had dashed into it at full tilt.
Adam's l̶e̶a̶d̶e̶r̶ teammate reacted quickly, hooking her scythe just onto the rim of the Glyph and propelling her entire petite body over it with a sniper blast. She was clever enough to realize that the Glyph was nothing more than a brief stalling tactic, and her astuteness was paid off with a free hit at a vulnerable Weiss Schnee, her rapier mid-transition from one type of Dust to another.
Adam checked the aura board. Both girls were rather flimsy, their combat styles tailored to high damage rather than endurance fighting, but he hadn't realized just how light Weiss really was. Schnees typically had enough aura to use their semblances just as much as any other hunters, but only assuming that they entirely ignored the main purpose of aura, using it as a shield. In theory, the best way to operate under such poor circumstances was to focus everything on rapidly overwhelming your enemy with versatile Glyphs and not taking a single hit. Backing off to act as support was also an option, though Schnee was doubtless too proud to be a background character on her own team. Either way, she would not be able to risk taking a single hit.
Winter was smarter than that. Winter trained herself and her body every day to the brink of collapsing, and as a result, she was muscular enough to fight on par with a hunter even after her aura had broken. She was one of the only humans Adam could respect. It was actually ironic, when Adam thought about it – he hated nearly every human on the planet, but two of the four people he trusted more than anyone belonged to that accursed species.
James was clearly at the top of the list, but perhaps he trusted Winter as much as Blake and Ilia, if not even more. After all, he'd never shared the true meaning of the items in his calm down kit with either of the Faunus girls from K. Also, with Winter, he…never mind.
Focusing back on the fight, he saw that Ruby was engaged in close combat with the Schnee, and neither had a clear advantage over the other. Ruby didn't have the personal experience with Schnees that Adam did, so she had no idea that she needed to limit the Glyphs by either disarming Weiss or breaking her aura. Without a training rapier to focus her Glyphs, Weiss would be toast. An alternative to victory would be to outlast and exhaust her, but that was for a powerhouse of stamina like Adam, not a lithe reaper like Ruby.
The girls were both at ease with their weapons and threw attacks back and forth with–
Wait, shit! I was supposed to be watching for the Marrow thing! I got distracted thinking about their semblances and all that other stuff!
The fight was nearly over (both girls were in the low yellow), so Adam turned his brain back on and rapidly tried to catch up on his analysis. Ruby he had already seen fighting Grimm in the Emerald Forest, and his initial assessment seemed mostly correct: she was not built to fight people. Her attempts were admirable – impressive even (for a human), but she was having trouble avoiding the ranged ice projectiles. Still, the agility with which she moved and the ease with which she manipulated her scythe translated into any form of combat, regardless of opponent. She could cut down a person just as easily as a Beowolf, and perhaps she had.
The Schnee…she was a good fighter. Not as good as Winter, certainly nowhere near as good as Adam, but good in her own right. But her rapier was made for piercing and penetrating, not slicing heads. Of course, she could have used a Dust attack or a Glyph to do Marrow in.
It changed nothing. The intense motive alone was enough to justify an assumption of Weiss Schnee's possible guilt.
Ruby won.
Adam couldn't fit it in himself to be proud for Team Rabies.
"Professor!"
The other students had cleared out of the classroom, but Ilia lingered. K had decided in advance that she would be the best person to approach Goodwitch, as only she had seen her in the forest.
"Miss Goodwitch! I was hoping to ask you something."
"Miss Amitola. How may I help you?"
"Ummm, it's about initiation."
"Abou– ah. This is related to the crocodile Faunus you encountered, then?"
Ilia hummed in approval. While it would have been best to let that monstrosity fade away into obscurity and avoid drawing any attention to them, Ruby would find it weird if it hadn't been reported. They needed her compliance for now, especially since she'd admitted to having the headmaster's ear.
"I was just hoping to ask…" Ilia feigned ashamedness by looking to the side of the room and kicking at her ankles. "…d-did we do the right thing?"
"It sounds like you acted in self defe–"
"No, I mean – should we have ever even approached her? I know you said, rather the headmaster said that we weren't supposed to ask for help during the initiation, but I can't help but feel like we should have turned the other way and informed you the moment we saw her. Like, even if she wasn't a rogue huntress, she might have been a civilian in a Grimm infested forest, or a senile old woman who wandered in by accident. Should we have gotten a teacher instead of introducing ourselves? We should have, right?"
Goodwitch looked at Ilia pensively. "I suppose that, with the benefit of hindsight, that might have been a better option." Ilia faked a cringe, and Goodwitch rushed to comfort her. "But that isn't to say that you made the wrong choice. In a dangerous situation like the one you faced, we cannot always make the perfect decision when under pressure. Sometimes no perfect decision even exists. It is better for a huntress to make a choice and try your very best to see it through instead of wasting valuable time vacillating. While I would encourage you to seek out aid when dealing with an unknown individual on school grounds in the future, I do not believe you performed poorly."
Ilia smiled. "Great…so if I'd come and gotten you, you would've taken her down, right?" Ilia pantomimed two quick punches with her left fist, and an uppercut with her right hand. "Boom boom pow! Huntress mode activated!" She found that, when asking oddly specific questions to those who might get suspicious, a little playfulness and immaturity tended to make people less curious as to why they were being probed. People certainly opened up to Ruby, so the principle was sound.
Goodwitch adjusted her glasses. "Precisely. Had I encountered an enemy with an invulnerability semblance, I would need only detain her using my own semblance."
Ilia nodded. "Sounds good!"
"Now, off with you. You're going to be late to Professor White's chemistry class, and I hear he's in a particularly nasty mood today. Run along, Miss Amitola."
So, she definitely was up to some shit. If she'd had a legitimate reason for being in that forest, she would have confessed it here and now. Ilia knew for a fact that her instructor had laid eyes on the crocodile and intentionally turned and ran the other way, and it wasn't out of cowardice. Goodwitch was right; she could easily telekinetically restrain any opponent, especially an old woman like the Faunus had been.
She was looking for someone else.
It has to be her.
Omake
Ilia: Sure are a lot of K's in the title. That's two already, and we're only on Chapter 7 out of 50.
Adam: You don't say. How long do you think before we get three K's in a row?
Me, the author, who lives in America: Absolutely never until the end of time.
