9: UNFRIENDLY FIRE - [BL_86] or [BL_82]

"Isn't... isn't that what we've just been doing?" Ruby asked muddledly.

"I'm not talking about arguing, dummy." Ichigo crossed his arms admonishingly. "Why don't you two just duel for the leader's spot?"

Weiss blinked, dumbfounded at his proposal. "...Usually a third party would try to de-escalate the quarrel before it gets to that point."

"Exactly!" Ichigo snapped his finger at them. "You can get this feud out of your systems all at once. If someone else is stronger, then shouldn't they be the captain of your squad? It makes complete sense."

One of the rites to ascend to the rank of captain, was by way of combat. If someone were to defeat a squad captain in front of two-hundred other shinigami of the Gotei 13, they were granted the seat of captain immediately. It was far rarer comparatively to the more conventional routes to becoming a captain, but it wasn't unheard of- Kenpachi had taken his title this exact way less than a hundred years ago. Of course, this was only a school, but the same underlying logic still applied. It was less based on 'the strongest should lead', but rather 'the leader should be strongest'. It was about being someone their subordinates could rely on.

"That's... that must be be against the academy's rules!" Weiss outburst. "There's no such way in hell or high water that Headmaster Ozpin would ever accept a new leader by conquest, if he didn't even care to entertain my appeal based on logic!"

Ichigo tilted his head at her. "Who said anything about Ozpin? It doesn't matter who has the title officially, so long as you agree whoever wins this gets to act just like a leader would."

"But... does that not fly in the face what a huntress should stand for? We shouldn't be solving our problems through violence as the first port of call." Weiss contended.

Ichigo nodded at her. "That's fair to say, but this wasn't your first answer, was it? You tried to talk it out twice already, apparently. So this is technically your third and last resort."

Ruby grumbled, "It wouldn't have to be if someone could just swallow their nasty ego..."

"Quiet, you! You're the one who started yelling first!" Weiss hissed.

"Only because you deserved it!" Ruby scowled.

"Wow, you're really going at it..." Ichigo sweat. "Listen, I've sorted out pretty much every major problem in my life through the medium of battle. Through crossing blades with someone, you can grow to understand them. Like half the people I know by now tried to kill me or my other friends, the first time we met, now that I think about it..." he stared off into the air, as his eyes took on a reminiscent sheen. Weiss and Ruby shared a perplexed glance, before shrugging.

"That doesn't sound very nice... is that just how boys' friendships work?" Ruby's face quirked disapprovingly.

"Pretty much? You beat each other up, and the next time you meet there's an unspoken respect there now. It's a lot better than you think. They're good people, trust me. I've known them all for years, now. You can work things out between yourselves too, this way."

"Uhm..." Weiss plucked at her sleeves, visibly in a dilemma at the notion Ichigo had laid out for them. Going behind the Headmaster's back, fighting an unsolicited duel over a rank that had already been appointed by the school... Winter had worked hard to make sure she could leave Atlas to come here to the prestigious Valean academy. She couldn't squander it, by putting her relationship with the faculty at risk like this on the very first full day. It would stand against everything a Schnee should be.

Ruby swallowed, then pushed down her anxiousness at the prospect of fighting for a position she wasn't even sure she wanted anymore. "...What's the matter Ice-Queen, you scared?" Truth be told, the title of leader wasn't even something she cared about all that much. She was more than satisfied with being let into Beacon early in the first place. But if staying leader meant putting the stuffy Weiss in her place, she'd do whatever it took.

"-Of course not, you dolt. Why should I even be concerned in the slightest at the prospect of crossing blades with a kid like you." Weiss spat. "I was just pondering on whether it was worth it, to put you in your place. You have been anything but pleasant in the time I've known you, so how am I to know you won't disregard my orders when I do take my victory?"

Ichigo closed his eyes, letting out a deep breath. There was a close, ambient birdsong, whistling through the afternoon air in the garden.

"Relax. Respect is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. If you taste that blade once, you'd try and avoid getting cut the next time, wouldn't you? So you'll accept whatever the result of this match is, wont you? Nothing is as convincing as a punch to the face. When it comes to leadership, the horse respects the king, because otherwise it'll get spurred. But the king also respects the horse, otherwise he'll get thrown off and trampled." He opened his amber-brown orbs again to find both Weiss and Ruby watching him in quiet wonder.

"You're... surprisingly well-spoken." Weiss uttered reassessingly. Her ice-blue eyes narrowed as she reached a hand up to her chin. He was forcing her to reconsider; both him, and her stance on the matter at hand.

Ichigo huffed, "I talk to people. I'm a decent student, too. That last part was taken straight from the heart." Literally.

"Really? You just didn't give me that vibe, y'know? It's kinda surprising." Ruby chimed in, leaning to the side.

"Hey! I'm trying to help you out here! Did you think I was stupid, or something?" he protested.

"Sorry, sorry." Ruby waved her hands apologetically. "I... I'm up for it, I just don't know about Ice-Queen, here." she cast a sidelong glare at Weiss.

"Hmph!" she snorted, putting her fists on her hips haughtily, "It seems I'll have to be the caretaker here, taking on the routine spanking of an uppity child."

Ichigo rubbed at his horn with his left hand absentmindedly. It was an instinctive alternative to running his hand through his orange hair. "These insults are so lame." he puffed. "Why're you even calling her a kid, anyway? Isn't she, like, only two years younger than you at most? Age on that small scale doesn't really matter when you introduce special powers to the mix, anyhow. I was beating fully-grown swordsmen at fifteen, myself." And a whole lot more.

Weiss was thrown off slightly at Ichigo's offhand revelation. She'd never cared to learn much about faunus upbringings, what with all the general knowledge drilled into her head by her tutors. Ichigo must have been talking about a previous combat school here, most probably. At least, she hoped. The actual point he'd made, she conceded begrudgingly. She'd overstepped herself at the chance of finally no longer being the youngest girl around. She could not take this lightly; Ruby was clearly a prodigy, to be let into Beacon early. Still... her mediocre showing in the forest wasn't anything she couldn't handle, however.

"Fine then... I suppose..." she muttered.

Ruby adorned a smug smirk. "Ha! Serves you right, Ice-Quee-"

"You too." Ichigo rounded on her next. "Yukihime isn't even an insult. Think a little. You gotta put some grit into it, when you're trash-talking. Feel the moment. Disrespect is all about imagination, meeting opportunity." He liked to think he was a connoisseur of sorts, in that way.

"Yuki-hime?" Ruby repeated baffledly.

"What are you teaching us!? You're... really not helping this situation at all." Weiss stared with glazed eyes. "You might just be the worst individual possible to settle this."

Ichigo held up a finger. "-But I'll settle it. You just admitted it. You can use one of the sparring rings. You have those, right? This is a place that trains people to fight, after all. So you're both up for it, then?"

"...I'll do it." Ruby nodded. She knew she wasn't one-hundred-percent leadership material, but Weiss was absolutely a negative one-hundred. Even if she was ambivalent about the position of leader, she'd take it herself any day over the terrible scenario of living under Weiss's tyranny for the next four years.

"I... accept this duel." Weiss declared, raising her head high. She'd been wrong. Ichigo's delineation about respect and its ebb and flow, had convinced her of the logic behind this match. It was clear to her now, what she should stand for; a Schnee would not cower away from taking charge. If there was a opening at the top, they would take the shot. Loathe as she was to rely upon it, her family name would also likely shield her from the more severe consequences of potentially getting caught.

"Great." Ichigo clapped his hands together. "We're all in agreement. You can go ahead, then."

"What?" Ruby cocked her head.

Ichigo looked flatly at them. "This is between the two of you. Why do I need to be there? I'm trying to go to the library. I've got important stuff to do."

"Excuse me?" Weiss exclaimed, "This is all your idea! If we're seriously considering to break the rules so severely on the first day, then you have to be there taking the risk as well."

Ichigo groaned. "Fine then, whatever. Fair enough." He glanced around himself, from left to right. "...So anyone know where the sparring halls are? Preferably an empty one."

"..." The three of them exchanged a questioning look, their eyes darting to one another for an answer.

"...Not really. It's the first proper day for us, too. We haven't even had combat class yet." Ruby replied, fidgeting with her skirt.

Weiss sighed, bringing a hand to the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

One wild-goose chase to find and ask a staff member later, the dysfunctional partners were facing off, standing across from each other in their huntress gear, their weapons drawn. They'd had to lie about their year group to get access to a sparring hall, much to Ruby and Weiss's unease, since first-years weren't allowed in them until combat classes began. Ichigo had faked it so openly and confidently to the lady in the hallway that they were left wondering just how he was so used to lying to teachers about where he was going.

The combat hall they were in was huge, and empty. Just perfect then, for what they had planned. It vaguely resembled the auditorium, with its glass ceiling, raised plinths of alternating bleachers arranged in concentric circles around a much lower patterned circle, and its colours, but this place differed greatly in the space in the middle. There wasn't a stage on one side, but instead a spacious, uninterrupted circular arena in the centre hewn out of solid laser-cut stone. It had a mosaic of Beacon's emblem, the four circles inside one, built into it out of darker tiles.

Ichigo jumped up into the stands, a good three meters up, and reclined back in a green seat. He stretched his legs out, laying them on the next bleacher over, this one a dark grey. Passively drawing on invisible reishi, he could lean back even on supportless benches like this. It also worked pretty well as minor subconscious practice for his Quincy side. He raised a hand to his mouth, and projected his voice at the combatants below.

"Don't you want your other teammates here?"

"No, there is no need. This is just between us. We wouldn't be able to get them in time, anyway. It will draw less attention here, as well." Weiss refuted without looking at him, instead narrowing her eyes on her opponent.

Ichigo wasn't so convinced. It was Ren and Nora's team too, so they really should know about this. But the figured that he'd just tell them afterwards, if he saw them, and let them sort it out between themselves. "Ruby," he called, "what about your sister? Don't you want her to watch?"

"No way!" Ruby stumbled and yelped, "Yang cannot hear about this. She'd go ballistic! Don't you know how big sisters are?"

"Of course I do." Ichigo retorted, "More or less. I'm a big brother, myself."

"Then how would you react if you saw that your little sister was getting into a fight on the first day of school?" Ruby turned to the stands.

Ichigo rolled his eyes up at the glass roof in thought. "Let's see... if it was Karin, and she was winning, I'd cheer her on. If she was losing, or it was Yuzu, then I'd jump in and punt those other kids in the head." He brought up his hands, to count off each subsequent point, "Then I'd check on my sisters, and if they were fine, I'd go to those kids' houses and punt their parents in the head-"

"See! See! This is exactly what I'm talking about!" Ruby stressed, pointing accusingly. "You didn't even try and pretend you wouldn't! Yang can't know about this!"

"I would be fine. My skills are more than enough to take on your sister, I assure you." Weiss refuted, drawing Myrtenaster to the left.

"Even if that was true, it's not just that. This is my own team. I'm not gonna go crying to her for help on the first day." Ruby snapped, brandishing her mechanical scythe on her left side.

Idly, Ichigo had noticed that both of them were left-handed. What were the chances? It'd make things more interesting to watch, that was for sure.

He leaned forward and raised his voice. "Alright, so here's the rules. Don't kill each other, obviously. Don't draw too much blood, if you can help it, either. Weiss, not from Myrtenaster, and Ruby, not with your scythe-"

"-Crescent Rose-" Ruby corrected.

"-Crescent Rose, then. Keep hitting each other until one of you gives up, starts crying, is knocked out, or otherwise has clearly lost." his gaze flitted between the two of them. "Okay? Okay. Go!"

They both remained rooted, stock still in their tense positions, staring at him blankly.

"What kind of back-alley rules are those!?" Weiss screeched bewilderedly.

"Our scrolls can track aura, Ichigo. Let's just use that. Once it hits the red, we quit." Ruby suggested. "I don't know how to hook it up to the big holograms yet, so we'll just have to turn our scrolls' volumes up. Besides, they probably keep logs of the stuff, and if we did connect it we'd get caught."

"Uh, right." Ichigo deflated. "Just... do that, then?"

After a few moments of fiddling with their devices, Weiss and Ruby took their positions at opposite ends of the arena. Two huntresses, one red-and-black, the other blue-and-white. It's like they practically mirror each other, Ichigo mused.

"Both of you ready?" he hollered, "On my mark!"

"Three..." Weiss lined Myrtenaster up with Ruby in a textbook fencing stance.

"Two..." Ruby drew her feet behind her, bending her knees ready to push into her semblance.

"One..." They met gazes, vibrant eyes clashing as silver pools locked with and narrowed at ice-blue orbs.

"Fight!" Weiss blinked-

It happened in an instant. Her eyes opened a fraction of a second later to the sight of crescent rose's gunmetal blade in motion centimetres away from her face, with an ear-splitting gunshot behind its swing. Big mistake, Ruby grinned. Reflexively focusing her aura over her head, Weiss ducked back in a split-second limbo. The blade still caught her, grinding over her aura with the resonance of polished carbon-steel scraping against her very soul. To Weiss's ears, it sounded as though a small aeroplane had just used her face as its landing strip.

She stabbed Myrtenaster into the stone floor behind her, and hooked herself over it to spring backwards in an unsettled heap, creating the barest of breathing room for herself as she ripped her reflective sword out of the ground warily. A storm of wine-red rose petals had erupted over the tiled arena.

A high-pitched buzz caught the albino girl's attention. Checking her scroll, her frosty eyes widened as she found her aura gauge measured at 90%. Preposterous! What kind of strength was Ruby wielding behind her swings to take that much off of her in one glancing blow?

"Aww, phooey! I wanted to take you out in one go!" Ruby whined, kicking at the air disappointedly.

Weiss straightened herself upright, regathering her composure. "I will admit, that semblance of yours is a touch problematic." She waved the point of her rapier at her opponent as she spoke. "Only a touch, though!"

"Whah!" Ruby pushed her feet off of the ground just moments before a crystalline shard of ice the size of her leg erupted from where she'd been standing but a few moments prior. She leaned further and further to the side, before she was forced to somersault as a stream of frozen translucent spikes followed the rose-petal lined wake of her path. Whilst on the move, she racked her brain with figuring a counter-play on the fly. Well, if she's gonna play safe now and hang back...

"I can shoot back too!" In mid-air, Crescent Rose shifted and compacted with a muted whirr to become the rifle form it had taken on during initiation. Lining up the shot whilst sideways, Ruby squeezed the trigger just before she hit the ground. Weiss immediately halted her offence to bring up her blade, deflecting the bullet that was already on its way. The problem she hadn't foreseen, however, was that Ruby utilised high-impact dust rounds, which sent her thin sword wide to the side. She tightened her grip straight away, making sure to keep hold after losing it earlier that same day, but damn- it was blown too far to the side to block the follow-up shot... which never came, to her mild surprise. Ruby was holding back on her next shot.

Weiss's trained mind instantly grasped the situation: Ruby's sniper was bolt-action. She'd realised it from observing her during initiation. She couldn't spray-and-pray; she had to aim each and every time. That meant a relatively low firing rate, which she could take advantage of. Lining the barrel of Myrtenaster's revolver up with her partner, she let loose three precisely-placed shots with a crackle of dust-cap pops.

Ruby yelped at the return fire, yanking herself away from behind her sights in a haze of rose petals. At the first bullet, she sidestepped it to the left, and at the second, she hopped back to the right- only to find the third rocketing straight at her chest. Weiss watched on in slack-jawed shock as she yanked up Crescent Rose's tungsten handle to deflect the final shot with its rounded aura-coated surface. It shattered on the much denser material, pelting Ruby's aura with its shrapnel.

"So... you're faster than bullets?" Weiss breathed, raising Myrtenaster again. She'd already swapped it back from firing mode.

"Yep! I'm pretty proud!" Ruby smiled, rolling her shoulders back as her weapon mecha-shifted back to its scythe form, "Petal Burst makes me the fastest person I know, even out of my dad and uncle!"

Weiss smirked, "Not fast enough, however." She whipped her rapier's point back towards herself.

Ruby's eyes widened just as a spire of ice exploded from a glyph she hadn't noticed behind her. She back-flipped over the opaque grey-white icicle, catching herself in a handstand using her scythe's bar to balance on the glaze without touching its frigid surface. Upside-down, she frowned confusedly at Weiss, as her opponent leered opportunely.

Ichigo let out an impressed whistle in the stands at the sight of the purple-ringed shimmering snowflake that formed underneath the diagonal overhang of frost that Weiss had forced Ruby onto. Nice. He recognized it as the colour related to pulling and pushing things- gravity manipulation, maybe? It was a cunning setup; Ruby couldn't see the gravity glyph beneath her, because Weiss had purposefully mixed some sort of gravel from a dark orange circle ringed around the pale blue glyph that Ruby had dodged.

"Ack-!" Ruby grunted as she was pulled head-first, banging flat into the subzero spire. She heard a beep from her scroll as her cranium rung like a tuning fork. With her deceptively large strength, she pushed herself up from her prone position through the tug of the gravity dust, only to find Weiss was already shooting a light-blue aura slash at her. "Whoa!" She stumbled, reeling back and lifting herself up, moving into her semblance instinctively. Weiss was caught off guard as Ruby suddenly disappeared in an blend of petals, and rushed her from below the sideways icicle she had crafted. She pulled up her rapier with both hands to block just as Ruby locked blades with her scythe.

"H-how?" Weiss growled, as she raised her leg to kick at Ruby's stomach, forcing them apart once more. She couldn't take even a moment to think on it, however, as Ruby pressed her offensive once again without delay. Another swing at her left flank from Crescent Rose, and Weiss raised her reflective blade to that side, only for Ruby to spin her grip and turn the scythe's head around. With the crack of a gunshot, its momentum was reversed from the explosive recoil, now swinging in an swift arc for her right. The muzzle on the back of the sickle trailed a black flare- gravity dust. Smart.

Weiss knew at that point that she was too close to dodge it- Ruby had spaced the swipe too well for that. But she couldn't space for... On a whim, Weiss lunged closer to Ruby, and blocked the shaft of Crescent Rose with her rapier. -Yes! It was a scythe, so if she got close enough, she had the advantage with her shorter aura-conducting rapier. Closer to her hands, she had the leverage here. With a slide of her blade along the metallic shaft down to the handle, she forced Ruby's clenched fingers off of the weapon. "Ah-ha!" Weiss snatched it out of the air as it fell, and threw the it behind her with both hands. A bead of sweat ran down her scarred face, but she ignored it. It really was heavy.

Ruby's silver eyes widened as Crescent Rose fell clattering to the floor, and she immediately disengaged. "No! My baby!" In a hail of scarlet petals, Ruby flashed behind Weiss. Once more, the albino girl was caught off guard, as she made to grab at her opponent's trailing scarf abaft her. Again?

She caught the billowing cape with her right hand, and yanked just as she simultaneously cast a combination gravity-ice glyph encompassing the scythe on the floor, dumping the last of her black dust into it haphazardly with her left hand. From the ethereal snowflake, a purple crystal blossomed, encasing the scythe in a meter thick compacted dome. Weiss hadn't needed to make it too big, because the sheer amount of gravity dust pumped into it was a more than effective deterrent. Ruby yelped as she fell back, against Weiss's legs. Myrtenaster struck down at her- only to find a cloud of rose petals at Weiss's feet. How? How does she keep passing me? Is there more to her semblance than just speed?

Ichigo, meanwhile, had long since noticed something odd about Ruby's semblance as she flitted about the arena. She, for the briefest slither of time, vanished with each burst of petals. Even to him. She couldn't be moving faster than he could perceive, could she? No, it was something else. Ruby must have been actually disappearing and reappearing. Pretty cool, he mused, leaning in to get a better view. Teleportation? No, it seemed that it wasn't just that. Something in his gut told him it had something to do with the petals that followed her. Ichigo had gained a knack for analysing every ability he encountered on sight, otherwise he'd have been long dead ages ago. He was still disgruntled by Gin calling him creepy for it when he figured out his bankai, though. The guy must've been salty.

Ruby was panicking- she'd lost Crescent Rose! She was nowhere as good as Yang or her dad when it came to unarmed combat! She hastily dodged pot-shots from Myrtenaster as she ran any options she had on hand though her head. Only, she couldn't think of anything, and her hands were empty! She was ripped from her thoughts by a gout of roaring crimson flames from Weiss's weapon, and she swerved away, just over the leg-sized ice spikes from the earlier stages of the battle. They melted away into steaming pools, giving her an idea.

At the sight of Ruby flickering over to the purple dome of ice over her weapon, Weiss instantly caught on to her ploy and shut off her flames. Taking aim again, she kept the pressure on Ruby, not letting her off of the back-foot. "Did you really believe I'd free your weapon for you?" she sneered. "And here I assumed you were only short on the outside, but it seems that you're a mental midget as well!"

"That's more like it!" Ichigo called from the sideline. "You're getting there, although you can't really chat about height!"

"I don't need your input!" Weiss yelled, stamping her foot without taking her eyes off of her partner.

"Hey! You're not supposed to take sides!" Ruby shouted.

"I'm not!" Ichigo denied, "Besides, I didn't tell her about what you have in your hand!"

"What she has in her what-" Weiss's eyes snapped to the fire dust cartridges in Ruby's fist. Of course, she would be carrying her own ammunition.

With a deft chuck, three glass-cased rectangles of volatile red dust were thrown behind her, before Ruby herself flashed around Weiss and aimed a kick to her back. Without the time to turn, Weiss countered with a flourish of her blade to knock away her foot, but she was still pushed back, closer to the heavily concentrated flames. Too close. They were compounding into an orange-white firestorm, drawn in and focused by the gravity dust into a screaming blaze. Weiss felt the heat at her back, and pulled to the side.

"You'll melt your weapon you fool!" she admonished, sliding to the left. She leaned on her sword, panting slightly. If only she'd learnt of the technique behind time-dilation glyphs from Winter before attending... they would have been a perfect counter in this matchup. At least she knew what the new priority objective of her training would be, as of now.

"No way," Ruby brushed off nonchalantly, "I've tested the melting points of all of Crescent Rose's materials myself. He'll be fine."

"He?" Weiss raised a scarred eyebrow.

"-Nothing!" Ruby blurted, before throwing all of the blue water dust in her pockets on the scorching ball in front of her. A geyser-explosion of grey-white steam followed, like the voluminous smoke from a volcano's caldera, before Ruby reappeared at the source, grabbing the still-steaming form of Crescent Rose.

"That cannot be good for its integrity." Weiss observed dryly, drawing Myrtenaster from the ground and levelling it at Ruby.

"Ouch- ouch!" Ruby yapped, before she channelled aura over her palms to cushion the heat. "Too hot! You couldn't spare me any ice dust, would you?"

"Even if I could, I wouldn't give it to my opponent in the middle of a match!" Weiss snapped. "You're ridiculous!"

"Uh, uh, uh!" Ruby wagged a finger at her partner cheekily. "I just learnt that you can't make any more ice to block me! I've also figured out a great way to cool down Crescent Rose now!" She bent her knees, holding her piping-hot weapon out to the right. "...Watch this."

Weiss tensed, as Ruby blurred away in a storm of petals. She'd been mistaken, to fall for Ruby's obvious bait so foolishly. She was admittedly sly, in that regard. Now she couldn't gauge what the scythe-girl was doing, at all. A cyclone of carmine petals surrounded her on all sides, leaving her guessing where she should keep her weapon pointing. She dumped a few pot-shots into the storm of petals, to probe Ruby's response, only to find none. Ruby just kept speeding up, and up, picking up the cloud of steam behind her. Faster and faster, the currents of air in the centre lashed around like a tornad- Oh no.

A tornado. She was creating an updraft, by pouring as much as she could into her semblance. Weiss pointed Myrtenaster at her feet, only for it to dawn on her that she had used up all of her gravity dust already. Her ice too, or rather the wind that made up half of the ice dust mix. Her state-of-the-art multi-action-dust-rapier, fashioned by the finest weapon-smiths of Atlas her father could commission, could take in unspecialised dust cartridges and mix it itself, within a chamber in its bulbous chrome hilt. After using up most of her usual supply of ice in Professor Port's lesson earlier that day, she'd switched to using the pure water and wind dust she had on hand instead and blending them on the fly.

Ruby grinned as she circled faster and faster around Weiss. It was rare that she got to go this fast, and she enjoyed it every time. The world around her wheeled away in a blend of colours and motion, like a long-exposure photograph. She pulled in, drawing the base of her rose-petalled steam cyclone tighter and tighter around Weiss, causing the gale to swell. Slowly, the girl's snow-white heels left the floor.

"How're you going to get out of this one?" Ruby taunted, her voice issuing from multiple angles, all at once. She must've long since passed the supersonic barrier.

Unable to respond, Weiss shrieked as she rose into the air. Her skirt and ponytail were flapping away, as she tumbled upwards. Her ascent was speeding up; the hardest part to flight was taking off, after all. After that, it took considerably less energy to gain further altitude. Without any purchase, she couldn't even control her orientation in the air at all. Out of options, she pulled Myrtenaster close to herself, and vaguely trained it on the edge of the whirlwind. Squeezing out a jet of red flames, it was snuffed out by the hurricane-force winds on contact.

Like a typhoon, the winds combined with the cycling clouds of steam created a growing storm, and Weiss was in the eye of it. A storm... the only thing missing was... Her eyes widened. Thunder! It would take all of her concentration to cast a glyph in these tempestuous conditions, but she'd manage. She had to. Otherwise, her tenure at Beacon may as well be forfeit. She couldn't even imagine challenging her partner for the leadership, failing, and then taking her orders for the rest of her time in the academy. She'd never hear the end of it. Just a flick of the tip... there, and a swipe... there...

Ruby was gearing up for the final blow, to close the match. She'd gotten Weiss up high enough now, but she hadn't really thought of what to do afterwards, as she hurtled around. They'd forgotten to set up a ring-out system, she realised with a pout. She could just... jump up, and smack her out of the sky? Really hard. Yeah. It'd be more than enough, especially if she was to go all out and pile dust on it too. Peeling out from the wild squall, she got into a sprinter's position, setting Crescent Rose on her back. The storm continued cycling, from its own internal velocity. She lunged forwards, one step, then two, until she hit a supersonic sprint with a collapsing clap of the air around her.

She jumped, using the winds to boost her up, into a stupendous leap. Clearing the wall of her own tornado, she twirled head-over-heels forward, drawing her scythe in the motion and using the front-flip to put all her strength into the swing. A gunshot cracked behind it, gravity dust accelerating her even further. "Haaah!"

She noticed as she passed, there was a glyph at the top of the tornado, lined up with its centre. No problem- she just had to outspeed it. At this point, unable to change direction, that was her only option.

Weiss gave a dazed grimace as Ruby flipped into view, and pulled Myrtenaster in line with Ruby as she approached. She'd run out of wind dust, but she still had a little water left over in her revolver. A pulsing spray splashed into Ruby, pushing and slowing her down slightly, but ultimately doing nothing to halt her approach. Ruby eagerly followed through with her strike. That wasn't the water's job, however; it was just to make her even more conductive. Weiss breathed out, as she yanked back on Myrtenaster. "Hmh!"

The glyph behind Ruby changed colour as it crackled into a yellow flash, before a thick, blinding thunderbolt burst from it as though it was a two-dimensional storm cloud.

Like a serpent of forked light, ripping through the air, electricity took the path of least resistance to ionisation.

So Ruby, with her scythe held high, soaking wet, was a veritable lightning-rod to the searing bolt.

Slowed down by Weiss's spray, Ruby's huge scythe was struck in the metallic head by just over three-quarters of her opponent's stock of electricity dust. Weiss had simply discharged as much as she could with one glyph at the time, going all out. She'd thrown Myrtenaster away from herself, to try and ensure she wouldn't get struck too, before shielding her eyes.

The revolving column of torrents of wind burst apart, in a shockwave that near-instantly shattered the glass ceiling of the amphitheatre. Before the vitric shards began to fall, sound finally caught up to the light, and the reverberating scrunch of indoor thunder as if the air was tinfoil echoed across the academy's grounds. Ichigo immediately sprung from his seat, and pulsed his spiritual pressure to check their condition, before relaxing. But then he looked up, at the destroyed roof, and tensed again. Uh oh. That can't be good. ...They definitely had to leave, as soon as possible. He hopped to the seat right at the edge, just before the rails, but stopped and held himself back from shouting out a warning. They weren't finished yet, he could tell. It was important to settle this here and now, first.

"You... you managed to draw a glyph like that... inside the winds?" Ruby groaned, pulling herself onto her knees.

It was sheer willpower that was keeping her conscious now, let alone upright... mostly. Her legs felt like pins-and-needles on steroids, and the last dregs of her aura was flickering like a neon red sign. That can't be good. She didn't think she could muster the strength to actually stand, right now...

"...It was the best I could do... in those... conditions..." Weiss wheezed, laying in a shallow cracked crater in front of her.

Ruby's finger muscles had seized onto Crescent Rose's handle from the zap, weakening the swing but still allowing her to follow through with it, if only just. Weiss had been smacked right into the hard stone mosaic tiles, through the torrential wall of gale-force steam. After a few seconds, she pulled herself up onto all fours. "...I couldn't use as much dust as I'd like... what... with all the wind..." she panted. Crawling for a few paces, she pushed off the floor, and to her feet. Searching around dazedly, she found Myrtenaster embedded into a chunk of broken ice on the floor, and tugged it out haphazardly. Twisting back to her opponent, she found Ruby fiddling with her numb fingers, trying to grasp the trigger of her gun-scythe.

Weiss knew now that she had hurry. She entered a stumbling jog, as Ruby panickedly fumbled with her grip. Neither of them could spare the aura to use their semblances at this point.

Ruby looked down the barrel of Crescent Rose, at the flickering pale-blue ghostly shell around Weiss, and lined up a shot. As soon as she judged it would hit, she pulled the trigger. An ear-ringing crack rung out across the hall. Weiss flinched, pulling up Myrtenaster- only for the bullet to go wide and fly out into the open afternoon sky.

As weakened and partially numb as she was, Ruby wasn't able to properly cope with the extreme recoil of Crescent Rose. She fell back with the shot, slamming down into the floor with a pained grunt.

Weiss took her chance and broke into a desperate sprint with renewed vigour. Ruby laid up once again, refusing to fall, her weapon whirring into its scythe form, and swiped with a wild slash from her prone form on the ground. "Raaah!" Weiss thrust at her with a last-ditch shout, only to be met by the sickle...

Which snapped as her rapier's point met it.

The blade of Crescent Rose must have become brittle from the extreme temperature shock, and Ruby couldn't spare the aura to cloak and reinforce it anymore. With the rasping squeak of warping metal like a fork on porcelain, it broke in twain.

The edge fell to the ground, just as Weiss's sword tip struck Ruby, shattering her aura completely.

With a great huff of relief, Myrtenaster clinked as Weiss dropped it to the floor, and sank down to sit on her knees.

She kept panting and panting, barely hanging on to wakefulness.

"I... win..."

"I win!" she gasped, slumping in tired triumph as Ichigo jumped down into the arena to her side.

"Congrats. I guess this makes you the leader. You'll have to tell the rest of your team though... wait a minute- when did you get here!?" Ichigo twisted around as he heard someone leap into the arena behind him.

"I notice things. That, and my aura control is quite well-refined, if I do say so myself. Sensing my teammates going at it like this was inevitable for me to detect. I just chose to approach under the cover of my semblance."

It was Ren, standing there in his Beacon uniform with an unreadable expression on his face as he crossed his arms at the two girls on the floor. One sitting up, one laying flat, both heaving with deep, full breaths.

"...So how much did you see?" Ichigo shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, laxly.

"Most of it, actually. Ruby... do you accept Weiss as the new team leader? That was what this fight was over, wasn't it?" he asked evenly.

"Y... yes... I... I d-do... I promised..." she rubbed at her eyes, wiping away the small well of dampness gathering in the corners. She'd lost... but at the moment, she was just too exhausted to really feel it beyond a surface level of shattering disappointment. Even worse... Crescent Rose...

"I guessed as much. Well, then I'll accept it too. I would've preferred to be told about this in advance, though." his tone shifted to one of mild disbelief. "I've got to say, though. Fighting until one of your auras break? That's hardcore."

"The rules... were meant to... be... until red..." Weiss clarified. Looks like they'd gotten carried away. But at least Ruby had admitted that she'd won. They'd just forgotten to check their scrolls in the heat of battle. It seems that they'd inadvertently ended up following Ichigo's crude borderline-deathmatch ruleset, after all. Now... to commence her true tenure at Beacon. At last! It began now!

"On the bright side, at least Nora didn't-" Ren began-

"Reeen! I felt it! That massive indoor thunderbolt! It was here!" A cheerful voice hollered from outside the hall.

"You were saying...?" Weiss asked flatly.

"I stand by it. Nora showing up isn't a problem." Ren stated firmly. Firmer than usual, he'd made sure. "I wouldn't ever try and get away from her, or anything. I meant that it was a good thing she hadn't gathered everyone on campus to watch your fight, or told a teacher what she felt. We have to leave now, anyway."

"Ren! I'm here! Oh, and Ichigo, too! I knew I sensed a ton of electricity!" Nora declared as she strode into the amphitheatre in her uniform, the front doors banging open. "So what happened?"

She could feel this fight happening, too? Or did she just follow Ren? Either way, it looks like people could sense reiatsu here after all, only it seemed to be a learned ability, not something inherent. Good thing he was transcendent, then...

"Ruby and Weiss have just held a duel over the position of leader. Weiss won." Ren replied.

"A duel? To be leader? Can we challenge her too?" Nora squee'd, hopping eagerly.

"I wouldn't be interested... yet, anyway." Ren decided, "Besides, it wouldn't be fair for Weiss to fight right now. Help her up, actually, we've got to go."

"Okay!" she nodded, accepting Ren's answer without a question. "Up you go, your highness!" she chirped as she reached down to lay Weiss on her shoulders. From how closely Nora followed Ren, it was clear they'd known each other for a long time. Far longer than just since initiation. Watching them act in concert, compared to how Weiss and Ruby had behaved as partners so far, was like night and day.

"Why'd we need to leave... anyway?" Ruby asked exhaustedly from Ren's shoulder.

"Look up." Ichigo pointed. They all glanced upwards, at the utterly destroyed glass roof to the combat hall. Knife-like shards of milky-white cracked glass crusted the bleachers, and the edges of the ceiling where some jagged segments were still connected gave it the appearance of a giant broken egg.

"Eep!" Ruby yelped.

Ichigo hastily made to reassure her, "Look, we just have to split before a teacher-"

"What on Remnant has just happened here!?"

A blond, caped woman burst into the hall, with a furious roar. She was wearing glasses and brandishing a... what the hell was that? Was that a freaking riding-crop? Ichigo only recognised it because of Mizuiro showing him one once as a joke, but here this lady was, openly showing it off in a school for crying out loud!

As she walked, from her feet came a pulse of reiatsu. It washed over the feet of everyone standing, sitting and laying in the amphitheatre, rooting them in place- even Ichigo. It lasted only a second before it was let go, but he could tell, as he felt it now, that if he had tried to take a step as he was, in just his base human body, he wouldn't be able to move at all. Her semblance? That was... something to keep in mind. It was a definite step-up from almost anything else he'd encountered thus far on Remnant.

She waved the rod through the air, like a magic wand. And like magic, all of the loose shards of glass across the hall rose into the air, with an arcane purple glow to them. Swarming together, they coalesced into a large crystalline sphere, which crunched as it was compacted with a closing of her first.

With it still hovering behind her as a show of force, she rounded on the students -and Ichigo- in the arena.

"Would anyone here care to explain to me right this instant why the entire roof of a training hall has been blown off on the very first day of classes? Or would you all prefer to join the shards of glass in this ball?" Oh man. She looked absolutely livid right now.

Still, Ichigo had dealt with angry teachers before. Just maybe not this ticked off. He calmly greeted her with a neutral face, the only one to school his expression in the room.

"Hi. I'm Ichigo Kurosaki. It's nice to meet you, ma'am." He gave her a small wave. "Just in case you want to know, I didn't do any of this. It's my first proper day here, so I'm sorry if I don't know your name."

"...Thank you, Mr Kurosaki." She grit out through her teeth. "My name is Miss Goodwitch, and I will be taking you all to the Headmaster's office."

Ichigo nodded at her, unfazed. His hands were still in his pockets. "Yeah, I expected that much. That's not too bad, actually."

NEXT: 10 - REFORGING BONDS - [Mysterious]

Author notes:

This fight was the second big important one I've written so far, and the first actual RWBY-character 1 v 1. I think it came out pretty nicely. Sorry if you think Ruby should've won, but I just went for Weiss because... I just wanted to? Yeah, pretty much, plus some logic. That, and one reviewer made a pretty good point about this being the more interesting result. The matchup is a coin-flip IMO, anyway. Ruby can just blitz her, as you saw, but Weiss has a much bigger kit to work with. There will be characters who question this now, because one can argue that the strongest =/= the best leader, so I'll follow up on that.

Ichigo fully expects them to get along after this. He's following battle-shounen logic, which may not work as well on Remnant. Then again, sometimes things actually do work like this IRL, for boys anyway. I've literally got friends who I met by getting into a fight with them, then afterwards the next few times we saw each other we just started chatting and got along, lol. It's unironically just like anime rival logic. He's just like me fr fr.

Normally, Weiss is painted as the bad guy at this part, but I made Ichigo much more neutral. It wouldn't make sense for him to take sides with Ruby when he's already iffy about her being a leader in the first place, out of a more protective sense. Weiss hasn't even done anything wrong to him, as well, so he sees what she means. As far as he's concerned, she has a right to be mad. -Just not so much as at Ruby, than at the system.

Image I used for the training hall:
[64DOTmediaDOTtumblrDOTcom/23bb21e79c582d2e1ab478ad475064cb/tumblr_mr33nk1jNG1qgseqbo1_1280DOTpng]
It's described a bit different here though, so it's not identical. For the music, you can wait until the fight countdown starts to play it, if you want.

Writing fights is as fun as dialogue for me, I've realised. Imagining the scene in my head like a movie is great. Still, I know I should space them out a bit, so I make sure to include downtime between each one to make them more impactful. I do try and resolve each one in a single focused chapter though, because I've always kinda hated being left off in the middle of a major fight. Not making any promises to stick to this rule for the entire story, however.

I've gone back and deleted the scroll-bomb thing, because I realised that I was making Ozpin too extreme, and instead it's just going to be tracked. Thanks for the reviewers pointing this out, I really don't think he's a bad guy or anything, and I plan to make it more clear in the future chapters. Different characters perceive events in differing lights. That's what I'm going for.

Thanks as always for 555 favourites, 784 followers and 220 reviews! I make sure to read every single one of them.