To Shatter Fate

by Spriggy13

At the very end of the Thousand-Year-Blood-War, a final, spiteful Quincy spell cast on the precipice of defeat opens a rift between worlds. A rift far deeper than any garganta. Ichigo Kurosaki is thrust into a new reality; one where the fate of the very planet itself is the violently contested alimony of the messiest divorce in eternity... (TYBW manga spoilers)

23. THE SMOKING GUN

23: THE SMOKING GUN - [Clavar La Espada]

---

"...And those are all the rules. I want everyone in the hall to remember them." Ms Goodwitch instructed.

Down in the ring, Ruby and Emerald stood across from each other, in their full huntress gear. In a red swirl, Ruby whipped off Crescent Rose from her back and spun it into her grip, petals settling on the floor around her. Emerald unholstered her guns, spinning them like a cowboy, until they fell level with her opponent.

"Now, are you both ready?"

For a moment, they both glanced at the stands, at their teams, Ruby finding friendly encouragement and Emerald finding an overbearing haze of expectations and demand.

Emerald swallowed, and turned back to face her opponent, her hands that much tighter around the dual grips of Thief's Respite.

"Good. Begin with the bell."

One. Two.

A high-pitched, short chime rung out, and they were off.

Once again, Ruby's semblance carried her across the arena faster than her opponent could blink. Her blade's edge was against Emerald's flank in under a second, taking cues from her match against Weiss to aim where her opponent wouldn't be able to block in time.

Emerald's scarlet eyes widened, as she tilted, then crumpled, then got flung sideways from the force, sailing dozens of meters straight out of the ring.

"Huh..." Ruby straightened up, then glanced at Ms Goodwitch askingly. "...I won?"

She smiled. "It seems you did. Amazing stuff, Ruby. That was a new record."

Ruby grinned cheekily, resting Crescent Rose over her shoulder. "Well, my semblance is speed..."

"You may leave the arena. I think that was worthy of the Vytal Tournament, don't you think?"

She held her head up high, as she began to walk her way to the edge of the arena, when—

"What are you doing!?"

"Huh?" she stopped in place. Weiss had shouted at her from the stands.

"You're–" "Come on, hurry up. I'm impressed. We'll have to celebrate that. Cookies are on me."

She'd stopped moving now. Something was off... Weiss never bought cookies for her! For someone so rich, she sure was stingy. Not just that, but she cut herself off, too!

Ruby quickly looked back over her shoulder, seeing Emerald still lying on the floor there, outside the ring. She let out a breath—

Bang!

- –—{}—– -

"Oh, I get it." Ichigo sat back, with his arms crossed.

Weiss side-eyed him curiously. "Get what?"

"You know why she's just walking away?" Nora faced him with a frown.

"Hallucinations. Or some form of mental suggestion. It's Emerald's semblance. Gotta be."

"It'd make sense..." Ren supposed, "...but how can you be so sure?"

Aizen swapping out for a certain pin-cushion Lieutenant, and the Captains that fell for it came to mind. "Trust me, I know what it looks like from the outside when someone's caught in one."

"So why didn't you say anything then!?" Weiss stamped.

Ichigo gave a half-shrug. "It wouldn't be a fair fight, would it? You're her teammates, and Yang's her sister. I'm surprised none of you guys could tell."

Yang, meanwhile, was standing up from her seat, waving her arms over her head. "Hey! Hey! Ruby! Don't just walk out! C'mon!"

"She can't hear you." Ichigo told her. "You probably should've saved your words. You just reminded her opponent to cover up your voices, too. She's gonna have to act now that her cover's blown."

"So what are we supposed to do!?" Yang growled, gripping the backrest of the bench in front of her tightly as her lilac irises flashed a bright red.

Ichigo turned back to the action. "Watch. This is a school, isn't it? Ruby's gotta learn, either the easy way, or the—"

Bang!

He winced. "...the hard way."

- –—{}—– -

Ruby face-planted into the hard, unforgiving marble stone of the arena's floor, her aura flickering around her over her skin, leaving her barely conscious. She laid there, staying down, the world above her spinning, the colours swirling together like an abstract painting before her barely-open eyes, ears ringing. It was no surprise that she wasn't getting back up. She'd just been shot in the head, after all.

It wasn't long before she heard urgent, familiar voices over her prone form.

"Ruby! Ruby!" Yang cried.

"That was a nasty hit you just took..." Weiss's firm voice wavered slightly. "We'll help you leave the stage, and get checked out. It's an order."

"You'll be okay! I promise!" Nora reassured worriedly.

"But you need to rest for now." Ichigo told her.

"That's right, Ruby... just go to sleep. You need to rest." Yang hushed.

Sleep... sleep sounded nice.

She just needed a little rest... Losing wouldn't be her fault if everyone else said so...

Ruby's head felt as if it was dunked underwater, with the dizzying pressure getting all up in her nostrils and ears. The sounds were dimmed, and it was hard to breathe. It was easy to let go, and fall adrift into the cloying seas of unconsciousness. Darkness crept into her blurry vision...

...But so did red.

Scarlet petals began to fall from the sky, as the world bled away all of its colour, save for herself and Crescent Rose. What started as a few roses worth was soon an outright flurry, and the floral blizzard coated the arena floor, the stands and tops of the columns around her in a deep blanket of lurid crimson.

Whirr-whirr. Whirr-whirr.

The clicking of gears now filled her ears, where the voices of her friends had beforehand. She raised her head, finding it much lighter than before, and clearer, too.

In front of her eyes, she found a hand, reaching out to her.

Five digits of pale flesh, connected to a squidgy palm. But the joints... they weren't human. Instead, between each segment of the fingers, at the base of each knuckle, were bundles of ticking golden-brass gears, whirring as the hand opened up, held for her. They were all seamlessly meshed together, with only flush brassy caps separating flesh from metal. It was the most impressive prosthetic Ruby had ever laid her silver eyes upon.

She stared at it, and slowly, slowly, reached up tentatively, grabbing on. The fingers were somehow warm, and slightly soft. Living tissue.

It pulled her up quickly, faster than anyone normally would. Most people would be gentler here, but this hand, not so much. It was... eager.

Ruby stood up on her own two feet, and blinked.

"Hi!"

It was a boy, her own age, smiling brightly at her in the rain of roses. He wore what appeared to be an old ceremonial military suit: a red-lined black jacket with twin columns of vertical golden buttons running up his chest, gold epaulettes on his shoulders, a piped collar, red-striped cuffs and a belt with gold pins affixing them, and a crimson sash over his left shoulder, down to his right waist. Black trousers with two thin red stripes down the side fed into a pair of ebony leather boots. Upon his head was a lopsided dark black hat with a scarlet band around it; an officer's cap that had a silver rose as its emblem.

His larger joints carried on the bizarre gears-thing he had going on. Brass cogs slotted together into exposed spinning gear knees, elbows, ankles and wrists. On closer inspection, the golden buttons on his coat appeared to have Phillips-head screw slots in them. His face was young, with cheerful features resembling her own with a boyish twist, with a fringe of medium-short, bright full-red hair. Deep silver eyes that just barely seemed to have ticking gears beneath their surface reflected in her own. A living toy soldier.

"I..." Ruby Rose looked him up and down, then swallowed, and finally found her voice. "...I know you."

"Of course you do, dummy." He raised a hand, lifted his cap off his head, and flipped it to her with a small bow. "I'm in your hands."

Her hands...? And sure enough, in her hands was now a scythe. Her scythe. "Crescent Rose?"

"That's right." He tapped his cap on his leg, getting the petals that had landed in it to fall out, and placed it back on his head, but it fell crooked quickly. "Surprised I have a—"

"Body? Yes!" she was immediately right up next to him in a blur. "And those gears! How do they work!? How does any of this work? I knew you had a voice, but I just accepted it as a weird thing my semblance did, but now I have so many questions!"

Where most would be overwhelmed, Crescent Rose simply smiled and acquiesced.

"All of my major joints are clockwork, Ruby, and they revolve in the same way your heart beats. I'm alive, not a robot, before you ask, more of a cyborg— but I am an object technically, though I'm clearly not inanimate, more of a spirit, and I could communicate with you right away because of our original bond, but it took me a while to manifest like this, so I took my chance whilst you were on the verge between consciousness and unconsciousness, which made it easiest to convene, but in future I should be able to meet you at any time, though that'll take some practice on your part— was there anything else?"

"Whuh... not really." Ruby blinked. "So that's how it feels to be on the receiving end..."

He snapped his fingers, and a sudden spotlight shone from the sky, right onto Emerald Sustrai. She was still unconscious. "Now, there's something you should know..."

Crescent Rose turned, revealing the large brass wind-up key inserted inside his back. It spun slowly as he walked over to Emerald's laid out position on the floor, and lifted his hand up into the air. A gale of still-falling petals collected together and coalesced into an identical scythe to the one in Ruby's hands.

"Wait, what are you—"

In a swift, single slice, the blacked-out Emerald was cut in half. Instead of any blood, her two halves slumped and disintegrated into a pile of just-as-crimson rose petals.

"The voices you were hearing? All of them were fake. Same with the girl you thought you beat in one hit."

"They're hallucinations?" Ruby understood straight away. "Actually, hold on, wait a second, it makes sense... since I suddenly heard voices that were nowhere near me, now that I think about it. But what's up with everything else? How comes nobody else is here? Even Miss Goodwitch is frozen."

His ever-present smile became that much more shallow, as the scythe dissipated back into a scatter of petals. "This is a window into your soul. It's not your true inner world, but I can only tell you what you already have all the clues to in your head. So that means..."

"You don't know, either?" Ruby frowned. "...Do you have any idea who you are?"

"I'm your weapon, Ruby. You're my wielder. That's all I've got." he held his arms wide in an open gesture. "But that's all I need, too!"

"But then what's with the windup soldier look? Are you a nutcracker? I'm not really into military stuff; the Atlas-issued mechashift models are way too generic."

He waved a finger at her with a childish pout. "Don't compare me to that crappy-ass mass-produced soulless garbage! And I totally can crack nuts! Just swing me at one next time." he straightened up, and placed a hand on his chest with a cheerful grin. "I'm a toy soldier because I represent security and fun, all in one. The two things your heart wants the most."

"That... uh... sounds pretty deep... I'm not sure what to say to that. But if you're really Crescent Rose, then why do I make flowers and nothing really... coggy?"

"That's 'cause you've got a bunch of cobwebs in your head gunking up the works. Try clearing them out, and we'll see what gears we can spin."

"Cobwebs?"

"You already know what I mean. The spectre of past loss is keeping me limited to a false release."

Ruby's eyes widened. "Are you really talking about—"

"Yes. But that's for another time. This black rose doesn't need to bloom just yet." he cut her off there. "As for right now, I've got a request of my own. I want to win this match. You do too, don't you?"

She swallowed. "...Yeah. Yeah I do. I want to win, in front of everyone."

The boy stopped smiling, and his face was blank. "Good." He held out a partly-mechanical hand in front of her. Three fingers were raised.

"One. First of all, if it's mental interference we're dealing with, I can snap you out of it– but not too consistently just yet. You need a proper method of avoiding it. I recommend speed."

"Speed?" Ruby repeated confusedly. "But I already tried that. Unless..."

"...Bingo. She was already using her semblance on you from before the match even kicked off. Move faster. Faster than she can think."

One finger fell, leaving two still to count. "Two. Rely on me. I'll cut anything you swing me at. Anything at all. Don't doubt me, and label it as 'being careful'. I hate that, and I'll hate you too if you pull that crap. If you can't cut something, then that's your fault, and not mine."

"Hey! That's a bit harsh, don't you think?"

"So? I'm not done yet." The second finger fell, leaving the last one all alone. "Three. Get up."

"Get up?"

"Yep, that's right. Get up."

---

"Get up, Ruby!"

"C'mon! Get up!"

Yang and Nora were still yelling, even after a good ten seconds of Ruby laying flat.

"Well that was plain dirty..." Ren crossed his arms. "She just waltzed up behind her and squeezed the trigger, point blank..."

"That might be it." Pyrrha sighed. "What a formidable semblance..."

"That's it? Preposterous." Weiss snapped. "Ruby just needs to get her bearings. I've seen her take worse. I have absolute faith that she'll be up soon."

"Her guard was completely down, though." Pyrrha reminded. "I wouldn't be surprised if it was over."

A slight twitch.

Ichigo's keen eyes spied the movement of Ruby's fingers on the marble floor, far away. He felt the rising tide of something more than just aura inside of her.

"It's over?" he smirked. "Nah, it's just getting started."

- –—{}—– -

"I'm up! I'm up! I'm up!" Ruby jolted up from the floor, her arms under her.

She blinked her eyes clear, and looked around. Carved pillars all around, marble tiles, a watching audience, Miss Goodwitch. Colours were back. No petals could be seen, other than on the flower growing from Crescent Rose's ring. No mechanical boy... and no Emerald either.

She looked at Ms Goodwitch askingly. "Is the match still on?"

"Yes, though I must advise you to be careful, please. Don't let your guard down like that agai—"

"Thanks!" Ruby shot to her feet, immediately setting off in a red blur, leaving a scarlet storm of petals in her wake. A hasty glance painted her a grim picture:

[Ruby Rose: 40%] — [Emerald Sustrai: 99%]

Sixty percent off of one shot!? What kinda heat was she packing? Although, her letting her own guard down probably had a lot to do with it. Aura was softer when it wasn't actively 'on', and just left passive. Plus it was right behind her head...

The fact that Emerald's aura had fallen at all confirmed that it was a semblance at work, here. Aura fuelled semblances, after all. And she was certain that hers was better.

It took her exactly four seconds to search behind every pillar, and once she found Emerald stepping out from one with her guns raised, she swung.

A sideways cut at her legs, blocked with a downwards flick of Emerald's wrist, unfolding blades from the bottom of her gun barrels. Thief's Respite was now a pair of green gun-sickles, and the left one was pointing down to halt the shaft of Crescent Rose.

With the left sickle holding Ruby back, Emerald took the right one and jabbed it down at her opponent's shoulder. But rather than continuing the blade-lock, the other girl twisted the shaft, bashing her with it, and burst into a scatter of petals, flushing around her and reforming, already back on the move.

Damn. She'd planned to use the chance to properly grab hold of her mind once again. But like this, she could still influence her... if she could bend her perception of the stage just a bit...

"Ah!" her concentration was thrown off, by the roiling wave of a scarlet aura slash, flung from Crescent Rose. Emerald was forced to drop the hallucination early, knocking away the blade-beam with a sickle.

Ruby's eyes widened as an entire six-meter tall pillar appeared out of thin air right in front of her, as she was barrelling right at it. She had no time to think, plan or do anything other than react.

She wasn't going to dodge.

'𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐞. 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐭. 𝐀𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥.'

"Right!"

With both her hands, she pumped all her strength into the slash, closing her eyes and just going for it.

There was a crash, and crack of collapsing stone. When she opened her silver eyes, she found a clean, even, flat stump where the pillar once was, and a matching fallen column beside it. The cut was fine, and completely smooth. She smiled, proudly, even as she immediately got to moving once more.

Emerald couldn't keep up. She tried grabbing Ruby's mind once again, but kept losing track of her position, and without that, she couldn't really think of anything in time to intercept her. She was interrupted, again and again, by aura slash after aura slash. She had to slow her down, first.

Thief's Respite was more than just a pair of gun-knives. The sickle in her right hand fired out, a jingling chain trailing behind it, before it speared right into a tall column across the arena, at waist-height. Emerald quickly wrapped it around another pillar she'd moved next to, then rolled into position, right behind the taut line.

Ruby was coming right for her, and she knew she had a way around the chain.

But Emerald expected her to have a way around it.

Whatever she was about to do...

Ruby didn't slide under the chain; instead she shoved Crescent Rose heavily into the marble floor, and vaulted right over it like an Olympic athlete. She spun, pulling the scythe up with her into an all-out, full-body swing, straight down.

Emerald smirked, even as she was cleaved in two.

...She would have to slow down.

Ruby froze in place, staring at the two perfectly-divided halves of Emerald in shock. It wasn't really her, that much was clear, but if she was already under her spell... then stopping now wouldn't mean much. Emerald could just get her to walk right out-of-bounds, if she carried on moving. Instead, she needed to be ready to react.

'...𝐈𝐟 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡, 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐧𝐚𝐩 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭.'

She breathed in, and breathed out. She had a death-grip on Crescent Rose. It was all so quiet.

Emerald stepped out from behind a pillar, stretching lazily. When had the Emerald on the floor disappeared? She didn't know. "Alright, I win. Look at the aura bars."

Ruby didn't look. She remained rooted in place, even as a bead of sweat ran from her forehead to her chin.

"Ruby Rose, you aura has fallen to the red. I'm sorry, but you lost." Goodwitch informed. "Could you please leave the stage? We don't have all day, mind you."

Ruby didn't move. "I know how my own aura feels, thank you!" she called out loud. She couldn't be sure where they were really standing. What she did know, was that she hadn't taken another hit.

"Any time now..." she looked down at the idle Crescent Rose in her hands. All seven fingers clasped tight around her lifeline. She blinked, and almost dropped it. No, no, they were already back to five digits each.

"I didn't take you for the patient type, Ruby. But that's fine with me." 'Emerald' walked right up to her, and tossed one of her longer locks of mint-green hair over her shoulder. "I can do this alllll day..."

Ruby really hoped not. Because now, she'd just realised she couldn't hear anything. Nor could she feel anything. Her fingers, her feet, even the sensation of breathing was gone from her. Was she still breathing? She couldn't feel her heart in her chest. Nothing visual had changed, but all tactile sensations, everything auditory had been unnervingly robbed from her. It was horrible.

𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮. 𝐀𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐫.

Ruby didn't even blink. She immediately acted, on reflex sprinting at her full, semblance-enhanced tilt right at the real Emerald, leaving a sonic boom in her wake.

Emerald balked, and held both her guns out, the barrels of Thief's Respite flashing as two dust-rounds emerged at supersonic speeds, at chest-height. She cranked her semblance up a notch. As Mercury so eloquently put it earlier: brain-rape time.

"Breakdown Psychosis!"

Emerald's voice came from all around, all directions at once. Ruby knew, if she stopped for even a second, to take anything in, it was over. She'd end up having a seizure. Was something this extreme allowed? Probably not in class, but Ruby didn't have the frame of mind to question any of it.

Ruby kept going. Even if she couldn't actually see herself, even if there were colours that didn't exist leaking from her eyes, even if it wasn't actually Emerald in front of her but an octopus with an uncountable number of writhing tentacles covered in cornflakes and milk wearing a kilt, even if she kept feeling something nipping at her heels, and what felt like ants crawling all over her but were actually tiny versions of her friends in the stands, even if there were cobwebs all over her face that tasted like sour shoe polish, even if there was an orchestra inside her eardrums and a tyrannosaurus roaring a combination of every swear word and slur and every gentle encouragement it could muster, all at once, even if her eighteen fingernails had grown wings and the air stank of blue oranges, even if the floor had fallen away and she was now running through a busy upside-down street of go-karts filled with potted plants in odd hats. Ruby kept going.

Sliding on her feet, Ruby angled herself sideways with her left hand forwards. She passed between the bullets, which both blinked at her, and asked her kindly to please move back in front of them. She ignored their polite request, slipping through the thin space, catching Emerald off-guard. With her left hand, Crescent Rose whirled into an upwards-spinning wheel, and aura-enhanced soul-metal met flesh with a resounding thwack, uppercutting her opponent and sending Emerald right up the side and over the the top of the six-meter pillar.

Ruby's propeller-spin stopped at once, having gouged out a vertical line in the pillar in front of her. She couldn't see it, but she knew it was there; she'd just cut it, after all, and it was screaming in pain. No amount of tiny Yangs frolicking between her odd-numbered toes could get her to miss that.

Before Emerald could fall, Ruby reached down to her belt, pulling out a fistful of several yellow dust-crystals —(or at least, that was what she expected they were, underneath all the fuzz)— and feeding them into the hole of Crescent Rose. She didn't know how many she'd used, nor did she care in the moment. Just that it was a lot. The entire blade sparked a glimmering electric yellow, with the crystal suspended inside the circle, and the flower on the back of the scythe-head soon changed to a deep lemon colour.

Without delay, she struck down, both hands on the shaft of her scythe, digging over a foot into the stonework of the pillar. It yelped in agony, and bled a strawberry-pink stream of audible jazz music.

From the stuck-fast blade, cracks spread up the pale marble. From these fissures, damp green buds appeared, then swiftly germinated into thin vines that overtook the column. At the very top, right underneath Emerald, they combined into a stalk, from which a bulbous, meter-wide flower-bud grew in under a second. All of this had happened before the green-haired girl even had a chance to start to fall.

Emerald grit her teeth, her jaw smarting, and was about to try and land on the pillar when—

What!?

It was the largest flower she had ever seen. Wide, mustard-yellow, five splayed petals shaped like an inverted starfish, and giving off an ephemeral glow in a haze of static that hurt her wide, crimson eyes to gaze upon.

"Bloom, Crescent Rose!"

With a crackle, crash and flash, the haze of sparks converged and burst into a blast of electric light, right from the bottom of the stamens to the top of the pistil, from the core of the stem to the tip of the petals, all was alight with blinding voltaic power. The flash consumed Emerald entirely, forcing all in the stands to look away or block their eyes, save for Ichigo.

The roll of low thunder consumed the air, even as the short blast subsided after a single second. Sound was slower than lightning, after all. Emerald collapsed to the ground, dropping from the air like a stone, flopping and spasming like a gasping fish. Her hair stood on end, and her aura crackled around her.

She breathed out, and stopped trying to move, before breathing out again. In and out.

In, and out. That was all she could muster.

Ruby collapsed to her knees, as the world around her was stripped of all its madness, back to the mundane set of colours she knew and expected. She counted her fingers, and found ten, then rubbed her face, even over where the third eye she'd felt on her left cheek once was. She stayed there, sat tight for a good few moments. She was gonna need a bubble bath.

But on the other hand...

[Ruby Rose: 38%] — [Emerald Sustrai: 22%]

She looked up, and rose to her feet. She was mentally exhausted; not physically. In a way, this was the complete opposite of the final stage of her fight with Weiss. Emerald was still laid out on the floor, just like before, but she was ready for her.

Across the arena, Emerald barely had the presence of mind to try and sit up, trying to find her second wind. Her muscles cramped all over, and her mind was foggy after Breakdown Psychosis. Usually, something like that was saved for when she was supporting her allies from afar. It was pretty reliable for getting someone weak-minded to black out, but also left her mentally drained afterwards. It wasn't something for consecutive uses, she knew that much.

Troublingly, Ruby Rose was already back on her feet. Emerald glanced at her, blinked—

And felt the cold press of a sharp line of soul-steel at her throat. Ruby was nowhere to be seen, but her weapon was held from behind.

"Hey! Miss! I win, right?" she hollered. "If she tries anything, I can just pull Crescent Rose back! This totally counts as a submission hold, doesn't it!"

"Yes, Miss Rose, I believe it does." Goodwitch clapped. "An excellent display, though I'm afraid the intricacies of Emerald's semblance were lost on the rest of us."

Ruby rounded her head on the teacher, and narrowed her silver eyes. "Are you really the real Miss Goodwitch?"

Before she could get an answer, Ruby shoved Crescent Rose forwards, impacting Emerald right in the stomach. Her mint-green aura flickered, and the teacher disappeared hazily. Ruby smirked. "Thought so!"

She looked up, one last time.

[Ruby Rose: 38%] — [Emerald Sustrai: 16%]

Emerald let out a choked cough, as Ruby disengaged from her. If she used her Hallucinations semblance at all at this point, she'd drop down into sub-15%, and turn her bar red, causing her loss no matter what. It was over.

"I win! I win—hrk!" Ruby pumped her fist up into the air, and fought down the urge to puke, a hand over her mouth. She was soaked in sweat, and she felt like going to the bathroom, actually.

"Well done, Ruby. That final move was quite impressive. I'm happy to see you've developed a method of channelling dust through your semblance, like we touched upon last time. As for Miss Sustrai, that opening gambit of yours was almost the end, but I suggest that you should have been more prepared in case she got up again. In a team battle, you would have won, so it is nothing to be ashamed of. You're both dismissed."

"Thanks, I'm going to the ladies room, bye!"

"You need a pas— and she's already gone..." Glynda sighed, before turning her attention back to the students in the stands above. Her hands were clasped behind her back.

"Who wants to go next?"

- –—{}—– -

"I'm disappointed, Emerald..."

"I'm impressed, Ruby!"

Cinder took a fleeting glance at the girl who had beaten her teammate. Somehow, she had fought through hallucinations that had managed to handicap the Fall Maiden. Was it her eyes? No, it couldn't have been... she was still affected by the illusions at the start. And silver eyes wouldn't help against Emerald's multi-sensory cerebral semblance, anyway. Any bypass to her ability, one that hadn't failed before, was quite concerning. It was a good thing the flaw had been exposed in a stakesless spar.

Weiss and Cinder spoke to their teammates at length, even as another fight went on below. It was Pyrrha, against Cardin. In the past, she'd have fought his entire team at once and won, but in the past couple weeks he'd been getting better and better. At this point now, it was almost actually a fight. Almost.

Yang hugged Ruby tightly, before letting go when she realised how sweaty she was.

"Yuck!" she lurched away with her tongue stuck out.

"I couldn't help it, okay! It was like a bowling alley screen combined with a weird scroll-game add, but I was inside of it!" Ruby pouted. "Of course I got all sweaty! I couldn't stay calm!"

"Yeah, but would it kill you to put on some spray, or something?"

"Do you have to say this out loud!?"

"I'm just trying to help you out... look at all the guys around here. Think of the dance..."

"The only guy I need is right here!" she held Crescent Rose to her chest, tightly.

Ichigo, meanwhile, tuned them out, eyes on Ruby's scythe. Her weapon. Crescent Rose.

There was no doubt about it. It was a zanpakutō, as he already knew. Or at least, something very close to one.

...He had to talk with Zangetsu about this. It was too strange to pass up. He could give her some pointers on it afterwards. From what he could tell, its shikai was some sort of flower-based ability. She'd channelled dust into the plant itself, but it looked like she could've kept it in the blade, too. Pretty nifty, but it felt like there had to be more to it. She hadn't had it for that long, after all.

After a swift exchange of blows, Cardin was floored, Pyrrha standing over him.

[Pyrrha Nikos: 96%] — [Cardin Winchester: 15%]

"Lucky shot." he ground out, clutching his chest. He clearly wasn't happy, but he still paid attention to the instructor's advice, too. Looks like that sparring session did him some good, after all.

"Pyrrha's really been driven in combat class since she lost last week." Jaune observed. "It wasn't pretty, but I think it was a good thing for her overall."

"She lost?" Ichigo sat up, now interested. "To who? She's pretty strong, isn't she?"

"Yeah, a big-time tournament winner or something. At least, I think she is... she doesn't like to talk about it." Jaune replied.

"You're both kidding, right?" Weiss's eyebrow twitched with equal parts irritation and disbelief. "Jaune, haven't you been in a team with her for two months? I told you on the day we met her that she's the Mistral Regional Tournament winner for four-years running. That's a an all-time record she's set, by the way."

"...And yet it wasn't enough to beat me." Mercury leaned back in his seat, leering over his shoulder with a wide, smug smirk. "Guess I'm the champ, now, huh?"

"Eavesdropping is taboo for a reason, you imbecile." Weiss glowered. "As is gloating. Honestly, do you have to flaunt your pride like that? It's distasteful."

"Pride is distasteful? Should a Schnee really be talking?" Mercury gave her a flat stare.

"Do you have to be such a jerk?" Yang butt in.

"Leave it." Ichigo spoke up, making his point. "When you win, you can trash talk all you want. That's how it works. But we'll see how long you'll stay a 'winner' around me, won't we?" he finished, meeting Mercury in the eyes.

"Something tells me we'll find out real soon, man..." Mercury retorted. Cinder reached across Emerald's lap, and pinched him. He squirmed around straight away, and looked at his leader with caution. "What was that for?"

"For speaking when you didn't have to. Loose lips make for a loose life." she stated evenly. The message was clear. Ichigo didn't have to know that.

Glynda Goodwitch tapped at her scroll. "Alright, now I know that's a tough act to follow, but we have time for one more sparring match."

It was time to see who it was he'd really met this morning.

The way they'd reacted to him entering their room; seeing how Emerald aimed for Ruby's head; hearing how Mercury bested one of the best up-and-coming huntresses around; and knowing that there was something up with Amber's soul...

Ichigo's lips tightened to a thin line.

"Hey, Sun?"

"Ichigo?" the blonde faunus leaned his head back over his bench, meeting his gaze upside-down. "Did you just see that? It was crazy!"

"Yeah... I'm gonna have to rein-check on our spar."

"No problemo, bro. I heard the teacher. We can just do it another time." he smiled easily. It looked kinda funny, from Ichigo's angle– since it matched his own frown.

"Can you guys watch my butterfly for me?"

"Your what— whoa." Yang's lilac eyes watched as a hand-sized, night-black butterfly fluttered out from Ichigo's sleeve.

"I saw that one at the docks... that was your... pet?" Blake cocked her bowed head.

"Cute!" Ruby squealed. "I'll take great care of it! You can trust me!"

"Cool." He reached over, and flicked Amber in the back of the head. "It's time. Don't get cold feet."

"Ow!" she jolted, and glowered as she rubbed the spot. "You could've just asked me, you know! I was about to get up!"

- –—{}—– -

Miss Goodwitch repaired the arena with her semblance, as she did after every match.

"Ichigo Kurosaki..."

Ichigo reached into his pocket, palming his combat pass. His clothes became a skeletal, porcelain-white carapace mostly hidden under his red jacket. A thin strip passed over the bridge of his nose, under his determined eyes, orange hair, and sharp left horn. In his hand, reishi covered his fullbring sword until it became a full onyx daitō, with a jagged manji for a crossguard. The Heilig Klinge was gripped tight in his right hand, covered by brown fingerless leather gloves. He stood tall, and side-on, sword forwards.

"...and Cinder Fall."

Amber reached around her back, drawing twin scimitars of black, shiny obsidian glass. They were finely crafted, and Ichigo could sense that dust was their main component. She entered a prideful, showy stance, standing up straight, left sword hanging low and loose, her right sword over her shoulder, using the thumb to hold it whilst she drummed her fingers on the grip in a rocking wave. Her right side was forwards, letting her lone exposed eye shine brightly, the colour of strong apple cider and snake venom.

With the same method as before, he projected a false reading onto the aura bars, by manipulating the crystallised reishi that made up dust.

[Ichigo Kurosaki: 100%] — [Cinder Fall: 100%]

"...This will be the final match of the day, so let's make it a good one." Glynda swung her riding crop down, and declared, "Fight!"

With a flare of bright green bringer-light, Ichigo was right on top of Amber, a direct lunge right at her.

She brought her swords up, catching the blow with an X-shaped guard, but Ichigo grabbed her right wrist with his free hand and yanked it wide. With her guard forced open, she gagged as she got kneed, hard, in the stomach. "Ack!"

Ichigo let his sword fall slack, sliding down to just the chain in his fingers, which freed up said digits to grab her back and hurl her into the flat stone ground.

She scraped herself up, onto a knee, as Ichigo stood over her and watched.

[Ichigo Kurosaki: 100%] — [Cinder Fall: 82%]

"...I didn't take you for the type to like it rough..." she remarked dryly, looking up at him.

"This is just how I fight." Ichigo used the slack chain in his fingers to whip his Quincy katana up into a whirling ring of speed and dark spiritual-steel, giving a confident smile. "Don't tell me this is already too much for you?"

'Just how he fought?' Really? He was ferocious. Amber could barely find space to breathe. But she was hardly going all out, either...

"Not a chance– I'm hardly even warmed up."

The intricate patterns lining the sleeves, bust and back of her low-cut dust-vestment dress lit up with a burning orange glow, as did her eye. Her weapons, twin swords she'd told Ichigo were named Midnight back in the stands, caught alight, flaming with a brilliant amber incandescence.

"Ha-ha. Very funny..." Ichigo muttered sarcastically.

She rose to her feet smoothly, holding her fire-scimitars out, pointing diagonally downwards either side of her as she strut forwards. His sword still whirred away, as Ichigo let her approach. Amber gave a smile, and after a moment's hesitation, Ichigo returned it.

She leapt at him, approaching low.

Ichigo used the spin of his blade to bring it down with a great force, and Amber slowed down as she blocked it with one sword over her back in a half-crouch. Her left gloved arm was free to swipe at his stomach, tongues of fire licking at his torso, nicking and singeing the armour of his fullbring.

Ichigo shuffled a step backwards, pulling his sword away from her back as Amber lunged forwards, cleaving at him with both fire-swords from either side. A pincer attack.

Now or never... He put both hands on the hilt of his sword, and felt for the coat of reishi around the core of his fullbring. His fingers dug in, with a blue-black pulse, and he wrenched the two apart. Amber's swords, held forwards, and coming towards each other like a burning pair of jaws, snapped together...

Only to be blocked by Ichigo's. Two swords, on the left his fullbring knife, on the right his Quincy sword. His arms were crossed, holding them straight up on opposite sides, and sparks flew with the force of the parry. Amber's eye widened, before her arms were wrenched apart as Ichigo flexed his strength.

His swords were free, and hers were thrown wide. He brought both down, right at her shoulders, but found... nothing.

Amber had blurred away, in a burst of static, appearing atop a high pillar on the opposite side of the arena. The movement was fast –too fast for Remnant.

He stopped. Did she just?

Amber crouched down on the pale marble column, latching the hilts of her scimitars together and extinguishing them. Obsidian's dark sheen caught the sky's open light as an ornate onyx bow was formed: Midnight's ranged form.

Ichigo rolled his shoulders. He'd finally progressed to the point that he could maintain a Heilig Klinge sword without using his fullbring to build off of. It felt good. He'd be feeling better, though, if Amber hadn't just done what he saw she did. A sonído? Here? What the heck was that all about? Things just kept piling up, first her friends' fighting styles, then her own abilities. He'd be getting to the bottom of it, one way or another.

Amber's lone eye narrowed to a tight line of blazing orange. Her bowstring was slunk back, and three arrowheads materialised out of thin air. One by one, they caught fire, before with a twitch of her gloved fingers she let them fly.

Ichigo saw them incoming, and made no effort to dodge. He raised his fullbring knife, letting it flare with unbridled, pitch-dark spiritual power, and flung it forwards, throwing a manji of reiatsu right at the arrows. It intercepted the first one, forcing it to explode in an ardent fireball, but the second and third followed on through. Blut vene sparkled brightly as it crawled across his skin with a luminous cobalt glimmer.

The arrows were blocked with his swords, and the fires they caused weathered with blut, but he could feel the third was hotter than the second. That meant the fourth would be hotter, and the fifth would be hotter than that. He had to play more aggressively, to put her on the defensive. So it was time for...

"Bows and arrows, huh? I can do that too..."

His Quincy sword shifted and flattened out in his right hand, until it transformed into a smooth black recurve bow. He pulled it up to his chest, sheathing his fullbring in the slot on his back, and rolled forwards to dodge another fire-arrow that blackened the ground where it struck. A glowing string of blue reishi cocked an equally flashy, azure Heilig Pfeil.

Amber watched as he drew it back, and readied herself to jump.

When Ichigo released it, the bolt flew faster than the eye could see, and an entire pillar was destroyed in a bright blue explosion. –A shame it was nowhere near the pillar where Amber was perched.

She'd shielded her eyes from the blast, and slowly brought it her arm down... to laugh.

"Ahahaha! I was gonna call you out for copying me, but your aim is so garbage it doesn't matter!" she cackled.

"Tch." Ichigo grumbled, lowering his bow. "I just can't get the hang of it." he glanced down at the bow in his hands. "Good thing I took that weapon mechanics course. Let's see if I learnt anything useful..."

The reishi broke down in his hands, becoming malleable and flexible. Bowlimbs became tubes, and the grip became a handle. A hammer cocked back, and the string dissolved.

Under the flares of blue-black light, in Ichigo's hands was his true Quincy armament. His proper 'bow'.

A sleek, metallic-black, sawed-off double barrel shotgun.

Hey, when in Remnant...

He whipped it up, standing side-on, eyeballing Amber's position, and fired it with one hand.

"Hrn!" She grunted, and dived off the pillar, as it was blown apart in a blinding blue blast.

"Now that's more like it!" Ichigo grinned. Seems like Remnant was onto something with its whole gun-craze. This was way easier to use. Just point and shoot. Looks like he did learn something from this wacky school, after all.

Plus, it freed up his other hand. He reached over his shoulder, drawing his fullbring knife, when the display caught his eye.

[Ichigo Kurosaki: 76%] — [Cinder Fall: 63%]

"Seriously!?" Did his control really slip that badly? Looks like creating all this stuff had taxed his grip on the display worse than he thought.

When Amber let another clutch of arrows loose, he shot the first out of the air, and slipped under the second. Neon-green bringer-light flickered beneath his heels, and he closed the distance in moments.

Amber split her bow into swords once more, and blocked his thrust with a vertical parry on her left. Her right arm swung in, right at his neck, but Ichigo's shotgun forced her to duck at the last minute under an explosive blast.

She stomped on his foot, getting him to pause, and the stomp did more than just that. The floor around the two began to glow and melt, a sudden Scorching Caress warping the once-solid marble out of sheer heat. Ichigo's blut vene stopped any burns, but he felt the waves of blood-boiling aura wafting over him, drying his eyes, throat and mouth. Sweat dripped down his brow, which turned to steam as the temperature climbed higher and higher.

Cinder Fall's semblance; Scorching Caress. The ability to super-heat anything she or her aura touches, and warp its shape. She tested him with its climbing swell of firey demise, and was surprised to see him keep up the blade-lock even when in direct contact with her aura. At its full output, anyone without an aura touching her would find themselves instantly incinerated.

Ichigo reached down with his right hand, still clasping the shotgun, and knocked it against his belt. It opened up, the barrel bending down, like a break-action.

A cartridge he'd borrowed from his friends was still in there. Well, he couldn't exactly give it back after using it, so it was more of a gift. One that he wouldn't squander.

The entire light-blue cartridge fell out, pulled by his grip over its crystalline reishi, and it fell into the barrels of his gun. Far more dust than any normal gun would ever fire at once. He cracked it to the side in a whipping motion, and the shaft snapped back up, into place. Ichigo was pretty sure actual guns didn't work like this, but he didn't pay it any mind.

He pointed it down, at her feet, and leaned forwards, pushing Amber's swords back with his own in his left hand. With two contact points holding his blade in place, he couldn't twist it like Ruby would with her scythe's shaft. So, he kept up the pressure. As soon as he felt her give...

He pulled the trigger. Amber regretted not jumping back immediately.

When an entire charge's worth of subzero ice dust came into contact with the partially-molten stone floor of the arena, it was instantly sublimated into an explosion so huge, so fast, and so violent, that scalding steam engulfed the entire arena, piling up against the hard-light dust protecting the stands, and shooting up into the open sky. The conversion of water to steam caused it to expand in volume by a factor of one-thousand-six-hundred times. The state change of ice to steam was even greater in its force, and destructive capacity.

Anyone without aura would have gruesomely perished instantly from the ambient heat alone.

Glynda Goodwitch crossed her hands in front of her face, and a purple bubble formed around her, shielding her her from the worst of the blast. Alarmed, she swooshed her riding crop across the air in front of her, and forcibly cleared away a large amount of the white haze with a violet tinge to the boiling-hot fog. What she found stemmed her concern for her students, but also replaced it with an entirely different worry.

[Ichigo Kurosaki: 54%] — [Cinder Fall: 55%]

"Hrrgh..."

Amber grunted as Ichigo remained rooted firm, still clashing blades with her. His entire body was covered in circuits of bright, shimmering blue light, standing out starkly against the white mist.

She disengaged, letting herself slide back, dropping to let one hand's fingertips touch the damp tiles as she skidded back. Her entire body was emitting faint wisps of smoke. It seemed that she was entirely immune to the back-draft of the trails of hot lava that followed the scratches her blood-red painted nails left in the marble floor. They bathed the chalk-white atmosphere in a deep orange glow.

"A steam bath? This is just like a spa!" Amber cooed, and winked at him. "Aw, you really know how to pamper a girl~"

Ichigo let his blut fade until it was no longer visible, but still present enough to protect him against the steam. "Lava in a spa? Y'know, I didn't take you for the type to fall for such crazy fads..."

"Come on, it's not that bad... just feel it on your skin!"

Her single eye began to leak a vivid orange stream of flowing effervescent light, and the molten scratch she'd gouged out gathered and levitated into four thin tendrils of magma. The first one flicked at Ichigo, sending hot blobs of multi-thousand-degree liquid rock, and he dodged it with a flare of bringer-light. Amber watched his movements, and the second tendril aimed right at his landing spot.

A blast from his shotgun knocked it out of the air, but still splattered it dangerously in a cloud of steam. It seemed that there was still residual ice-dust inside it.

He flickered towards her, approaching even as he sidestepped the third lava tendril's set of viscous flaming droplets, and managed to get right up into Amber's face. His gun levelled with her chest even as her fourth streak of hot magma formed a shield against the ice-shot, and from the obscuring blanket of hot vapour, spikes of fire emerged to singe him as he weaved between them.

As a blazing spike narrowly missed his chest, Ichigo found himself wondering something. A question had taken root at the back of his mind, even as he and Amber continued their violent dance.

Why wasn't she using the other elements?

Obviously it was because she was trying to hide her Maiden powers from the Beacon staff... but then why choose fire? She'd told him, on the night he first met her, that wind was the first element she'd learnt to use... and it seemed to be the one she was the best with, seeing as how she could fly...

So why not that? Fire... just didn't really seem to suit Amber. He knew he hadn't spoken to her that much, but he could just tell. She could've chosen any other single element to use.

And, the more he fought her. The more he caught glimpses of what laid behind Amber's soul. Another presence, in addition to her own spiritual flame...

It was multi-layered, in some way, folded over, but he just couldn't get a good enough look at whatever it colour it was behind Amber's soul.

There was the magic of Autumn in there, he could tell; but there was something more behind it.

And now Ichigo could feel that presence. That toxic-orange glint in Amber's glowing eye, the angle of her blows growing more precise, pragmatic, lethal. There was something burning brighter in her soul than the warm gold of Autumn leaves he was familiar with; a scarlet soul-flame of consuming crimson, the colour of a low, late sunset; of flowing blood and burning hunger; of hot metal and shooting pain.

Ichigo flickered backwards, bringer-light under his soles, and he straightened up his posture as he let his shotgun dissipate into azure sparkles of ethereal reishi. He looked down at the cut over his stomach, from earlier. If he bled at all, it'd reveal his fake aura, and they'd call the match. That slash had been annoyingly close.

A white flash shone as he gripped his combat pass tightly, and Amber halted at what she saw.

Ichigo stepped forwards, hefting the massive sealed state of Zangetsu over his shoulder.

- –—{}—– -

"That's a bad call. Why'd he swap to a bigger, slower weapon, instead of keeping his smaller sword and gun?" Neptune wondered aloud. "He needs the speed here."

"How should I put it..." Pyrrha smiled knowingly. "Ichigo's sword... doesn't operate on logic like that."

"Or any logic, for that matter." Weiss added on.

Sun raised an eyebrow. "But a bigger, heavier sword should be slower, right? It doesn't make any sense, unless he's gonna use the huge flat side to block her fire semblance. Or is that dust she's using?"

"Semblance or dust, it doesn't matter. It won't stand up to Zangetsu!" Ruby declared, leaning forwards in her seat. "Just watch!"

- –—{}—– -

Ichigo brought down his blade, and the air was cleaved in two.

All of the scalding steam filling the arena was wiped away, parted instantly like the clouds after a storm. The sheer wind pressure of his swing made Amber's eye sting, the steam of orange magic flowing from it blown back— even though pure magic shouldn't be affected by a physical wind in the first place.

The clear blue sky was opened up, filling the air with its calm cerulean hue. He twisted Zangetsu to the side, holding it out so the flat edge faced her, the tip balancing on the ground, and the hilt up in the air. The sunbeams caught on the thick, silver edge of his blade, reflecting Amber's startled, hesitant face.

She knew what that sword was. What it could do. And she was very, very wary of that.

The sword of a shinigami. A zanpakutō.

He placed his hands on top of the hilt, leaning on it tauntingly. "What? I'm feeling generous, so I'll let you make the first move. I told you not to get cold feet, didn't I?"

Cinder snapped out of Amber's daze, and grit her teeth. "Cold is the last thing I feel! I'm the hottest girl around!"

She stamped vigorously at the floor. It began to bubble and glow, before it exploded like a rapturous volcano. Columns of raging, sparking supernatural fire reached for the skies above, and the air shimmered with its intense, burning heat.

Miss Goodwitch brought up another shield around herself, and her eyes narrowed. The power the combatants in front of her held was far beyond student-level. She knew about Ichigo's absurd strength, but what this mystery woman was outputting was abnormal in its own right. Could she be...

Ozpin had to be informed about this. But she had to see more, first.

"Remember this is just a spar, you two!" she called.

Cinder responded by bursting into flames. Not all over herself, but a writhing cloak of fire around her arms, shoulders, legs and back. Ichigo glanced at the teacher once, giving her a single nod. At least one of them acknowledged her...

"Tsk!" Cinder, however, didn't stop. She took what looked like the fourth position of a ballerina's stance, her arms held in a ring-shape around her chest, as she revolved once, then twice, with her right foot raised to the side of her left knee. She was soon in the midst of a blistering pirouette. Ichigo recognised it as something he'd seen Yuzu practice before... but she'd never kicked up a magical tornado of supernatural fire around herself, like he was seeing now. The colour of the flames shifted from red, to orange, to yellow, to a pale, ghostly blue, before she skidded to a halt and unleashed the fury of luminous hellfire. Her hands were raised over her head as she threw her whole body forwards, transferring the momentum from herself to the whirling inferno.

Ichigo simply pulled Zangetsu in front him and shoved it into the stone floor, like a makeshift stake he could stand behind.

After a few seconds, the blaze subsided, and Cinder kept her eye peeled. She hadn't expected such an attack to take him out, but...

Her eye twitched. She hadn't expected him to just be able to stand there and take it just fine, either!

"You look surprised." Ichigo had an easy, relaxed look on his face, not having moved a muscle. Even his clothes were just fine, protected by a close field of his own reiatsu.

"Is it so unbelievable that your flames can't burn my body? Should I break it down for you?"

The flaming woman's arms waved together, bringing her palms close to create a concentrated spray of extreme heat, that set fire to the air itself. Ichigo simply remained in place behind his sword, letting the sea of flames wash over him.

"It's no great secret, really. When two spiritual forces collide, the weaker of the two absorbs the impact. That's all there is to it, as far as some psycho once told me." Ichigo laid both his hands on the business end of Zangetsu's pommel. "In short, the burning flames you've created by honing your magic to your limits," –he made sure to look her in her wide-open eye– "–are weaker than the spiritual pressure leaking out of me and my sword unconsciously. It's that simple."

"Haaaaah!" Cinder charged forwards with a shaken, forceful yell, pushing herself forwards and drawing her twin flaming scimitars once more. As she blurred into a sonído, Ichigo finally raised his massive blade, and set to work. Three strikes. That should be enough.

She re-appeared midair, baring down on him from above, sucking in a deep breath as she struck both her fire-swords down at once in a heavy double-blow, right at his head. Zangetsu was raised before she even landed the attack, and Ichigo was perfectly calm. This was more comfortable, for him. Fighting someone whom he could tell now, was striking to kill, was far more familiar. It felt like home.

Whether Cinder was aware of it or not, she was subconsciously falling into her more natural rhythm. She'd stopped holding back, and wasn't fighting like a Beacon student at all now. She wasn't even fighting like a huntress. Ichigo had drawn that out of her, without her even realising it. He'd slowly but surely bared another soul, through the medium of battle. He had a knack for it.

Cinder leaned into her swords from above like they were reverse-stilts, letting them carry her swift momentum right over Ichigo. She let out air she'd inhaled through pursed lips, shooting a roaring jet of bright blue fire right at his back. Ichigo ducked slightly, just enough to narrowly avoid the dragon-breath even with his horns, and brought Zangetsu up with one hand right as she re-angled her head.

Cinder's fire hit Zangetsu, and Zangetsu's flat edge hit Cinder. Strike one.

She was knocked right up, sailing into the air, and Ichigo jumped after her. His leap was faster than her rise, so he brought his knee up into her back, speeding her up. Strike two.

"Ack!" Cinder was dazed, the world around her spinning, but that was because she really was spinning. She was sent right through the holographic aura bars, and they flickered wildly once again as she began her descent. She re-oriented herself, using some subtle wind magic to straighten herself out, and she crossed her swords in front of her, in an X-shape.

"Perish!"

Ichigo blinked at her. She remembered this was a spar, right? If he thought her more lethal mannerisms were subtle beforehand, she'd kind of just jumped the shark with that one. He knew he'd been pushing her on purpose, but still...

She began to fall, slowly, then faster and faster, sparks and fire of a kaleidoscope of colours wreathed her meteoric approach. The multi-thousand degree heat left a wake of suspended flames in the air, and the crackle of flames drowned out everything except for the sonic boom of her approach. She'd turned herself into a woman-sized low-orbit comet.

Ichigo landed and took a strange stance, planting his feet, crouching slightly and facing her left-side-on. He tapped his door-sized sword against the ground a couple times testingly, and rolled his shoulders. He raised Zangetsu to the right, away from Cinder's incoming impact, and readied himself.

He waited, waited and waited some more, until Cinder was only a few away from his chest, and travelling faster than sound.

What is he—

"Batter up!"

Ichigo swung with his entire body, both hands all the way, bringing his giant sword all the way across with a full twist of his hips and torso. Strike three. You're out!

Cinder was slugged hard enough that the solid stone tiles beneath Ichigo's dark sandles cracked and spider-webbed around his feet. Her arms crumpled, her swords flying away from her loose grip, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she was knocked high, far, and fast. With a boom that could be heard across the castle grounds, her attack was rebounded. Her limp blazing body zoomed out over the stands, over the hundreds of awestruck heads of students from across Remnant, far beyond the bounds of the arena. Where the feminine meteor would land was anybody's guess.

"And... that's a home run!" Ichigo raised a flat hand over his brow, watching her go. He let out a low whistle. "Whew!"

The crowd of students erupted into cheers, standing, roaring and swinging their hands over their heads. Only two particular 'students' remained seated, both slack-jawed and unable to process what they had just seen.

[Ichigo Kurosaki: 44%] — [Cinder Fall: ~~%]

Huh, looks like he'd completely forgotten to bother keeping control over the false display. Another few seconds and he'd have fallen into the red. Not as if that mattered now, though.

"Ichigo! That was uncalled for!" Miss Goodwitch shrieked, mortified.

"Relax, you cranky umpire." The crowd loved it, at least. "She'll survive that; I used the back of my blade."

Ichigo casually tossed his huge sword up into the air, letting it spin, and it just so happened to land perfectly sheathed on his back. She sputtered at the absurd sight, but didn't let it distract her from her worry.

"Survive!? That's not the kind of language I want to hear in a school! This is a learning environment, not a caged deathmatch!" she yelled.

"Okay, okay, I'll go get her, teach. I guarantee you she'll be even better than when you met her."

"How does that make any sense!? Don't go after her, you're the last person I want to do that!"

"I'll explain everything, trust me! You'll be glad I did this!"

"I very much doubt it!"

Her body glimmered with a purple light, though Ichigo paid no attention to her as she lit up.

Ichigo back-flipped several meters up, arcing his descent back to land back in the stands, right around his old seat.

"That was so cool! But er, she'll be fine, right?" Jaune asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, don't sweat it. I just need to grab her partners real quick."

"Wait, what?"

"Licensed Huntsman business; you'll see."

Before anyone could speak, Ichigo had clamped a hand down on the shoulders of Cinder's teammates. He blurred and vanished in a blink.

---

Cinder Fall was flying.

Up and up. It continued for far longer than she would have liked, but she couldn't control her supersonic momentum. Her arms were broken, though they wouldn't be for much longer. She sailed past birds and buildings, almost skimming some low clouds, before her ascent slowed down.

Cinder Fall was falling.

Down and down. It was far faster than she would have liked, but she could control her momentum this time. Her arms had healed. She just needed to call upon some wind... She sailed past more birds, Ichigo, trees, what—

She slowed herself further, whipping up a vortex below as she landed in a forest clearing. A red forest clearing.

The deciduous trees made a canopy of deep vermillion, with a few paler and darker shades in between. Where the sparse gaps of the crimson foliage peeked through overhead, pockets of a pale silvery sky contrasted with the claret red. It seemed to be that they had flown so far out that the cloudy weather here was completely different to Beacon's.

Dark woody roots snaked from greyish trunks, the tree-bark more ashen than ochre in their rugged, natural hues. A few flowers, resembling snow-white petalled spider lilies with cherry-red cores, grew in a copse at the base of the trees. The ground itself was a mix of earthy brown soil, and vivid coral-red leaves shed from the boughs above. A faint birdsong could be heard in the distance, but Cinder knew that couldn't be all that lurked in the forest.

"Huh, weird... I could've sworn it was Winter, not Autumn..."

Her head locked onto Ichigo as he landed, dumping a sick-looking Mercury and Emerald onto the leafy floor. They scrambled to their feet, Mercury rolling for cover and Emerald bolting behind her like a startled pet.

Mercury gasped for breath, eyes wide at just how far they'd travelled in seconds. "This is..."

"Forever Fall..." Amber gestured to the rosy sea of trees around them. "...the red forest of eternal Autumn. You must've knocked me really far, Ichigo. These woods go on for miles on the north coast of Vale."

Amber walked up to him, auburn leaves crunching underfoot, and with a hurt voice. "Ichigo, what was with that? You could have really hurt me, you know. I'm lucky I—"

Smack.

Cinder fell back, collapsing to her rear. Ichigo loomed over her, an unreadable expression on his face even with his right hand held wide. His horns cast a dark shadow over his face, his hollowfied left eye staring right into her soul. Literally.

A gust of wind blustered across the clearing. Turning the leaves over at their feet, and creating a white noise of rustling foliage.

Mercury was lost for words. A back-handed slap. A back-handed bitch slap. This guy just bitch-slapped Cinder!

"Now that we've got a little privacy, let's get down to business... Cinder."

Cinder seemed truly lost for a short handful of seconds, before she curtly recomposed herself like a switch. "...I see. How did you know?"

"I don't really look to 'unravel' plans. I just hit them and hit them, until I cut right through 'em. I've been toyed with more times than I would like to count. Your little make-believe role-play was just hard to buy after all I've been through. You're no Aizen, trust me. Hell, you're hardly even Ginjō."

She got up to her feet, dusting herself off, wiping at her face. "And should I be jealous of whoever they are?"

"It doesn't matter either way. One of them's dead, and the other's stuck in jail for twenty thousand years. If you're really jealous of them, then don't worry," his eyes hardened, "–'cause I can help you out with that."

"Oh, so harsh... so you don't want to hear me out, mister hero?" she appealed airily.

"I already know everything I need to know." Ichigo replied. "Amber told me about some assassins coming after her. You tried throwing me off, but she mentioned one specific woman, stronger than the others. Your teammates are trained killers. Did you really think I wouldn't get suspicious after your green-haired chick put a gun to my head?" Ichigo pushed. "How dumb do you think I am?"

Was she even human? She didn't seem to even understand the sort of movement she'd used back in the arena. That sonído of hers was purely instinctual– using spiritual instincts nobody on Remnant should even have. Looks like he's about to find out. It's the reason why he'd taken her somewhere so remote in the first place, after all.

"It all fit together, more and more, the more I saw." he continued. "Your insistence on fire. The way you fight. It's not the style of someone who told me she's never taken a life before. I can judge certain things through combat, and you weren't the person you claimed to be. Amber's in there, I can feel it; but your ugly muck of a soul is in the way. I'm gonna fix that."

"How sharp of you. Sharper than any child of Beacon. You're far more perceptive than I anticipated, even with her memories..." Cinder admitted. "I'll admit this wasn't supposed to happen so soon..."

"Souls? What is he even on about?" Mercury murmured.

"Ha? She didn't tell you? Oh, that's rich, you're not even in on it." the shinigami mocked. He reached into his shihakushō, pulling out his combat pass to properly introduce himself.

"Ichigo Kurosaki. Deputy Soul Reaper... and Huntsman. Don't bother running."

"What the hell...?" Mercury swallowed. "I didn't know that toothpaste was yours, I swear..."

Cinder caught Emerald looking at her searchingly out of the corner of her single eye. "Cinder?"

"It's nothing that can be explained right now." she dismissed. "Just know that this man is our sole target. No holds barred, follow my lead."

"Now we're getting somewhere. You're acting all composed, but I can see it in your eye." he pointed right at her face. "You think you're invincible with that stolen Maiden magic of yours. With what I just did? I've wounded your pride, and you wanna gut me for it. Bring it on. You won't even be the fourth bitch I've cut down this month."

"Gut you? –You wish. That's the least I want to do to you." Cinder sneered, even as a nervous droplet of sweat ran down the side of her face. "And this power of mine? I've earned it. I'm more deserving than any other woman in this world. Since you've mentioned it, I'll let you see all of the elements at my rightful command, this time– and more."

"Fine with me. Good thing the ground's already all red here." Ichigo decided, brandishing Zangetsu. "–I won't be making a mess."

Cinder clawed at the space behind her with her nails. It tore.

---

NEXT: 24 - FALL OF FALL IN FALL - [What Can You See In Their Eyes] / [B07a]

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Author's notes:

Told you I said the 'Schizo Cinder' arc was gonna be quick. I'm trying to follow Bleach's twisty breakneck pacing, remember. But I'll admit, it wasn't supposed to be "Ichigo sniffed her out in 1 chapter" quick, though. The reason this simple fight chapter took so long to put out is because I basically rethought the entire way it was gonna play out, thanks to the reviews and some PMs. There was supposed to be a break between the fight and the final confrontation, but after a few guys basically called me a retard for making it look like she was fooling Ichigo even after he's gotten manipulated so many times over already, I just shoved the two together and had him figure it out. I was annoyed by the comments, but it was the sort of annoying annoyance where you realise they've got a point, too, like when your parents scold you. How annoying. In the end, I decided 'fair enough' and changed things. Screw you, though, specifically, PM guy.

Ruby's fight was honestly more fun to play with. I was inspired a bit by Gremmy's (KINO) battle with Kenpachi and Äs Nödt's (SICK) episode to make Emerald's hallucinations a sort of illusionary Visionary Fear type of fight. Ruby's counter to it was kinda drawing on Kenpachi's intial strategy of just blitzing their opponent faster than they could think. She can't really pull off out-haxing her foe like Rukia did, after all. I hope you like Crescent Rose's zanpakutō spirit design and ability. I put almost ten whole minutes of thought into them.

For Crescent Rose's outfit, imagine

iDOTpinimgDOTcom/originals/7c/d7/7e/7cd77e29caf20f3488e817ff149cf9a7DOTjpg as his uniform. It's what I modelled it off of, but with some fantastical twists. Hope you like Ichigo's Quincy shotgun, too. The fact that Quincies can use guns is just too cool to pass up, and it suits him way more than a bow, IMO. I saw it as a way for him to 'learn' something from Beacon, too.

I chained the info Ichigo had built up over every previous meeting with Amber to try and make his logical conclusion that it was really Cinder in charge believable, and had him force the confrontation from there on his own terms in a proper Ichigo-fashion. If the last chapter was confusing with the Amber/Cinder stuff, I wanted you to come to the conclusion along with Ichigo in this one, though it was kinda already pretty guessable last time who was in charge.

In case you need it spelled out: yes, Ichigo is holding back once Zangetsu comes out. I can't just have him disembowel someone in front of a massive crowd. Isolated woods are fair game, though...

Thanks for 716 reviews, 1973 follows, and 1530 favourites!

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Bonus: Ok, so I actually wrote out an entire fight for Mercury vs. Pyrrha, which I deleted in the end. Told you I cut out a lot. I realised that: a) This had nothing to do with Ichigo's presence on Remnant, since it was basically filler that could have happened at any time in any RWBY story, and b) Made the chapter drag on too much. Instead, I implied that this happened, so I could remove it. This is what I wrote. You can skip it entirely, but I only tacked the draft on the end here because this chapter took so long to put out and I thought someone might like to see it.

After a swift exchange of blows, Cardin was floored, Pyrrha standing over him.

[Pyrrha Nikos: 94%] — [Cardin Winchester: 15%]

"Lucky shot." He clearly wasn't happy, but he still paid attention to the instructor's advice, too. Looks like that sparring session did him some good, after all.

"Now, who will spar next?"

Cinder prodded Emerald who elbowed Mercury, who was leaning back in his seat, his eyes closed.

"Mercury, win this one." Cinder demanded.

He blearily opened his eyes, standing up with a grumble.

His leader's mood had been soured since Emerald's loss, but it wasn't like her to be so... petty. It wasn't too out-of-character for her, but it was sort of... childish. Nevertheless, he didn't care to question why. He wanted to see something for himself now, too.

"Haaaaaaah~" he scratched his side, then stretched up with a long, drawn-out yawn. "I'll do it."

Miss Goodwitch adjusted her glasses agitatedly. "Have you got that out of your system? Good. Name, please? Then let's find you an opponent."

"Mercury Black. Actually, I wanna fight..." he stood up straight, and pointed, arm out, index finger forwards, right at Pyrrha's surprised face. "...her."

"Me?" Pyrrha was taken aback.

"I'm afraid Miss Nikos has just finished the match. I recommend you choose another partner."

Pyrrha hurriedly shook her head. "No, it's fine! I'd be happy to oblige."

"Sweet." Mercury stood up, and walked down the steps, right to the lip of the stands. He grabbed the edge, and vaulted right over, dropping several meters down and landing with a crunch.

Without any sign of feeling the impact, he strode right into the middle of the arena, and took up a stance, even as the Deputy Headteacher facepalmed and muttered condemningly under her breath at his brazen ignorance of the proper stairs, and any proper rules.

His hands were in his pockets, and he was slightly slouched, but when the teacher looked into his eyes, she found no hint of weariness, nor laziness at all. He was completely ready, and had been from the start; it was all an act. Glynda sighed. This type always reminded her far too much of a certain dusty old crow.

"Well?" he kissed his teeth. "Let's get started. I wanna get back to my seat."

- –—{}—– -

In the stands, Ichigo got the sense that there seemed to be something missing from how Mercury Black fought. As if his style was an incomplete jigsaw. He dodged and weaved, sometimes trading blows, but never truly capitalising in a way that seemed to satisfy him.

Ichigo could tell after only a few seconds in that he was holding back.

He leaned forwards, and tapped Cinder on the shoulder.

She turned around expectantly. "Yes? I'm a tad invested in this match right now, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Sorry, but just making sure, Mercury's shoes are guns? Shoes? Seriously?" Ichigo's voice was equal parts disbelief, and amusement.

"You've got that right. Talaria's nothing too crazy by Remnant standards, though. That's their name, by the way. Talaria. I thought you'd be used to these kind of things by now, honestly." Cinder replied.

Ichigo leaned his chin on his hand. "I thought I was, too, after the handbag-gatling gun thing, but then this comes along. I'm starting to think—"

"Sssshh. Quiet." Cinder hushed. "I think he's figured her out."

Mercury leaned back on his left leg, letting out a series of three rapid kicks from his right, two low and one high. The third high blow was augmented with a loud blast of dust-bullets, fired from the soles of his boots right at his opponent's face.

But instead of an impact, Talaria's shot went wide, along with his kick. That strike wasn't a miss. He knew exactly where his leg was angled. So that meant...

His leg hadn't moved on its own.

Mercury nodded to himself.

Gotcha.

Pyrrha put both her arms behind her shield, and charged forwards, bashing Mercury's leg back. Rather than allowing himself to fall off-balance, he brought his left foot up onto the shield too, and backflipped off of it with a hiss of compressed air and wind dust.

The gust whipped up Pyrrha's hair, and forced her to shield her green eyes from the gale. When she brought them down, she found Mercury standing on a pillar in the arena, in a new stance. His face had changed, from an expressionless focus to an eager glint in his silver eyes and a confident smirk.

He'd worked out her semblance: it had to be some sort of magnetism; Polarity. He'd only felt the pull off-course coming from the more obvious metal parts of Talaria, and not anywhere else, so it wasn't telekinesis.

If they were still following the whole 'Destroy Beacon' plan, that would have been all he needed. He'd have forfeited right now.

...But Cinder had told him to win, and, well, he kind of wanted to.

This was Pyrrha Nikos he was up against, after all. The quote-unquote 'Invincible Girl'. Invincible. The four-year running, record-breaking Mistral Regional Tournament winner. The very best the straight-and-narrow had to offer, and one of the very best Huntresses-in-training in the world. So kind, too. And polite. An amazing, secret semblance. Students thought her untouchable, a future paragon in the making.

He wanted to break her.

But that would blow their cover, so he'd have to settle for beating her instead.

She didn't know about his real legs, so he had a chance.

Then, just maybe, he could have a little something to be proud of. Know that the dark underworld he'd grown up in has made him strong, at least. Stronger than any soft, pansy normal people. He'd know growing up in his house had given him something worth it.

Maybe.

Talaria's pair on his feet whirred and clicked, as he brought up a lone hand, palm upwards. His fingers rose together once, then twice. The message was clear.

Bring it on.

Pyrrha smiled, almost excitedly. It'd been a long time since anyone had taunted her. This was a good sign for the fight ahead.

She tossed her shield, Akoúo, and Mercury jumped. It had been aimed at his chest, but he'd seen her arm twitch first and been ready.

His boots landed on it in midair, and he readied to kick it into the floor, when–

Pyrrha subtly shifted, and Akoúo flipped over.

Rather than try and land properly, Mercury instead prioritised slapping a palm on the shield, hard, as it flipped. It slammed into the pillar, falling behind it from the force.

Pyrrha pulled out Miló with a single hand, and her javelin shifted and transformed into a semi-automatic rifle. It was long, golden and smooth, in the same style as a sleeker M1 Garand. In seconds, she'd aimed down the sights and taken two shots at Mercury's haphazard landing as he entered a roll.

Not away, but towards her. The set-up was there; now came the hard part.

The first shot missed, but the second nailed him in the back, forcing him out of the combat roll with a pained hiss between grit teeth.

He bounced up to his feet, numbing out the pain, as he sprinted right at her.

Her shield was too far away to return in time, and her gun was still transforming into a spear. Mercury had baited her out, forcing a few seconds of hand-to-hand.

Seconds were all he needed.

Mercury opened with a flying kick. She blocked it with Miló's shaft, but he'd grounded himself with its other foot to follow-up. His right leg whistled, and it trailed a rapidly-growing cloud of roiling smokey grey curls.

A smokescreen? It stung her eyes and hurt her chest to breathe. The kick set off an eruption of clouded, grey smoke, blinding her with a mix of earth and fire dust. His footwork was so quiet, too, that she couldn't use that to judge either. How was he so quiet? It didn't matter. She could rely on her semblance, to feel for metal in he space around her. Wait...

...Why are his legs...

A low left-foot sweep was avoided with a small hop and her semblance, but he used the same momentum to aim a right-legged roundhouse at her stomach—

The shield had come back. She'd timed it perfectly. It was aimed right at where his head would be, if he were actually performing a roundhouse kick.

Good thing it was a feint.

Mercury's whole body swung back low, into more of a sideways cartwheel. His right leg sunk low, forced down by Pyrrha's semblance. His left leg rose high. Both were airborne.

A butterfly kick.

Her eyes widened, and Polarity came into effect again. She couldn't stop the kick in time entirely, but she could redirect it—

Mercury's leg burst into flames.

Fire dust. Perfectly non-magnetic, and sure to hurt. A lot.

The flaming heel arced away from her face, bent away by her semblance just in time, but still struck her right in the chest. The off-course meteor-strike floored them both, but Pyrrha was the one to leave cracks in the tiles with an ear-splitting smash.

And yet, after a few seconds, it was a winded, pained Pyrrha who rose to her feet, not Mercury.

He tried moving his legs. Nothing. Rooted in place, to the floor. Polarity... Did she know...?

No.

Get up. Get up!

No use. If she knew, then it was over. He'd stand no chance, now. 'Stand' wasn't even in his vocabulary around her, actually. Mercury cursed internally. And externally.

He couldn't beat her, all because of his legs. It wasn't even his fault. If he had a semblance... Both those things were his fault. It wasn't fair...

...But since when did assassins play fair, anyways?

Pyrrha reached for her shield, and it returned to her hands. As soon as she felt the weight was off, she knew something was up.

But Mercury didn't give her the time to react. He reached for his belt, scraping against the ash-coated floor, and pressed the detonator.

The mixed dust charge he'd stuck to her shield was set off at once, in a deafening explosion. He'd done more than just slap Akoúo behind a pillar, back then. It was a kaleidoscope of colours and elements, throwing the girl up into the air and breaking her hold over Mercury's legs. This was it, do or die.

He reacted instantly. On reflex, he'd positioned himself under her landing spot, caught her, thrown her over his shoulder onto the hard stone tiles, and kneeled on her chest, holding a knife to her throat. She's in shock. Press the advantage. He tested her aura with it, one, two, three rakes across her tender skin until her red aura crackled and popped. All of it came naturally, all of it ingrained into his practised movements from a young age.

No hesitation, no mercy. Just action.

Then, and only then, did he let out a breath, and feel his heart slow down.

He looked up, finding the aura bars had changed greatly.

[Pyrrha Nikos: 14%] — [Mercury Black: 60%]

The arena of students was silent. but only for a few moments, before they descended into a sea of low murmurs and chatter. This wasn't something anyone had expected.

Miss Goodwitch took a moment to sigh, then proclaimed the winner. "Mercury Black... well done. Your hand-to-hand skills would honestly give a fully-fledged huntsman a run for his money. Though, please, try to remember, this is a school environment. Refrain from such conduct in future, and you'll make a wonderful huntsman."

Mercury was lit with a purple glow, then disentangled from his grapple with Pyrrha. The light washed off of him, and he was dropped to the hard marble floor by the teacher's semblance. Slowly, Pyrrha sat up, nursing her solar plexus and neck. She checked the aura bars, let out a shaky breath, and looked back down at her hands in her lap despondently.

"And, as for Miss Nikos, you almost had it. Perhaps if you had gone all out, with that semblance of yours from the start, you would have won. I can guess what it is, but since you're so insistent on concealing it, I won't tell."

Jaune, Yang and Blake were speechless.

Cinder preened, and Ichigo reflected.

Right at the end, Mercury looked like he was finally in his element. The element of surprise, that is. He'd gone all out, and it didn't look like how anyone else here fought, at all. Anyone apart from Emerald, and himself.

He fought to kill. Mercury knew how to. Ichigo could tell. It took one to know one, after all. And Emerald had shot Ruby in the head. Everyone else aimed for the chest, or to immobilise. There was no way the teacher hadn't picked up on it, too. He looked closely, and could see her narrowing her eyes at the teenager.

But she quickly lost the expression, and returned to her usual impartiality. It was only a single incident, and she didn't know anything about them, though she would be keeping an eye on the two. It was an oddity to her, but she couldn't judge a student for their past. Especially a foreign one. Beacon had taken in the Branwen twins, after all. They were much worse, judging by Ozpin's stories.

It was no surprise Mercury had won. In a fight between someone looking to win, and someone looking to kill, the victor was obvious from the get-go.

---

That's it. I just knew that if I kept it in, people would come up with a bunch of ways that it didn't make sense for someone with metal legs to beat a magnetic manipulator. However, according to the wiki, someone who worked on RWBY claimed that Mercury could've beaten Pyrrha if he went all out, so I came up with a way he could pull it off. Either way, this isn't what actually happened in the story, since Ichigo wouldn't have been there. Plus it wouldn't really make sense for them to even care about Pyrrha's semblance if Cinder's not worried about the Fall Maiden or Beacon anymore. (This is the same reason why she didn't care about hiding Emerald's semblance, either). The only things that are 'canon' to the story from this are: Mercury's minor character development, Pyrrha finding out about his legs, but being too polite to mention it, and the fact he won. That's all for now.