AN: This is going to be the last chapter for awhile, I recently started my next semester of class and I just cannot write fast enoughto keep up with the upload pace that I had and keep up with class. At best I might be able to keep up a chapter every two weeks.
I blinked as I saw the soon to be red reaper and her older sister enjoy their ice cream. The both of them had wide grins and had an innocence to them that I suppose was appropriate for their age. I blinked as the silver eyed girl noticed my gaze and grinned at me widely.
Ruby Rose made things difficult for me. Very difficult. I saw her and it was like a switch went off in my head and my chest every single time I saw her. It was like the way your heart flips around when you hold an infant. That day that Yang got me detention had seen me acquainting with the girl for the first time and I realized something, I did not want to see any more dead kids.
By…
I did not want to see any more dead kids.
And seeing this child who was the cause of so much destruction made me really wonder if I could pull a Seigi no Mikata. Everytime I tried to imagine going through with it something ugly would well up within me.
It was why I held her that one time, she saw that I was sad somehow and offered me a hug and before I knew it I was feeding her my portion of my protein cookies too. I had not once offered up food to anyone in this life since I planned every morsel to be fueled into my gains.
Food was too precious to be wasted.
"Hey kid, your Ice Cream is melting." the huntsman- Qrow, said to me.
Ruby had stopped paying attention to me and started nagging Yang for the rest of her ice cream as she had already finished her own.
"Shit…", idly I could feel the dairy treat begin to drip down my hands and I knew I couldn't waste anymore time in my thoughts, stuffing it into my face, I scarfed it down and immediately put my tongue to the roof of my mouth to avoid brain freeze.
I hum and look to the sky, the blue was an azure blue, dark- for it still being daytime, with the sun in the sky and the relatively low humidity, it was a nice day.
Perfectly calm, a complete contrast to the stress that I had felt when I thought that I was being hunted.
How nostalgic.
I lowered my gaze, Ruby had been practically teleporting around the group from the sugar from the ice cream and Yang and Qrow had been trying and failing to keep the young girl from hurting herself.
After all we were on the streets of Patch, while it wasn't a metropolis there was still enough car traffic that one needed to be careful.
..!
I reach out with my left hand, and suddenly, I am adjusting to a weight in my arm and no sooner than doing that do I see that I caught Ruby right before she tripped into the street. I'm letting go of the weight before I even think about what I was doing and go back to following the small family.
A car swishes down the street.
And the two girls are animated lyrics speaking about something or another as Qrow looks at me with a thankful expression.
I avert his gaze, and start shaking my hand as if I just touched something hot.
…
I didn't know why I was here.
Somehow, instead of training further I am being shepherded around with the two sisters that would leave nothing but destruction in their wake and their drunk uncle. It sounded like the set for a bad bar joke, but there was no need for a bar since the man smelled like a distillery.
Earlier he talked about being a Huntsman as if I had a choice, but while I didn't remember everything about Remnant, I remembered enough to know thatheshould know better.
He didn't look like the type to not know how bad things can get for people, didn't act like it either.
Oblivious to my thoughts the booze aged man is shoving another ice-cream into my hand, and out of a desire to not have sticky hands I start attacking the frozen treat with reckless abandon.
"Slow down Nerd! It's not like the food is running away from you." Yang says sarcastically as her own ice cream fell off the cone onto the ground as she went to lick at it.
Karma…
Besides, if food wasn't running away from him before it would be now, since all of his traps had been ruined by a 9 karat run of bad luck named Qrow Branwen.
I give the wine eyed man a side glance.
Seriously, how could I account for bad luck? I mean I could already detect when something was going to go wrong if it were a threat but how do I account for something that is as nebulous as a 'Bad Luck' semblance.
Knowing that it was there didn't make it any better and the longer that I was around it the more it reminded me of the twists I would get in my stomach when I first learned how to detect things.
…
Looking back to my fight with Yang, and my last ditch effort to attack when Qrow showed up highlighted something for me.
I had gotten way too relaxed with my training.
Spending all the time that I did just goofing around and trying to have a good fight wasn't going to get me the kind of strength that I'm looking for. Sure, fighting Yang probably helped me in some way to get stronger but as I've lamented before the gains were more in her favor than mine.
I won the majority of our spars since I just plain had better conditioning than Yang did. I had only gotten what I felt because I pushed the blonde over the edge into using her semblance and I fed it appropriately. Or at least as much as my own 12 year old body could.
Everything pointed towards me needing to place myself in more danger in order to get stronger, and while everything I had done up to this point had been something that could see me crippled if I messed up the key word wasIF.
And I knew that I wouldn't. My training was failing because I didn't have the stones to do what was necessary. Sure the idea of underwater sparring sounds dangerous, but when you build up to it for years like I did the danger was minimal. The idea of rock climbing without a tether sounds dangerous until you realize that the person in question has been training their grip strength since the moment they were aware of what was happening. The idea of fighting a semblance boosted Yang was dangerous until you realized you had been learning her ticks for about 3 weeks. The idea… The idea…The idea…
All of this was not enough given a long enough time scale it would grow to be stale. Humans were adaptable. I was adaptable, and I hadn't been doing nearly enough to keep pushing that adaptation.
If it took danger and the threat of the unknown to push me to greater heights than I knew what I needed to do, since I had clearly been wasting my time up to this moment.
I know what I was thinking when I started letting Yang train with me, but I was going to end up Orchestrating my own death if I continued to allow that to happen. Either now, or later because I trained possibly two of the four boss babes of the apocalypse to the point where they could destabilize their own narrative before the plot was even established.
I gave a look out of the corner of my eye and met the curious gleam of silver eyes, and my heart flipped a beat again. But this time I was ready, I knew what I had to do.
I turned around and walked away.
I walked through the port town and considered my options, spotting two more familiar faces, it was Blue and Aloe.
Huh, they were dating…
You know what. Good for them. I'm glad that someone was going to turn Aloe into a mom, even if I did think that her kids were definitely going to be needy and spoiled due to how nice she was.
I kept walking, eventually walking my way to the beach where I normally would set up some crab traps and walked to the water's edge and felt for my Aura.
I wasn't sure which was more accurate, the analogy of the Olympic pool with the storm drain for control, or the City Block of burning soul mass. Either way, I knew that I had a lot of Aura even if right now I could feel that I was working with roughly a third of it. I prodded at it mentally, it vaguely roused as if lazily acknowledging me.
I stood in front of the ocean as waves lazily lapped at my worn shoes and shoved my hands out in front of me before bringing them to my side, attempting to channel my heavy Aura into the same attack that I had used earlier.
Hadoken.
It wasn't that I was the biggest street fighter fan, it was that with everything that I had left earlier it felt like it was an appropriate name for what I was launching off. I didn't get to see the full devastation of the attack but if it was at all comparable to the scaling that I had when I exploded to get myself back onto land the attack must've surely been a respectable one.
Intent came, I was ready to deal indeathand because of it, my Aura had been pooled and gathered, and I could vaguely see the gray light shining in the corners of my swollen eye.
"HADOKEN!"
With a shove my hands, the attack screamed forward and flowered out into a blast of energy that split the waves beneath and revealed the sand as it flew over the ocean but exploded a solid 80 feet out. The shockwave carried a small breeze back to me that ruffled my hair as I admired my handy work.
I took a breath expecting exhaustion to hit me, then another as I sat confused. I hadn't felt anything doing that, at all.
Concentrating a moment I realized that doing my Hadoken technique took very little out of me. Little enough that I could not figure out how much energy that attack consumed. I frowned a moment. Was I really that close to emp-
An ominous feeling settled on my shoulders.
"Did that frigid old bi- woman teach you that?"
Frigid old bitch?
I could only assume that he meant Cynthia.
Turning around I saw the scraggly Huntsmen flanked by my classmate and Ruby. To some varying degree they all seemed impressed, Ruby had seemed to be mimicking my posture trying to replicate my attack while Yang fixed me with a surprised look. I couldn't really say why considering that she had already seen me do this before while Qrow's was much more subtle.
He was prodding again.
"No."
There wasn't much in terms of bad luck that could happen here but I would rather not try another attack and have it blow up in my face becauseit was simply bad luck.
As I went to turn back to the ocean I felt a tug on my wrist and I was again met with the wide silver-eyes of Ruby Rose.
"Can you teach me that!?"
In truth I didn't know if I could teach her, naturally my aura felt like it wanted to stay stagnant even while I had its metaphorical/physical attention. If I had to describe it, doing this was like taking a small ball of my total energy amount, trying to shove it into an even smaller sphere before launching it off with the intent for it to kill.
Definitely a "ngh" "hah" "Boom" moment.
"Maybe. It takes a lot of Aura." I say as I try to avert my eyes but- "Ms. Dew says I have a lot of Aura for my age."
"I-" "Give the kid some space Ruby." Qrow interrupts me.
Why were any of them here?
"Geez, I knew you trained a lot Ezekiel but this is actually kinda insane. You know you just passed out from using too much Aura right? When I saw you launch yourself back over the cliff with that explosion I figured thatthatwas your semblance but… " Yang asked as she finally broke out of her stupor.
"Wait I thought the Danger Sense thingy you told me about earlier was supposed to be his semblance?" Ruby asked as she leaned and pulled on my arm, but with her being even smaller than I am at 4'6 it didn't really do much of anything. She couldn't be any more than 60 lbs by my estimations.
"I thought so too, but look at that blast…"
Ultimately both the sisters were wrong though, neither of them were semblances, the danger sense was a technique anyone could learn if given the right set of circumstances or teaching and the other was just Aura manipulation. Even if said manipulation was just pouring Aura and letting its nature to explode take shape outside of me.
It didn't feel like it was anything too special and at the same time when I really thought about it, it felt like to me that someone else could do the same…
The fact that I barely felt any drain with that probably meant that something like that when I fully mastered Aura control the Hadoken would be nothing on my reserves… even more nothing… I suppose.
I looked at the palms of my hands and flexed them, listening for the leathery tightening of calluses.
That was vaguely exciting, but I wasn't going to focus too much on that part. I had already concluded that doing things that were fun weren't always to the benefit of my training.
"Neither of them are, semblances that is." I answered looking back up.
Qrow seemed to have a complicated expression across his face for a moment, but didn't say anything.
Silently, I fixed him a look, his business was his own. And I didn't want any part of it at least until I was sure that I could no sell his Bad Luck. Which even now sat on-..!
I reached out and grabbed Ruby by the scruff of her cloak and shirt as the sand beneath her feet slipped out from beneath her and was violently washed out to the sea by the retreating surf. It was a little bit of a strain to hold that much weight on a literal foundation of sand from such an awkward position but this time I have Ruby fully hoisted into the air like an unruly pet.
I stare at the girl who does nothing but chuckle. It pulls at my heart again… and I sigh.
Walking the girl back to the beach I gently place her down making sure she has her footing before letting go. The look she sends me makes me want to squeeze her until her head pops off, but the idea of seeing the gore from the little girl makes me sick.
Was this cute aggression?
I settle with holding my hand to the top of her head and letting it relax there for a moment as I take a deep breath.
Well that's bad luck for you. I don't look towards Qrow or look back to the ocean since I didn't trust his semblance to not completely fuck me over.
Splat
I feel something wet land on my hair.
Then I hear giggles from Ruby and chuckles barely being held back by Yang.
I looked at the physically older male who was barely holding back his own laughter behind a clenched fist.
"I'm done here."
Qrow was the best -or depending how you look at it the worst- hard counter for someone like me.
Competence and legitimate unpredictability.
After they came back from the short beach trip Ruby found herself seated at the dining room table, a material science textbook open in front of her. She'd been trying to focus on the chapter about alloy compositions for the past half hour, but her mind kept drifting back to the incredible sight of Ezekiel's gray-colored Aura bolt splitting the sea.
After some back and forth with Uncle Qrow and Yang, the silver eyed girl ended up learning that the technique she had seen today was actuallywaymore impressive than she thought at first. Uncle Qrow had basically said that the amount of Aura needed or the amount of control needed to pull off an attack like that required near top percentile ability.
Two people working together could get it done easily enough but for a single person to do it the sign of a skilled fighter- according to her Dad who piped up about it when Uncle Qrow had told him about it when they first got back.
He had also said something about a mindset and it being worrying that a child was already learning how to do something like that there was more to it but admittedly Ruby hadn't been paying too much attention by that point.
She was way too hungry. And while she tried to distract herself with studying it wasn't something that came easily between the excitement and the hunger.
Thankfully Yang was on the case. In the kitchen, Yang moved about, preparing dinner. The smell of sizzling vegetables and simmering broth filled the air, making Ruby's stomach grumble. She knew her sister was putting in extra effort tonight, trying to make something special to lift everyone's spirits.
From the living room, Ruby could hear the muffled sounds of the TV and the occasional burst of laughter from her dad and Uncle Qrow. They'd been drinking together even before the explanation about Aura had even finished, and Ruby knew from experience that they'd probably fall asleep on the couch before dinner was even served.
'I wish they wouldn't drink so much,'Ruby thought, a frown tugging at her lips.
Sighing, she turned her attention back to the textbook, trying to make sense of the complex diagrams and equations. The material was easy enough especially since she knew a large part of the hows and why's of the material being important, but it was just so hard to focus with being hungry after a full day of walking.
'I wonder what Ezekiel would think of this,'Ruby mused, tapping her pencil against the page. 'He seems to know a lot about weapons. Maybe he could help me understand this better.'
At least more than the average person in their age group, a lot of his ideas regarding weaponry were a bit… odd given his insistence on using chemistry instead of Dust but he had a sound understanding of mechanics.
The thought of the quiet, gray-haired boy brought a smile to Ruby's face. Ever since he'd entered their lives, things had started to feel a little brighter. Yang smiled more, and even Ruby found herself looking forward to their training sessions and conversations about weapons.
'Maybe I can convince Yang to invite him for dinner one night. I bet he'd love her cooking!'Ruby thought, propping her chin on her hand. And it might help Yang take a break every now and again if she is more focused on her friend than she is on house chores.
Maybe Dad would notice and start cleaning things up a bit more so Yang can get back to relaxing. But that would mean that Dad would need something in return, wouldn't he?
The silver eyed girl could see that the unspoken situation weighed on the blondes. Her Dad never looked happy whenever he was drinking and Yang looked like she was always ready to bolt somewhere to do something.
It didn't help that towards the start of everything that Yang had a kitchen accident which led to her hair from being near her knees to just before her shoulder. Any amount of hair was too much, Ruby was honestly surprised that with how much hair she did loose she didn't burn down the house.
For a while things didn't seem like they were going to get easier, especially when Yang had been late picking her up from school a few weeks ago…
Those were some really good cookies.
Not as good as her Mom's recipe but more filling for sure.
It helped that the one who was giving her the cookies was friends with Yang now too… Sure she complained about the detention and she was late to pick her up from school that one time but everything was finally working out.
Just then, a burst of laughter from the living room jolted Ruby out of her thoughts. She glanced over to see her dad and Uncle Qrow clinking their glasses together, their faces flushed from the alcohol.
"To the good old days!" Taiyang proclaimed, his words slurring slightly. "When things were simple, and the women in our lives didn't keep running off on us!"
Qrow chuckled, shaking his head. "You said it, brother. But hey, at least we've got each other, right? And the kids, of course."
Ruby felt a pang in her chest at their words. She knew that Dad was hurting, that Yang's mom leaving him and Mom… passing away had left deep scars on him. But sometimes, it felt like he forgot that she and Yang were hurting too.
Worse than that it felt like Uncle Qrow was pushing him into it sometimes… just a tiny bit…
I miss Mom,Ruby thought, blinking back the sudden tears that stung her eyes.And I know Yang misses her birth mom, even if she doesn't talk about it much. I wish we could all just be happy together.
As if sensing her sister's distress, Yang appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "Hey, Rubes," she said softly, her lilac eyes filled with concern. "You okay?"
Ruby forced a smile, nodding. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about... stuff, you know?"
Yang's gaze softened, and she moved to sit beside Ruby at the table. "I know it's been tough lately," she said, reaching out to squeeze Ruby's hand. "But we're going to get through this, okay? You, me, Dad, Uncle Qrow... we're all in this together."
Ruby felt a warmth spread through her chest at her sister's words. "I know," she said, squeezing Yang's hand in return. "And we've got Ezekiel too, right? He's part of the team now."
Yang's cheeks flushed slightly, but she grinned. "Yeah, I guess he is. Who would've thought that detention would actually lead to something good for once?"
Ruby giggled, the tension in her shoulders easing. "Maybe you should get detention more often then!"
"Hey, don't push your luck, little sis," Yang teased, ruffling Ruby's hair. "I've got a reputation to uphold, you know, let me go finish up dinner and we'll chat about this later."
As Yang headed back into the kitchen to finish preparing dinner, the last Rose tried to refocus on her textbook. The smell of her old sibling's cooking was making her stomach grumble even more, shaking her concentration before it could properly settle.
'I wonder what she's making,'the redhead thought, tapping a mechanical pencil against the page.'It smells like that stew Mom used to make when we were little. The one with the tender meat and the yummy broth...'
Although Ruby didn't remember the most about her mom, she definitely remembered watching the white cloaked woman gracefully moving about the kitchen as minced, sliced and diced her way through the kitchen to deliciousness.
Mouth watering at the memory, the ten year old had to swallow hard to keep from drooling onto her textbook. Yang really was putting in a lot of effort tonight.
'Maybe dinner will be the thing that finally gets them to stop drinking so much,'the starry eyed girl thought, glancing towards the living room.'At least for tonight.'
Just then, Yang's voice called out from the kitchen. "Alright, everyone! Dinner's ready!"
Jumping from her seat and just barely holding back her semblance, the girl eagerly sped walked to be the first one to the table. But without her semblance though the longer legs of her Dad and Uncle Qrow had already overtaken her and were already making their way over from the living room, their movements a bit unsteady from all the alcohol they'd consumed.
"Smells great, Firecracker," Uncle Qrow said, ruffling Yang's hair as she set a steaming pot of stew down in the center of the table. "You've really outdone yourself this time."
Yang beamed at the praise, her cheeks flushing with pride. "Thanks, Uncle Qrow. I just wanted to make something special, you know? It's been a rough few weeks."
Dad nodded, his eyes a bit misty as he looked around the table. "It has. But we're all here together, and that's what matters most. Your mother... Summer would be so proud of you girls."
Ruby just barely swallowed back a lump from her throat at the mention of her mother. It had been years since she passed away, but the pain of losing her still felt fresh sometimes. Especially when she saw things like this where it was clear that her presence was missed.
Her Dad drank because he didn't know what else to do and Yang did what neither parent could now.
'I wish she was here,'Ruby blinked back tears.'She always knew how to make everything better.'
But as Yang started ladling out bowls of stew, the savory aroma filling the room, the young girl felt a warmth settle in my chest. Maybe Mom wasn't here anymore, but they still had each other. And right now, that was enough.
It had to be.
"This looks amazing, Yang," the young girl said, bouncing in place as she eagerly accepted her bowl. "Is this the recipe Mom used to make?"
The older blonde nodded, a soft smile on her face. "Yeah, I found it in one of her old cookbooks. I thought it might be nice to have a little piece of her with us tonight."
Ruby speared her food and took a spoonful of the stew, savoring the taste of the food. The meat was tender, the vegetables perfectly cooked, and the broth... it tasted just like Mom's.
And after a long day it was a perfect meal to eat.
"It's perfect," Ruby said, her voice wavering slightly. "Just like Mom used to make."
Around the table, everyone nodded in agreement. For a moment, the only sound was the clinking of spoons against bowls as they all savored the comforting meal.
As the evening wore on, the conversation turned to lighter topics. Uncle Qrow regaled the Rose-Xiao Long sisters with stories from his latest mission, while Dad cracked terrible jokes that had everyone except Yang groaning and laughing in equal measure.
Said girl seemed more relaxed than her younger sister could recall in recent memory, her shoulders losing some of their tension as she laughed at Dad's puns. It was good to see her smiling again, even if it was just for a little while.
'I wonder if Ezekiel likes puns,'the silver-eyed girl mused, thoughts drifting back to the gray-haired boy.
The thought of the eternally monotone cracking puns made her groan which earned a curious look from Yang. "What's up, Rubes?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, nothing," the younger sister said unconvincingly.
"Well now I really want to know."
"Well I just had a thought about Ezekiel making puns."
Lilac eyes widened and pupils dilated, Yang grew flushed. And Ruby had a terrible sense of foreboding.
"That's the kid you got into a fight with a few weeks ago, isn't it Yang?" Their Dad questioned, now sober enough to pick up on the details of their conversation.
"A-ah, yeah it is." Yang stuttered out.
Nodding along Ruby found the slightly yellowed and unfocused ocean blue eyes of her father back on her. "Sso how did you meet him, Ruby?"
"Oh, he gave me cookies after he and Yang finished a workout together." It wasn't the complete truth but that wasn't a lie, was it?
Placing a hand up to his unkempt scruffy chin her Dad nodded again, "I'm glad that you guys are getting along now, Yang… wait a sec- Qrow didn't you say that this guy can do Aura manipulation attacks? The kid shouldn't be any older than 13…"
"Yeah, honestly if you told me that he had been training Aura for as long as he's been alive, I still wouldn't believe it. But yeah, I've seen him do it three times now."
"Three times, Uncle Qrow, when were you there to see a third time?"
"Oh, during the spar that you had this morning. I would say that him exploding to launch himself back over a cliff would count."
Her Dad furrowed an eyebrow. "Why was he falling off a cliff in the first place?"
"Erm, Uhh he pulled my hair…" Yang said with a meek shrug, averting her eyes down to her bowl as she began
Her Dad sighed but didn't say anything, opting to shrug back.
Was there something that Ruby was missing here?
"How nostalgic eh, Tai?"
"Qrow, I do not need that image in my head."
What image?
Her uncle was barely able to hold off a laugh hiding behind a snort, "All I'm saying is that history has a funny way of rhyming."
Momentarily fixing Qrow a glare, her Dad looked off into the distance and hummed "Hmm, I guess I'd like to meet him again."
"Oh, you'd definitely like him a lot, Dad, he's definitely a train-o-holic."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah, he said that he was going to try to start working our endurance so we could go from Sunrise to Sunset."
Sputtering out a spoonful of soup the two adults had very distinctly different reactions, Uncle Qrow started trying to laugh and failing. While Ruby's father had started choking on what little food remained in his throat, a look of surprise on his face.
Yang gave Ruby a confused look that Ruby returned as the two adults tried to compose themselves.
In all honesty this was probably the least tense the house had been in months so for that Ruby was grateful.