Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth and Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. I own nothing of wither of them and am only playing in the worlds they gave us.
Now how's this for fast? When I posted the last chapter of Lonely Exile I said I would be going to work on this one. A day and a half later I got started and here the next chapter is.
A Chance Encounter
Chapter 4:
If Beacon Academy, and maybe even the entire city of Vale found themselves short on Dust to keep the lights and heat on, they could always harness the energy that seemed to fairly vibrate around a certain Little Red Reaper. The smile alone that was etched on the face of Ruby Rose, and which had been for the last three days, could probably provide sufficient power all on its own. Ever since her accidental meeting and lunch with Ichigo and Yoruichi the youngest student at Beacon had been nothing but an adorable little ball of happy.
Adding to that happiness today was the fact that she was just coming back from the weapon's shop after spending some quality time with her sweetheart, cleaning and tuning up Crescent Rose, and she had a new packet of fresh chocolate chip cookies and a small carton of milk in her possession. This was weapon's grade happy and if harnessed and unleashed there would certainly be less despair around to attract the Grimm and it may even result in a large reduction of the soulless creatures. Heck, it might even result in total world peace.
But, since the technology to harness such a potent energy source didn't currently exist it would just have to drift through the halls of the Academy, lightening everyone else's moods without them knowing why. Well, all except the members of Team CDRL, who were only happy when they were making other people miserable. As a mater of fact they were going to make Ruby their next target. The youngest and smallest kid in the Academy was prime meat for them and they also didn't like that she had gotten into the school early. Up to this point there had been too many others for them to harass and they hadn't gotten around to her yet. However, the CF and Y of Team CFVY were more than happy to put an end to that plan as they ambushed the thuggish team and hauled them into an empty lecture hall without Ruby being any the wiser. It seems they had once again been harassing a certain rabbit Faunus and payment for such an egregious transgression was well overdue and would be collected in full. With interest.
As expected, Ruby returned to an empty dorm room. Weiss was at the library studying, Blake was off somewhere with a book most likely, and Yang was at the gym. It was probably just as well, even she could admit that she had most likely been going overboard since Saturday and it may have been wearing a little thin at times with the others. She couldn't help it though, she'd gotten to spend time talking with an experienced Huntsman and Huntress! And Ichigo and Yoruichi were so nice! How awesome was it that they regularly hunted the oldest and most dangerous of Grimm? And they had even told her some stories...they were soooo cool!
She supposed that she couldn't blame her team for not sharing her level of enthusiasm. She was a geek that way and they hadn't spent as much time with the two either, but even at that they had come away impressed. Her only regrets were that she couldn't spend more time talking to them and she really wanted to check out those swords Ichigo carried. Oh well, they had said that she would be seeing them again so she always had that to look forward to.
She kicked off her shoes, hopped up onto her bed, and opened the thick history book that she had left there. It had been interesting when they were telling their friends about their day and Pyrrha had mentioned that the description of the two had sounded really familiar. She had read about two warriors, a man and a woman, that matched her descriptions almost perfectly, right down to the description of the two blades the man carried. She had gone to the library and found a copy of the book so that she could show them. It even had a rough illustration that looked an awful lot like Ichigo's blades, or at least what little she had been able to see of them.
Having been brought up on fairy tales and the fantastic stories of Huntsmen, Huntresses, and other adventurers that may or may not have been true, her imagination went into overdrive. She began fantasizing about immortal Huntsmen and Huntresses, travelling Remnant and slaying Grimm, fighting bandits and protecting the people wherever they went. The others had laughed at the fruit of her imagination, except for Weiss who mostly scoffed at the clear impossibility of it. She knew that but it was still fun to think about. She loved her partner dearly but she really needed to lighten up and not be such a stick in the mud.
Laying on her stomach she opened her milk and cookies and turned to the page for the first story concerning the pair. There were a few stories in the thick book that were directly attributed to two people matching Ichigo and Yoruichi's description, and a few more that were thought to be about them. The span of the stories stretched over a couple of hundred years and the description for the two principals involved had very little variation. Again, she knew it was impossible but she liked to let her mind wander as she read the stories...for probably the third time now...and imagined that it really was them.
About halfway through her reading the message tone went off on her scroll. She was going to ignore it, figuring it was probably Weiss bugging her about studying or something like that. She thought better of it and checked and nearly fell out of her bed when she saw that it was a video message from Yoruichi. In her excitement she didn't even wonder how Yoruichi had gotten her scroll number. She immediately opened the message.
The video began with a shot panning across the ruins of what she recognized to be the failed settlement of Mountain Glenn. Abruptly a mocha skinned face and a pair of mirthful yellow eyes filled the screen, making her jump and nearly drop her scroll. Yoruichi stepped back as the camera also pulled back a bit, revealing Ichigo in the shot now too.
"Hi Ruby," Yoruichi greeted cheerfully. She noted that the Huntress was dressed as she had been three days earlier, minus the orange jacket.
"Hey Ruby," Ichigo greeted as well with a soft smile.
"As you can tell," Yoruichi continued. "We are in Mountain Glenn and those Goliath's you told us about are still wandering around."
"So," Ichigo cut in. "We thought we'd take care of them and since you couldn't be here to see it we decided to film it for you."
"Wouldn't want you thinking we were full of hot air about hunting the big and old Grimm," Yoruichi added, playfully sticking her tongue out at the end.
"Besides, she felt like showing off," Ichigo teased.
"Me?" the dark skinned beauty shot bock in mock indignity, planting her hands on her hips. "You were the one that suggested filming this."
He smirked at her and she just rolled her eyes, unable to keep the grin off her face. "Anyway," she continued. "Just sit back and enjoy the show."
Ruby was practically vibrating in place in anticipation. Ichigo and Yoruichi turned away from the camera and then they were just gone. She hadn't even been able to see them move. Just how fast were they?
The camera picked them up in mid air and followed their descent as they dropped toward a group of five Goliath's and it seemed like the beasts didn't even see them coming.
She watched in rapt attention, her eyes going wider and wider as the video progressed. When it ended she flopped onto her back, legs kicking in the air, and let out the biggest fan-girl squeal she had ever uttered in her life. It took her several attempts to mash out a coherent message to get her team and Team JNPR to come to her room.
"So how bad does your karma have to be when you're the most accomplished new student at Beacon and you end up with the least capable and least prepared student as your partner?" Ichigo mused. "And as your team leader?"
Dressed in a pair of blue warm up pants and nothing else, Ichigo was sitting on the couch in their apartment. On the large television screen across the room was the Beacon student file of Jaune Arc. In light of their upcoming involvement with the student body...as Advanced Combat and Techniques Instructors, they had been given access to the files of the first year students so they could familiarize themselves with their potential trainees. When they hammered out and finalized the best way for them to be involved they had insisted on being able to select just which students and or teams they wanted to work with.
"Well, it does enhance his chances for survival," Yoruichi answered from his right. She was dressed in pair of grey shorts and matching crop top. "And Sexy Red has been teaching him how to use that sword and shield. His skills still suck but he's already a lot better than when he arrived."
"Sexy Red?" he questioned with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.
She tilted her head toward him. "Ichigo, think with your libido for a moment and not your head. Look at her and tell me how you could not find her sexy and want to play with that body."
"Well, when you put it like that..." he gave his head a brisk shake. "Horny cat, you do that to me every time. Now whenever I look at her I'm going to be picturing a threesome. How am I supposed to teach someone with that going through my head?"
She laughed out loud. "That's what you get for repressing your teen urges and being such a prude for all of those years." She picked up a half bottle of beer from the end table and pointed it at him. "But now that that door has been kicked off its hinges you're going to be plagued by such thoughts forevermore."
"And I wonder who it was that kicked that door in?" he mused. While teasing, her words were true and he found his mind going places it never used to. It used to bother him until he realized that it was actually normal and his old behaviour was pretty much anything but. Although, losing the one thing that you loved most in your life at such an early and impressionable age had been the catalyst that made him conceal his heart from others in the first place.
It wasn't like he was a slave to this way of thinking and went out and preyed on any good looking female he saw, he despised that kind of behaviour. But Yoruichi had opened his eyes to a lot of things about himself and she had made him see that having those kind of thoughts wasn't a bad thing. Hell, she seemed to delight in making sure he had some sort of risque thoughts going through his head most of the time...most often thoughts about her but she wasn't shy about making sure he noticed other attractive women. To this day, and when the mood was right, she would still tease him about a number of the females he had known that had been interested in him.
"Guilty as charged," she grinned after taking a sip and putting the bottle back down. "After all, when you get all flustered I get to reap the benefits."
He leaned over and kissed her on the nose. "Che, like I'd need any extra incentive to make love to you."
"Keep talking like that and we won't get any more work done," she chided.
"Hey, you started it with your 'Sexy Red' comment," he snarked. "Guess you'll just have to shove whatever fantasy you're having about her into the back of your mind while we go through the rest of this stuff."
"Fine," she said in exaggerated exasperation. "So, are we including him?" she asked, gesturing to Arc's image on the screen.
He sighed. "I don't think we have a choice otherwise. He's lacking in every area. Physical strength and stamina. No training with his sword or shield except for what his partner has hammered into him. He's even lacking in the basic academic knowledge as it pertains to being a Huntsman that he would have learned at a combat school. Yet, he does seem to have an innate ability to come up with strategy on the fly and seems to have enough charisma that his team mates followed his direction when they took out the Deathstalker on Initiation Day."
"That may be his one saving grace," Yoruichi said seriously. "Enough so that he does have the loyalty of his team although there are mitigating factors. Pyrrha Nikos found a friend that didn't put her up on an unreachable pedestal like everyone else in her life did, and Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie are orphans who want a place to belong and people to belong with. Even after this short of a time together they are pretty close as a team."
"They would need to be to cover for his lack of skills," Ichigo said. "And they seem to be more than willing to do it. If they accept the Advanced Training they're all going to have to work their asses off but he's going to have to work even harder to keep from getting left behind."
"And to keep from holding them back," she said. "We need to get to know them up close, all of them actually to formulate our own opinions on them all, but I trust Glynda's assessments. If they are pulling ahead of him that gives us a lever to motivate him. He won't want to fail them by falling behind, and if they try to slow down for him to catch up, which I'm sure they would try to do, he would likely resent that and we can use that to keep them moving."
"Devious," he mused. "But not wrong. You've been there and have a lot more experience training people than I do. I can see both scenarios."
"You might have to impart a little of your own motivational advice to him," she smirked. "As it says in his file he has a tendency to get down easily if he doesn't see immediate results. Without access to his record or any kind of an analysis before he came to Beacon I can only speculate that pretty much anything he tried to do in his life met with the same mindset since it seems to come easily according to Glynda's notes. He may want to become a Huntsman, and he may want to protect others, but thus far he hasn't discovered the true work ethic it will take. Using false transcripts and hoping to slide by tells me he hasn't considered just how serious and tough it will be to get there and how much blood, sweat and tears it will take."
"We'll probably need a couple of weeks of working with them to be able to build our own assessments and plan the training that each of them will need to focus on," he said. "I trust Glynda's assessments as well and I agree he will probably need the most motivational help. Motivation for Team RWBY won't be a problem and I don't think it really will be for the other members of JNPR. This would be a different story, especially with him if we were starting this back when the first semester started, but the teams have started to bond and it wouldn't be a good idea to break them up or just pluck certain individuals."
"And Ozpin and Glynda did want us to try and avoid doing that," she added. "I can see their reasoning and I agree, this wouldn't work well now if we cherry picked students."
He picked up his scroll and advanced to the next team. He scowled. "We may have to invite them and evaluate them, but I can already say that there is no way in hell we are adding Team CDRL to our class."
She too wore a look of distaste. "Besides being bullies and bigots, according to the assessments their skills aren't good enough and their work ethic is terrible. They are good enough to be above the threshold we agreed upon with Glynda and Ozpin for invites, but only that."
"Nikos is one of the most talented students here," he began. "But even so a four on one fight should have pushed her and they didn't even get close. They couldn't touch her and she didn't even break a sweat as she mopped the floor with them."
"Not to mention they'd probably spend half of their time in our class trying to get revenge on her," Yoruichi added as she picked up her beer again. "Or start picking on Arc again even after he saved Cardin from that Ursa. And while he hasn't done anything to them he isn't fond of Team RWBY either and given half the chance he'd pick on Ruby for being younger and getting in early. There are notes in his file about comments he's made when he didn't think any of the staff has heard him. Not to mention what would happen if he finds out that Blake is a Faunus."
"He raises a finger against any of them and he's going to get a little visit from Shiro," Ichigo growled.
'Damn straight!' the aforementioned spirit spoke up.
'He and his team will get a visit from me as well,' Tensa added.
"Down boys," she chided. She may not be able to hear them but she always knew when his spirits were speaking up about something and given this situation it wasn't hard to tell what it was. "I happen to agree with your sentiments but that might be a little extreme. Besides, if they perform and behave as expected in the evaluation, our judgment and explanation for it will be blunt and humiliating enough."
"We'll have to keep an eye on them though," he cautioned. "I have enough experience with bullies to know that they will try to find some way, no matter how stupid, to try and get back at either us or somebody else. They'll want to beat on somebody and if they can't target us or the others who make it, they'll find somebody they think they can take it out on. Target of convenience and all that."
"Alright," she said. "As small a list as it is, RWBY, JNPR, and the known failures of CDRL is it. They are the only three teams that meet the threshold. Now though, comes the interesting part and some potential intrigue." Using her scroll she brought up three files side by side by side. On the left side of the screen was the image of a dark skinned, green haired girl by the name of Emerald Sustrai. On the right was a fair skinned, grey haired boy with the name Mercury Black under the image. In the middle was a dark haired female by the name of Cinder Fall."
"They're all listed as exchange students from Haven that are here for the Vytal Tournament," he noted.
"Correct my beloved Strawberry," she sassed. "But the one in the middle happens to also be the source of the power we sensed when we arrived for the meeting. I did a little quick and quiet snooping around when we took a break while waiting for dinner last night." She chuckled. "You should have seen the look on her face after you 'pinged' her. Thank you by the way Shiro, you glorious, terrifying bastard." Said spirit just chuckled inside Ichigo's head, causing him to roll his eyes. "It was half an hour later and she still looked like she was going to shit herself. A few minutes after I got there these other two arrived. It was funny watching her trying to compose herself and convince them that nothing was wrong."
He was studying the images on the screen closely. "Why does something about these three seem familiar?"
"Not surprised it's a little fuzzy to you, it was for me as well after all the info we needed to absorb yesterday...and with my little episode." She was still condemning herself for that. "It's from the report Qrow gave to Ozpin about the attack on the Fall Maiden. While it's vague, after all he was in a pretty big rush to save her so he couldn't exactly take the time to study her assailants in detail, he was able to note that the attackers were two females and a male and they have the right colour of hair." She frowned. "Too bad he didn't have training like we did for the Onmitsukido. We had to be able to pick up as much of the details around us as we could in an instant like it was second nature and be able to recall it on demand."
"It's pretty thin but I guess under the circumstances he was fortunate to get that much since they beat it once he arrived," he said. "But it's just a little too much of a coincidence that three temporary transfer students matching even that description, with one of them having too high of a power level would show up here."
"Not only that," she continued as she scrolled down to the written portion of their records. "Their files from Haven seem just a little too...ordinary. I've seen a lot of forgeries and sanitized histories...hell, I wrote a few as the clan head and Captain of the Second, and I helped Kisuke write false histories for the Visored in case they ever needed them. Without knowing more about these three I can't say exactly what is fabricated and what isn't, but I have a feeling in my gut."
Ichigo read through the files and then went back up to the pictures, studying them intently.
"Notice something?" she asked, hoping that he was seeming the same thing she had. She liked to test him like this every now and then.
"Their eyes," he said. "The look in their eyes doesn't match who they are trying to be or what their profiles say about them. There's a hard look there that doesn't fit and we've seen that more than enough over the years. The profiles themselves are a little thin too when you compare them to the one's we have for everyone else."
She nodded with a smile. "Like its minimized down to only what it needs to say. When using a false identity or building a false background it is sometimes best to keep it simple and uncluttered. It makes it easier for the person using the information to remember their story and not make mistakes but it's a fine line where you can easily go too far in either direction. Their profiles look fine if you don't know what to look for."
"There must be a fourth member if they're here for the tournament. Do we have a file for them?" he asked.
She worked her scroll and a picture came up of a pale girl with green eyes and dark hair done up in twin tails. The name was Neo Politan.
"Okay, I can already see something in those eyes without reading the profile," he said.
"I intimately familiar with the look. She has the eyes of a killer. An assassin. She wasn't with the others for the short time I was watching." She shrugged. "Who knows if that means anything or not."
"So how are we going to handle this?" he asked. "We don't actually have any concrete proof of anything, just suspicions, coincidence, and gut feelings. If they are up to no good like we suspect I'm not sure I really want them around the others or learning what we plan to teach."
"I agree," she nodded. "And they wouldn't actually qualify anyway. Now that we are on the academy roster as instructors, we have access to the student files," she waved her hand in the direction of their scrolls and the television, as well as the class schedules and attendance records. "While all four of them are on the master list of visiting students, it seems that only Sustrai and Black are actually attending classes. The other two aren't even on a schedule so they aren't being noticed as not attending classes."
"They're ghosts within the system," he said. "There but not there."
She nodded. "I think we should observe for now...and fuck with them when we get the chance. Make things a little uncomfortable for them now and then and upset their routine. They are obviously up to something and we need to know what. If we can mess with them a little we may rattle them. If they went to this much trouble to get here they aren't going to leave at the first bit of difficulty. Especially if they are who we think they might be."
"I suppose we should fill Ozpin in tonight when we go to see Amber," he said. "I'm tempted not to since I'm pretty sure he didn't tell us everything, but I'd rather be honest about what we know and suspect even if he isn't."
"I can tell you for a fact that he hasn't told us everything," she said. "Not by a long shot. But then again I didn't really expect him to give us every detail. I do think that he gave us the same knowledge that Glynda and Ironwood both have and I was willing to leave it at that for now. I'm pretty sure he's aware that I know there's a lot more to be told." She smiled coldly. "And I think he knows that I could make him give up the rest easily enough."
"You, are a monster my beautiful Kitty," he smirked. "A true monster."
"Don't worry," she began in a sickeningly girly voice as she glomped him. "I would never hurt my Berry-kun."
He shivered. "Please don't do that. It's so unnatural that it's frightening. It even freaks Shiro out."
She laughed and settled herself across his lap, her right arm looped over his shoulders. "Believe me, it even freaks me out that I can sound like that." She leaned her head against his and sighed. "Back to business though. It's time to go and see if there's anything we can do for Amber."
He smiled sadly. "I hope we can. We could really use Hime's help for this couldn't we?"
"We sure could," she agreed. "But we'll do our best and I'm sure we'll be able to help her. First though we have to check the damage from up close then we can figure out the best way to help her."
He sighed. "Sorry, I know I keep doing it but every time we run into something where one of our friends could have helped it just seems to come out of my mouth without thinking."
"No need to apologize Ichigo," she said tenderly, stroking his cheek. "I may not always say it out loud but I still do the same thing. 'I bet Kisuke would have some hair brained device that we could use' or 'I bet Tessai has invented a Kido that would be ideal for this'. The fact that we still think like that just shows how much they all meant to us and that we are never going to forget them."
"Well, at least it doesn't seem to hurt as much as it used to when I do that," he admitted. "I guess what we're getting into has me thinking about it more. We're getting ready to confront something and I keep waiting for the gang to show up so we can all go tackle it together. Wouldn't that be something?"
She laughed lightly. "It sure would. I can just hear Uuryu, 'What have you gotten yourself into now Kurosaki?' Orihime would smile and say, 'Let's go!' and Chad would just stand at your side, silent but ready."
He smiled fondly. "Kisuke would be lurking about somewhere," he said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. "And a certain sexy cat woman would be grinning like a loon just waiting for the chaos to start."
She gave him that look and laughed. "And then there's you, who after all of this time has finally admitted that he actually likes to fight. You know, you may just be Remnant's own Kenpachi."
He snorted. "So does that make you Yachiru?"
She gave him a smouldering look. "Now Ichi-kun, as nice as your shoulders are you know that's not the part I like to ride on."
Silence reigned for about two seconds before they both burst out laughing. They both felt a little more relaxed afterwards.
"We have tomorrow free before we start at Beacon," she reminded him, wiggling her butt in his lap. "And I suggest spending the day in bed once we finish planning a few things so we can relax before we jump feet first into this."
"I think we'll need it after tonight," he agreed. He kissed her. "So, want something to eat before we go?"
"Let's wait until we come back," she answered as she got up. "I'm craving pizza from the Tasty Tomato."
"I still say that's a stupid name for a pizza joint," he said.
"Maybe so, but that old man makes a mean pie."
Her scroll rang, signifying a message. She opened it and began to laugh. She turned it so he could read the screen. It was a message from Ruby.
OH MY GOD! THAT WAS SOOOO COOL! THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!
The five Goliath's were slowly ambling along in a rough line. Ichigo descended upon the second from last, Zangetsu's long blade slicing down through the beast's neck, nearly cutting its head completely off. To his left Yoruichi descended upon the last one in line and just as she had done at one time to the Arrancar Yammy, she slammed an axe kick into the giant Grimm's head. There was a thundering crack as its skull shattered and she drove its head into the ground.
The other Goliath's turned at the sudden disturbance and barely had time to register what was going on before two more fell. Ichigo rushed along the right side of the closest one in a lazy Shunpo, if he went too fast their audience would never see what happened, and sliced the soulless creature lengthwise from shoulder to rump with the full length of his blade. It wailed in agony as it collapsed. Yoruichi, her body now wreathed in the white lightning of her Shunko, charged the fourth one head on. It barely had time to lower its head to charge when her lightning covered fist slammed into its bony head plate and literally obliterated its skull and neck.
Coming together some distance in front of the remaining Grimm, they had to decide who got the last one. Rock, paper, scissors, two out of three and Yoruichi won much to Ichigo's visible chagrin. As for the Goliath, being ancient and having gained intelligence it did not blindly attack them like younger Grimm would do. That intelligence meant that it knew the dangers that humans could present and it knew that these two were more dangerous than anyone or anything it had ever encountered. The speed and ease with which they dispatched its brethren meant that it had no chance of defeating them. The odds of running and being left alone were extremely slim but a slim chance at survival was better than no chance at all.
It turned and began to run. With a lazy flick of her wrist Yoruichi sent a streak of lightning into the beast just above its tail. The lightning carved a trench up the Grimm's back that obliterated its spine and blew the top of its head apart. The Goliath collapsed forward, its momentum quickly brought to a halt as the remains of its face and tusks plowed the ground.
The lightning surrounding Yoruichi disappeared and she jumped into Ichigo's arms. A blink of an eye later and they were back in front of the camera. He was holding her bridal style with a smirk on his face and she was wearing a cheeky grin.
"And just like that, no more Goliath's," she cracked.
"I know it was short but I hope you enjoyed the show Ruby," Ichigo said.
"With that done, I think we're going to go down into the caverns and clean out whatever Grimm we find down there," Yoruichi explained. She didn't mention of course that Shiro was already down there terrorizing the beasts to his heart's content while Tensa played cameraman. They weren't much of a challenge but he did enjoy making them fear him.
"Have fun showing this to your friends," she continued. "We'll be seeing you soon." She waved and in the blink of an eye they were gone. The camera stayed focused for a moment on the last wisps of black smoke as the Grimm evaporated before going dark.
You could hear a pin drop in the silence within Team RWBY's dorm room. Several minutes earlier it had been chaotic as everyone arrived at nearly the same time and then had to try to decipher the strung out babble of excited Ruby-ese to figure out what was going on. It took the intervention of Big Sister to get her to take a breath, slow down, and speak clearly and then a little help to get her scroll set up in projection mode so they could all see the video. Ruby was just too wound up. She kept either dropping the scroll or pressing the wrong buttons.
Other than a hushed 'Whoa!' out of Jaune when he laid eyes on Yoruichi, no one made a sound once the action started and had yet to make a noise since it ended. Well, no noise if you didn't count the hum coming off of Ruby as she literally vibrated in place, the occasional rose petal drifting off of her.
"...Holy shit!" Yang swore.
"Awww yeah! That was awesome!" Nora shouted, jumping to her feet and pumping her fist in the air. In her excitement she didn't notice that her skirt was momentarily draped over Ren's head before she skipped over to Ruby and they devolved into a rush of high speed geeky gibberish that only they could understand and keep up with. Stunned like the others were, it took Ren at least five seconds before he realized where his head had just been.
"That...cannot be possible," Weiss said, blinking owlishly.
"And yet we just saw it happen," Pyrrha said, not quite believing it herself.
"But there were five of them," Jaune gasped shakily. "Five freaking huge Goliaths!"
"And they killed them in less than two minutes," Blake added. "It was effortless. They even stopped long enough to play rock, paper scissors to decide who got to kill the last one. And they weren't even concerned about it...they ignored it like it wasn't even there until they finished."
"How strong are those two?" Yang wondered as she looked down at her own fists. 'Could I ever get that strong?'
"They could have done it faster," Ren said, finally speaking up. The others, including Ruby and Nora all turned to him. They also wondered why his face was all red but didn't say anything.
"There's no way," Weiss said, still unable to believe what they had seen.
"At the beginning and the end of the video they moved so fast that we couldn't see them until they reappeared at a distance," he explained. "If they had moved that fast while attacking the Grimm we wouldn't have seen anything but the Grimm being wounded and dying. They deliberately slowed down so that we would be able to see them."
"They did say that they both had a Semblance like mine," Ruby said, now speaking at a decipherable speed.
"If their Semblance is speed then what was she doing?" Jaune asked. "She wasn't carrying a weapon."
"And that lightning was not produced using lightning Dust," Weiss added.
"It's just like one of the stories in the book," Ruby said. "The woman in the story used that same attack to blow apart an ancient Deathstalker. The way the book described it, it might have been even bigger than the one we ran up against."
"But that story is like three hundred years old!" Nora exclaimed. She put a hand to her chin in a thinking pose. "That woman on the video sure didn't look three hundred years old."
"Obviously she can't be," Pyrrha said. "But it does seem very strange that there are historical accounts of two people with the same weapons or abilities that we just witnessed, all coming from different sources and authors and spread out over hundreds of years. Of the ones that I have read there is extremely little variation in the descriptions."
"If it were just one person in the stories you might be able to pass it off as them being direct descendants," Ren reasoned. "But this is a couple and every account no matter when it takes place always has them together and the description as Pyrrha stated of their looks, their weapons, and their methods all have little variation."
"Well if it all isn't some elaborate ruse then the only explanation is the impossible," Weiss surmised. "And I for one am certainly not about to believe that they are immortal."
"It is kind of fun to imagine though," Ruby said. "Oh! I need to send her a thank you!" She grabbed her scroll and began tapping out a message.
Yang chuckled. "If she gets any more excited she might actually burst." There was nothing she loved more than to see Ruby happy. Seeing that big smile and the way those big silver eyes would light up, she couldn't get enough of it and seeing Ruby happy made her happy too.
"I just hope those two are genuine," Blake said to her quietly. "I'd hate to see what it would do to her if they aren't." In her time at Beacon she had grown quite fond of her young leader. At first her secrets and her own jaded nature had kept her at arms length from her...and the whole team really. She came to realize that part of the problem was that Ruby's innocence and naivete were things that she herself had lost at far too young an age and scoffed at too easily. In reality there were times when she wished she still had those traits. But unless you were an evil creep, it was impossible not to like and grow fond of the Little Reaper.
"I've thought about that too," Yang admitted. She had practically raised Ruby, she was a mother figure, big sister, and best friend all rolled into one. She always had and always would worry about her and would beat the hell out of anyone who harmed her...or would die trying. "They were nice and certainly friendly enough. I didn't get any bad vibes from them. "Did you?"
"Bad vibes?" She shook her head. "No, but there is definitely something different about them, I just can't figure out what." She paused and took a deep breath. "There was something in their eyes though."
"Their eyes?" Weiss asked. Apparently they were being just loud enough that she could hear them though no one else seemed to. She too had begun to grow rather fond of Ruby herself. The many changes going on within her and her struggles with them included how much she seemed to find herself caring about the little dolt. She could be irritating and she may snap and snarl at her at times, but she didn't like seeing Ruby sad or hurt.
"When I was with the White Fang I had to quickly learn a valuable skill. I had to be able to read people with some degree of accuracy," Blake explained, obviously not liking to speak of her past with them. "The most telling thing can be the eyes. As the saying goes, the eyes are the window to the soul. When talking to someone you can see a lot of different things reflected in their eyes"
"So what did you see in their eyes?" Yang asked with some trepidation.
"Pain. Loss." She shuddered slightly remembering it. "I've seen the look before but never to this degree. They have seen a lot of bad things and lost a lot. But I also saw strength there. And resolve. A resolve like steel and so intense that it was almost frightening. Without talking to them more and knowing them a little better I can't say just how accurate that is or exactly what it means, but that was what I saw in them."
Further discussion was cut off by a happy squeal out of Ruby. "Guys! Yoruichi messaged back and said they're coming to Beacon! They'll be here Thursday!"
A look passed between the three. Maybe they'd get to find out a little more sooner than they thought or at the very least see if the two were even aware of the historical stories and the similarities.
"Cool!' Yang said, making Ruby smile even more. "Now set that scroll back up sis. I want to see that again!" And she really did, it was freaking awesome!
It was otherwise silent in the vault beneath Beacon but for the hum of the machinery as five individuals silently regarded what was before them. Ichigo subtly eyed each one of the other four. Ozpin stood nearly slumped, leaning heavily on his cane. His head was slightly bowed but he could still see the look on the man's face. Sorrow, the weight of failure. Beside him was Glynda, wearing a softer look on her face than any he had seen thus far. The state of the young woman in the machine before them obviously saddened her.
Ironwood looked mostly neutral but he could detect a slight hint of pride on the man's face. Likely pride that his precious Atlesian technology was keeping the girl alive. If that was indeed what he was thinking right now he'd like to punch the man in the face and reintroduce him to the concept of humanity. As it was he was still pretty sure that the General thought the only way to go here was to rip the remains of this poor girl's soul out and cram it into someone else. He'd get crammed into his own machine before either he or Yoruichi would let that happen.
As for his Kitten she was intently studying the girl in the raised pod on the machine's left side, no doubt scoping out her Reiatsu...Aura before she attempted a diagnostic Kaido. He looked to the pod himself and let out a near silent sigh. She was young, her skin just a little lighter shade than Yoruichi's and she had straight cut brown hair that hung to her shoulders. Her pretty face was marred with scars from the attack. While Qrow wasn't able to give much of a detailed description of the attackers, he did have more detail about the method of attack. It had been the focus of his actions right at that particular moment after all.
The attacker wore a white glove that had some sort of a small Grimm attached to the palm. Whatever had scarred Amber's face came from that Grimm and was still attached, like some kind of a webbing and it was through that that her powers were siphoned off.
"What a mess," Yoruichi said softly, a concerned look on her face. "I don't think I need a diagnostic Kaido to see the problem we're facing."
Ichigo concentrated for a moment. While his skills at sensing and seeing persons Aura or Reiatsu had gotten much better, it didn't come as easily to him as it did to her. Still, after a moment of concentration to bring it into focus he saw the same thing that she did.
"Shit," he swore.
"What is it?" Glynda asked worriedly. She was getting a sinking feeling that maybe they wouldn't be able to help Amber after all.
"She's leaking both Aura and life force energy," Yoruichi said gravely. "As we told you the other day Aura and Reiatsu are essentially the same thing and I have seen something similar to this before. The attack that took her powers ripped a gash in her soul. Normally the soul may be able to close the wound if it's not too severe but it takes a lot of energy to do so."
"Her Aura levels are dangerously low already," Ozpin said. "So I take it that she does not have enough for her soul to heal itself?"
"Correct," she confirmed. "Aura is leaking from the gash faster than her soul can use it to heal. Aura, like Reiatsu, whether it comes from someone else or it's your own can be absorbed and used to heal wounds. She's trying to reabsorb the Aura she's leaking but she's losing it faster than she can take it in so the gash isn't getting any smaller."
"You can see this gash?" Ironwood asked.
She shook her head. "No, but I don't have to. I can see the energy leaking from her. Her Aura and life force energy are the same colour but the life force energy is denser. Her Aura is so low that her soul has begun to spend life force energy to make up the difference. As is right now, it's a battle she cannot win."
"Can you do anything?" Glynda asked.
She sighed. "I believe we can but it's going to be a close shave," she said gravely. "We'll need to put more Aura into her than she is losing, push it into her if we have to, while trying to close the gash. If we push too much it will cause more damage. Not enough and the gash won't get any smaller." She turned to the General. "The pod is containing all of the Aura and life force energy she's leaking, correct?"
He nodded. "It is," he confirmed. "In part for the very reasons you have mentioned. It's so that no Aura can escape and the patient can reabsorb it if they are able."
"And the other reason is so that nothing escapes before it can be given to someone else during the transfer process," Ichigo surmised with obvious distaste.
The General sighed and nodded again. "In a case like this the system is designed to be a closed loop so that none of the Maiden's power can escape and seek out the power that was taken and thus giving more of it to her attacker."
"I'm not sure if I should be impressed with the technology or sickened that someone invented it." He glowered. "And obviously tested it to make sure it worked."
Yoruichi laid a hand on his arm to calm him. She felt the same way but this wasn't the time to be discussing the ethics of General Ironwood or the Kingdom of Atlas. "Containing the leaking energy is slowing down the inevitable result," she said. "But if the pod keeps it contained it also means we can't pass energy to her through it."
"You'll need to open it," Ozpin said tiredly.
"Absolutely not!" Ironwood protested. "There is far too much risk involved."
"You don't have a choice!" Yoruichi shot back. "If I have to I will bind you, stick you to the wall, and tear the lid off that thing with my bare hands"
"Did you think we were joking when we said we wouldn't let you transfer this girl's soul to someone else?" Ichigo asked.
"I don't think you are appreciating how serious or how delicate this situation is," Ironwood responded coldly.
"And I think you're an inflexible ass who doesn't care about the lack of morality of your plan," Ichigo returned.
"Do it your way and Amber dies no matter what," Yoruichi cut in. "And whoever you try cramming her soul and Aura into runs the risk of having their soul damaged beyond repair. And that's to say nothing of what it might do to their personality and their mental health. Neither Amber nor the recipient deserve the likely outcome."
"Your objections don't mean a damn thing," Ichigo growled. "And you had better pray that we never find out what kind of experiments you did to even figure this out."
"Enough!" Ozpin said, raising his voice slightly and tapping the floor hard with his cane. He turned to Yoruichi. "Can you do it?"
"Oz..." the General began but the Headmaster held up his hand to silence him.
"That's enough James," he said firmly. He turned back to Yoruichi. "You said that as a Shinigami your primary expertise was as an assassin."
"True," she answered. "But all Shinigami were trained in multiple disciplines. Just like any skill, some excel at it, some don't. My skills with Kaido are average at worst but even after my initial training I learned from people who were highly proficient. Knowing what to heal and how to heal it may be more important than having an abundance of ability to do so." She looked the Professor in the eye. "I can concentrate on healing the tear in her soul while Ichigo supplies the energy to keep her stable and begin replenishing her own Aura. It's going to take a while and we will need to concentrate to avoid any mistakes. But we can," she looked at Ironwood. "And we will save her life."
"Then please do so," Ozpin said, looking rather worn. "Please save Amber."
She nodded then removed her orange jacket and set it by the wall. Ichigo followed suit with his swords and his long coat and rolled up his sleeves.
"What do you need me to do Kitten," he asked.
"I need you to place your hands over her midsection and push your Reiatsu into her," she instructed. "As gently as you can at first, I'll let you know if you need to increase or decrease the amount but when we get it to the right level you'll have to hold it there. I'll apply my Kaido right at the spot of the tear."
If this was back in their world he wouldn't be able to do it this way, he'd have to be able to use Kaido. But with the way things worked in this world it was like a normal transfer of Aura, but with the ridiculous amount of power that he had he would still have to be careful.
"Alright," he said. "Shiro and Tensa said they'd help make sure we keep the flow just right."
She smiled. "Good. Thanks boys," she directed to his spirits.
"Maybe this is an odd or unnecessary question," Glynda began. "But where is the tear?"
Yoruichi shook her head. "It's fine. It's in the same location where the Maiden powers were pulled from her, her face. The soul reflects the body so in the case of it being caused by a physical wound like this is, the tear is usually in the same place. Plus, I can see the Aura and life force energy escaping from there." She smirked. "With a little luck I can erase the scarring or at least lessen it."
They heard a sigh come from the General. "What can I do?"
She regarded him for a moment. 'Might be hope for him yet.' "When we're ready we need you to lower the pod and open it and disable any alarms. We will need to concentrate and we don't need and alarms going off and distracting us."
He nodded and moved to the machine's control console. Ichigo moved to the pod's midpoint and she moved to the head. They began to focus their energy and channel it towards their hands.
"Alright General, lower and open it now," she ordered.
He activated the controls and with a whine of hydraulics the pod lowered and locked into its horizontal position. With a hiss the lid unsealed and opened, the Aura and life energy that had been escaping the girl washing over them. With the loose energies out of the way she could feel that her Aura was even lower than she initially thought. They immediately moved into position and began applying their energies to the stricken Maiden.
"Don't you go making a liar out of me now," she told the girl quietly. "We're going to give you all the help we can but you have to keep fighting too."
It was several hours later when they reemerged from the depths of the vault beneath the school. They both felt drained, not from the expenditure of power, they both had that in spades, but from the level of intense concentration and fine manipulation of their energies that their task had required. The initial strategy had been to have him keep Amber's Aura levels up at a zero loss level...having the amount he was putting in at least match the amount that was leaking while she slowly and carefully healed the tear in the girl's soul. That proved to be unworkable.
The problem was that no matter how much Kaido Yoruichi applied to the tear it would not start to heal with Aura and life force energy continuing to leak from it. She had to have Ichigo slowly and steadily lower the amount of Aura he was supplying until it was at a point where there was only enough going in to keep Amber alive, and just barely at that, and thus lessening the amount that was escaping. Once the tear finally began to heal they were able to increase the flow again but it wasn't by much. Even after it was closed they didn't dare push much more Aura into her.
Her levels were still quite low but no longer in the danger zone. She was stable and unless something drastic and unforeseen happened she was no longer in danger, certainly not in imminent danger of potentially dying at any moment. As her soul tried to recover the life force energy it had lost...and it would recover...it would use up Aura to do so and Amber would need infusions of Aura at least twice a day to both keep her levels up and slowly increase it. A slow increase would allow the repaired tear to strengthen without stress to it or to any other part of her soul.
"If I was more proficient at Kaido we wouldn't have needed to keep her hovering just out of death's reach for so long," Yoruichi lamented sadly as she leaned against Ichigo, his left arm around her waist. "Someone like Retsu or even Tessai would have been able to close that tear even as the energies were flowing out of it."
They were currently standing on a thick branch in a tree outside the dorm room of the person they felt was most likely responsible for Amber's condition. Something they had both felt within Amber that was foreign to them, most likely the feel of the magic that was the Maiden's powers, could also be felt from Cinder Fall. Pretty much every indicator they had was circumstantial but the feel of the woman's Aura was unmistakably tainted with ill intent and that was all they needed to identify her as a problem, stolen Maiden powers or not.
He gave her a light squeeze. "None of that now," he said gently. "You did great. She's alive and she's going to recover."
"It's going to be a long, slow recovery," she reminded him.
"Better that than no recovery," he reminded her. "Or having her soul crammed into someone else. No one else on Remnant could do what you did Yoruichi. You saved her life."
"I had help," she said, smiling slightly. "So thank you. All three of you."
He kissed her forehead. "Any time," his voice said in a triple timbre.
"So, I was thinking that on behalf of our now recovering patient, we give this bitch another scare," she scowled. "She deserves it and it would be a good way to cap off the night."
"I was wondering why you led me up here," he said. It looked like the occupants of the room were just preparing to call it a night, like many at the academy already had.
"Call me petty, but after what we just had to do I want to see the look of terror on her face."
"Ouch, Kitty has her claws out," he teased. She gave him a mild look. "Alright then Princess, your wish is my command.
Her eyes widened when he manifested his mask.
It hit her like a lightning strike. One moment she's reviewing some information on her scroll, the next it's slipping from her fingers as that same dark, suffocating, cold and malicious sensation surrounded her soul. No, not a sensation, it was more like a living thing, crawling across her skin and slithering through her bones. This was worse than the last time. She was shaking and broke into a cold sweat. She couldn't hear the frantic voices of Emerald and Mercury calling to her as she dropped to the floor. Her eyes were wide open in terror but it wasn't them that she saw.
Before her, she could just make out the image of a bone white, skeletal mask with two vertical stripes trailing down from the top of its head, over its eye sockets and down its cheeks. Two large horns jutted out from the sides of its head and pointed forward. Even worse were the eyes that seemed to suddenly come to life within the dark sockets. Both with a yellow iris and black sclera and they bored right into the depths of her soul. The mouth opened, emitting puff of steam or smoke and the nightmare visage suddenly lunged at her.
She heard screaming as she was swallowed by the abyssal blackness of that maw. She was unaware that the screaming was her own.
AN: I hope everyone enjoyed that.
Keeping with my oft repeated words about this story, I have no idea what I'm doing with it, I'm just writing what comes to me.
My biggest question with it is 'How much do I alter canon?' There are certainly parts of canon I want to be a part of this but finding that blend is the difficult part.
In that regard I also have to keep in mind the fate of certain characters. My biggest concern with that at the moment concerns Ozpin. As it stands now I am looking at keeping adult Ozpin around and not letting Cinder kill him.
Overall though I am open to suggestions about the story as a whole. I can't guarantee what if any of those suggestions would be used, but if nothing else some outside opinions might help me in the creative process as I move this thing forward. You never know what can spark an idea, maybe even for something totally unrelated to the core of the suggestion. The creative process can be strange and wonderful that way...you sometimes find ideas from a variety of sources.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter and I hope you will leave a review. And while you're hanging around why not check out my other stories.