Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth and Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. I own nothing of either of them and am only playing in the worlds they gave us.
In case you missed it I made a major edit to the combat arena scene in Chapter 7. I completely overlooked and forgot something that should have been ridiculously obvious to me. Thanks to reviewer Soulfire47 for noticing it. I can't believe that I completely whiffed on something that is such an integral plot point and something that I had thought of when I decided to go beyond chapter one.
So, if you haven't already checked that out you might want to do so.
I had hoped to have this chapter done several days sooner but between being freaking exhausted and my father being in the hospital recently my brain hasn't been totally cooperative.
A Chance Encounter
Chapter 8:
Saturday, Beacon Campus Grounds
"What are those losers up to now?" Mercury asked.
He and Emerald were sitting on one of the many benches that adorned the campus, watching the members of Team's RWBY and JNPR as they sat in a semi circle under a large tree. One member of JNPR, Lie Ren was sitting in front of the rest, facing them. Now free from their 'house arrest' as it were, they could get back to their purpose for being here, which was to observe the other students and gauge their abilities, in part at least to see who might be a threat and who they might be able to use.
Of course, the observation part of things had been a little tough to accomplish now that they had to actually participate in classes. The class that had been the most useful for their purpose was combat class but there was little there to observe now that the two best first years teams were in the advanced class and they had no access to that and thus no idea what they were learning. What was left in Goodwitch's class certainly needed the benefit of her teachings but there was little there worth their time.
It had been kind of amusing though watching Cinder struggle to keep herself from incinerating the members of Team CRDL. Talk about a bunch of idiots.
"I think they're meditating," Emerald suggested.
He snorted. "Is that part of their 'advanced training'? What a waste of time."
"Maybe they're getting in touch with their inner Huntsman," she drawled, somewhat less than half serious.
"Like I said, a waste of time," he groused. "If that's the kind of crap those two are up to then it's obvious they aren't here to actually teach."
The students under the tree began to glow in the various colours of their Aura. Even Jaune. His came up a little slower then the others, but he did it.
"An Aura exercise?" Emerald questioned.
"Like I said..." Mercury began.
"Shut up!" she snapped. Why did he have to be so annoying?
Before he could snap back the others each raised one of their hands in front of them, palm up, and did something that did catch their attention. In Lie Ren's hand a ball of Aura formed and rose up, but was still attached by a thin tendril. It was a bit like a balloon on a string. Blake Belladonna was achieving a similar result only a little less defined and it was the same for Pyrrha Nikos.
In Weiss Schnee's hand was a domed shape that covered her palm. It was a start but she couldn't quite get it to raise any higher or form more of a ball. Yang Xiao Long was producing something that looked more like a lazily flickering small flame than an actual ball. It would just start to take the right shape when it would flare out again. Ruby Rose and Nora Valkyrie both had something that looked like it was trying to leap off of their hands in a frenzy. Jaune Arc didn't get anything to form in his hand but his overall Aura seemed to keep stabilizing more and more.
"They're practising Aura manipulation?" Mercury said, puzzled.
"Why do you sound surprised by that?" she asked.
"Do you know anything about the subject?" he asked, like his point should have been obvious to her.
"Sorry," she snarled. "But I didn't go to a combat school!"
"Neither did I," he shot back. "But there are other ways to learn stuff. I'll try to make this simple for you." If looks could kill the look she was giving him would have left him a smoking husk. "Trying to manipulate your Aura to do much else but act as a shield uses way too much of it. Whatever effect you might get isn't worth the amount of Aura it costs. Trying to teach something like that to these morons is pointless, that's why no one does it. All it does is give them something shiny to play with."
"You talk big for someone who couldn't even get as far as the class evaluation," a familiar voice spoke from close behind them. They whirled around only to see no one there. "Over here," the voice spoke again and they turned back around to see Yoruichi standing in front of them.
She held up her hands and her Aura engulfed them, and only them. Two electric white balls of Aura, each the size of an apple formed in her palms and rose above them to a height of about six inches. Each ball seemed to roil upon itself while maintaining its shape and little tendrils like miniature lightning arced back and forth between the balls and her hands. They could feel the sheer power of them.
"The only thing you got right is that it does take a lot of Aura...until you learn to master it," she said. "Aura manipulation is taught but those teachings are mostly restricted to being able to move your Aura to enhance specific areas of your body against damage, and maybe even to add a little oomph to a physical blow. But as you can see there is much more that can be done with it."
"So you can make some pretty fireworks," Mercury snarked. "Doesn't mean it's good for anything." He was a little rattled by her sudden appearance and his default bad attitude came to the fore. This woman had already caused them enough trouble already.
"Each one of these fireworks as you call it is enough to shatter your Aura's, and probably your ribs and give you a nasty burn to go with it, " she told them coldly. "And I'm not even putting an effort into it. And as for weakening my Aura by doing this, the two of you could pound on me until the sun goes down and you wouldn't break it." She glared at them hard and they felt a weight settle on their shoulders. "You called my students losers and morons, yet what they are doing right now is a one hundred percent improvement on what they could do less than a week ago, and they did it by practising on their own."
Both of them were unable to keep their eyes from going wide. She had heard their entire conversation, which meant that she had been standing behind them the whole time and they hadn't known it. They hadn't sensed a thing.
"You both seem to think you're above them so why don't you show me if you can do any better," Yoruichi challenged.
"We're not in your class and this isn't even a school day," Emerald unwisely challenged back. The gaze that was turned upon her seemed to literally pin her to the bench and she nearly squeaked in panic.
"But you're on this campus and for the time being attending this academy...so humour me," she said darkly. "You don't get to talk shit about my students so consider this your punishment. Or can't you two big talkers even manage to bring up your Aura?"
Grudgingly and with a constant glare the two brought up their Aura, although not any faster than her students did.
"Happy?" Mercury smirked.
"No," Yoruichi answered flatly. "Try doing what they're doing. They're just losers and morons right? So you obviously must be able to do better. I'll even make it easier for you. If either one of you can make any sort of a shape, if you can even make your Aura move in your hand I'll let you off the hook and you can go. But, you'll stay here until you do. And don't give me that look, you started this. You got yourself in this hole so find a way to climb out of it Mr. Black."
He was angry, but at least he did realize that they had backed themselves into a corner and his share of the blame was probably the largest. He'd never even tried to manipulate his Aura before. What was the point? He didn't even know how to try and this annoying bitch wasn't about to give him any pointers. Gritting his teeth, he hoped simply trying to will it to happen would work otherwise he'd be here for a while.
Emerald on the other hand was almost having a panic attack. They had been cautioned by Cinder to avoid the new teachers as much as possible, though there wasn't much they could have done in this instance since she came up to them. They should have been more alert and much more careful about what they were saying, though she blamed Mercury for most of that. She wasn't without guilt however since she had let her attitude get out in front of her common sense.
Like Mercury, she knew she couldn't manipulate her Aura either and that left them with only two options. Try and fail, hoping that the Professor eventually took mercy on them...which seemed highly unlikely, or use her Semblance to fool their way out of this mess. Cinder had warned her about using it, she didn't want to risk anyone figuring out what it was before it was time for them to make use of it as part of the plan, but she saw no other way out.
She had to be careful. She couldn't just suddenly make a shape in her hand or even have her Aura suddenly move. It had to look like it was an effort and pretty insignificant if it was to look real. She wasn't used to utilizing her Semblance like this, in a way that required such a fine tuned, more subtle illusion. It was like having to allow the target to see the illusion being built rather than making them see something that she could just present whole while their eyes were off target. She knew she was going to get a headache out of this and it was going to take a lot of concentration. Luckily she could hide that look behind the concentration she would need to be showing if she really were trying to make her Aura move in her hand.
It took her nearly a full minute of intense concentration to make the little flicker of Aura moving in her hand seem natural and adequately forced, and she had to keep up that concentration to hold the image as it was. Her momentary sense of relief was quickly trampled however when their tormentor didn't immediately say anything and made her hold the flickering shape for nearly thirty seconds. She suddenly realized that perhaps she shouldn't have held it that long and promptly let it fizzle out, praying that she hadn't just screwed up.
"You can stop now," Yoruichi said flatly. "At least one of you shows a sliver of promise. Now get out of here. Any more trouble and you'll be on the first Bullhead back to Haven."
Neither of them said anything as they left, Mercury because he was pissed and knew he'd already opened his mouth enough, and Emerald because she was a little dizzy and was concentrating more on staying upright and mobile. Once they got inside the school they stopped so she could recover.
"You idiot," he hissed. "You know you aren't supposed to be using your Semblance!"
"Maybe if you had kept your big mouth shut I wouldn't have needed to!" she hissed back.
"Don't put this all on me, you shot your mouth off too!" he snarled.
"She was already going to make us do that before I said anything!" she countered. "If I hadn't used it we'd be there all day!"
"We could have just tried and then admitted we couldn't do it and then walked off," he countered.
"Or you could have done as I told you and stayed out of trouble," Cinder's displeased voice came to them from down the hall. "Get back to the room, it seems we need to have a little talk again."
Suddenly, they wished they were back on the bench with Professor Shihoin glaring at them.
Speaking of which, after their departure Yoruichi watched them until they were out of sight, sparing a brief glance up at the windows on the third floor where she knew Cinder had been watching the whole thing from before spinning on her heel and dropping onto the bench with a satisfied smirk on her face. A moment later she was joined by Ichigo, sans weapons and coat.
"You're looking rather pleased with yourself," he noted. He'd been watching from nearby, keeping one eye on her and Cinder's lackeys and one eye on their students as they practised under the tree.
"They were badmouthing our students so I had to put them in their place," she said. "And along the way I got an unexpected bonus."
"I know you got them to show their Aura," he said. "What else did you get?"
"She used her Semblance," she grinned. "They thought what our students were doing was dumb and they were a bunch of losers so I made them try to do the same thing. Told them I'd keep them here all day until they did. I felt her using her Aura besides just having it visible and she was concentrating it on me. She created an illusion for her Aura moving in her hand but I could see right through it. It was like a phantom image laid over the real thing. If I had raised my Aura a bit it would have been like she didn't do anything. Considering the Aura levels of everyone else around here I think everyone else would have seen exactly what she wanted them to see."
"So at minimum she can make one person see what she wants them to," he said. "Considering what little we have for her previous records that would be a handy skill for a petty thief. I wonder if she can effect more than one person."
"Hard to say right now," she said. "Considering the amount of Aura she was using and the fact that she was looking a little ragged afterwards I would say no, but that's just a guess."
"Either way that's good info. Nice catch Yori."
"They don't make minions like they used to...luckily for us. So how are our students doing?" she asked, turning her attention to them.
"Pretty good actually," he answered. "Jaune can bring his Aura up and hold it and the others all have some form of a shape in their hands. Some are a little shaky but they're doing really well for the short time they've been at this."
"Seems like Ren must have done a good job teaching them about meditation if they've gotten this far already," she observed. "And they must have really understood and taken to heart what you told them." She gave him a playful punch in the shoulder. "See, I told you that you'd be good at this."
They both turned and looked back at the school. "Feels like Cinder just came down to meet her flunkies," he said. "And I don't think she's happy."
"I think I'll go and have a listen," she said, standing. "You can go check in with our students." In a swish of Shunpo she was gone.
He stayed where he was for a moment and watched them continue practising. Ren, Blake and Pyrrha had stabilized their constructs and Weiss had gone from a dome to an actual ball that was still firmly anchored to her hand. Jaune had nothing but was still maintaining his Aura. Nora, Ruby, and Yang were still the same only Yang's was a little more unstable than before and she looked like she was getting really frustrated.
"Better see if I can put out that fire before it starts," he muttered as he got up and sauntered over, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
He really was impressed with what he was seeing and feeling from them. The had grasped the concept pretty quickly and were already getting good results considering the short amount of time they would have had to work on it. He could also feel a slight increase in the strength and amount of everyone's Aura. It wasn't a lot by any stretch of the imagination, but it was there and that was an encouraging sign. He didn't know if Yoruichi had noticed yet, she had been a little preoccupied, but he'd make sure to tell her.
"Now I like what I'm seeing here," he told them. "You're all doing better than expected. Good work."
"Oh, Ichigo...er I mean Professor Kurosaki!" Ruby called out.
He smiled and waved her off. "Ichigo is fine unless there are other teachers around. Same goes for Yoruichi. That seems to be the one thing we haven't been able to teach you all yet." He turned to Ren. "Looks like you've done a good job teaching them to meditate if they've been able to get results like this. Good work."
Ren nodded slightly at the compliment. "Some took a little more time to get it than others..." he glanced towards Nora and Ruby..."but they all succeeded. They all wanted to learn this."
"You, Blake and Pyrrha will lose the stem on your ball with a little more practice," he said. "It took me a while to lose it when Yoruichi taught me how to do this too."
He turned to Jaune. "Good job," he told him. "You've made a lot of progress this week. Keep at it." The boy smiled at the praise.
He stepped over to Weiss. "You're doing good but you look a little tense."
"I can feeling it wanting to raise off my palm but I can't get it to do so," she said, frustration obvious in her voice.
"Try to relax a little bit and let it come naturally," he suggested. "Remember, it's a part of you and forcing it would be like someone trying to force you to do something you don't want to. There will be resistance."
She nodded and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He left her to it and turned to Ruby and Nora. The Aura in Nora's hand looked like a wave of crackling electricity more than a coherent shape. For Ruby it was quite a bit the same only hers looked like a vibrating mass.
"I think the two of you are letting your Semblance's influence it," he observed.
"I kind of thought it might help," Ruby said sheepishly. "Is that bad?"
"Not really, it just isn't the point of the exercise," he said. "What you have done though is actually made the first step towards applying your Aura to your weapons."
"Woohoo!" Nora cheered. "We're ahead of the curve!"
He smiled and shook his head. "Yeah, but you need to slow down a little bit and rejoin the pack. I will tell you though that the effect it would have for you with your electricity Semblance is that you would be able to shock your opponent like you hit them with a stun gun."
"Awesome!" the Pancake Princess exclaimed.
"As for you Ruby, your Semblance is making the energy vibrate like it's trying to speed up," he explained. "You could give Crescent Rose's blade a high speed vibrating edge which would cut through things that it might otherwise not be able to."
She blinked a couple of times as that sunk in. "That sounds so cool!"
"Now why don't the two of you go back to trying to do this without trying to add your Semblance to it."
"Cheaters," he heard Weiss mutter, though she didn't seem all that upset about it.
He turned to Yang and if anything she looked more frustrated than before and he could hear her muttering under her breath. She was concentrating so hard she seemed to be unaware of anything else going on around her and the flame-like ball of Aura she was trying to form and control kept flaring and going out and flaring again. It was like a gas flame where you suddenly shut off the gas and turned it back on again to the same level over and over.
"Yang," he called. No response. He squatted down in front of her and tried twice more and she still didn't hear him. "Yang!" he called much louder as he used his own energy to snuff out the stuttering flame ball in her hand.
"What!" Her head shot up revealing a pair of red eyes.
"Calm down."
"I am calm!"
He hit her with just enough of his reiatsu to get her attention. "Then why are your eyes red?"
Her eyes went wide then closed and her shoulders slumped. When she opened them again they were back to their usual lilac colour. "Sorry," she apologized quietly.
"Let me guess," he said gently. "You can get it to start and form but not all the way, then you get frustrated and that's when it starts going wild."
"Uh...yeah," she admitted.
"We gotta work on that temper of yours," he said, smirking. It wasn't the first time since they started the advanced class that either he or Yoruichi had said it. "Not everything comes out the way you want it to right away. You can't force this and you can't beat it into submission."
"I wish I could," she muttered. "It'd be easier that way."
"Let's try something just a little different here then," he suggested. "Obviously what Ren taught you about meditation worked but it seems like you're having trouble maintaining the clear minded calm through the exercise. Try this then. When the ball of Aura in your hand starts to fluctuate, instead of trying to force that calm state or forcing the Aura to do what you want, try a different form of motivation. Think of something that makes you really happy. Once you have that in your head, think of the ball of Aura you're trying to form as the thing that will allow you to protect what makes you happy."
"Think that will work?" she asked.
"Worth a shot," he answered. "Thinking of something that makes you happy is always a calming thing and positive thoughts will always achieve more than negative ones will."
"You can do it Yang!" Ruby cheered brightly.
And thus spoke the motivation he knew would work. He hadn't known Yang or the rest of them for very long, but the one thing that always seemed to make the blonde smile was seeing her sister happy. It had been the same with Karin and Yuzu, both between them and his interactions with them. All of them were at their happiest when the others were happy.
'Something that makes me happy huh?' Yang thought as she brought her Aura up again. She glanced at the smiling face of her sister. 'Heh, like that's going to be a hard thing to find.' Nothing made her happier than seeing Ruby happy and it had been that way since the first time she saw her as a little baby and it had only grown since then.
As the ball of Aura reached the point where it had been giving her trouble, she thought of a bunch of times when Ruby was at her happiest and she thought of how she would do anything to protect that and protect her. Ruby meant everything to her and there was nothing that she wouldn't do for her. Her eyes widened when the previously flickering and jetting flame in her hand became a roiling ball of various shades of yellow, churning and rolling in on itself and shining like a miniature sun in the palm of her hand.
"You did it sis!" Ruby declared. "Ooh, I'm gonna try that too."
"Me too!" Nora chimed in excitedly.
He smirked. For Ruby that happiness could come from Yang, or Crescent Rose...or cookies, who knows. With Nora it could be anything. Ren, pancakes, sloths. Maybe her and a sloth eating pancakes cooked by Ren...whatever floated her boat.
"Ichigo," Yang called, getting his attention. "Thanks."
"No problem," he said. "Having something you want to protect is a strong motivation."
She turned and looked fondly at her sister. "Yeah, it is."
He looked at her and Ruby, then Weiss, then let his gaze momentarily wander to Pyrrha, thinking of the familiar and cherished souls within them. 'I hope you never learn what it feels like to fail in that regard, Yang.'
A Dark, Foreboding Corner of Remnant
The region once occupied by the God of Darkness, as one would imagine, was not the most picturesque or inviting of places and over the long tenure of time since the resident God had departed it was even less so. Even the domain of a God would show the ravages of time when left vacant for so long. It seemed to suit the cursed immortal known as Salem just fine however, especially since she had altered herself by diving into one of the black Grimm pools in one of her innumerable suicide attempts.
Broken stone stairs and pathways wove their way among numerous ponds of thick, black, tar-like ooze that constantly birthed more of the various creatures of Grimm, the Dark God's spiteful legacy. Her dip in one of those pools had given her the ability to not just command the Grimm but to create new varieties as well and she would often do so when the mood struck her.
With the castle-like building that was her home and looked like it both did and did not belong here as a backdrop in the dim atmosphere of the place, she strolled through the broken pathways but she was not here to experiment with new types of Grimm today. She was simply out walking and contemplating things. Even she amidst all of her machinations was not immune to thinking of what had been and what could have been.
How long had it been now that she had walked this world? So long that she had lost track a very long time ago. She smirked to herself. And how many times in all of that uncounted passage of time had she lost her mind, regained it, and lost it again? The first time of course had been when the Gods decided to curse her with immortality for not respecting the sanctity of the process of life and death. Or had she already lost it in her grief that sent her to seek out the God's intervention in the first place?
Had it really been so much to ask that they restore Ozma's life and return him to her? He had been a good man, rescuing her from the years of torment that was loneliness as her Father kept her locked away. He had expected no reward, freeing her only for the sake of her own freedom. He deserved better than to be struck down by an illness at such a young age. After so long alone he had come to mean everything to her and she could not bear to be without him. It was just one life...why couldn't they have made an exception for him?
She would show them. She used her immortality to bring others to her cause, convincing the various kingdoms to join her in rising up against the Gods. But in the blink of an eye her naivete was made obvious to her when with no effort at all the attack was stopped and turned against the whole of humanity, leaving her as the only one left on the entire world. Even the Gods left and the shattered moon was her constant reminder.
Her sanity came and went innumerable times since she was first cursed, as innumerable as her attempts to end her life. At first it had been in a vain attempt to escape that curse. Later, as she endlessly wandered the empty world it became more of an obsessive game. How many different ways could she think of to kill herself? Sometimes sobbing, sometimes laughing, and sometimes with no expression at all she exercised all of them until even the pain became nothing to her as she cut, stabbed, and tore her body apart in every way imaginable. Inflicting the damage was just as painful as when it healed but it was nothing more now than just another aspect of her curse and more fuel for her hatred.
Quite frankly as the centuries crawled past her mind should have become completely destroyed but perhaps that was another part of the curse. She wouldn't even be allowed to succumb to the effects of insanity and no longer be aware of her plight. The objective the Gods had sought in cursing her was an impossibility now, their curse had done nothing to make her respect the value of life and death. If anything it had stripped her of that ability altogether, fostering within her the need for nothing but revenge as she sought to bring an end to her plight. The lives and deaths of others meant absolutely nothing to her. Less than nothing even. They were all just tools and currency for her to use and spend to get what she wanted.
Fortunately there was no shortage of people she could entice to do her bidding. All of them were broken to varying degrees and it took little more than a few promises that they didn't even realize were hollow to gain their loyalty. They had no idea that her endgame would see the return of the Gods and the destruction of all life on Remnant, but most importantly the end of her life. If only she could bring harm to the Gods themselves, not only for her curse, but for what they had offered Ozma. They wouldn't give him back to her, but they would grant him a form of immortality that saw him end up in opposition of her goals.
Why couldn't he have abandoned his mission of trying to help foster harmony in the world? They were happy being back together and she was even happy when they were keeping the people safe from the attacks of the Grimm. They could have been the new Gods of this world but instead he rejected that, rejected her and tried to flee in the night with their children. Their battle destroyed what remained of the love between them. Destroyed their home. Destroyed their children. The hatred she felt for him from that day forward equalled the hatred she felt for the Gods and she would take great satisfaction in seeing everything around him, everything and everyone he placed value upon reduced to ruins and bloody corpses.
Soon, should everything go according to plan, a major blow would be struck to advance her plans to the desired end. What better way than to strike from within and sabotage one of the most meaningful and harmonious events on Remnant, the Vytal Festival, while it was quite literally being held in Ozpin's backyard and with that tin soldier Ironwood flaunting the might of Atlas while riding shotgun over it. The despair and discord that would be sown would draw the Grimm in droves. The black eye Atlas would get would draw even more distrust from the rest of the world than what they already received on a daily basis. Just as importantly she would gain access to the relic hidden at Beacon.
She did have some small concerns though as to how things had been going there thus far. She had encouraged Cinder to gouge out her own foothold to gain her own power and contacts in pursuit of the plan. So long as she followed the general framework of it and accomplished its goals she didn't really care about the finer points. The thwarted Dust robbery at the docks by Cinder's hired thief had been of little concern, having no great effect on things. The Mountain Glenn incident was more troubling although it too didn't have a major impact on her overall plan.
Yes, having the incident happen at the planned upon moment during the Vytal Festival was definitely preferable, but it still had managed to sow a certain amount of despair among the population of Vale and it had brought Ironwood and his predictable overreaction to things which caused even more worry and unease among the citizens.
She was actually more troubled by the tenuous hold Cinder and her lackeys had on their infiltration of Beacon. She was not pleased that she had needed to hear of this through Lionheart. She wasn't pleased with the ineptitude he had shown in his own role, and she was no more pleased that Cinder had not been more cautious about things. Trying to look like they belonged at the school while not even participating in most of the classes they were expected to take part in was foolish and spoke of the arrogance of Cinder's personality. She was a valuable asset but having power inflated her ego and made her believe she was untouchable and therefore she failed to grasp some of the finer details.
However, she had to admit that none of the difficulties may have come to the fore if it hadn't been for the strange and unpredictable actions of Ozpin himself in starting up a new class after the school year had already begun, and in the second semester no less, and hiring a pair of wildcards to teach it.
Any Huntsman or Huntress of considerable skill and a successful record were often well known if not to the public then certainly to their fellow monster slayers. And these two that Ozpin had hired, Ichigo Kurosaki and Yoruichi Shihoin were certainly skilled it seemed. Mission records were very hard to falsify given how payment depended upon verification of completion of the task, so she had no doubts that their records were accurate even if they were rather astonishing.
They specialized in hunting the oldest and most dangerous of Grimm as well as facing hordes of lesser Grimm, both tasks that should require a small army of Huntsmen, but just the two of them completed every sanctioned mission with a perfect rate of success. Yet, they had no public profile or easily discerned standing among the populace or their peers. There were no records of where they may have trained or who trained them. Their sparse records alone indicated that they had to be far more powerful than any other Huntsmen or Huntress on Remnant and that set alarm bells off in her head. Two with that kind of power and skill should not be possible, and yet there they were and they were working for Ozpin and the timing of their arrival and the reasons for it seemed far too suspicious.
But other than harassing Cinder and her people with something as mundane as their class attendance it didn't seem like they were doing anything more than what it seemed. Teaching an advanced combat and techniques class to a couple of first year teams that presumably showed enough promise to warrant it. Was it just a cover to get these two into the game, or was there something about the students themselves that was far more than it seemed? Both? Neither?
She did not like unanswered questions but it seemed there was little that could be done about it at the moment. A meeting with Cinder may provide some further information but that was probably more risk than reward. She preferred to meet face to face or have one of her subordinates do it, but given the difficulties she and her team had gotten themselves into they were likely to be under too much scrutiny to be able to get away from the school to meet anyone.
Even if the students proved to be exceptional they were still first years and should be no match for Cinder even if she wasn't yet wielding the full power of the Fall Maiden. Their teachers however, her instincts were telling her that something was very wrong there but she needed to know more before she risked the plan by sending anyone to warn or aid Cinder. She hoped that she had sense enough to try and avoid any further occurrences with them. Short of the plan being found out and disrupted before the main event it shouldn't matter who was there. Once the chaos started the damage was done.
They were still enough of a concern however that she would task both Watts and Hazel with seeing if they could dig up any more information on them. They were too much of an unknown quantity and she needed answers. Maybe then the ever increasing feeling of something gnawing at her gut would cease.
Beacon
Yoruichi stretched her arms out above her head as she walked across the campus and back to where she had left Ichigo a couple of hours before. No one would likely be there right now, it was lunch time after all, and even if they didn't come back here Ichigo would still find her easily enough. Besides, she could use a few minutes of quiet after spending the last couple of hours in cat form on the ledge outside of the room occupied by their infiltrators.
It had been amusing at first as Cinder read the riot act to her little helpers but the air of superiority that tinged every word the woman spoke was sickening. She almost felt sorry for Emerald at one point. She had that scolded child look and it was as obvious as daylight to her that the girl had feelings for her boss. It reminded her of her Little Bee, so much so that she probed the girl's soul again with much more scrutiny to make sure she hadn't missed something before. It wasn't her and she was both glad and saddened by it.
It was really funny though to see the very put out look on Neo's face as she tried to slog her way through the punishment homework assignments she had been sentenced to just as the rest of her team had, and it seemed like the others had no intention of helping her with any of it.
Her eavesdropping didn't gain a lot but during the course of things as the conversation shifted she did get one good piece of intel. It seemed Cinder had the ability to rig the random match up generator for the Vytal Tournament to set up matches she wanted to make happen. It was proof that she had indeed placed some type of malicious programming into the CCT system. It was now more important than ever for Ironwood to get the specialist technicians they had discussed into the tower to examine its systems.
Settling onto the same bench she had sat on earlier, she leaned back and took a deep breath of the fresh air as she gazed out over the peaceful greenery of the campus. She didn't want to see an attack hit this place but she wasn't certain that they would necessarily be able to entirely prevent one either. Not with the information they currently had. She wondered if the White Fang would be involved, the attack that came from Mountain Glenn confirmed that they had definitely been in the mix somehow, but after losing so many of their people in what had been more flop than success, would they still participate in any future attacks?
All noticeable White Fang activity in Vale had stopped, there weren't even stragglers out to harass shopkeepers or random pedestrians. Either their efforts to put a dent in their activities had worked or they were laying low and waiting for the next big event. Or both. She supposed that they could try and find where they were hiding but there was always the spectre of a battle erupting in the city. Considering that they had been able to get their hands on Atlas military mechs and a large quantity of Dust for the Mountain Glenn operation, it was too much of a risk. Who knew what they still had on hand.
All it would take was one Fang terrorist to set off a cache of Dust or start rampaging with a Paladin to cause a large loss of life and sow even more panic and uncertainty among the people. If it looked like they needed to go root them out then they would and they would take every precaution to scout them out thoroughly and plan the attack so it would minimize the risks to the general populace. Between her and Ichigo they certainly had the capability to take them but there was good reason why the saying 'no plan survives contact with the enemy' existed and power and skill did nothing to change that. If your plan went off without a hitch, you got lucky. You had to be able to adapt in midstream.
Her thoughts were interrupted as she felt the approach of a particular student. She glanced over to see Pyrrha approaching from her left and she seemed to be rather reticent.
"What can I do for you Big Red?"
That brought the girl to a sudden halt. "B-big Red?"
"Sure," Yoruichi grinned. "Ruby's Little Red so you have to be Big Red." She hoped a little bit of humour might ease the champion's obvious case of nerves but it didn't seem to work. "Have a seat and tell me what's on your mind." She turned on her hip so she could more or less face the girl as she sat to her left.
Pyrrha sat, her hands clasped nervously in her lap. "Have I done something to upset Professor Kurosaki?"
Yoruichi gave her a reassuring smile and shook her head. "You haven't done anything, it's just that you remind Ichigo of someone who meant a great deal to him and he's having trouble getting used to it."
Not a lie, but certainly not the whole truth by any means. Ichigo had cared deeply for both Tatsuki and Orihime and half of his problem around Pyrrha was the sense of failure he felt towards them. The feeling that he had let them down in the worst way possible. The other half of the problem was that because of that and the fact that their souls were still around and right bloody in front of him, he wanted to hug the freaking daylights out of them...which would mean glomping the tall, sexy redhead they were a part of.
With the familiar souls that resided within three quarters of Team RWBY he had been able to act a bit like a brother thus far in the short time they'd been teaching them and despite how much those souls had meant to him he was able to handle it better.
But with these two it had been a different connection. Orihime had been in love with him and Tatsuki was his first and oldest friend. She was pretty sure the tomboy had loved him too but could never admit it and was content to egg Orihime on in her interest in him. Ever since she had made him aware of just how many women and girls had been interested in him he held a certain amount of guilt for never noticing and even more so with these two.
"Oh," the redhead responded. "I'm sorry...I don't want to be a distraction..." she was stopped short by a gentle poke in the forehead.
"Nothing to be sorry for," Yoruichi assured her. "He's aware of what he's been doing and he feels bad about it and I don't think he's quite sure what to do about it. If anything I should apologize to you. I didn't think it would go on quite this long and I should have done something to help fix it by now."
"Does...does this have anything to do with being able to feel a person's Aura?" the Mistralian asked.
That peaked Yoruichi's interest. "Why do you ask?"
"Well...it seems that some of his strongest or most noticeable reactions to me...when he scowls...or avoids me...have been since we've been working with our Aura," she explained.
'Especially when you showed a bit of fear when wondering how powerful we might be,' Yoruichi thought. 'Guess I might as well throw her a little existential bone here and see where it goes. Should be interesting.' "Do you believe in reincarnation?"
The girl seemed momentarily taken aback. Probably wasn't expecting that question. "I don't discount the possibility."
Yoruichi grinned that mischievous grin of hers. "Then let me blow your mind a little. It's real. As we've said before your Aura and your soul are the same thing. When Ichigo and I say we can feel and measure a person's Aura we can certainly do that. We can tell how much Aura you can utilize and how powerful it is but it goes deeper than that, that's just the surface of it. What we are really doing is feeling and reading your soul. This person that you remind Ichigo of...it isn't just seen in your personality and the way you act, it's in your soul. We can feel their soul as a part of yours. They aren't you and you aren't them, you are uniquely Pyrrha Nikos and who you are has been shaped by your own experiences, but their presence can still be felt on your soul."
"Wow...that's...I don't know what to say or how to react," Pyrrha admitted, genuinely gobsmacked by what she just learned.
"Besides that familiar feeling from your soul, there are outward similarities that he sees as well that have affected his behaviour towards you," Yoruichi continued. "You're kind and you have significant physical skills and we both take a great deal of solace that their soul reincarnated into someone like you."
There was a thoughtful, almost troubled look on Pyrrha's face. "Do you think that their traits influenced who I am?"
"That's one of those cosmic 'who knows?' questions," she answered. "It's possible that a past life could affect the current one, but it's not a conscious thing since the past life is not a sentient thing on its own. It's a collection of memories and experiences that may occasionally bleed thorough. Kind of like when you seem to have an area of skills or knowledge you excel at but haven't necessarily had to work hard at acquiring. A natural skill or predilection to something. Don't worry though, because like I said before, who you are has been shaped by your own experiences. You're you, not anyone else."
"I hope then that I can do honour to the memory of this person," Pyrrha said solemnly.
Yoruichi smiled. "You already are. Now, don't worry about Ichigo, I'll talk to him, he'll pull it together and then he'll apologize to you."
"Oh that isn't really necessary," the redhead protested, embarrassed.
"He would anyway," Yoruichi assured her. "I'm just going to expedite things a little. Like I said earlier, this is something I should have addressed with him earlier. Whenever one of us has an issue the other is always there to help get through it. We've been that way forever and I've slipped up a little here."
'Forever.' That reminded her of the curiosity that she and her friends had about their new teachers, that they had had since Ruby first met them. They had all seen the video from Mountain Glenn, they had heard them speak about things that made one think that they had to be far older than they looked. The physical skills they had were so far beyond anyone she or the others knew or had ever seen that it seemed they couldn't possibly have developed them in the time frame that their visual age spoke of. That was to say nothing of the power of their Aura that had been hinted at thus far.
"There was something else I wanted to talk about but it's going to seem...weird," she said.
"Shoot," Yoruichi prompted.
"Well...back when Ruby told us about meeting the two of you, it reminded me of something I had seen in some history books I had read," she began. "They were tales of a pair of warriors, a man and a woman, and their descriptions were remarkably similar to yours and Professor Kurosaki's. As were the descriptions and a few illustrations of his swords and of the attacks both people used. At first we thought that maybe these people were your ancestors but we realized that couldn't explain it since the two being described were always together and their descriptions were always the same and over a span of centuries."
"Hmm, I see what you mean," Yoruichi said, trying not to grin. "If it was maybe one person you could easily think it would be a line of descendants that had handed down both the weapons and styles of attack. But a couple meeting that criteria and always being together, and over such a long period of time..." She badly wanted to play the same trick she had with Glynda but she resisted. Barely. "Do you have a theory?" she asked, choosing to challenge the redheads mind instead.
"I don't want to discredit someone's work," Pyrrha began. "But I think it might be possible that the stories are embellished. Perhaps one or more of the authors of the accounts copied from a predecessor and expanded on their work? Maybe attributing events to these two people that they hadn't been a part of."
"Unfortunately that sort of thing does happen," Yoruichi said. "It's not unknown for a chronicler to build their reputation by trying to expand upon an existing story, true or not. They may even think they have actual evidence that can run from inaccurate accounts all the way to wishful thinking...they want something to be true badly enough that they turn everything they can even remotely attribute to the story into supposed evidence. Legends and myths," she shrugged. "They all usually start with a grain of truth somewhere."
"We've actually been having some interesting discussions among ourselves," Pyrrha said. She smiled. "I suppose Dr. Oobleck would be proud that we've all taken such an interest in history. Weiss is even planning on asking him if he's familiar with the stories."
"I'm sure he will be," Yoruichi grinned, knowing that he definitely would, although he hadn't yet been let in on the truth of the matter. "So what kind of theories have the others come up with?"
"Well, Ren and Weiss agree with my potential theory," she said. "And Blake thinks there's something that doesn't seem right about it all but she can't say what." She giggled lightly. "Ruby is hoping for the immortal heroes angle and Nora suspects aliens."
Yoruichi laughed. A moment later Pyrrha's scroll went off.
"It's Jaune," she said. She didn't miss the tint of pink that came to the girl's cheeks. "They're done lunch and headed to the gym. Yang was going to show us some of the training she does when she doesn't have a live opponent to spar against."
Yoruichi smiled. "While I'm happy to see how you're all into what we're trying to teach, you are entitled to some down time you know. You need to take some time to relax and unwind."
"Oh we will," she assured her teacher. "We're going to have a movie night tonight and I think everyone just plans on being lazy tomorrow."
"Well don't keep your boyfriend waiting," she said, giving her a gentle shooing motion with her hand.
Pyrrha's face lit up. "H-he's n-not my boyfriend," she stammered.
"Well, not yet but keep trying," she goaded. The Mistralian took that as her cue to beat a hasty retreat.
Yoruichi chuckled as she watched her go. "If that boy can resist that then he might just be an alien. And if he's oblivious to it he's a freaking dumb ass."
"What'd I do now?" Ichigo asked as he wrapped his arms around her from behind the bench.
"Not you Berry, the other dumb ass," she sassed, tilting her head back and sticking her tongue out at him. "I think her partner is even more oblivious about her feelings for him than you ever were over anyone. And considering the total package that she is, if he doesn't figure it out soon I will kick his ass and wake him up."
"Easy Kitty," he said. He kissed her on the nose. "No need to get the claws out."
She reached up and placed her hand on his cheek. "Maybe I should sink them into you. She was feeling pretty bad, thought she'd done something to upset you with the way you've been avoiding her. This has been hitting you harder than you've been letting on hasn't it?"
Sighing, he came around the bench and sat beside her. "The feel of their souls in her is strong. I don't even have to try to feel it, it's always right there. It's been hard to keep the guilt at bay."
"I'm sorry," she said taking his hand in hers. "I didn't realize it was hitting you as hard as it is."
"Not your fault Kitten, I should be able to handle it better after all this time."
No, you shouldn't," she argued. "This is new to us Ichigo, this is the first time we've been this close to the souls that meant so much to us since things went to hell. Do you think I'd be in any better shape if I found the souls of that crazy shopkeeper or my Little Bee?" She pulled him into a hug and they stayed that way for several minutes.
"C'mon," she said when they finally parted. "Let's go home and relax, have a couple of drinks, toast our friends and joke about how they would react to everything if they were here with us. I'll even cook, I've got a couple of big, juicy steaks waiting for us."
He smiled lightly and nodded. "What would I do without you Yoruichi?"
She hugged him again. "Aren't you glad you'll never have to find out?"
AN: Well, there it is, hope you liked it. Please feel free, if you would be so kind, to leave a review. And while you're hanging around here why not check out my other stories.