When their feet touched the roof of this building, Yang almost kissed the ground as she staggered and all that kept her from doing so was her beloved little sister who she couldn't hate more at this moment for all her recklessness.
Before meeting with that...whatever Sasuke was, Ruby would never have been so bold to disobey in a moment of crisis as she had and it only served to tip the balance of opinion about the one they were about to see again to the bad side.
First, however, while she still had her usual courage, there was also the duty as an older sister to be fulfilled and to scold this little hardhead with strands of red hair.
"Damn it, Ruby!" she cursed, still under the influence of vertigo she usually only felt when she overdrank...not that she drank much, but the comparison was there to remind her never to repeat the dose, either by drinking or with this unpleasant experience at the hands of her little sister. "Let me know when you're going to use your Semblance and drag me along!"
"Sorry, but there was no other way to get up the building without taking the elevator!" Actually, Ruby didn't even think about anything, she just did it on pure impulse, almost how she tends to do everything, and she never imagined that her Semblance could be used to turn other people into petals and carry them too! What else can I do that I don't know about?!
Her hand was over one of her eyes as an answer to her question, reminding her of yet another possible unknown ability, and especially of the one that made her aware of this possibility.
Silver Eyes, Ruby really wanted to know what they could do and this only increased her desire to talk to Sasuke again!
"Still..." Yang knew that it would be almost impossible to get to this place without taking extreme measures since the building seemed to be empty and closed. I didn't even have time to try to persuade this brat to give up! Regardless of her anger and frustration, she would disregard all of this, including the new discovery made about her little sister's Semblance, since she just realized that there were more people where only Sasuke was supposed to be, even though he was nowhere in sight. "Ruby, keep an eye out, it looks like we are not alone."
"Hmm?" Ruby was busy looking around in this absurdly large place to find Sasuke, especially now that she could no longer feel his Aura after being all tumultuous with emotions when her sister spoke and it didn't take her long to see who she was talking about. Ohh! On the other side of the rooftop, there were two more girls who had just arrived, and the first thing Ruby noticed about them was the fact that they were really pretty, where one of them looked like a fairytale princess straight from a frozen kingdom and the other a mysterious comic book character, almost as if they were a black and white life representation in an envious combination. "Who are they?"
Given their clothes and weapons that she really wanted to know more about, Ruby was sure that they were Huntress's apprentices, just like her. While all of this excited her and piqued her curiosity, somehow there was an almost uncomfortable and incessant thought that these two were there for the same reason she was, resulting in discomfort she couldn't understand, only that...she didn't like it.
Sure, there was a chance they were there because Sasuke was the cause of the incident from before, but it was unlikely, or else it would be real Huntresses and not apprentices in the place of these two, so she had every reason in the world to believe it was something more and that was exactly what made her little heart squeeze inside her chest.
"I don't know, but they seem to be looking for something or someone." Yang knew exactly who or what they were here for and it seemed that her little sister did too, given her reaction. That's all I need.
As if she didn't already dislike that guy and the shitty situation she was in enough, conflicted about feeling fear and...something about him, her little sister was worried about what, possible rivals?
It almost seems like all that power demonstrated means nothing! That was pretty much the mentality a teenage girl in love would have with a dangerous guy and it was starting to make sense to Yang. Damn.
Practically every girl liked a bad boy and Ruby seemed to be no different.
Now Yang was almost begging for these two to be rivals with interest in that guy, so maybe her silly little sister would give up any ideas about this inconsequential crush. After all, these two looked like terrifying opponents even to herself. One of them, the one in white that looked familiar, had an air of nobility and a delicate appearance like that of a porcelain doll to shape someone out of reach of most, and could only be admired from distance like a flower on top of a mountain. The other... damn, this other one even Yang would admit was a bang, which she found herself looking more than once at those curves that could rival her own, and that meant a lot. Also, to add a cherry on top of the cake that this girl was, there was a pair of cat ears on her head, which was basically one of the fetishes categorized as every man's dream, for lack of a better description.
Let's hope Sasuke bites either of these two or even both of them for all I care and forget that Ruby even exists. A broken heart was a small price when compared to the major risk of getting involved with Sasuke, and this little well of naivete needed to learn, even if the hard way, that there were men... and women who didn't care about other people's feelings in this world. If not, I...
She didn't like to imagine what was going through her mind, having her heart beat faster just to even remotely consider the idea and feeling afraid, for several reasons, but mainly because it would definitely destroy any relationship, whether it was a sisterhood or a friendship, between her and Ruby.
However, for the safety and well-being of her little sister, Yang would do anything and that was a fact.
As for the opposite side, Weiss and Blake reached the rooftop of this building using Glyph projected as a platform, demonstrating the usual elegance of one and skill of the other, besides synchronicity that again proved both satisfying and very odd.
"Your Semblance is... useful," Blake begrudgingly praised as she retrieved her weapon stuck in one of those Glyphs which she refused to set foot on, using each of these things as a support point to help her get where she needed to go on her own. No matter how much she wanted to think differently or have a positive opinion of Weiss in specific, it didn't change the fact that the thing manifested in the air was a symbol of oppression hated by her and every self-respecting faunus. Regardless, I would say that their arrogance about her lineage is not completely unfounded.
What she saw was nothing compared to what she knew about this hereditary Semblance, being capable of so much more and that was exactly what bothered her. This was too good of a power to be in the hands of people who only cared about themselves... well, mostly, as Weiss was proving to be an exception, but the rule still applied.
The Schnee family was not worthy of the blessings they had, but out of consideration, Blake would refrain from saying that around this new... friend of hers? Somehow, even remotely considering this girl as such seemed wrong, almost a crime against her own kind.
But this didn't matter, only that which would result in change for something better, no matter what it was.
"I know," Weiss wouldn't be modest about the forced praise received, taking real pride in this heritage, regardless of the bad opinion this girl obviously had, almost bordering on disgust. Nothing more than expected.
Involuntarily, she wondered if there was any specific reason for this being the case; if this reaction was the result of mere resentment at the symbol manifested.
Certainly, there were chances that a Schnee from the past had used this power for evil, and that, unfortunately, sounded like a very likely situation.
Whatever the truth was or if there was an even worse reason, for the moment, Weiss preferred not to know. Her current opinion of her own family was already not the best, so depending on the kind of information received and confirmed would only serve to make things worse.
Fortunately, this subject wasn't brought up further by her new...friend? Strange, she felt more comfortable with such a definition than she thought she was capable of. It must be because, unfortunately, Weiss doesn't have friends, and the thought of finally having one excited her, regardless of who it was, although she would never admit any of it.
That aside, Blake brought her attention to something unnoticed by her until now.
"Looks like someone had the same idea as us," Blake shifted her focus as her ears picked up the sound of the unexpected company in the place where only the embodiment of death and desire should be. Let me guess, they're here for him too, aren't they?
Her theory about Sasuke being a womanizer was beginning to take shape, and this was managing to displease her, especially as more exciting ideas to write about occurred to her. Seriously, this was starting to get worrying, because ever since she had met that guy, all she had felt was fear and horniness, a combination that didn't even make sense! This kind of thing should only happen to perverts with a screw loose or hormonal teenagers...
Oh... Realization hit like a slap in the face with the fact that Blake was a hormonal teenager, but completely dismissed the part about her being a pervert. That's right, I'm not a damn cat in heat!
Hopefully.
Disregarding whatever was wrong with her, Blake forced herself to pay attention to these girls, where one of them seemed to be too excited considering the chaos of just now, almost like a little girl at Christmas and ignorant to the danger she was putting herself in by merely being in this place. All this apparent innocence would be destroyed by Sasuke in seconds if he wanted to and she knew in her heart that he could. The other girl, however, it was almost obvious that she wanted to be anywhere but here, a sentiment Blake could relate to some extent, yet her curiosity was greater and here she was, risking herself to... she blushed just imagining it and hated herself for it. Trying to focus again, she continued to study this blonde girl who was clearly annoyed as she scolded the other smaller girl with reddish-black hair. If she looked closely, Blake would even say that these two were related in some way, like cousins, maybe sisters with a different parent, given the shared facial similarities and that explained why the older one was here, probably against her will, but to take care of the younger.
Unfortunately, no one could protect anyone from Sasuke and that was a scary fact to consider.
"Great, that's all I needed," Weiss can't help but let her sarcasm prevail with her bad mood. Are they here for Sasuke too?
They had to be, or why else would these two be there? This building wasn't residential and apparently, it was off-limits, so one couldn't get to this place without having Semblance or Blake-like skills. So, if not for Sasuke, why would two more Huntresses apprentices be there?
While she wanted to believe that these girls were two cowards hiding from the chaos below, that was extremely unlikely to be the case given that they had just arrived, so there was only Sasuke left as a goal.
If so, that didn't please her at all, especially since they were girls and from what little she knew, Sasuke hated excessive attention from the opposite gender or any gender at all. His trip to the hospital for rejecting some worthless woman was proof enough of that, and nothing good would come of another uproar. Speaking of women with no self-respect, one of those two girls, the one with blonde hair that seemed to glow in the moonlight, probably the result of extreme care, was even worse than Blake. While the girl next to her wore clothes that defined her form, this blonde did the same on another level and not in a good way... Well, for lustful boys and men not so much. Her point, however, remained. This girl was almost an exhibitionist, to avoid using vulgar words when describing her, and the thought of having her near Sasuke irritated her to no end. The other one next to this blond seemed to be younger by a year or two and this one Weiss could respect to some extent, even more so for dressing in a similar way. Certainly, she was fancy, but decent, especially when compared to the other two.
However, all this was of little importance when compared to the uncertain reason for their being there.
The way was to break the silence and question them directly.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Weiss moved a little closer with Blake following her closely and got straight to the point, taking the opportunity to look around and try to find Sasuke, but failing to do so. Maybe he already left...
If he had, it would be disappointing on the one hand. On the other, she would have the chance to meet up with him alone later, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
"Oh, hmm, I'm Ruby and this is my sister, Yang!" she introduced herself almost faltering in her words, to which the princess only stared at her with crossed arms, studying her and waiting for more, with no sign of corresponding with her own name and making her swallow dryly. "W-we're looking for Sa... I mean, a friend!" Ruby almost said Sasuke's name just out of nervousness! The look on this girl's face is so cold and intimidating! Like a princess from an ice castle! "Right, Yang?"
"Hmph, friend," Yang almost laughed at this joke, trying to ignore the urge to boil up at this little princess for staring at her like that, as if judging her. What is her problem?
If she didn't know better, she would say that this little princess thought she was better than her, and Yang would love to prove otherwise with her fists!
"Yang!" Ruby was the one who wanted to choke her sister for never helping when she needed it!
"Fine," Yang sighed, deciding to give in this time... or again, for an even stupider reason. "We are..." she paused in what she would say, searching for a different word, as she refused to call that guy a friend like her naive little sister had done. "Acquaintances of Sasu..."
She didn't finish, Ruby in total panic was on top of her to shut her up with her hands over her mouth.
"Yang, you can't say Sasuke's name!" Ruby almost screamed, however saying everything she shouldn't out loud only to have her eyes bulging out as she realized her mistake. Looking back at the other girls, it was obvious that they had heard every word and looked utterly surprised! "I-I-I... I mean..."
"Enough, Ruby." Yang should have known better. Her little sister was simply terrible at any form of social interaction, even more so under pressure. "Cats are out of the bag..." she looked at the faunus girl and added, "no offense."
"Not one take," Blake had heard worse, far worse. "But don't do that again."
"Noted," Yang knew that there were some lines not to be crossed and the prejudice was one.
"So you two know him as well..." Weiss was rooting for them to be at most a couple of curious girls with high sensitivity to Aura and able to identify its source, coming to this place not knowing what they would find. However, they know his name and say they know him when Sasuke claims to have arrived in this kingdom on this day...
In that case, either he lied, as she had imagined, even more so now that she was almost assuming the impossible and considering him some kind of deity, or they knew him from before. If yes, how much did they know? And why did this Yang have a clearly negative opinion about Sasuke?
Questions and more questions came up to fill her mind and she hated it.
However, this Ruby's reaction and what she said next was the answer to a lot of things.
"You too?!" Ruby got over the guilt she felt in a blink of an eye, relieved that she hadn't screwed up. However... this confirmation about knowing who Sasuke was and that they even knew him, brought up that initial thought to have her little heart sinking with what she could now describe as fear. Clasping her hands in front of her chest to try and minimize that bad feeling, she asked this princess almost in a whispered tone, "W-what is Sasuke to you?"
Apart from the rolling of the eyes and the disappointed snort left by Yang, no one said anything immediately, absorbing the clear demonstration of jealousy and insecurity from a younger girl.
"You've got to be kidding..." Weiss didn't even have time to feel relief that these two knew as much as she did about the common goal, finding herself on the opposite side of a very familiar situation, having asked Blake that same question minutes ago and probably feeling the same way this Ruby was. I wonder if this is what they call karma.
It must be because now she could understand how... pathetic she was being about all this.
"Now you know," Blake can't help but smile as she returns the much-loved sarcasm to this princess. Maybe this way she'll stop being so annoying about it.
The unlikely friendship between them would have a better chance of existing that way.
"You're not helping, Blake," Weiss was as annoyed as she was embarrassed, recognizing that there was truth in what was said, but this was no time for any of that. "There are more important things going on here, don't you agree?"
"Changing the topic, are we?" The icy look Blake received made her want to continue teasing, but she would admit that Weiss was right. "All right, I think we'd better clear all this up before some more unknown girl shows up wanting to find Sasuke."
The way all three of the others looked around as if they really expected more girls coming from all directions, said that they had also thought about this possibility.
"I don't think that's going to happen," was suddenly said by a more than familiar voice and they all got goosebumps from head to toe for very different reasons.
Looking in the direction of the voice, they came across red and purple shining on a face shaded by the distant light of a broken moonlight to which Sasuke had his back. Casually, he was sitting on the highest part of the building that served as the entrance to it, still wearing that black robe with red clouds worn during the extermination of all the Grimm earlier. His pose was relaxed and disinterested, the same could almost be said of his neutral expression. In some ways, he looked and felt very different than either of them remembered from their individual encounters and experiences, almost as if he were someone else.
"After all, I arrived in this kingdom today and you can count on your fingers the number of people I've had any kind of meaningful interaction with and who know my name." Sasuke took his time watching these girls since they arrived, concealing his presence to the extreme to try to understand their motives and giving up when he realized it was taking too much time. It even seemed like they were opponents meeting on the battlefield.
Each side was analyzing the other as if something extremely important was at stake.
It would be good if they fought, at least then I could gauge the abilities of these other two. Ruby and Yang, he already had a sense of their limits, but Weiss and this faunus girl, now identified as Blake, were a mystery to him. Given the level of Aura, I suppose they are even in strength, but what really matters is the Semblance and how unique and useful they can be.
Hopefully, one of them might surprise and encourage him to look to more than one of them for assistance, since Ruby was on this list for merely having an unknown eye ability and... maybe Yang, with her physical strength-based Semblance.
Well, let's leave that for later. There was still time before he joined the fight against Kaguya. Standing upright, he stepped down from his meditation point, staring at these girls only to have Yang and Blake take a step back out of pure instinct. Strange, he noticed, those two are more... intimidated than they should be. One step forward and again those two took another step back, Yang clearly afraid and the other... blushing, trembling even? Did I break her or something? That was hardly normal. Unless she is one of those perverts, in which case he could have a problem on his hand. As if I didn't have enough already. However, it reminded him of Karin and how easy it was to manipulate someone like that and decide to pretend not to notice anything and keep going since not one of them looked like they were going to talk anytime soon, again going into that critical analysis mode. "Actually, I find myself surprised that you girls came to me at all." He still didn't know how they found him, curious. "The question now is why are you here?"
Not one of them could say a word, staring him up and down as if they were trying to make sure he was real and what they should say, or who would be the first to have what it took to even say anything, and no one could blame them for that.
After all, in front of them stood the one who was considered Death to one, a deity to the other, the monster to one, and a hero to the other.
It was up to them now to find out what Uchiha Sasuke really was.
I almost forgot I had to post a chapter today, ha, ha. Like, today is Mother's Day and I went to visit her only to fall into a trap in the form of a family reunion, and I have a large and curious family. What are you doing with your life, my aunts asked, do you have a girlfriend? why aren't you married yet? no children? what about your job? how much do you earn? my son is this and my daughter is that, he has this, she has that, you should too...
I hate family reunions. Maybe it is a negative point of view of mine, but these events are only for my relatives to brag about their achievements and compete to see who is doing better; that their lives could be worse and feel good about it.
It's hateful.
Anyway, my venting aside, I will post another chapter next week, on the 15th which is twice as long as this one and kind of ends the first part of the story. Of course, there are transitions in the form of an interlude, but that's different and necessary.
Oh, one more thing, kind of off-topic: I don't know if you guys like Bleach, but a you-tuber, SethTheProgrammer, is making an awesome animation of an Ichigo Vs Naruto fight and posted a trailer recently. Even though I don't like Naruto, the character, I love Ichigo and just wanted to do my part in spreading the word. Take a look if you can, it's worth it.
That's all I guess, so review and if you want to support me and read ahead take a look at my P t r & on (slash) Bertoti
Until the next one.