Back against Blake's, Sun stood before the many members of the Noire Armada. Both former huntsman academy students stood before the angry sailors, about to become shark bait if they didn't act. "What now, boss?"
Blake rolled her eyes. "Hold them off. I'm going straight to the captain and finish what I started!"
Striking down sailors with the sheath, she quickly sprinted up the steps to the roof of the captain's quarters where Corvina was waiting with her swords in hand.
"Charging to your own death, it seems. If that be your wish, you will have it!"
Blake fired her gun at Corvina, the captain deflecting each shot with her swords in rapid succession, causing several shots to be fired at the deck below, which, unfortunately, ended up hurting a few members her crew. She gawked upon seeing the damage done before she growled and charged forth again. As Gambol Shroud converted from gun into a katana, a lone cloaked sailor stood with his back to the audience in the doorway enough to see the action, but not enough to be seen by the combatants. Turning away and leaving swiftly, he fled the scene before he could be seen by anyone.
Some of the sailors charged towards the stray lass, causing her to jump up, spin the ribbon part of her weapon around, grabbing the wrist of a sailor and knocking him in the head before tossing him overboard, landing on the back of another one, crashing his back while kicking them down against the rail of the ship. As the back-crushed sailor tried to get up, Blake slammed her foot down on his as she kept Corvina at bay with her gun and punched a female sailor into the ocean, she looked at the mass of sailors and noticed that Sun wasn't faring much better before turning back to the murderess. The monkeyman, as he was called by the captain, swiftly spun his staff around, trying to fend them off. As the sailors came towards him, he kept jumping back, trying to find a place to catch his breath and summon his clones, but he was too preoccupied with advancing back to avoid being decapitated. He spun his staff around five times in a row, trying to keep the sailors away, but they kept coming back.
As he did this, the monkey faunus cried out, "There's too many of them!"
He was then shoved to the ground by the assassin she saw earlier. "Sun!" Blake called out.
The brief distraction let Corvina approach her and kick her overboard, only for Blake to use her ribbon to swing around the ship, lifting her arm to pull herself up to the sail below the mizzenmast, tearing a slit into it, exposing the netting as she hoisted herself up to the mast, quickly gaining her balance thereafter. She mentally chided herself for getting distracted. Sun had his battle to fight, and Blake had her's. Yet, she couldn't help but worry. Her emotions were conflicting with each other as she tried to catch her breath and wait for Corvina to come to her.
Should I say something? she mentally asked herself. I broke his heart... but... for what..?
The sound of gunfire disrupted her thoughts, bringing her back to reality. Corvina growled and ran forth to the mizzenmast. As she did this, Sun kicked down the assassin and grabbed his knife. He took the knife and stabbed him in the gut, causing him to collapse to the ground, falling to his knees as his blood stained the main deck. He continued to slash through multiple sailors, leaving them a bloody mess before a female sailor grabbed his wrist and took the knife with her right hand before tossing it aside so that Sun couldn't use it. She punched him in the face, knocking him down as he dodged pistol shots from the gunners.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a loud metal clang sounded and another one and another one. A yellow cloaked figure knocked a sailor in the stomach with a big metal frying pan, then another one right on the head, and yet another right in the face. He began tying up the sailors as Sun manifested clones of himself from the bowsprit.
Corvina looked on from down below. "Who is he?" she softly asked herself. The captain looked up in time to stop Blake's katana from getting her neck. She pushed Blake back before yelling at her crew, "Seize them!"
The sailors charged toward him, but he kept jumping backwards, trying to tie up her sailors. Sun disconnected the two parts of his staff and started to fire at the gunners. "You'll never take me alive, sailors!"
As he shifted from dodging gunfire and approaching sailors to firing back, the black-bowed warrior continued to fight, her sword clashing and grinding against Corvina's as the captain asked, "Tell me this, Belladonna. Do you regret your pathetic attempt at mutiny?"
"I have no regrets about trying to bring you down." She shoved her sword forward and let her arms down, making her confession. "What I do regret is all the words I left unsaid, the actions I didn't carry out..." Corvina looked at her in confusion. "What I didn't say on the rooftops."
How I walked away...
Sun felt a small surge of hope pulse through his chest. Was she talking about a possible confession of love? The thought quickly left his mind as another sailor swung his sword at him, forcing him to duck and roll backwards to dodge them. A female sailor found her wrist grabbed by the figure and he took out the assassin's knife, stabbing her in the back and letting her bleed out.
"Stop that cloaked killer!" Corvina ordered, before raising her cutlass swords to block Blake's katana.
"Why are you doing this?! Do you really believe that faunus are just that bad?!" Blake asked in exasperation.
"I do." she answered as the fight continued below. "But at first, I didn't want to believe it." Blake slightly lowered her weapon, unsure what to do at this point. "Me parents told me this truth ever since I was a little girl. Yet, sometimes I didn't want to believe it. I thought they were being too harsh and jumping to conclusions too quickly. Five years ago, when I was but an older teenage lass about your age, I met a faunus with sheep ears. At first glance, he was one of the kindest people I had ever met. He showered me with gifts and affection and said the sweetest things to me. Before I knew it, I fell in love with him, and he said he would never hurt me. Being the young naive fool that I was, I believed him. One night, a few weeks after he began seeing me, he invited me over to his place. But when I got there, he did... unspeakable horrors. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing. He also attempted to kill me that night, and I barely escaped with my life.
"Not only that, he was also part of the White Fang. Upon learning the truth about him, I created this organization to oppose the White Fang, the faunus activist group turned terrorist. But a few months after I founded the Noire Armada, I witnessed a gang of faunus stealing from elderly humans in Vale, a female faunus in Atlas who has a reputation as an infamous murderer clad in white, and a couple of faunus being arrested for theft in Argus. I came to realize that all faunus are evil and that they must be exterminated. That is why I will stop at nothing to see them all destroyed."
Blake was silent for a moment before giving her response. "Not all faunus are evil, Corvina! Humans and Faunus can actually work together and get along when they can settle their differences. And if the chips are down, they will unite to fight. Both races defended Beacon and tried to save their school from destruction." She pointed to herself and Sun as she continued her speech. "We were there when it crumbled to pieces." She put her hand to her chest. "I fought against Adam Taurus himself, and he hurt my best friend!" She clinched her left fist in anger. "I left everyone I knew and loved behind to protect them from him! Why do you think I traveled all alone without anyone to help me?!" In her eyes, she held back tears, repressing a sob. "It's because it's my fault that she was hurt, and I'm not letting that happen to anyone else!"
"You think you're being noble by doing this all alone? You're nothing but a coward!"
Sounds of metal clashing and flying were heard down below deck. The frying pan was thrown against the wall as the figure was restrained, his hands forced behind his back by two Noire Armada sailors, one male and one female. He tried to escape their grasp, but it was no use.
"You are not getting away." the man said.
"Just who are you?" Ivy asked. Without further hesitation, she ripped the figure's cloak off, and as she held the garment in her hands, she gasped, letting the cloak slip out of her fingers and fall onto the deck. "Xanthe?!"
The second traitor said nothing as his cloak came off. "Aurgh! How many traitors are aboard this ship?!" Corvina asked angrily, dodging yet another attack from Blake.
"Shall we kill him?" the female sailor asked.
"Not yet, but hold him still."
The grip on his arms was tightened as Corvina charged towards the traitor. "You are a monster, Blake! You're almost as bad as faunus!"
Corvina swing both her swords forward in an outward x, trying to slash at Blake, only for her to backflip, land on the mast and lose her balance. She barely held on with her hands as Corvina approached her. "It doesn't matter who or what we are, we all have the ability to be heroes and monsters."
Xanthe looked away from the traitor painfully, reminding him of the truth.
The captain glared at her as she stood only mere inches from her hands. "You make this talk about heroes and monsters, trying to make it look like I'm the bad girl, yet you are the bad girl, for going up against me!"
She stepped on her hands, forcing her to let go and fall back first onto deck. Pain jolted from her shoulder blades down through the rest of her body, but she had no time to let it hold her down. Corvina jumped down from the mast and even threw one of her swords as she fell, but Blake ducked, missing her head by a few inches before getting up and fleeing to the upper deck. As the admiral retrieved her weapon, Blake tried to catch her breath before engaging in combat once again.
Is there peace beyond the rage? the secret catgirl silently asked herself.
As the duel between the raven haired women continued, Ivy and Sun battled on the main deck of the ship. Ivy used the air currents created from the green dust in her whip to try and knock the monkey faunus overboard. Barely dodging the air waves, he found his back against the main mast of the ship, and she swung her whip again, this time directly at him. He dodged the whip itself, but the dust created wind currents knocked him back into the mast as he tried to get up. His back slid down before Ivy grabbed him by the collar.
Her hand on his collar, she smirked maliciously. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?"
"No, I probably don't." He smirked and fired off explosions from his staff as he twirled around, knocking her in the back and falling face first onto the deck. She got up, growling as she was outsmarted by a faunus.
Clouded by rage, she swung her whip towards him again, only this time he held his staff like a pole, and once the whip was wrapped around it, he used it to wrestle Ivy's weapon away from her. Once she was weaponless, he kicked her down, grabbed some rope and tied her up.
The captain's right hand tried to escape, but it was no use. The ropes were bound too tightly to give her any chance of escape. "Ugh! Curse you, monkeyman! Corvina will have your head for this!"
Sun laughed, but he had no time to relish in his victory- sailors were still coming right towards him! As Corvina tried to catch her breath, she held the upper part of her right arm and let Blake tire herself out by fighting her sailors. "You have no reason to defend faunus!" she taunted.
Blake parried the blow she would have received from the sailor's sword by thrusting hers forward. "I have every reason to defend them!"
"Ye be a fool, Blake. Even if you could stop me and me crew, which ya can't, ye can't bring down an entire army!"
The black bowed lass looked at the deck below in despair. Was she right? If she couldn't even stop the Noire Armada, could she stop the White Fang? Swallowing her fear and sorrow, she clinched her fists. "I can try!"
"So why are you defending faunus? They're nothing but liars, thieves and murderers!"
"Well maybe they were tired of being pushed around!"
Blake winced in pain as a sailor punched her bow, she held her right side of the bow with her hand before head-butting the sailor that punched her.
Did my eyes deceive me? There's nothing under that bow... Unless... Wait a second. That said sailor was thrown overboard as Corvina's thought train continued. Is she...?
"Don't tell me... Underneath that bow... you're hiding cat ears?!
Blake said nothing and tried to run, but Corvina snapped her fingers and two of the sailors hastily grabbed her arms. She grunted as she escaped to escape, but it was no use. The captain put the swords on her hip, grabbed the bow and yanked it right off her head, hurting her and causing her let out a scream of pain.
"Blake!" Sun cried out. He had no room to breathe as he was knocked against the mast, his aura flickering before disappearing completely.
Corvina gasped as she held the bow in her hand, confirming what she already knew. "I knew it! Ye be a liar, a faker, a pretender!" As she looked at the cat ears Blake possessed, her fury intensified. "Ye have been deceiving me all along, running rigs with your bow! I can't believe I thought it was cute! Ye should not be allowed to hide what ye truly be!"
The evil admiral tore the ribbon with her bare hands. Blake watched on in horror as her the one item preventing her from being discriminated against was destroyed before Corvina threw the scraps into the sea. Despite his strain, Sun got up, ready to face the Noire Armada again, about to resume the wearying fight when he heard the captain getting out her cutlass swords again.
"You don't have to do this."
She slowly approached the cat faunus. "You're not going to change me mind about sparing you lassie!"
"I'm not asking you to spare me." She stopped in confusion, possibly taking her words into consideration. "You have every right to be angry with me. I'm asking you to stop your vendetta against the faunus and spare him. He never did anything to you!"
"Silence, you scurvy dog!" she commanded. "Er, cat!" After cleaning up her previous statement, she cleared her throat. "I'll never stop! I won't rest until every faunus in this world is dead!" She walked forth towards Blake again, the sound of her swords grinding against each other as she sharpened them. "And your blood will be a reminder that no faunus can hide from me! So long, Belladonna!"
"Blake!"
Sun ran forth as Corvina's sword attempted to stab Blake in the heart, intercepting it with his own bare hand in the nick of time. As she brought the cutlass down on his right arm, the blade sliced through several layers of his skin, creating a deep cut as he lashed out in pain.
"SUN!"
A tear escaped from her eyes as she felt a rush of anger and adrenaline run through her system, flinging her arms, breaking free from the sailors holding her down, knocking them overboard before noticing Sun on the ground, struggling to remain conscious. Corvina attempted to strike the monkey faunus in the heart, only for her sword to be stopped by Blake's.
The sound of clashing metal could be heard as the fight between the opponents raged on. Blake glared at the captain with even more fury than before. "You will not hurt him!"
Corvina scoffed. "Why would you save him?" She forced herself forward, attempting to get the upper hand. "Aren't you angry with him?"
"He means more to me than you'll ever realize!"
"Don't tell me that you actually have feelings for that... that rapscallion?" Pushed back and kicked in the gut, she screamed as she fell onto the lower deck, which had been mostly cleared in the center thanks to the efforts of Xanthe and Sun. Quickly getting up, Corvina glared at the cat faunus.
Blake jumped down to face her on equal footing, proclaiming, "He's not a rapscallion! He's not a degenerate! He is a person just like you and I are!"
"Can you really even say that considering you have nowhere to hide?"
"You may know the truth about my heritage," she switched to her gun, "but that won't stop me from facing you."
She fired at Corvina, but she backflipped and cartwheeled backwards, evading her fire. "You think you can stop me? Ha!" She landed with her arms holding herself up before jumping and landing back down on her feet. "You must be weakened by now, and my sailors will finish off that monkeyboy in no time."
"Your sailors? Look around you, Corvina! Your army has fallen."
She looked around in horror and realized that Blake was right. All of her sailors had been knocked unconscious, tied up, killed and/or knocked overboard. Blood stained the deck, several bodies of the dead and unconscious on the floor. "But... how?! You... you were outnumbered!"
"We may have been outnumbered, but you were outmatched. Surrender now, Corvina!" Blake commanded. "Your anti-faunus regime will never last!"
Suddenly, a few of the unconscious sailors began to wake up and charged towards the cat faunus. Without hesitation, Xanthe retrieved his frying pan and held it to block the incoming swords. "I'll hold em off! Finish the captain!" he ordered.
Blake gladly complied, charging forth to face Corvina once again. As the Noire Armada Traitor faced the comrades he once knew, the cat faunus dueled with the captain again.
The captain picked up a sword belonging to her fallen subordinate and said, "Ya know, I'm surprised that a dangerous lass like ye isn't a part of the White Fang.", before throwing it at her.
She dodged the attack easily. "You want to know something, Corvina?" Another sword, and another, and another. "I actually was once part of the White Fang."
The admiral gasped. "You, formerly a member of the White Fang?" She folded her arms, the swords she retrieved still in hand to block the incoming attack. "I don't believe it. If you were once a member, why would ye ever leave em?"
"Because I learned the truth about them! I will never go back there willingly without fighting them."
"How can I believe you? You're a liar! Heck, you're not even after Adam at all, are you? You're just using me to get back to him! Nay, ye really be a spy for the White Fang sent to murder me!"
"I would never work with him! Did you completely ignore my speech about Adam hurting my best friend?! You try to make yourself as the good girl, but in reality you're even worse than Adam!" Blake proclaimed.
"Tis not true, lass! I am better than he is! I never attacked a huntsman school, nor did I ever kill innocent humans! But you are not human or innocent!"
Xanthe finished tying up the sailors that had woken up as Corvina growled and threw her cutlass swords at Blake. Ducking to avoid them, the catgirl jumped up and out of her sight.
"Stop running away, you scaredy cat!" Behind the mast, Blake created a few shadows of herself, and after the admiral retrieved her weapons, she started slashing through the shadows. "You think you can defeat me through deception?!" The shadows were gone, leaving her searching for the catwoman warrior, not finding her. "Come out and face me, you no-good...!"
Her words came to a halt, replaced by a gasp and the clatter of swords against the deck as Blake thrust her katana through Corvina's back, breaking her spine and killing her instantly. As she did this, she earned many gasps from the Noire Armada sailors, no louder and more horrified than Ivy. As soon as Blake removed her weapon, the captain's corpse fell to the ground. Much to Blake's surprise, no one had screamed in horror. The truth was they were too horrified and/or depressed to say anything.
"Goodbye, my captain." The black beauty took Corvina's hat and donned it to hide her cat ears.
Finally... It's over... she thought to herself.
Not even three seconds later, Blake heard Sun groaning in agony as he slowly regained consciousness. "Sun!"
She ran over to him as he lied atop the upper deck, slowly bleeding out from his injury. Weakened and saddened, he said, "Blake... I... I'm sorry."
"Just shut it. I need to get stuff to tend to your wounds. Don't move."
She zipped out at an ungodly speed and came back with a first aid kit. She knelt beside him, opened the kit, and got out some bandages. She wrapped them around his arm tightly. "Ahh! Not so tight!" he protested.
"You're really bleeding." She tied a small knot in the bandage to keep it in place. "See Sun? This is why I told you to stay away. I never wanted you to get hurt, but you did. And this isn't even the White Fang! I.. I just. Ugh! I'm just tempted to slap you right now! What do you have to say for yourself?!"
"I'm sorry." Her eyes were daggers as she glared at him. "I know you're angry and you have every right to be. If it helps you feel any better, just go ahead and slap me." Blake angrily took his left hand and gave him slap on the wrist. "Ow!"
She looked at him wide-eyed with horror. "Oh my gosh. I'm sorry I..."
"No, no, I deserve it. I was a jerk." He looked tried not to look her in the eye out of fear, but this was proving to be quite difficult. "I was thinking with my heart and my own selfish desires and not thinking with my head. I never once thought about your warning."
The catgirl felt moisture in her eyes slowly build up. "Sun... I..."
"I get it. You don't love me. You probably hate me now, but before you shut me out of your life, hear me out." He looked to his side, seeing the tied up sailors on the top deck and those who fell in battle. "Ever since you ran, I was losing my mind. I was at the safehouse for a whole week before eventually running off to try and find you. My teammates knew how miserable I was after you ran. My team went back to Mistral without me, and... and I just couldn't rest. I lost countless hours of sleep, worried about you to no end. I deduced that you decided to take on the White Fang all by yourself, without your team, without friends, and.. I didn't want you to perish." He turned back to his beloved so that his eyes met hers. "You mean everything to me."
The tears she held back earlier returned, but were kept in her eyes. "Sun... That's..."
"Insane, I know. I'm absolutely fucking insane, and Corvina was right." He looked at Blake's pirate hat that she took from the captain, seeing the similarity between his beloved and his enemy. "She was right from the very beginning. I'm just a fool. A complete fool who doesn't deserve your love."
"Sun... I..." She sniffed, the words she wanted to say failing her.
"Blake?"
Without any warning, she swiftly placed herself on top of him, crashed her lips onto Sun's and let the tears fall. All those emotions she had bottled up for months were finally being released in one swift action. At first, Sun was too stunned to do anything, but after three seconds, he returned the kiss and gently embraced her. She put her arms around his neck, never wanting to let go. As the kiss broke, Blake started to sob.
"Blake, please... don't cry..." He wiped her tears away with a gentle thumb. "I don't want to see you cry." He looked into her eyes worryingly, as if he had done something wrong. "Blake?"
"Sun..." She sniffed. "I love you." Another sniff. "I've been hiding these feelings for months." She wiped away the remaining tears with her hand. "I thought that if I left, I could protect you, but you came after me anyway." She sighed. "Seems there's no getting rid of you, is there?"
He chuckled. "Afraid not, my love."
She blinked as more tears escaped and looked at him sadly. "Are you really willing to risk your neck to help me stop Adam Taurus and the White Fang?"
He still had no idea who Adam was, and he was scared on the inside, but the monkeyboy answered calmly, "I am more than willing. I know you didn't want me here, but since I'm here, would you at least give me a chance?"
"Alright, I'll give you a chance."
"Really? Thank you!"
She gave him a glare. "Don't push it."
"Sorry." His eyes then darted to the sailor that had helped them, standing at the head of the stairs on the left. Upon noticing that they were being watched, Blake got up and extended her hand to Sun, helping him up. "We should probably address the elephant on the ship." Sun turned to Xanthe. "Who are you?"
"No, no." Blake responded. "The question is," she turned to him. "who are you really?"
The Noire Armada traitor answered, "The name's Xanthe, and I'm a Noire Armada double crosser."