Happy 600!
REAPER IN RED
Chapter 37
The sun blared down, bathing me in its temperature-less waves of heat. No sweat shined on my brow and my hair was still as regular as it always was. Not even a hint of dampness making it cling to my forehead or neck. My legs did not burn was constant strain and my arms did not ache with any of the effort I was putting into twirling my heavy and massive scythe.
I had opened it a few minutes back, letting the shiny gleam of the blade pick up the sunlight as it twirled effortlessly in my grasp. It shrieked melodically as it caught the air and cleaved it in two. The breeze blew through my hair. I sank lower into my stance, taking in a deep breath.
I held it.
The motion of my scythe stopped in an instant. My arms did not waiver. The loud clap of fabric snapping from speed clipped the air around me.
I breathed out slowly.
Twirling my weapon over my head, I tucked it down into a low block, fitting on end of the pole underneath my armpit. I… was running out of fancy things to say to confuse my mind.
Talking fancy was hard! How does Weiss do it all the time!
And I couldn't feel myself getting any closer to my ultimate goal. I fell back onto my butt, grumbling.
"You doing alright, Rubiroo?" Tai's happy voice was above me. As was his stubbly face and smiling eyes.
Letting him lift me up and onto my feet, I nodded. "Ya, I'm alright."
"Don't sound alright," hands went to hips and an eyebrow was raised. A very much parental expression if I had ever seen one.
"Fine. I'm not alright. I've been trying this thing with my ma-semblance and I can't seem to get it to work again." I huffed.
"Again, you said. That means you used it before." He pointed a finger at me, which I waved off.
"Ya, but I know that I used it before already. And I sorta know how to get myself back into that position. I gotta be tired-ish and distracted. But I want to be not tired and not distracted to use it."
Tai placed a finger on his chin. "Huh, that's a real stumper. Have I ever really gone into detail about my semblance?"
A headshake was my only answer.
"Well-"
"Did I overhear semblance troubles, Rubes?" Yang came bounding up, an eerily similar smile plastered onto her face as the one Tai was giving me.
"Yes, are you alright?" Weiss was walking over too.
"Oh! Ruby, is this about the… thing?"
"Thing? What thi-oh! Oh ya, that thing."
"Care to share with the group?" Weiss eloquently asked.
"Heh, care to share." Yang received an elbow to the ribs.
"Well, I can see you are well taken care of here. Good luck Ruby," Taiyang waved us goodbye, despite my protests.
"Wait! What about… and he's gone. Never mind."
"Come, take a sit down." Yang fell gracelessly onto the grass, dragging me down with her.
"But I just got u- whatever." Knowing that there was no point to arguing, I re-explained the situation to them.
Hopefully this would help in some way, because I was stumped. I had spent all this time trying to figure out what to do and how to do it, but even as close as I was, I felt no closer to reaching an answer. And it wasn't like I had my mom to teach me this stuff.
I couldn't even ask Cinder!
For Salem's sake, I just wanted to figure this out and start claiming my territory already. Things would surely get easier from then on. No way could a pesky human or almost literally anything, handle me in my very own territory.
At least until I got bored of it and wanted to travel or explore.
Hey, wait a moment, what even happens to territories after we leave them? If Reapers have been around since the dawn of humanity, wouldn't all of the sweet spots be taken by Reapers? Or, can Reapers over-territory other people's territories? Or do they just go away after a while? Did territories disappear when we died?
Ugh, this was all to confusing and not even a little bit important to the topic on hand, which was my friends trying to help me figure out my magic which they thought of as my semblance. They were chatting away, not that I was really paying that much attention to what they were saying, aside from a snippet or word here and there.
They were trying to figure out how best to use my speed in interesting ways, which was very much not what I had wanted to discuss, but I let them do their thing. At least they were enjoying themselves.
I watched as Yang leaned back onto her palms and faced me. "We're going in circles here. Ruby, what does your semblance feel like?"
"Wha-?" What did my semblance feel like? What sort of question was that! Actually, what did my magic feel like. Did it even have a feeling? How was that even relevant! Oh, wait.
"A headache!"
Weiss frowned. "Your semblance gives you a headache?"
"No, of course not… Maybe? No. It's just a head pressure. I think. I haven't really thought about it all that much, but that's what happened when I tried to use it back in Beacon."
"Did it feel the same as when you normally use your semblance?" Blake's question threw me off guard.
Did it?
"I'm not sure? What do you mean exactly?"
"Well," Yang began rolling her shoulders with a flourish. "My semblance feel like a huge rush whenever I activate it. No, even more so. Like, you know that moment right at the top of a rollercoaster, just before it's about to drop and your heart is beating way to fast, and your hands feel clammy, and you might need to puke, and everything is nerves. But then, but then you start picking up speed, and everything you had just felt was thrown out and replaced with unadulterated excitement?"
The looks between the rest of us were all confused.
What's a rollercoaster?
"Ah, you're all stick-in-the-muds. But ya, when I activate my semblance, like really activate it, it's that kind of rush. I can dial it back a bit -or forward I guess-, especially when I'm angry, but I know my semblance is pumping when there's that rush."
Oh, so semblances have a real, describable feeling to them. Yang's had one I didn't really understand, but she seemed to, and maybe that was enough.
"My semblance is a lot less 'thrill-seeker' than Yang's," Blake threw up hand-quotes. Yang chuckled.
"It's.. oh wow, I've never actually tried to describe this before. I've described my semblance: teleporting with fog or shadows, but never what it felt like. I guess… I guess I would say that whenever I teleport, I feel… seen. Relevant. It's not much an outward expression, but it's very much an in-my-head, momentarily pleasant feeling. I've always wanted to make the world a better place. I have, I guess, since birth. Half the reason I stayed with the White Fang was because I wanted us to do more. To help more."
"Half the reason?" Yang chimed in.
Blake blew it off. "Not relevant. I thought we hadn't been doing enough, and so I stuck with them even as they… we, went down the wrong path. But every time I use my semblance… it's like that same rush. Not a more literal rush like Yang, but one nonetheless. A rush that I was doing the right thing. That I was using my semblance to help."
There were nods between all three of them. So, Blake's semblance also had that rush. And it made her… feel good? No, it confirmed her feelings that she is doing good. Relevant, Blake had said. I like that.
All heads turned to Weiss.
She rolled her eyes.
"If you're expecting something profound, my semblance isn't going to give you what you are looking for."
"Duh, you're the ice queen. We're not expecting profound," Yang said, terribly mimicking an Atlesian accent for the final word. "What do you feel?"
"Order. The Schnee semblance is and always has been, about strict order and study. Our glyphs must be etched in the proper fashion, my next gravity glyph must conform exactly to the one before, and the one before that and before that, all the way to my very first gravity glyph which I produced at the age of fourteen. It's structured. Rigid. Orderly."
Well that wasn't very helpful.
"On the other hand…" Weiss continued, "summoning is… or, summoning is supposed to be different. More personal. Just like the Grimm we can summon are unique to the individual, so too is the glyph which our semblance creates. At least, that's what my sister Winter says. I still can't do it yet, but she said it'll come to me. In time."
"What else did she say?" I couldn't help but ask.
She sighed, curling a loose strand of silky white hair between her fingertips. "Winter said… She said summoning was linked with faery magic. It's personal and it's emotional and it's so very, very hard to control without really knowing who you are and believing in who you're meant to be." She let out a derisive half-snort. "I guess that just means I don't know who I am yet."
We sat in our little circle, absorbed in our own thoughts. Or at least, everyone was quiet while I was absorbed in my own thoughts.
Okay, let's go over what I know now about my magic, I told myself. If I was going to do this, I might as well do this right. Well, right enough. I used my magic for the first time in human form when I was fighting those witches in a cave. The second time was when I was battling -sparring- with all my friends. I didn't know if it was the same as semblances, but from what Yang said, semblances gave you a memorable feeling. Something describable and somewhat noteworthy. I think. Unless riding rollercoasters wasn't noteworthy. But memorable, nonetheless.
Blake said that it was relevant. Relevant to herself, meaning my semblance -magic- would be relevant to me, in some way. And Weiss said it was personal. Emotional. True to who you were meant to be.
But wait, that was faery magic. Was faery magic different than human semblances or Reaper magic? I had no idea. I didn't even know faeries had emotions. Or personalities. Either way, that sounded smart. And noteworthy.
What else, what else? I wracked my brain for answers. What was so significant about those times that I used Reaper magic? What made them memorable? Relevant? Emotional or personal?
Well, the fighting was with all my friends. That had to mean something, right? I was scared, wasn't I? That's an emotion. I was scared about…
About my friends discovering who I was.
About everyone discovering who I was.
About them seeing me as a Reaper.
Oh. No, I wasn't scared about them seeing me as a Reaper. Well, I was, but not truly.
I was scared that I would misstep and they would see me like the Reaper they had fought against during the raid at the docks. I was scared that they would stop seeing me as me and as a monster. I was scared that I would lose them.
The witches' cave too! The thought burst forth from my mind. I didn't use magic to beat the witches or anything. My magic didn't show itself until I saw one of my fighting friends nearly get stomped on by big rocks. I wasn't scared of the witches. I was scared of them getting hurt.
Of them dying.
But I was a Reaper. Should I be scared of them dying? Didn't my kind need Death? Death was the master of the Grim Reaper. Death shouldn't be feared. Death should be respected, but never feared, and it was a Reaper's jobs to ensure humans didn't fear Death either.
No… I wasn't scared of dying or death. Or even of them dying. I was scared of losing them. Of losing my connection to them, to this new world I was living in. This…
Humanity.
I shiver rolled up my spine.
And… and why would that matter? I was a Reaper. Not a human. Different species. Not compatible enough to truly be one of them. Not for our long lifespans. So, why did it matter that I connected with humans? With…
Humanity?
I rubbed my temples with my fists, trying to force out that information which was illuding me.
I was scared for my friends. I was scared of losing them. Think Ruby, think. Sweet Salem, what is it? What is the link? What am I missing?
I'm missing that… that… c…
Connection.
I shot up. My teammate's eyes lifted to me. "Hmm?" Weiss asked.
"I think I got it. StayrighthereIgottatestsomethingberightbackIloveyouguysbye!" I shouted as I shot off, shadowy rose petals trailing furiously behind.
I was alone once more. But I felt something deep within me. Some underlying confidence which was buzzing through my mind. I didn't quite get it before. I didn't understand what I was doing or why I was doing it.
I still don't think I quite grasped it. Not yet. But I think I understood it enough.
That humanity.
Connection.
Connection to what? To me? To my kind? Reapers?
Maybe, I wasn't sure yet. But I knew it meant something. Or at least I think it meant something. And there was only one way to truly figure out if I was correct or not.
I closed my eyes, calming my breathing.
In through the nose. Holding it. Out through the mouth.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
Over and over again.
Then I pictured it. Not it, them. Yang, my sister at heart. Someone I could rely on. Maybe not with my greatest secret, but all my less-than-great ones. Jaune, my first friend. My best friend. Weiss, my partner and best tutor ever. Blake, my friend. The one who I could go to when I couldn't go to anybody else. Ren, Nora, Pyrrha. Velvet and Russel. Maybe even Ozpin, for all the strangeness and strange questions that he gave me.
All human. All my friends. Humanity. And my connection to each and every one of them
Who shaped me after I had lost mom. Who befriended me and have been, without even realizing it, helping me heal and forget -maybe not forget, but properly preserve- my memories of her.
Finally, I felt the crackle in my head.
I opened my eyes.
And my magic reached out across the field.
Wooh! Thank you all once again for helping me reach 600 follows. It's been a pleasure and a privilege to have you all reading and enjoying my work. Wanna keep my answers a little shorter than usual this time (because I finished writing this chapter a little later than I care to admit), but I'd like to quickly thank all of you who read and comment on every or most chapters. JackTheSpades, dragonqueen1993, lasereye27, Cun, c3l3st14 and Dragon Lord Draco. Comments mean so much to me.
JackTheSpades - Lots of teasing, and there is a reason for why it takes so long. Mainly it's cuz things will start happening faster soon. We're over the hump. (and yes, I've had this story [at least the broad strokes of it] planned out for months now) :)
c3l3st14 - Reaper mode is only for Reapers. And I've mentioned Salem quite a few times in this. more info is coming in a couple chapters (my gut is telling me 2 or 3?) so that should help clear up some last confusion. Also, the story isn't going to fully follow canon. Especially nothing in V7 or V8.
Dragonqueen1993 - Happy new years to you too! And there will definitely be more to come!
Dragon Lord Draco - lol. Reaper needs more training! Gotta get her to think about cookies and strawberries at the same time!
Cun - Who knows? Those two are curious.
firewyrm2 - Sorry to hear that. But things need to happen.
TM Calypso - I also wish there was more of it. :P But chapters are at least relatively constant. Gonna continue writing!
WARLORDX592 - So glad you read and enjoyed!
See you all in 2 weeks for our regularly scheduled Reaper in Red!