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A Deathly Silence (RWBY/Drakengard 3)

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Update 466 - Open Heart Surgery
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    • [X] She Sang the Song that rewrote Dust. If Yang opened a portal to the War Chief, it would be close enough to reach. If Ruby could shape it to the proper kind of Gravity Dust, the weapon would be too heavy for the attacker to wield.

    Ruby's vision was coming and going. She didn't actually see the moment Yang opened a portal. She just kept Singing. If Yang reacted, she didn't make it obvious through any consistent sense Ruby had at that moment. Maybe she thought Ruby was Singing to heal herself.

    When her sight came back in again, it was in time to see her plan moments from success or failure. Yang was pulling the War Chief backwards through a portal, and for the Song to seep through that sky-red. The attacker- Ruin, Yang had said?- was already swinging Crescent Rose, and Ruby could see the trajectory shift as the new weight brought the scythe down.

    The War Chief disappeared into Yang's portal before Crescent Rose hit the ground. That gave Yang time to open another portal to catch the scythe with another portal.

    The War Chief stumbled and fell back at the edge of Ruby's peripheral vision. She didn't get to see what came of it as Yang opened yet another portal and threw Ruby through. She hit the ground hard, somewhere dark and damp.

    Ruby couldn't see. She wasn't sure if it was her eye giving out or a complete lack of light in this space. She heard a thud as something else hit the ground, and then another.

    "Ruby!" There was a flash of light. Ember Celica fired at the roof and and gave Ruby enough illumination to see her sister. The older girl grabbed Ruby by the shoulders to pull her up. "Hey, hey Rubes, stay with me."

    Ruby didn't trust herself to speak. She wasn't breathing. There wouldn't be a point in breathing anyway when she had no heart to beat.

    "War!" Yang didn't have the time for the full title, apparently. "Heal her!"

    "I…" The other girl's voice was all Ruby had to go off of for her location. Yang fired Ember Celica upwards again.

    Ruby took that flash of light as a chance to take in that situation. They were in a cave some place. There were marks on the walls and floor that made it look like there had been combat here recently, but Ruby's vision blurred again before she could try to figure out that kind of combat.

    "Fucking do it!" Yang's voice was near a roar. Ruby could hear the way that screaming was tearing at Yang's throat, raw and hoarse. Ruby didn't know if she'd ever heard Yang this scared.

    No, it happened once, didn't it? Had Yang shouted something when Zero had stabbed Ruby through the chest? Ruby almost laughed when she made the connection there. Was there even a connection, or had Ruby fabricated that memory entirely?

    A hand closed around Ruby's wrist. It was a bare hand. The War Chief?

    A moment passed and nothing happened.

    "I- I can't… Her Aura-"

    Ruby heard Ember Celica fire and knew light was reflecting on her, but she couldn't see a thing. Her vision wasn't coming back in anymore. The words of the people speaking above her were fading out.

    Her Aura? Something about her Aura? It was still up-

    If it was a problem, then she needed to solve it. Ruby intentionally lowered her Aura, letting anything at all happen.

    Something clicked in Ruby's body. She felt flesh grow in her chest cavity, meat weaving through meat. The severed arteries and blood veins clicked together, the blood that had fallen free evaporating. When Ruby felt a heartbeat, she almost couldn't believe it.

    When her awareness faded to darkness regardless, she wasn't sure if she could feel safe or not.

    ~~~~~​

    Yang fired one last Ember Celica shot into the rooftop above her to look at her sister one more time.

    The hole in her chest was gone. The blood was gone. If it wasn't for the tear in her top, you wouldn't be able to tell that Ruby had been injured at all. Even the minor Aura damage she had taken had been fixed up.

    And she was unconscious.

    Yang should be doing something. There was so much to do. Ruin was still on the mountain and he had proven himself to be an enemy. And he was apparently the War Chief's father, and damn it Yang didn't know what it felt like to have a parent look at you with zero recollection and lethal intent. And Yang hadn't had the time to offer any sympathy when she had been gripped by the panic of Ruby being so close to death.

    And Yang needed to get Ruby's unconscious body somewhere that wasn't a cave at the bottom of the mountain and Yang needed to get in contact with the rescue party again and- and- if she was overlooking something it would not surprise her.

    But no matter how much Yang needed to do and how deep the panic ran through her flesh, she couldn't do anything.

    She couldn't move. She couldn't pull her arms away from Ruby. Even if it wasn't dark, Yang wouldn't be able to see through her tears.

    "It's okay." If Yang could trick herself into thinking she was talking to Ruby and not herself, she could force out the words. "You're not gonna die. I'll keep you safe. I'll protect you."

    Her eyes were burning red. Yang didn't even need to open them to know that.

    One thing at a time. Keep Ruby safe. What was the easiest way to keep Ruby safe?

    To get her away from here.

    Yang cast her soul upwards. She needed to find the airship. Her Branwen magicks told her of the stone above, then the snow above it.

    Ruin was climbing the mountain still. He was in the snow now, approaching the Legacy. He stopped moving as Yang's vision paused on him, and he turned to her perspective.

    Ruin. The man had seemed frighteningly powerful earlier, but nothing Yang saw indicated he was like this. Nothing she saw indicated he was like Cinder.

    Though Yang forced herself to pull back that thought. He might not be exactly like Cinder. He might just be like Mercury, who had Grimm matter make up his legs and had a weaker version of her ability. But the point remained the same. He was the enemy.

    The man kept looking off into the distance at an angle which had to be intentional, to let Yang know he could tell when he was being watched.

    Yang moved on. She hoped Ruin couldn't track her based on her senses. If he could, she needed to hurry.

    The airship was still pretty high up. Once Yang had a read on the place she had been before, she ripped open a portal. "War, go through."

    "I-"

    Yang didn't have the time. "Now!"

    She saw the shadow of the War Chief pass over the portal, then disappear into it. Yang passed Ruby's unmoving body through the portal, then threw herself in after her. She closed the portal as soon as she was through it, and turned into a bird as she fell so she didn't put too much weight on Ruby as she fell.

    "Ruby!" Weiss called out. Yang rolled off of her sister and turned back into a human, then helped pull Ruby off the ground.

    "Get her to an infirmary!" Yang shouted. "She's fine, but- Get her out of here!"

    "What's going on?" Weiss asked. "How did she-"

    "The Dragon of Mistral." Yang answered. "He punched through Ruby's Aura and tore her heart out. The War Chief healed her, but…"

    Yang didn't know how to finish that sentence. She looked up to the War Chief, to the girl who was failing to hold it together. The Dragon Faunus fell to her knees in the middle of the hanger bay. Nobody else reacted to her.

    Yang needed to get things moving.

    "Get Ruby out of here." Yang decided. "I need to go back down-"

    "No." Weiss interrupted. "Yang, if the enemy is here-"

    "I'm not letting someone get away with this!" Yang shouted back. "Would you run from Blake, after what she did to your sister?"

    Weiss flinched.

    Yang realised she had crossed a line. She didn't even need to get personal like that. She had more to her logic.

    "If he can control Grimm, I need to stop him here." Yang continued. "I'm going back in. Get Ruby out of here."

    Weiss wrenched her eyes shut.

    "...There's help coming." Weiss declared. "Artzin! Get Ruby to the medical bay!"

    Someone Yang only barely recognised stepped in to take Ruby away from Weiss. The woman was gone before Yang could finish placing her. She was one of One's people, from back in Atlas.

    "Help's coming, so there's no point running." Weiss declared. "I'll tell Galatea and the others. Get them to send out a signal. The Hunter's coming to help ,might make all the difference."

    They weren't going to leave.

    Yang wanted to scream that that was wrong, that Ruby needed to be gone, but she bit her tongue. That was just her defensive reflex talking. "Fly up, don't let Ruin know where you are. I don't want to know how far he can fly."

    Weiss nodded. She started to run off, but Yang caught her wrist.

    "Where's Five?" Yang asked.

    "She's fighting the Vraal." Weiss answered. "Why?"

    Yang closed her eyes. Options. Didn't the dream-vision imply that the Dragon of Mistral and the Vraal were Pact Partners? If so, killing one would kill them both. It might be easier to kill the Vraal than it would be to kill a Dragon.

    "Go." Yang decided. "I need to settle something here."

    She let Weiss go, and the white-haired girl ran off.

    Yang didn't want to waste time. She opened a portal and fell through it, landing on the War Chief's back to wrap her arms around the other girl.

    "Hey." Yang didn't even know where to start. She followed her gut. "I'm sorry. My sister… I was scared. I couldn't think about anything else once she got hurt."

    The War Chief didn't respond directly to what Yang had said. "My dad…"

    "...Yeah." Yang muttered. "I guess we know what the 'Worst possible death' was, huh?"

    "I should've known." The War Chief muttered. "I… There's a recurring nightmare I've had, since I first saw that Blood Memory. If the Dark could take his memory of my name, could the Dark take his memory of all I am? If she could hold the offer of erasing his memory if he submitted, what's to stop her from erasing his memory if he resisted and was defeated?"

    "I don't know what to say." Yang admitted. "I don't. I saw my own mother resurrected and turned against me and I don't know what to say."

    "I…" The War Chief took a deep breath. She stood slowly, lifting Yang up in the process. "I need to protect the Legacy."

    Yang wasn't sure the War Chief had actually processed what she had seen. She was trying to compartmentalise. If she saw Ruin now, she might crumble again.

    "Take me down there." The War Chief decided. "I need to protect it. Whatever the cost."

    The airship was starting to move up. Weiss has been to the cockpit. If Yang waited much longer, Galatea or Jaune or whoever might rush in to grill her for details.

    Yang ripped open a portal. The War Chief ran through, carrying Yang on her back. The two of them came to a stop atop of the Hall of the War God, the Legacy at their backs.

    Alright. What's the plan? What's going on?

    Ruin was climbing the mountain, last Yang had seen him. He would be coming for the War Chief, and the War Chief had reason to think he was coming for the Legacy.

    He was just like Raven, like what Four thought was happening to Zero. A parent hollowed out and turned against their family. On some level Yang felt sorry for him. If there was a way to restore his memory, to give the War Chief something denied to both her and to Ruby.

    But that feeling was buried under the turmoil in Yang's heart.

    All her panic and grief for Ruby hadn't gone away. It had just transformed.

    When Yang thought of Ruin, she thought of the sight of his fist in Ruby's chest. Of his hand bloodied with her heart.

    Yang raised her hand, brought it to her neck. She struck once, twice, three times. Her Aura shattered, to the War Chief's shock. "What-"

    Yang opened eyes that were red and reptilian.

    " A Dragon cares not for Aura( A Dragon cares not for Aura) ."

    [X] Ruin was not here yet. However long Yang had, she had time to prepare a trap, defences.
    [X] Bring the fight to Ruin. Yang's fists refused anything else.
     
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    • [X] Bring the fight to Ruin. Yang's fists refused anything else.

    Best to keep him away from the tower if possible
     
    [X] Bring the fight to Ruin. Yang's fists refused anything else.

    I feel like there has to be immediate clash after unlocking dangerous power up! It's rule of cool staple!
     
    Going to make note that the update has started at this point, but the update is... Already late, and it's gonna be later. I'm going to want time to fine-tune this one. Don't you go trying to change the vote, I will ignore it if the vote changes :V
     
    Update 467 - Collapse
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    • [X] Bring the fight to Ruin. Yang's fists refused anything else.

    It didn't take long to find Ruin, not with the Branwen magic. Yang had to be careful not to be lost in casting her soul out lest she lose track of time, but he was taking a simple route up. He wasn't flying upon those wings of his. Was he limited in how long he could use them?

    No matter. Once Yang had her target, she just had to decide how to approach. She tilted her head to look at the War Chief's face, peer over her shoulder to get a good look at her. There were streaks running down the girl's face, tracing the path her tears had taken from the edge of her eye and next to her nose before she had wiped those tears away.

    "You've found him." The War Chief spoke before Yang could think.

    Yang wasn't sure if she wanted the War Chief to come with her. How much can you ask of someone and expect them to be reliable in a fight? How could Yang ask someone to fight her own father, after a decade of loneliness? The War Chief would want it, but would she be able to withstand it?

    But that was irrelevant now. The War Chief knew. Yang considered how she'd react if her own mother's corpse was being used to attack people, and that was kept from Yang to keep her away from the fight.

    Yang nodded. She took a moment to tame the Dragon's Roar, keep it from echoing her voice. "I'm going to teleport us to a vantage point. We're going to play this safe. Which means you-"

    "Will lead the way." The War Chief interrupted.

    "Will play it safe." Yang snarled. The sudden anger surprised her, but she realised the source soon enough. "That man can ignore your Aura and punch hard enough to rip out a heart. That's not easy! If he hits either of us, we're dead."

    The War Chief tilted her head. "So you are telling me to let you endanger yourself, but not me?"

    "The person who wiped his memory and sent him here is sending him after you." Yang pointed out. "If you die, the Dark wins."

    "And if you die, you die." The War Chief answered. "You will stay on my back. We will fight together."

    Yang closed her eyes and breathed. "Alright. Listen. We shouldn't do that, because then he just needs to hit us once."

    "I-"

    " But( But) -" Yang let the Dragon's Roar seep back into her voice for just a second to cut short the interruption. "Fine. We both fight together. We don't have time to argue."

    The War Chief took a moment to process the voice, then nodded.

    "I'm going to portal us a bit above him." Yang declared. "Then I'll portal closer to him, because I can get away faster. You try to ambush him while I keep him distracted."

    "...Fine." The War Chief seemed satisfied enough.

    Yang ripped open a portal, and the War Chief stepped through. She stepped onto the side of the mountain, surrounded by snow and with the stone wall close to her back.

    "Step forward." Yang muttered. The War Chief did so, and Yang explained the request as she closed the portal. "I was half-in the portal there. It's not good if that stays open."

    The War Chief didn't reply. It occurred to Yang she wasn't sure if she had told the War Chief why Yang couldn't open the portals for long. But it was too late now. Yang had picked this location ahead of time to pre-empt Ruin's approach. It wouldn't be long until he was too far behind.

    And Yang had held herself back long enough.

    She paused for only long enough to draw the War Chief's attention, point her down to where Ruin was. The man was walking up a incline in the mountain that looked almost unnatural, like a path carved for mankind's use. His wings hung free, scales shimmering with the same hue as the War Chief's hair - Somehow green and black at once.

    His hand was still bloody.

    Yang saw red.

    She didn't know when exactly she threw herself through the portal. If she had time to think about it she'd have prepared better. She had no Aura to bend around her hands, but she might've thought to flick the switch and let the dragon bone in the knuckles poke out.

    But she had no time to think. Ruin had almost killed Ruby.

    He would pay( He would pay) .

    Ruin caught Yang's fist. His hand closed, a vice around Ember Celica. Yang could feel a pinch in her bones.

    Ember Celica fired.

    At point blank, without her Aura, Yang could feel the shock of the hit travel up her arm. If it wasn't for the Dust Treatment in Ember Celica, the ability to absorb and hold onto the charge of kinetic energy, Yang probably would have broken her hand.

    For a split second, Yang saw surprise in Ruin's eye.

    He still had his Aura up. So when the flesh on his hand burnt away in the detonation, it must have been a surprise.

    Yang fell back, the explosion ripping Ruin's fingers away from her hand and letting her fall free. She hit the ground and looked up to see Ruin standing at his hand.

    "...You're the Dragon." He spoke aloud. "Did you not say you were going to stay out of my way?"

    " Go fuck yourself( Go fuck yourself) ." Yang answered. " You hurt Ruby( You ripped out my sister's heart) ."

    Ruin tilted his head. Yang saw his eyes narrow, growing more serpentine.

    " So I did( So I did) ."

    The foot that came down wasn't fast enough to hit Yang. She rolled out of the way of the direct blow, and the shockwave threw her off the ground. She bounced high enough for Ruin to grab Yang's ankle and tighten his grip.

    It was a good thing Yang couldn't feel anything down there. It was bad enough hearing the bone break, without thinking about how bad the pain would have been.

    There was a flicker of light from above. The War Chief descended, her wings curving as she fell. When the wings beat down, the momentum of the fall was cancelled entirely, and the beating wings shifted into blades to cut into Ruin's back.

    The man turned and swept his arm. The wings of light shattered like glass, the fragments flickering out like embers on the wind. The War Chief fell as her wings disappeared, and Yang could see the shifting of flesh on Ruin's back.

    With his cloak cast aside, his back was exposed. Muscular and scarred, except for a mass of black flesh at his side. Like a great beast had taken a bite out of his waist and left only a flicker of flesh, and then Grimm matter had been used to cast the wound. It was hard to make out many more details with the wings in the way.

    But Yang could see the way his muscles were moving. They were a few subtle motions around his shoulder blade. He was about to punch forward.

    One move, and the War Chief was dead.

    Yang fell through a portal and landed between Ruin's shoulders. His wings closed inwards on her, the bones striking her back like a hammer. Yang pushed through the pain and twisted her arms around Ruin, forcing his body to turn.

    His fist soared through empty space next to the War Chief. Mere proximity alone threw the Dragon Faunus to the ground, but she wasn't instantly dead.

    Because that's what would happen if Ruin got a good hit in. If he could rip Ruby's heart out instantly, then any hit would be immediately lethal. If you got touched, you die.

    Which was why Yang expected his next plan to be to use his wings to hold Yang trapped in place. She could feel the muscles around those bones shifting behind her, she could feel the force they were exerting in holding him back. Could wings actually contort like this? Yang wasn't sure. But it didn't matter.

    She'd emptied her Aura for a reason. She was at her strongest like this. It was what she needed to bring out the Power of Dragons, but it also brought out her power. Whether the Power of Dragons followed her Semblance or if her Semblance and that Power followed the same logic born of her own soul, Yang had more than one benefit when her Aura was broken.

    When Yang ripped her arms back, the wings were flung free. Ruin stumbled forward in pain, the impact hitting him through his Aura. Yang opened a portal for her to fall into before Ruin could react, landing on the ground between Ruin and the War Chief.

    The other girl was standing in Yang's peripheral vision, so she turned to look at Ruin alone. He was almost back on stable footing, but he was still off balance.

    That gave Yang a chance. Every second in range of those fists was a second kissing the edge of the knife, but Yang didn't care. She flung herself forward and punched into Ruin's stomach, just above the black Grimm mass.

    The fragments of dragon bone on Ember Celica's knuckles cut into flesh, and Yang could see the impact ripple through traces of fat and through the black mass. The punch had enough force that Yang could ride it back, throwing herself back at the same time the blow rippled through Ruin.

    It wasn't a perfect comparison, but it was still one Yang could go off of. She had punched Ruin in the stomach, a place with no bone. His back had arced to go with the blow, his body falling back from the impact. He was bleeding from the dragon bone, and Yang could see a bruise forming on the man's stomach far wider than the size of Yang's fist. That was gonna hurt every time he moved, and that wasn't nothing.

    But Yang hadn't punched a hole through him.

    Yang had to wonder if it was a difference in strength, or a difference in mindset. Ruin had ripped out Ruby's heart like it was nothing. Was it because Ruby was unprepared, but Ruin was? Was it because Ruin had more killing intent than Yang could muster?

    Or was he just stronger, even with Yang's Semblance at its peak?

    It didn't matter. This was one-sided rocket tag. Yang wasn't going to stop Ruin as easily as he could kill her.

    A corner of her mind questioned that mental choice of words. 'Stop'. Not 'Kill'.

    Yang did want to kill him, but was she able to? Was it right to? If he had his memory erased by the Dark, by the spirit sponsoring Cinder, then shouldn't there be a way to undo it?

    She pushed that thought aside. One-sided rocket tag. If Yang was distracted for a second, she would be dead.

    And she couldn't afford to be hit once.

    Yang cast her mind into the Remnant Seal burnt into her soul. The blue light was as blinding as the pain, but the latter lasted for only a moment and the former dulled with it until it was only a faint glow.

    Memory and Thought, disconnected one more. The implementation wasn't ideal. Yang had first tried this and had to cancel the effect earlier today. But if the rule of the fight was that one touch was death, then the near-perfect ability to dodge was the most valuable thing Yang could think of.

    Especially since she knew what Ruin was capable of. She had seen the vision of the War Chief's father fighting an agent of the Dark, and she knew the ability the two shared.

    But Ruin wasn't using that ability yet. Perhaps the loss of memory had taken it from him.

    The man charged forward. Yang didn't have time to react, with the partition lagging her reactions just a second. She wouldn't need to react with the power, but it meant the War Chief was able to react faster. She stepped forward and swung a rebuilt wing as a blade. Ruin met the wing with his own, shattering light with physical matter. It didn't even slow him down.

    But the War Chief knew that. The angle of her wing, low and sweeping up, had let it shatter in perfection. The embers of light that lingered for a heartbeat kept sweeping forward, stabbing into the eye of the man who had shattered it. Ruin was blinded, crying out.

    Yang gave her body the order. That's how it felt to move. She gave the order, and the machine that was Yang Xiao Long followed it. She opened a portal at the same time, and was surprised at how fast that came, comparatively.

    But then, the portal didn't depend on the movement of the flesh.

    Yang landed in front of Ruin and swept Ember Celica in front of his face. It was just close enough that the dragon bone knuckle could cut into his forehead.

    Shenron had done that to Yang in the tournament, hadn't he? Yang remembered being really annoyed about it.

    But before even a drop of blood could fall from the cut, Ruin's mouth erupted into flames.

    Yang could feel her body's heartbeat rising, but disconnected like this she didn't need to worry about shutting down entirely. She pushed away, the flames singeing her arms but nowhere near as badly as they should. Even without her Aura actively around her body, it seemed Yang was resistant to flame.

    She fell back, and the War Chief caught her. Casting her vision out, Yang could see the cut she left on Ruin's forehead sealing over from the flame already.

    The War Chief took to the skies with Yang in her arms, a princess carry. Yang left her body to the War Chief as she fired Ember Celica over the girls shoulder, between the wings of light. Her soul grasped around the Dust Round and pulled it through the air.

    The Dust reshaped itself, shaped into a dragon with a body like a serpent. The Dust Dragon surged down towards Ruin as he gave shape, and Yang pulled it away from Ruin's fist as he punched towards it.

    Then his wing flicked through the air, and the Dust was disrupted. Too fast for Yang to react, even if her magic reacted faster than her flesh like this.

    "You're concerning me." The War Chief was trying to sound confident, trying to recreate the voice she had back in that one village. She wanted to seem like she was in control. After the day Yang had spent with her, she could tell how fake that confidence was.

    "I'm doing som-" Yang bit her tongue by accident. She considered realigning Memory and Thought, but she didn't want to risk it if Ruin attacked faster than she expected. "Magic. Body lags, but dodge by reflex."

    The War Chief's expression was… Complicated. Yang put it out of her mind. Ruin was pursuing.

    The War Chief flew up to the ledge she and Yang had stood at earlier. "You didn't shut down when he breathed hellfire at you."

    "Magic." Yang responded. Simple responses, so her body didn't betray her. "Mind dulls it. Body still reacts. Bad for heart. Probly."

    Before the War Chief could respond, Ruin started to fly high enough to get over the ledge. Yang fired Ember Celica, her body lagging behind too slow for her to hit his face but fast enough that he didn't see the projectiles coming.

    "Throw." Yang didn't trust herself with more than a syllable. Even if she wasn't partitioning her mind, she wouldn't trust herself with anything more. The War Chief threw Yang at Ruin, and Yang cocked back her fist.

    With the Branwen magic letting her see all, Yang could see the muscles on Ruin's back shifting. She knew, instinctively, that the fist was about to go flying. Her body fired Ember Celica to the side without her full intention, shooting her to the side to avoid the fist. She opened a portal to catch the projectile, but didn't trust her focus in turning it into a Dust Dragon just yet.

    Firing again, Yang shot towards Ruin. With the hand that wasn't firing, she swung. Ruin's own arm rose to parry, forearm striking against forearm. Yang's own body moved to dodge the parry, but even with her arm already moving itself away the force of Ruin's blow echoed in her bones.

    Ruin's other hand tried to punch Yang underarm. Yang opened a portal and her body disappeared into it before she could consciously think to do so. She emerged behind Ruin, her body weaving between her wings in a way she couldn't fully explain.

    A bone-white mass emerged from the black flesh on Ruin's lower-body. Yang had already dodged by the time the spear shot out. She caught the weapon in a portal after it was behind her. With how fast it had come out, Yang wasn't entirely sure she could have dodged it that easily without the partition.

    The War Chief shot up into the air, wings swinging around her like blades. Ruin caught the wings of light in his hand, and the War Chef spat hellfire into his face.

    The fire barely burnt him, but he was blinded for a second. That second was enough for the War Chief to grab his wrist and begin spinning in the air, ready to throw the man down. It was enough for Yang to fall upon him and punch with enough force to disperse the flames on the other side of his body.

    There was nothing to brace himself against in the air. In the face of Yang's fist, Ruin descended into the mountainside. He smashed against the vertical-ish edge, a crater around him causing a minor rockslide and cracks continuing up the mountain around him.

    The War Chief, having been grabbed onto Ruin, only barely let go in time. She soared to the side to transfer the momentum, but Yang still felt the need to call out an apology. "Sorry!"

    Ruin was pulling himself out the mountain. Yang teleported beside him and punched again, aiming to punch him in the throat. He flung himself to the ground faster than Yang could punch, hitting the relatively thin ledge beneath the wall.

    Firing Ember Celica behind her, Yang descended. The War Chief followed, crashing into the ground behind Ruin. The man couldn't turn to face his daughter without turning his back to Yang, and even if his wings were deadly, it would mean leaving the girl who could teleport out of his line of sight.

    He stepped to the side and half-turned instead, keeping both girls in his peripheral vision. He slipped his hands beneath the remnants of his coat, and his wings curled into half-shields around his side. The position mirrored the War Chief, whose blades of light weren't truly shields but mimicked the protection with the threat of immediate skewering.

    Neither the War Chief nor Ruin moved. The War Chief was preparing herself, Yang could tell. The way she needed to, to draw out the sound of Dragons that was her birthright as a Dragon Faunus. Yang had no idea why Ruin was unmoving.

    It didn't matter. She was descending all the same. The battle would be rejoined within seconds.

    Yang's body twisted in the air before she even saw Ruin's mouth turn. The fireball whizzed past her, and Yang opened a portal to catch the flame. A few spikes shot out of his Grimm-matter, and Yang caught those in portals too. That was the end of Ruin's use of projectiles, instead turning to punch the air in front of him.

    Yang saw the Aura bend around Ruin's fist. When he punched, his Aura flared. The air current shot back at the force of the blow, throwing Yang backwards.

    The War Chief took her opportunity, lunging in. Ruin's wing twisted to bat through her light again, at an angle that swept the fragments of light away from his own face. A fireball left the War Chief's mouth and into Ruin's face, blinding him for a moment.

    Yang opened a portal and emerged behind Ruin, using the momentum from his own attack to hit him in the back. She swept Ember Celica at his back, trying to cut the muscles that would help control his wing, but her instinctive defence drove her to fire Ember Celica instead. The explosion threw her away from Ruin's back as his wings slammed shut, keeping Yang safe from his counterattack and leaving Dust burns along his back.

    The War Chief surged in as Ruin stumbled forward planting her fist against Ruin's gut, dead centre of the massive bruise Yang had given him earlier. The cuts Yang had given had healed at some point, though it looked to be his flame rather than Aura.

    Yang opened a portal and pulled the War Chief through before Ruin could attack her. His head slammed down into empty space, and the ground beneath him cratered from the force. Yang could feel rocks on the bottom of the ledge giving way.

    Ruin was upon Yang before she could think about the implications of that. She threw the War Chief back so she could take wind and pushed herself off the ground with enough force to reach Ruin's eye level.

    The second that followed felt like an eternity. Both she and Ruin moved their fists, punches turning into deflections and dodges turning into repositioning. Ruin near entirely circled Yang, while Yang had to reposition in the air by bouncing herself off of Ruin's arms whenever she redirected a blow.

    Then Ruin kicked upwards, and Yang opened a portal beneath her. The fireball she had absorbed earlier hit his leg and forced it back down, throwing Yang high enough to be out of his range.

    Ruin did not take flight. He returned to his original position, his wings as half-shields and his hands in his pockets. Waiting for the attack to come to him.

    The War Chief spat fire into his face again, and he was blinded again. Surely he had to expect it at this point, right?

    Yang remembered the way he had grabbed Ruby's scythe, to pull her closer and rip her heart out. He had been expecting the attack to come in that way. Conditioning, was it? Had he let Ruby hit him with that trick often enough that she assumed it would work, overlooked what someone could do with their hands in her certainty that the trick would work?

    If so, the fact that the fireball blinding trick kept working was less than ideal.

    Yang tried another trick while he was blinded this time. She reached her soul into the mountain behind him, looking for a weapon. She still wasn't capable of pulling a real weapon out, the way Starling could transmute a katana out of the earth. But a big enough rock was all Yang needed.

    And she found more than just a rock. Dust. Some kind of mixed-rock or compound or whatever the word was. Yang called it from the side of the mountain and it rocketed out. Ruin must have heard it ripping through the earth, because he turned and punched blindly at it as it broke through the mountainside. He couldn't get a direct hit, but the wind that shot from the force of the blow was enough to push the small boulder back.

    What was his plan? Yang portaled into the air so she could descend upon him, just as the War Chief ran behind him and let her wing of light cut into his Aura. He had to have a plan if he was letting the War Chief's flames blind him, despite how easy it would be for him to disperse the flames. If Yang could do it with her fists, so could he.

    A spin shot out of the Grimm-matter to cut into the War Chief's arm, but it didn't bypass her Aura. That was strange, but perhaps it made sense. It was Grimm matter, and the Power of Dragons was a Roar, a Sound. The Silence of Grimm may be incapable of using the Power of Dragons.

    Yang fired Ember Celica downwards to buy herself more airtime, and Ruin's wings cut through the projectile.

    If Ruin had a plan, could Yang afford to let him execute on it? No, she couldn't. Not when every use of flame was spiking her heart rate, triggering a trauma response from the flesh that her Memory and Thought were misaligned from. Eventually she wouldn't be able to fight back at all. So what could his plan be?

    Another exchange of blows. Yang and the War Chief moved past Ruin simultaneously, forcing him to block two blows at once. The War Chief wasn't using her Dragon power for her blow, so she took another bite out of his Aura. Ruin tried to swing at Yang and only barely missed her leg, but the impact on the airflow around her leg made Yang remember the crack from early.

    Looking at her leg with her magic for a moment, Yang could see a lump. She wasn't sure what kind of injury would do that, but she knew that whatever was happening beneath the skin must have been bad. She was thankful, for once, that she couldn't feel anything that low.

    Again Ruin returned to his original position. Again, the War Chief threw a fireball into his face. Yang caught the fireball in a portal this time and let it out behind his back, burning through his wings. The War Chief seemed surprised, but didn't let it distract her from the fight.

    Yang slipped into another portal with the same destination, descending upon Ruin from behind as the flames dispersed. She wrenched and threw Ruin aside, calling the boulder back to her at the same time. Yang had a moment to look to see the colour of Dust, yellow and electric.

    Ruin kicked forward despite being off-balance. It brought both him and Yang to the ground, but it shattered the boulder. The fragments of Lightning Dust erupted, but it erupted against the mountainside.

    Yang shoved Ruin away from her while they were both on the ground. A hand closed around her wrist, but the War Chief's wings descended to strike the hand away. Yang portaled up and away, firing as she did so to try to hit Ruin while he was down.

    A spike of white bone shot out of his Grimm-matter to disrupt the Dust Round before it could hit Ruin. He caught the spike before it could escape him and grasped it like a spear, or a stake. He drove it downwards.

    The entire rock ledge collapsed.

    The War Chief, still standing on the ledge, collapsed with it. She tried to fly away, but a hand closed around her leg and threw her down. Yang could see rocks breaking against her body as she disappeared into the artificial avalanche.

    Yang swore. She could feel the distance between the rocks, knew there wasn't a space for her to open a portal and get to the War Chief. And she could feel Ruin surging towards her, breaking rocks against his own body to get to her.

    So instead Yang teleported as close as she could to the avalanche. Close enough that she'd get hit by stray rocks if she wasn't careful. Then she fired Ember Celica backwards and threw herself into the falling rocks.

    Even with her instincts, it was hard for Yang to make her way through. Or perhaps it was because of her instincts. Her body was batting away rocks, setting off detonations with Ember Celica to force them away, and all the while Yang struggled to direct herself towards the War Chief. She caught a few rocks, fired a Dust Projectile between the rocks to hit Ruin in the face and try to force him away.

    Yang caught the War Chief eventually. She had been pelted by rocks, and her Aura was low. Yang batted away rocks to make room for a portal-

    And her body threw itself to the side.

    Yang barely had the time to force herself to do something, to throw the War Chief through the portal and close it. She didn't have enough time, in fact. The river of hellfire was enough to reduce rocks to molten slag, and more than a little of that heat followed the War Chief through the portal.

    Yang closed it as fast as she could, but she could still hear the War Chief scream in pain.

    She didn't have time to do anything about it. Ruin descent left her no room to think. Her head tilted on its own to prevent Ruin from grabbing her skull, and Yang grabbed the arm before he could pull it away. With a great roar, Yang ripped the arm aside.

    She heard the shoulder pop and bones crack, but her instinct drove her to let go before she could do anything more than that.

    Fire consumed her vision. Yang's body had thrown itself far enough away from that she wasn't burnt, but all she could see was fire. Even the shadows of the rocks were melting, heating and becoming molten before her eyes. Yang ordered her body to try to shoot Ember Celica.

    Her hand rose slowly, weakly. Her finger couldn't pull the trigger.

    This was too much for her body. Too much for her heart. She was giving out.

    Ruin disappeared from view, and Yang fell.

    There was so much rock above her. Solid and molten, mixing together. Yang couldn't open a portal without catching some of those rocks, but if she fell any further she was going to die from the fall alone.

    So she opened a portal. She still hit the ground rough and hard, stones digging into her back and cutting her open. She closed the portal as quickly as she could, but it was too late to stop the rock following.

    Even cutting the portal as soon as she could, even turning the avalanche into a hundredth of its mass, Yang was crushed.

    It wasn't enough to bury her, but enough rocks landed on top of her fragile body that it barely mattered. Something struck her head hard. Were it not for the partition of Memory and Thought, Yang wasn't sure she would be able to think.

    The molten rock had been high enough that barely any had gotten through, but some of it had. Yang could feel the heat crawling down towards her.

    She could see the pain throughout her body through her mind's eye, the Branwen magic giving her perfect perception of her body. There was a gash in her forehead, bleeding. A stone had pierced into her stomach. If her ankle wasn't broken before, it definitely was now. As was another part of the leg- Yang could tell from the angle it lay at that she had broken the bones in her calf.

    Fights between dragons were rocket tag. Ruin didn't even need to hit her directly, in the end.

    She could feel darkness creeping into the vision of her eyes, even as the magic let her see the world around her. Her vision of the world was giving away. No, already it was gone. Her eyes stared into the darkness of unconsciousness. Of death.

    Of Bahamut( Hell) .

    And with that thought, Yang saw her red eyes dyed into a brilliant blue.

    The Roar in her heart erupted outwards, louder than before. Her body writhed, moving with strength she thought had abandoned her. It wasn't enough yet, but a second wind took her.

    Just as it had fighting the pirates, Yang realised. Her memory of that moment was vague, uncertain. She had been consumed by the Roar and only awoken when the fight was over, and after the instinct of that Power had snarled at Ruby as much as it had the enemy. She had gone from drowning to being fine, overpowered a foe that had kept her trapped.

    Except this time Yang had partitioned her Memory and Thought. So even as the Dragon's Roar demanded she lived, that whatever the cost she escaped death( Bahamut) , she was able to remain separate from it. Her body had dissolved into wild instinct to escape death at any cost, but her conscious mind still had a grasp of her magic.

    And in that moment, Yang realised what she needed to do.

    ~~~~~​

    This is an awkward moment to stop, but there are few good stopping points at this point of the records. There is a fight other than Yang's in this moment, and there will be precious few chances to record that fight before it becomes relevant to hers.

    The Fifth Intoner is fighting the Pact Beast, the Vraal. Shall we break for just a moment to observe?

    [X] Not now, Yang's about to do something important probably.
    [X] It would be a good idea to know what is happening with that Beast.
     
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    • Bleh, didn't like how long that took. Part of it was definitely that once I broke from my schedule a switch flicked in my head going "Oh it's already late so I can slack off a bit with it anyway".

    Not entirely satisfied with the update but I had fun with it and I'm definitely gonna have fun with what happens next.
     
    Update 468 - I Burn
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] It would be a good idea to know what is happening with that Beast.

    It had been a long time since the Vraal had tasted this bloodlust.

    The battle across the mountainside had brought the creature down near the base of the mountain. Its opponent was one that looked human, but could not possibly be. The opponent healed from any wound given to her within moments and seemed to only grow more powerful when coated in blood. Prey that refused to die should be frustrating, but the murderous fiend felt nothing but a thrill.

    This is what It had been waiting for.

    When it had marched across an untainted continent and chained its nature at the order of the Dragon, this had been why. This was why It had waited. Why It had withstood the denial of bloodshed for so long.

    The inhuman woman Sang. The sound heralded her own attempt to repay the violence, momentary rejection of her humanity to pull from a power greater. It had to move fast to avoid being gored through by a spear. The protection of her Soul distorted and focused and fired out as a beam, and It had to cut through that beam before it struck.

    The Song died on the inhuman's lips, and It plunged in. Its claws pierced her back and cut through cloth, evoking a scream. But then that scream turned into another Song, and the inhuman moved faster than It could see.

    It was falling before It could react. The mountain seemed to rise higher and higher as it descended, until another mass of rock caught the beast and broke its fall. Pain laced through its form, but It cared not for pain. It was not designed to be broken by pain; Unlike the prey it hunted, there was no pain response to overwhelm it. It felt just enough to know there had been an impact.

    The inhuman descended, and It met the swing of a spear with a swing of a tail.

    The inhuman was stronger than a human had any right to be.

    Her soul reached into the lingering snow around her. That snow rose towards her body and was focused, pressurised. When that pressure was released, it was fast enough that the snow turned into hyper-pressurised water in the air to cut into Its scales.

    The scales withstood, but It was bleeding on the inside.

    When was the last time It had bled?

    It would have been Before. Back when It was not unique, back when Its creator waged war on the darkness and the light alike. The silver-haired man had drawn blood from It as It and It's Kin had ripped his chest apart. It had fallen from the injury, and at the time It had been satisfied that the silver-haired man had died as well.

    But then the silver-haired man had risen, like a puppet on a string. The purple scythe had formed in his hands, and the mere touch spelt death from It's kin. It was only alive because of the bloodletting, leaving the creature unable to stand and fight to die.

    It had few memories after that. It's creator had been killed, perhaps at the hands of the silver-haired man. It had wandered to look for more prey and found nothing but more of It's kin. They grew desperate enough to prey on each other, until eventually It was the only one left.

    Then the Dragon in human skin had approached. He had been injured as well, confused. It had tried to prey upon the Dragon and had been defeated, only for the shadow to consume them both. The Dragon's wish to live had been bound by the shadows and tied a Pact to them both. One could not die without the other dying with them. It would not be able to try to prey upon him again.

    It had raged. It had seethed. It had been bred for war, and it was to hold itself back?

    But now, clashing claw and scale against the spear of the inhuman?

    This was Its purpose, given at last.

    Her blood painted the snow. As they fell from that high, her blood painted the mountainside as well. She seemed to be enjoying it, but It cared not.

    "I wonder…" The inhuman mused. "How should I cook you? You seem unique enough that I won't have many chances to experiment…"

    She spoke like a predator herself. It leapt onto her back and stamped a hoof through her stomach. Even though the protections of her soul were unbroken, she allowed the blow through and stained It's hoof in blood.

    There was a beat of wings. A phantom took to the air. It lunged after the phantom, but the inhuman grabbed Its tail and flung it into the mountainside. It could see something small that smelled of metal fall from the phantom, and the inhuman put it to her ear.

    "Y'ello?" She chirped. "Yeah yeah, I'm fight-"

    The bemused tone in the inhuman's voice died suddenly.

    "...What?" The shock was familiar. It was that of the prey who had thought it safe, only to find the corpse of its companions. Even without responsibility, It felt a thrill at that shock. It's creator had desired beasts of war with sadism to meet their bloodlust, after all.

    "Ruby's…" The inhuman's eyes dulled. "...I see."

    She threw the metal aside, her eyes focused on It once more.

    "I can't play any more games then, can I?" She tilted her head. Spun her spear, cutting into her own stomach in the process. Blood coated the weapon, fell from the tip of the spear like rain as she held it above her.

    When the inhuman started singing, It felt something alien. An emotion it was not designed to feel. It did not even have a name for it, but it came with a certainty.

    It was going to die.

    It threw itself aside with speed faster than It knew. Even then, it was not enough. When the inhuman sang, the mountainside erupted, and It felt lighter.

    It's tail, gone.

    It looked back to see the inhuman scatter her blood to the sky. The air distorted with her soul. It was as if the blood had formed a boundary that collapsed into the inhuman, before shooting out like the water had. The hyper-pressurised air was not sharp enough to cut through It's scales, but it was enough to throw it from the mountainside.

    It would not be enough to kill. It knew that. But It would hurt. The prey had revealed a secret power. What was…

    Claws closed around It. A winged shadow, much like the earlier phantom. It struggled, but the claws carried It upwards and away from gravity.

    It did not last long. When the hyper-pressurised air caught the winged shadow, it fell apart. A single pinprick in its chest, and the creature erupted. But the winged shadow had done enough, and It fell just above the inhuman.

    The inhuman's blood had faded away. She tried to cut herself again, but It knew better this time. It lunged forward, ripping the spear from her hand and flinging it away.

    "Clever boy." The inhuman muttered. "But your master hurt my niece, so I'm done playing game-"

    The ground beneath her erupted. The shadows emerged, like the vines of a tree or reverse roots. They clung around her, tying her in place. She Sang, but the accused Song was drawn into the shadow.

    It lunged at the inhuman, and the inhuman ripped free of the vines instantly. Claw met knuckle. It was thrown back and the girl was bloodied. Her Song grew stronger, and that blood shot at It like a bullet.

    It's leg collapsed.

    Even with the shadow supporting It, this prey was too strong. Frustration built up within It. It would have swept its tail into the mountainside to vent that frustration, but the tail laid bloody on the ground beside it.

    "As I understand it…" The inhuman stepped forward. More roots of shadow burst out of the mountain around her, but she swept her hand and let hyper-pressurised blood tear the roots apart. "Killing the Pact Beast kills the one who bound it in Pact as well-"

    It lunged forward. The speed caught the inhuman off-guard, and her reflexive counterattack was interrupted by the last remaining root catching her wrist. It stabbed its claws into both of her wrists as well and forced her to the ground.

    It could not move except for lunging with It's tail gone and one leg injured, but this pin gave It the threat it would need. The inhuman was more of a monster than It, but her monstrosity was varied. The Song she sang, which was weakened by the shadows. The ability to hyper-pressurise anything as a weapon, which she could not direct like this.

    When it came to pure strength, the two were equal.

    She Sang to reinforce her muscles. The more she Sang, the more It realised It knew that song.

    It was the Song of the Red Sky, distorted by the inhuman who Sang it.

    It was the Song of the sky that the Vraal called home.

    The Beast lowered its maw, fangs tearing apart the inhuman's throat. She Sang regardless, the blood on the inside only intensifying the Song. It leapt away as the Song erupted out of her; Too slow to avoid the force, which overwhelmed the momentum of the leap and threw It into a wall.

    The inhuman whose Song had become a concussive blast remained motionless for a moment. When she stood, it was the shambling movement of a walking corpse. Her eyes were dead for a moment, with life only returning to them slowly.

    That gave It an opportunity. It looked down to the floor beneath the girl. The roots of shadow and the concussive blast had left cracks in the ground.

    It acted on instinct. Its claws pierced the weakened earth of the mountainside. The rock shuddered, and then the earth collapsed.

    The inhuman and the vines alike fell, and It alone remained standing. The crumbling earth stopped too soon for it to collapse with it. That felt strange to It somehow, but It did not question it. It simply waited, until the crumbling earth settled.

    The inhuman would not be killed by something like a mere rockslide. It would need to wait for-

    "Is that all?"

    A stranger's voice drawled through the air. It swung It's claws before even looking, piercing into the chest of a new woman, one dressed in orange-red.

    There was a cut behind her, showing off a red sky. It was the same thing that the girl in the forest had done. Was this-

    "When I was told of this experiment, I was told to be excited." The woman in red continued. Blood slipped from her lips, but she didn't react to the claws through her lungs. She smelled like the shadows, It realised. "A God of a Dead World, partnered with a Dragon? The way she described you, I was concerned she might be replacing me."

    She pulled the claws out of her chest. Her hand was hot to touch, burning away the scales and leaving exposed flesh beneath.

    It tried to pull away, but froze in place.

    "But the experiment isn't over yet." The woman tightened her grip.

    It's leg started to tingle. It was not regeneration, but…

    Time reversal?

    The wound was undone before long. There was a pinch at It's backside, and the familiar feeling of a tail returned as well.

    "I'm not going to interfere for your sake again." The woman in red told the beast. "But it's a bit too soon for your partner to die. Perhaps you should return to his side before it's too late?"

    The partner. The Dragon. It looked over to the other mountain, to see a much greater quantity of falling rock in the distance.

    The inhuman was stronger than It. It knew that the rockslide It had caused would not be enough to kill.

    Could It kill the inhuman, given enough time? Perhaps. The woman in red had said something that kept echoing in It's mind. 'God of a Dead World'. There was a meaning on those words that It could not understand.

    …How had It withstood as many blows as it had? If the hyper-pressurised air had destroyed the winged shadow so instantly, how had It merely lost a tail? How had Its leg remained intact?

    It did not know. But an idea was beginning to form.

    It leapt from the mountainside. It fell beneath where the rocks had settled, and fell further. Its instincts screamed that It had made a mistake, that It would be nothing but a stain once It hit the ground.

    The fall caused It no pain at all.

    With a thought, It knew where the Dragon in human skin was.

    It was time to return to his side.

    ~~~~~​

    Beneath just enough of a rockside to put her on the brink of death, Yang realised what she needed to do.

    She would be taking a bit of a gamble on this one. She was hoping that the magic would work the way she wanted to, which wasn't a guarantee. But she generally seemed to have a good instinct for this, and she was willing to take a bet.

    Her Memory and Thought were partitioned, attached to the body like the strings on a marionette. But the body was giving into the instinct of the Dragons, the sheer overwhelming need to stay alive, to stay out of Bahamut's reach. It was like another set of Thought had come to it, one that could only come when her mind was already gone.

    Maybe this arrangement could be put to good use, Yang thought. Maybe she could guide this berserker state. Or maybe the Power of Dragons would defy her orders, if it meant following that instinct. Yang couldn't risk it, given how close she had come to attacking Ruby last time.

    But if her conscious Thought was in the Seal Remnant now, and if the Power of Dragons had given rise to a new Thought within her soul…

    Who was to say they had to stay like this?

    Who was to say that the Dragon's Thought couldn't be pulled into the Seal, that her human Thought couldn't overtake her body?

    It wasn't an easy hypothesis to test. She tried to prepare Memory and Thought to realign without realigning them in truth, and search her heart for the extra Thought.

    It was like calling upon the Dragon's Roar, the same way she pulled it forth fighting Shuck or Shenron. Just in a new direction. Yang pulled the Dragon's Thought into the Seal Remnant, and she felt her own Thought forced back out in return.

    It was a moment of simultaneous clarity and obscurity. The greater vision of her Branwen magics were suddenly cut away, leaving her blind. But all of a sudden, the puppet's body was a real girl.

    It hurt. It hurt so much. It hurt to the point that the pain was the only thing Yang could feel. Yet at the same time, it didn't hurt as much as it should. Too much of her body was too used to the pain.

    She needed to get out from the rocks. She needed to get back into the fight. Right now, Ruin had unimpeded access to his victim. The War Chief had been screamed last Yang had heard of her; She couldn't rely on the idea that her Aura was still up.

    There was no point wasting time. Yang was just going to have to hope this worked as well as she hoped it did. With her hand stuck by her side, Yang pulled the trigger on Ember Celica.

    She could feel the Dragon's Thought roaring through her body, burning the blue runes of the Seal Remnant into her soul and flesh. The Dust did not detonate. The magic held it, stopped it from exploding. Less than ideal; It meant Yang couldn't just blast the rocks away.

    But then she realised just how much Dust there was.

    Of course. The special-treatment Dust that had been woven into Ember Celica got stronger the more force struck it. A lot of force had hit during the rockslide. And when Yang intermingled her Dust with the Dragon's Roar, it got stronger as a counterattack. The timing to counter had passed, but the Power of Dragons was enhancing the Dust all the same.

    The Dust was pushing rocks away from Yang. She let it flow over her, found her sight replaced with nothing but a golden glow. She was surrounded by the Dust- No, her magic was working through it. The Dust Dragon encircled Yang like a cocoon.

    She willed her body upwards, and the instinct controlling her magic shaped the Dust upwards as well. The Dust Dragon pushed aside rock and stone and pulled Yang's body along with it, until suddenly it stopped.

    The thought had only just started to cross Yang's mind that she wanted to see outside the Dust when it flowed downwards, focusing around her legs and leaving her upper body exposed. She opened her eyes and took in the mountainside around her.

    The Dust Dragon was flying several meters in the air. Yang was vaguely aware that the Dragon's Thought was largely preoccupied keeping the Dust in the proper shape, but as far as her Thoughts went, this didn't take anything. Yang had the thought that she wanted to go to the left, and the Dust enveloped her for another moment. Like a serpent crawling along the dirt, if the dirt was air itself.

    Then the Dust parted again, showing Yang the movement. The Dust Dragon around her moved fast, as fast as the bullets she shot from Ember Celica.

    This… Was useful.

    She had no idea if she'd be able to recreate it without the Power of Dragons unleashed to this degree, but it shouldn't matter. With the kind of enemies she had, she basically always had a metaphorical knife to her throat. Getting back to this state shouldn't be hard.

    But the second it took to think that was a second too long. Ruin was still out there.

    To Ruin, Yang declared. The Dust enveloped her, and she felt a portal open. A moment later, the Dust parted, and Yang was somewhere else.

    She was floating in the air between Ruin and the War Chief. The former was barely injured, but his arm was hanging limp. Something had torn his sleeve away to show the bruise around his shoulder. Yang had just thought she had dislocated it, but it sure looked broken now.

    He was in a better state than Yang was, though it didn't show to anyone but her. The Dust encasing her went high enough to hide the wound in her stomach, the stone stabbing into flesh, and it was holding the wound in place so she didn't bleed any more. Not to mention how badly her legs were hurt. Her arms felt fine enough, and apart from the gash on her forehead she was fine.

    And then there was the War Chief. Her Aura was broken. Her hair had been singed- Yang could see the difference where some of it had burnt away, could see the burnt edges that were still smouldering. Her toga-like outfit had been dirtied and burnt and torn until it was barely more than rags. The bandages around her bust were somehow miraculously intact, at least.

    She was somehow, miraculously, unhurt beyond that. Her Aura was broken, but Ruin hadn't the chance to attack her yet.

    Ruin himself had stopped, looked at Yang with analytical eyes. He was trying to figure her out, figure out how much this Dust could do. Yang would be doing the same in his shoes, she supposed. If a foe she had been fighting and had thought beaten was suddenly back, and suddenly demonstrating flight, she'd want to know what was going on before she risked attacking them and falling into a trap.

    A moment of peace was all the War Chief needed.

    "Dad."

    Ruin turned to look at the girl. Confusion spread across his fate.

    "You're still in there, aren't you?" She asked. "Please. Remember me."

    Ruin stared at the War Chief for a moment longer. Yang considered pushing the attack now, but found herself unable to.

    …If that was her, having the chance to maybe get through to her mother, she'd…

    Ruin interrupted the thought by raising his good hand. It paused by his left ear, then flickered. Blood erupted, and the flesh at the side of his head fell. Before the War Chief could cry out, he repeated the process on his right.

    "No tricks." Ruin declared. "I know what you are."

    Yang wasn't looking through her magic sight herself, but the mere beginning of the question in her mind was answered by the instinct. It conjured the image of the War Chief's expression to her mind as her face fell, as the grief hit, as she realised that she wouldn't be able to reason with the man.

    The Dragon's Thought told Yang that Ruin was moving before her eyes caught it. The Dust Dragon enveloped her, and she descended.

    The Dust parted just as Yang started to swing her fist. Ruin stumbled at the sudden impact. With a thought, the Dust Dragon encircled him and Yang struck him in the back before he could finish stumbling. The Roar screamed in Yang's ear to warn her, and she retreated before the wings could counterattack. She at least had the choice in the matter, like this. Then she urged the Dust back in to chop Ruin in the throat.

    Ruin took wing and shot into the air. Yang followed him, the Dust flickering around her every half-second to show her the battlefield as she ascended. The Dragon's Thought warned her of every projectile, every spine emerging from the black mass, and she was able to choose to dodge them all.

    The Dust enclosed around Yang, and heat blossomed in the world around her. She knew there was fire on the other side. She didn't trust herself to look. There was some sort of threshold where she could push through, she had managed it back in the Battle of Fafnir, but she wasn't willing to risk it now.

    The heat faded and Yang emerged, punching Ruin in the gut. Her hand started to pull away to dodge, but his hand closed around hers before she could do so. His head shot forward fast enough that Yang never even saw it move, and she felt the gash on her forehead grow wider, felt more blood seep out of her head.

    But it wasn't enough. Yang punched back, catching Ruin in the head, and saw more blood fall from his torn ears as the impact shook his skull. It was enough that his hand loosened around Yang, and she fell away.

    The Dust carried her through a portal to behind Ruin, and she grabbed his left wing. She was tired of dealing with these. Her fist cocked back and shot like a thunderbolt, piercing through the membrane explosively. The hole was a lot bigger than Yang's fist, and the wing was left useless.

    Yang let go, and Ruin fell. White spines shot out of his back as he fell, and Yang caught them in portals.

    Another portal opened. Yang landed behind Ruin.

    Would this be enough to finish him? Yang tried to do the math. The easiest way to actually stop him might be to break his Aura so that the War Chief's Semblance could- No, that wouldn't work. Yang had seen Ruin's Semblance back in the bar fight. He could reflect purely the negative consequences of another's Semblance. Yang didn't want to risk the War Chief catching the backlash while Ruin was healed to full.

    She'd just need to stop him the good old fashioned way.

    Ruin's remaining good wing lashed out beneath him. Yang followed the instinct of the Dragon to dodge it, then drove her fist upwards. She caught Ruin in the gut, the gravity and her fist coming together to make him hurt. The black Grimm-mass on Ruin's side tore away. Not the entirety of it, but a lot of it.

    Yang grinned. She could finish-

    The Dragon's Roar warned her, but Yang couldn't actually dodge in time. She knew exactly where the attack was coming from - Behind her, from something leaping. Something with claws, something not human. The Vraal.

    She couldn't dodge, but she did what she could. The attempt to dodge pulled the Dust around her in a protective shell- Except it wasn't enough against the Vraal's claws, which cut through the Dust regardless. The shell dulled the blow, but it was only enough that the claws stopped at bone instead of cleaving through them.

    Yang cried out as she pulled away. When the Dust shell parted, she left it intact over her hurt arm. She didn't need to see it to know how bad the damage was. The arm wasn't going to be moving too good, and trying to force the issue would just hurt it more.

    Shit. The Vraal was here. What happened to Fi-

    The Vraal surged towards the War Chief. Yang ripped her through a portal and held her in the air until her wings returned. She lingered in the air, and Yang looked down at Ruin and the Vraal.

    Ruin stomped on the earth beneath him. The earth exploded upwards, and Ruin grabbed the most solid rock in sight. He threw it upwards, and Yang caught it in a portal.

    "You think that's gonna be enough!" Yang bellowed. It was to a man who had rendered himself unable to hear, but Yang was speaking for herself. "After Zero, after Cinder, you think you can kill me with a fucking rock? Who the hell do you think you are!"

    She plunged through a portal and slammed into Ruin, without even parting the Dust. She tackled him through another portal, throwing him far from the Vraal. The War Chief plummeted to drive the wing of light into Ruin to pin him in place, but the flailing of his bad arm was enough to break through the wing of light.

    Alright. Two on two, except the War Chief was fragile. If she still had her Aura, Yang would tell her to go for the Vraal. Except no, the Vraal would break her Aura instantly, so maybe it was still worthwhile?

    Where was Five, how did it get away from Five?

    The Dragon's Thought responded with a pulse, If she was looking for Five, she was- dangerous monstrous the enemy kill her kill her now portal to-

    Yang pulled herself away from it before she plunged herself through the portal. She forced herself not to think about it, not to-

    Five stepped through the portal, and the roaring redouble. Get her get her kill her before she can-

    Stop, stop, stop.

    "Yang?" Five's voice was like acid in her ear, the melody the- "What the-

    " Stop the Vraal( Stop the Vraal) !" Yang roared. The Intoner winced, and Yang saw something in her eye, but the older woman obeyed the order. She surged at her designated opponent, and Yang turned to Ruin.

    She wasn't going to trust herself around this feeling, she wasn't going to risk her ability to use this Dragon in combat without hurting Five, which meant she needed to end this soon. And if Ruin was the Dragon of Mistral, there was the risk that he might have the same ability. Yang needed to end this, fast.

    So when she descended upon Ruin, she didn't even try to dodge his fist.

    The blow caught the Dust, and the force dispersed through her. It didn't punch through her, but every single cell of her body shook. The gash in her head bled even more, the stone in her stomach drove in harder. The cut on her arm widened. Whatever was going on with her legs must have gotten worse.

    But in that moment, Yang had the counterattack.

    The Dust that emerged when she pulled the trigger wasn't comparable to the Dust that had torn through Shuck Baskerville, or the Dust that Yang had pulled from the landslide. But it was enough to spear Ruin in the chest, enough to shove him backwards and drive him into the mountainside. The Dust detonated, and the mountain erupted.

    Yang panted as she hung in place. Ruin's silhouette emerged from the dust cloud, unmoving and broken.

    He was unconscious, Yang realised.

    She had won.

    …Not yet. The Vraal was still there. Yang didn't trust her senses that far back without her, not with Five there. She turned her body instead.

    The Vraal looked at Ruin, flicking its tail to push Five away. The Intoner responded by firing a beam of hyper-pressurised Aura like light, but the Vraal dodged. Her Aura was a lot slower than light, apparently.

    Then the Vraal took off, surging up the mountain. Five pursued. Yang wanted to chase after them, but…

    But joining a fight with Five while she was like this seemed like a mistake. And Yang didn't think she had it in her to join the fight without this trick.

    She moved to the War Chief's side. "War, how are you holding up?"

    "...I don't know." The War Chief looked to her father. "...He tore his ears off to avoid hearing me speak."

    "...Whoever wiped his memory must've told him something to send him after you." Yang noted. "Whatever it was, I guess it was convincing."

    The War Chief turned to Yang. "You called him Ruin earlier. Had you met him before?"

    "Once." Yang admitted. "Didn't know who he was. He had pictures that were important to him. Don't remember what they were. Maybe you can figure them out if you can find the pictures."

    The War Chief looked to Yang. "Are you well?"

    "Don't worry about me." Yang answered. "Do what you need to do."

    The War Chief nodded, then moved to Ruin.

    Yang felt something above her. One of Weiss' phantoms, the Nevermore. It dropped a walkie-talkie at Yang, and she held it to her ear.

    "Hello?"

    "Yang, what the hell?" Weiss sounded shocked. "What's-"

    "No time to explain." Yang answered. "Situation. Is Ruby awake?"

    "Not yet." Weiss answered. "Yang, you're hurt-"

    "If Ruby isn't awake, Five is the only one who can help me." Yang answered. "...Or the War Chief. They can both heal me, but only once the Vraal is done. I can't use this power around Five, it's the Dragon and Intoner thing. Got anything?"

    "There's backup coming." Weiss answered. "Based on the last ping, they're almost here. If Five can hold off-"

    "Perfect." Yang answered. "Five can't die, so she'll be fine."

    She didn't like the answer, but Yang didn't know what else she could do. She wasn't gonna send anyone who wasn't immortal after the Vraal, so that just left the one person who was already fighting it and the girl who was unconscious.

    "I'll portal up soon." Yang threw the walkie-talkie back at the phantom Nevermore, and the ghost caught it in its talons.

    She wasn't going to trust this was over until it was over. Until she knew the Vraal was gone, Yang was just going to sit here and keep her senses open.

    "Dad…" The War Chief spoke over Ruin's body. "What did they do to you? How long have you…"

    Yang turned back to her.

    …Poor girl. Shit, at least Yang knew the corpse of her mother being sent after her was a corpse. Ruin had his memory erased, but he was still his own person. That's got to sting.

    "How do I make it better?" The War Chief asked. "How do I bring you back? You'll come back, right? I've waited…

    Yang watched as the War Chief searched his pockets. She found the photographs before long, and she stopped to look at one.

    Even from this distance, Yang could see what it was. A woman with a baby. She recognised the woman from the Blood Memory. The War Chief's mother. Which meant the baby was…

    The War Chief closed her eyes to blink back tears. Yang looked away. She ought to give the girl some privacy.

    "...If I bring you to the statue." The girl muttered to herself. "Would that make it better? Would you remember me if I did that? Or if I…"

    The War Chief trailed off. Yang felt her the Dragon's Roar start to rumble. Danger? She looked around, but couldn't see any Grimm or the Vraal.

    "Please work." The War Chief muttered. The moment she spoke, Yang knew what was about to happen. "Please remember me."

    Yang portaled to her side, but it was too late.

    The War Chief's hand was on Ruin's forehead. Her Semblance flashed.

    Ruin opened his eyes.

    Yang watched as his wounds stitched themselves back together. His arm, his wings, even the bruises on his torso. Excepting the mass of Grimm matter that had disappeared, he was good as new.

    And then his Aura shimmered. The Semblance flowed back, and Yang saw the light leave the War Chief's eyes. She collapsed, like a puppet without strings.

    Stupid, stupid, stupid.

    Yang couldn't blame the girl. Yang didn't know if she had ever told her what Ruin's Semblance was. And even if she did…

    Yang tried to imagine what she'd do if that was Raven before her. Maybe, just maybe…

    But there was no time to think, so the curse echoed through Yang's head regardless.

    Ruin pulled himself from the wall. Good as new. Even his ears had grown back.

    Yang didn't have time to waste. She couldn't let him stay around the War Chief's body for even a second.

    A portal opened behind Ruin. Yang let the Dust envelope her and tackled into him, forced him through.

    This wasn't a fight Yang could win, but Weiss had said backup was coming. Yang just needed to buy time. And all she needed to do for that was keep him away from the War Chief.

    The two emerged on the other side of the portal, where this battle would have to end.

    [X] They fought within the Legacy. Perhaps, with these bricks of memory…
    [X] They fought upon the lake. If any help was going to come, the dead centre of this mountain area would be the easiest place for backup to notice a fight.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] They fought within the Legacy. Perhaps, with these bricks of memory…

    Throw them in his face! Yang will need a lot of downtime after this fight that's for sure.
     
    [X] They fought within the Legacy. Perhaps, with these bricks of memory…

    Bit of a hail mary, but the situation warrants it.
     
    Update 469 - Nick of Time
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] They fought within the Legacy. Perhaps, with these bricks of memory…

    The snow was falling heavier than it was before. Yang had to wonder why. Some effect of the magic, from the Legacy or from Ruin himself? Coincidence? Perhaps it was fate.

    It didn't matter. When Yang tackled Ruin through the portal, he fell to the ground unprepared. Yang kept rocketing forward, only stopping when she collided with the side of the tower.

    Nothing came of the touch, but Yang needed a moment to catch herself.

    She was hurt. Bad. She had to get hurt to use the counterattack technique, but now her foe had been completely restored and Yang herself was still hurt. She had been close enough to death before that for the Power of Dragons to overwhelm her with instinct, and even if she had used that instinct as a second wind she had only gotten more hurt since then.

    But it wasn't like Yang could stop.

    She pushed off the wall and spun in the air, the Dust holding her aloft spinning with her. Ruin was already on his feet again by the time Yang was turning to face him, running forward with a fist reeled back.

    Yang called for a weapon other than her fists. The instinct embedded within the Seal Remnant pulled one of the memory bricks to her hand. As Ruin charged, Yang threw the brick as hard as she could.

    The brick didn't carry any of the Power of Dragons. Unlike Yang's hand, the blow would be caught by his Aura. But Yang had a feeling, and she needed to test it.

    The feeling was right. Perhaps it was born of the same instinct that was managing her magic right now. The brick flickered through the air, and Yang heard the sound barrier break. When the brick struck Ruin in the arm, his Aura shattered.

    Yang grinned. If nothing else in this situation was going well, at least Yang had this sick satisfaction. With her Semblance pushed to the limit, with the Dragon's Roar reinforcing her body, Yang was strong.

    But so was Ruin. He punched forward, and the air rippled around his fist. The shockwave of it pushed Yang against the wall. The brick falling by his side shattered, and the shards shot towards Yang like the spread of a shotgun.

    Yang let the Dust coat her and surged forward. Like a dragon soaring through the snow. She could feel the heat around her increasing as she did so, and she didn't know if it was her soul or Ruin's breath.

    It didn't matter either way. Yang emerged from the Dust and punched forward. She had been aiming to break Ruin's nose, but she knew her fist would be missing before the Dust had parted through her eyes.

    She also knew Ruin's hand was pushing up beneath her before she actively saw it. She rolled to the side to evade the blow, then fired Ember Celica. Ruin's wing batted the projectile out of the way, but Yang's soul grabbed the Dust Round and transformed it into a Dust Dragon, circled it around Ruin.

    Ruin shifted his head, rotating it two or three degrees. His ear twitched as he heard the Dust Dragon cackle, the subtle sound of Dust in the air.

    …His ear?

    Oh. Yang hadn't thought about it, but of course his ears would have been healed. The War Chief's Semblance healed everything, after all.

    And as injured as she was, Yang being able to talk to Ruin gave her options.

    "What do you think you're doing?" Yang asked. "Why do you think you're here?"

    "I could ask the same, Dragon of Vale." The Dragon of Mistral responded. "Did you not swear to stay out of my way?"

    "Do you even know where you are?" Yang asked. Ruin shoulder-charged her, and she pulled to the side to dodge him. She tried to grab his wing as he flew past, but she sensed the flames in her mind before she felt the heat on her skin.

    She teleported away, hiding behind the other side of the wall. She fired a few more Dust Rounds, let the Dust Dragons fill the air outside the Legacy. The snow by the side of the wall was melting from the heat within.

    "Don't try to trick me." Ruin snarled. "She warned me of what to expect. I know exactly what happened here."

    "No you don't." Yang answered. "I saw the Memory that was left behind. I know who you were before you lost your memory."

    Ruin was charging from the other end of the wall. Yang surged up and out, the Dust shielding her from the exploding bricks as Ruin charged through the wall. His wings beat and carried him upwards, and the battle was rejoined in the air.

    Yang couldn't afford to take risks. Any blow, even one that looked safe, might be enough to tear one of her existing wounds enough to bleed her out. Without any feeling to her legs, she wouldn't notice if the broken bone stabbed through flesh.

    But Ruin wasn't much better-off. Like this, Yang had been able to take down his Aura in a single blow. Even if he was tough enough to take a few more blows, especially without Yang fighting to kill, he couldn't exactly afford to take hits.

    Yang let the Dust carry her through the air, circling him like a moon with an erratic, inconsistent orbit. Keep him guessing, keep him on the defensive. Every time Yang emerged to punch or to fire Ember Celica, he had to move fast with his fists or his wings to deflect the blow.

    The Dust Rounds Yang had fired off earlier, the Dust Dragons she was forging even now, they joined in Yang's orbit. More things for Ruin to keep track of, as they joined Yang in her erratic orbit. Ruin tried to fly off, but Yang was in close pursuit.

    She was reaching the limit of how much she could delegate to the Dragon's Instinct. She gave it one more task. Look for a very specific Memory Brick for now.

    "She wasn't lying, you know!" Yang had to shout to speak over the sound of the roaring wind. "Why would she heal you if she didn't know who you were?"

    Ruin shot hellfire down at Yang. Even with her eyes trailing it, she found herself pushing through. She kept her mind off of it in case overthinking it brought the trauma response back to its peak.

    "I won't be tricked." Ruin declared. "I may have given my Memory to the Pact, but I won't be tricked by-"

    " What do you think is happening( What do you think is happening) ?" Yang slammed her full weight into Ruin. The frustration she felt in that moment was enough for her to forget self-preservation, enough that she didn't think about how tackling Ruin gave him the chance to punch at her stomach. His knuckle hit the jagged stone in her gut and drove it in further, but Yang pushed through it.

    In for a penny, in for a pound. Yang rode the momentum down, overwhelming Ruin's attempts at flight. Her Dust Dragons closed in on Ruin's wings, and he twisted them so that the bone and scales would bat the Dust out of the air.

    He messed up only once. A Dust Dragon bit into membrane and detonated. The hole in his wing wasn't big enough to keep him from flying, but it'd make it harder.

    Before Yang hit the ground, her instinct found the Memory Brick she was looking for. She called it to her hand as she punched Ruin in the gut in turn, striking into the Grimm matter.

    When the Grimm matter produced another bone spike, it protrude from the exact space that Yang was trying to punch into. The instinct of Dragons had to sense something to warn her of it, and there was never a time where the spike existed until it was already stabbing through her hand.

    Yang cried out, but the Memory Brick rose up to hit Ruin all the same. His eyes glazed over as he hit the ground.

    Yang didn't have time to waste. She pulled away, taking into account the state of her hands.

    She had overlooked the cut on her arm, as coated by Dust as it was. She was only remembering it now that she could remember that both arms were injured. One above the elbow, the other with a spike stuck in her hand. She didn't want to pull it out in case it just bled more.

    If she left her upper arm coated in Dust, Yang could maybe try to punch while only moving the flesh below the elbow. It was going to be frustrating. It wasn't like Yang could shape this Dust freely, let it turn into armour over specific parts to hold injuries in place. When she grabbed it, it became a Dust Dragon. She could dismiss parts of it, but that only went so far.

    But enough of that. Yang could make this work. She could still fire Ember Celica, still use Dust Dragons. She had ways to fight. And right now, she had an opening.

    Yang had no idea how long it took for someone to experience a Memory. She didn't know how long Ruin would be distracted. But Yang should have time now to go for the Memory that mattered.

    The one she had driven into Ruin's back had been the Memory of Ruin fighting Zero, or someone who looked like her. The fact that it was his Memory might do something, but Yang didn't expect it to convince him of anything. Maybe he'd dismiss it as a lie conjured up by a curse. Maybe he knew to expect it - Yang still didn't know what Ruin thought was happening.

    Maybe he knew this was his home, and he just thought that the War Chief had driven him out of it somehow. Yang had to assume that the voice in the Dark would have pinned the death of his lover on the War Chief, if he had the photographs on him still.

    Which brought Yang to the plan. The Blood Memory showing how that woman died, to seeing that the voice in the Dark was capable of replacing memories if let in, was behind a hidden wall. While Ruin was disabled, Yang just had to open it up.

    She just had to figure out how.

    Her instincts were coming up blank against it. Yang reached into it with her magic, but all she got back was opened with a wing. A shame that Yang's Dust Dragon had no wings, a shame that it was a serpent more than a winged lizard.

    Movement behind Yang. Ruin was on his feet again. Yang disappeared into a portal before he could strike her, appeared on the other side of him.

    "What do you hope to gain from your illusions?" Ruin asked. Alright, so he thought the Memory Bricks were lies. "I know the truth of the matter-"

    " Then tell me( Then tell me) !" Yang thundered. " What do you think is happening( What do you think is happening) ?"

    " I don't owe answers to anyone( I don't owe answers to anyone) !"     Ruin punched forward. Yang darted in, the Dust Dragon weaving around his arm to let Yang headbutt him. He stepped back once to brace himself, then headbutt Yang back. Even with her magic telling her it was coming, Yang was only halfway through a dodge before the headbutt put her into a wall.

    " You interfere with my battle, my revenge, and demand an explanation( You interfere with my battle, my revenge, and demand an explanation) ?" Ruin's voice was returning to his usual semi-calm, but now that he had spoken with anger Yang could hear the passive malice in his voice. I am here to( I am here to) -

    "-Avenge the woman in the photograph?" Yang was surprised her voice came out normal, without the echo of Dragons. That… Probably wasn't good.

    Yang could tell Ruin was surprised. He didn't show it, but the fact that he stopped talking said enough.

    "She wasn't killed by the War Chief." Yang continued. "I can show you the memory of how she died-"

    Ruin punched the air. Yang felt the shockwave hit her, felt the air leave her lungs at the pressure on her chest. She had to bite her tongue to stop herself from crying out in pain. Ruin took the time to reach for his ears again, and Yang had to teleport behind him and tackle him forward.

    "Are you scared?" Yang projected her voice, let it echo through the Tower of the Legacy. "Scared that you're wrong? Scared you ripped my sister's heart out for nothing?!"

    Ruin's wing anchored him into the ground, letting him spin and kick Yang in the face. She felt a tooth rip free, so she spat it out as she looked back up to Ruin.

    She fired Ember Celica as fast as she could, grabbing hold of each Dust Round with her soul. She held the Dust Dragons close to her chest until Ruin was back on his feet, until Ruin was lunging forward again. Then she unleashed them all at once, a flower blooming for the first time.

    Ruin beat his left wing, sending himself flying to the side. Then he leapt over another Dust Dragon. Once in the air, he took flight to dodge around the Dust Dragons.

    Yang put most of her attention on the Dust Dragons. Even if she could trust the Dragon's Instinct to take care of the finer details for her, she could strategise more if she was actively watching and giving the orders. It let her pull some Dust Dragons away to circle around and intercept, put more holes in Ruin's wings.

    Keep him busy. Keep him off-foot. Create enough room for Yang to reach for the Blood Memory and pull it free. If she couldn't work the trick to open it, she'd just need to put a hole in the wall to-

    " Enough( Enough) ."

    Ruin intoned the command and punched downwards.

    Yang braced herself for a shakewave, but the air was untouched by the blow. The world seemed to stand still.

    Then the Dust Dragons started to detonate.

    Against Yang's wishes and without a command, starting from the Dust Dragons closest to Ruin's arm. The ones above him detonated when they were the same distance as the ones detonating below him. A sphere was forming around him of Dust detonating.

    And Yang was, at this moment, surrounded by Dust.

    She flung herself free of her Dust Dragon, letting her body hit the snow. The Dust Dragon she left behind was massive, and she didn't want it anywhere near her when it exploded. A portal opened above the Dust, and she flung the whole thing at Ruin.

    The dust-detonating shockwave was already far from Ruin, so the massive Dust Dragon caught him from above. It plummeted downwards and carried Ruin with it until it caught up with the shockwave, and then it detonated as well. Yang heard Ruin cry out.

    And then there was silence. Yang looked up, but all she could see was dust and scattered snow.

    Yang was breathing heavily. Fuck, she was hurt. Fuck, she was hurt. She was going to need a hospital for a while after this.

    There was a distant sound that Yang couldn't place. A whistle? A jet? Yang was hoping it was the airship with Weiss, or maybe the backup. But whatever it was-

    Yang felt the shockwave with her Instinct before she felt it with her flesh. All at once, the dust and snow scattered.

    At the centre of the cleared space was Ruin. He was hurt bad too, but he was standing.

    His wings were tattered, the membranes completely torn off. He was standing with his back to Yang, and she could see spaces on his back where the detonation had torn through the holes that were already there, gouging out flesh and leaving him burnt in the collateral.

    But he was standing.

    He turned to Yang, showing a face bruised and burnt and hurt. He had one arm raised, and the flesh of the skin looked raw. The other arm was in a worse condition - Even if Yang couldn't see any injury that was specifically worse, the way it was hanging made it look painful to move.

    But he was standing.

    And even if it wasn't for the back-breaking injury Zero had given her months ago, Yang wouldn't be able to stand with her wounds.

    " It's over( It's over) ."

    Yang had to agree.

    She really hoped the sound she heard earlier was backup. She really, really hoped that there was someone else here. Yang might be done, and Ruin might be standing, but she had gotten her licks in. Ruin had no Aura, and even the strongest of humans could only withstand so much without their Aura.

    Hell, if it was just Galatea descending, she might be able to win this. It wouldn't be easy, but-

    Ruin stepped closer, one step at a time. His mouth was smoking. And then-

    "Halt!"

    A shadow descended. Ruin leapt away, and the shadow landed in the space where he had been.

    It took one look for Yang to recognise that she didn't know who this person was- No, that wasn't right. This person was a stranger to her, but she'd seen them before.

    It seemed like One had pulled out all the stocks when sending backup.

    He was wearing a jacket, left unzipped over his otherwise bare torso. The body he showed off was hairy, varying white and black in a repeating pattern. The hair on his head fit the pattern, as did the ears poking out of the side of his head.

    "It seems that I arrived in the nick of time." The man declared. He stood, revealing to Yang the large belt he had on his waist. There was a golden emblem on the front, depicting a tiger lunging at an unseen prey.

    "Who are you, Tiger?" Ruin asked. His voice had lost the echo of Dragons. Weakness on his behalf, or mere surprise?

    "A rescue effort." The man declared. He took a stance, his back foot flat on the ground and his front foot half-raised, the heel several inches off the ground while the balls of his feet were pressed down. His body was relaxed, but his arms were raised and ready to strike. "But it's impolite to fight without offering a name."

    He extended a hand to Ruin.

    "Taiga Takeda." The man declared. "Champion of Mistral. I will be your opponent today."

    ~~~~~​

    The Vraal and its foe stood surrounded by blood-red snow.

    The battle had been dragged out too long. It may be a creature of murder and violence, but It had not fought a foe such as this girl before. The consequence of efficient and overwhelming death was that the Vraal was unused to foes that could regenerate seemingly endlessly; The Intoner was going to outlast It.

    But it mattered not. It sent a query to the Dragon who was a Man, and he sent back a curt reply. He was engaged in battle, and his foe was not immortal. Once he was done, he would simply come to deal with the girl. Every time the girl Sang, it was clear that her power was somehow an antithesis to the Dragon. Even if the Vraal could not kill her, the Dragon would be capable of it.

    So the Vraal simply had to fight to survive.

    A harder task than it seemed. The longer the battle extended, the more feral the girl's attack grew. She had grown a habit of flinging her blood into It's eyes, and had at one pointed attempted to bite It, as if It was prey and not predator.

    But even if the Intoner could heal endlessly, she had not infinite stamina. She was tiring. It was not a slow affair, either. Just as the Vraal was unused to battles that grew long, the Intoner was unused to having to be on the back foot for this long.

    There was a distant thud, like a gun being fired in the distance. The Intoner looked to the source, and the Vraal bounced upon her. In the conflict thus far, It had identified where to strike to truly harm her. It's claws in her throat would not just create a complicated wound, but the blood she drowned upon would need to be healed from as well.

    As she stumbled, the Vraal turned to the sound as well.

    Peaking out of the clouds was a giant metal machine, the sort that It's Pact Partner had used to travel to and from the land of shadows. And from that machine were two pods. The Vraal did not understand the meaning behind what the Pact Partner had called those pods, but it knew it was used for prey fleeing a ship once it had been compromised.

    But here, the pods were being used to enter battle. The first was shooting towards the peak of the mountain; The second was descending upon the Vraal itself.

    It leapt away, climbing up the mountain. As It climbed, It pierced the mountainside with Its claws, and struck the mountain behind It with Its tail to weaken the stone. Once It reached the top, It struck one final time. The mountain collapsed behind it-

    The pod in the sky above it burst open. A silhouette leapt out, imprinted against the light reflected on the clouds above. A few smaller shadows suddenly shot away from the silhouette; One flung upwards into the sky, and another down near the Vraal.

    Not at the Vraal. Even with that distance, It was capable of reading the distance enough to know It was not being targeted. The smaller shadow - A sickle, It realised - Struck the rock of the in-process landslide and then detonated.

    When the rockslide concluded, the Intoner was uncovered.

    The explosive sickle had detonated perfectly to ensure she was left untouched. Rocks had fallen at every possible point around her, including between her legs and in the space between her arms and torso. But not a single hair on her head was covered.

    Its new foe had foreseen it. It was the only explanation. But how-

    The silhouette landed on the snow in front of It.

    She was old. She had the stance of a warrior. Those two things alone were deadly. Warriors who grew old did not grow so by being weak. If the woman was standing before It, then she was no coward.

    She was wearing a mask over her fact, resembling the skull of Its prey. The eyes of the mask were solid black. So she blinded herself, or was blind already. Yet it was still a skilled warrior. What cheat did this one have?

    She was wearing a cloak with feathers coating it around her neck, and inside the cloak were a dozen of those sickle-like weapons. She left them untouched, instead focusing on the weapons in her hands. They were sickle-like as well, but were bigger. Kamas, It knew. Small scythes, with a connector to join them together into one. The scythe blades were emerging out of ornaments resembling skulls.

    She lunged at It. It dodged and swept It's tail, but she dodged before It had even begun moving. How? It was as if she knew what It was doing before It was doing it. She twirled her weapons and cut at claw and tail, pushing It back. It swept It's tail across to try to cause rocks to small, but the woman threw one of her weapons upwards. The rocks were cut in half, and the woman leapt up to grab her weapon again.

    She leapt back suddenly, landing beside the Intoner.

    "Ah, help." The Intoner observed. "Pass me a weapon?"

    "You wouldn't know how to use them." The newcomer's age was apparent even in her voice. "Leave it to me, dearie."

    "I'm not going to do that-"

    It lunged, but the woman once again moved even before It did. She kicked at It, but the force was not enough to kick it away.

    There was a look of acceptance on the warrior's face. Even as It drove It's claws into the woman, even as it gouged at her Aura, It knew that she had only hurt the woman because she allowed herself to be hurt.

    …No, because she accepted that she would be hurt.

    Even if she could predict Its movements, she was not omnipotent. She was not unbeatable.

    That was all It needed.

    The next few moments were a flurry of scythe blades and claws. It moved fast and struck faster. If the woman could predict movement, then It would simply have to overwhelm her until no movement was enough to dodge.

    But the entire battle was joined by a conversation, of all things.

    "Give me a weapon!" The Intoner declared. She charged at the Vraal, and It batted her away with It's tail.

    "What happened to your own, hm?" The skull-masked woman asked. "If you are so easily disarmed, why should I trust you with one of my weapons?"

    There was no reply. The woman swung one of her kama at It, and It let the blade cut into her scales. Then it tried to pull the weapon away, but the woman pulled a trigger and fired the weapon out of the Vraal with the recoil of a gun.

    "You might be an Intoner, but this isn't a fight for you." The woman continued to speak. It was as if she did not need to give It all of her attention. That was infuriating. "When you fight against a monster, only those who can dedicate themselves to the fight can survive."

    It swung Its tail, but the short woman simply leapt over the swing. She landed on the tail and rode It, even as It charged towards the nearest bit of mountainside to slam the tail into.

    "Don't you underestimate me."

    The Intoner charged the Vraal suddenly. It plunged Its claws forward and stabbed through her heart, but she raised her knee and pinned It into the wall.

    The Vraal had Its entire arm through the girl's chest. She was bleeding from the mouth, but she had fire in her eyes.

    "I can't dedicate myself to a fight, can I?" The Intoner asked. "Who do you think you are talking to?"

    The woman with the skull-mask ran up the Vraal's body. She put the scythe-blade to the Vraal's throat and cut, but was unable to penetrate scales.

    "I dedicate myself to everything I do." The Intoner kept laughing. "It's the only way to have any fun in this world, y'know."

    "Fun, is it?" The woman on the Vraal's back tut-tutted. "Even with a wound like that?"

    "Yes, fun." The Intoner declared. "I'm a lot happier than most people I know."

    The Vraal flung Its arm aside, throwing the Intoner aside as well. The skull-faced woman leapt off Its back, landed next to the other girl.

    "But even I have my limit." The girl continued. "My cute niece is hurt because of this thing's Pact Partner. Give me a weapon. Or don't. This thing pissed me off, so I'm going to have fun killing it."

    There was a moment of silence. The Vraal tried to lunge forward, only for a rock from above to land on it. The Intoner seemed surprised, but the old woman was smiling. Had she planned this?

    "Hm, alright." The woman handed the girl one of her kamas. "I didn't actually care that much, y'know? You could have just told me what actually happened to your weapon, and I would've done this even without that-"

    "You talk to much." The girl interrupted. "If you're gonna talk my ear off, at least fuck me first."

    The woman ignored the comment, lunging towards the Vraal once more.

    And thus the battle was rejoined.

    Or it would have been, if not for—

    ~~~~~​

    If it wasn't for Yang's experience watching people faster than her move, she wouldn't be able to keep up with the brawl happening before her eyes.

    Even with his body pushed to the limit, Ruin was fast. Was he always this fast, even when Yang had been fighting him? She couldn't quite recall.

    But the newcomer, fresh as he was, was even faster.

    For the first few seconds, the two simply exchanged blows. A punch to the chest was met with a punch to the upper-torso, was met with a punch to the side. Ruin grabbed hold of Taiga's shoulder with his weaker-looking arm and punched the side of his body three times in rapid succession before Taiga rolled his shoulder, using his arm to throw the hand off of him.

    Then his hand, close as it was to Ruin's face, suddenly jolted forward and punched.

    Ruin recoiled like he had been hit by a haymaker, even though the punch had only moved one inch. How-

    Oh. Yang had heard rumours before, of warriors in Mistral who used their body and Aura in perfect unison. They could build momentum throughout their entire body, then move their fist an inch and punch with the force needed to kill a man.

    Ruin was not dead, but Yang didn't doubt that that had been what she had just seen.

    "Again!" Taiga suddenly declared. "Fu!"

    He stepped forward and punched. Wind gathered around his fist, and as he punched the wind followed. That wind took the form of an afterimage, punching twice after the fist had hit once.

    "Rin!" Taiga's other hand struck Ruin in the stomach. His hand flashed brown like wood, and a sudden green spike emerged in his hand. He punched through the Grimm matter, and left a plant-spike impaling through the green matter. A bone spike shot out at him in return, but it shattered against his Aura.

    "Ka!" Taiga struck again. His hand was engulfed with flame, and the wooden spike in Ruin's stomach caught flame as the blow struck home.

    Ruin struck back at last, slamming his forehead into Taiga's. The Tiger Faunus withstood the blow, his head unmoving. Both warriors stood head to head.

    "Zan!" Taiga's hand went wide. Ruin's good arm mirrored the movement. The two fists passed by each other, close enough to touch, before both warriors punched each other in the cheek.

    The force of the cross-counter was enough that the slowly-gathering snow was pushing away again, and Yang felt her hair billow in the wind created by the blow.

    Taiga's fist and cheek were like stone. Ruin's cheek and hand were both bloodied. Yet neither warrior was anywhere close to done.

    "Rin!" Taiga declared again. He jumped back, his fists held in a guard. When Ruin charged forward, Taiga let vines shoot out of his wooden fists. The vines moved to bind Ruin, to hold him in place.

    Right. Hold him in place. Yang had hoped to keep Ruin in place earlier, because-

    Because she needed to get the Blood Memory.

    The battle continued. Ruin kicked Taiga hard enough to send him flying outside the tower, but the vines wrapping him in place pulled Ruin out with him.

    This was the best chance she was going to get.

    Yang teleported to the side of the tower. She punched through stone as she fell, punching through and closing her grip around the Blood Memory. Once it was secure in her hand, Yang used her magic senses to find a place with an overlooking view.

    Yang teleported on a perch in the half-built tower, looking down as Ruin and Taiga continued their battle.

    "Fu!" Taiga coated himself in the wind. Ruin punched forward, and the wind carried Taiga in a perfect half-circle around Ruin. He punched once, between the wings, before the remaining muscles on the wings fell down upon his shoulders like knives. "Zan!"

    And then Taiga's body turned to stone. Ruin's blows were going through Taiga's Aura, and Yang could see the bruises even through the stone, but his body was absolutely more durable like that.

    Then he stepped forward, and the earth shook. Yang fell from her perch, but Ruin was unmoving. Taiga cancelled the earthquake by raising his foot again.

    Yang didn't see what the Tiger Faunus did next. She opened a portal as she fell, emerging above her foe.

    " RUIN( RUIN) !" Yang screamed her heart into the world. " TAKE IT( TAKE IT) !"

    She brought the blood-red brick down into the side of Ruin's head, and the Dragon of Mistral collapsed.

    Yang's body hit the ground a half-second before Ruin's did. She sucked in a deep breath, tried to push through the pain.

    Time passed, and Ruin did not stand.

    "So you're Yang Xiao Long." Taiga Takeda mused. "Rin."

    He stepped down, and some kind of plant bloomed out of the ground beneath Yang. A tree of sorts, with branches cradling Yang's body.

    "Ka." Taiga declared. He held his hand to the wound in Yang's stomach with the stone. The heat was… Strange. Not unpleasant. The jagged stone fell from Yang's body, and the wound started to stitch itself together.

    "I guess One wanted to make sure we were safe after the second or third incident we were involved in." Yang muttered. "So-"

    The earth began to shake again.

    "Zan!" Taiga's voice was curt, rushed. He stomped into the ground to cancel the earthquake, to mixed results. Yang could still feel the vibration. She could just also feel the force trying to hold the earth still.

    And as the earth shook, Yang saw Ruin's shadow grow longer. Darker. Until the shadow was rising from the ground, encircling the man in shadow. He was swallowed by the dark before Yang knew it.

    And before Yang knew it, she was throwing herself into the Dark to follow him.

    This was it, this was it. Yang knew this shadow. It was the thing that interfered in the Blood Memory in Ruin's past, the thing that helped Cinder Fall escape when her plans were foiled.

    This was—

    "Oh? An interloper?"

    That familiar voice seemed like it was speaking directly to Yang's heart.

    "How fascinating."

    Yang felt like her body was suspended in a black void. Her soul could no longer sense the world outside the Dark, could no longer find the Legacy or Taiga Takeda.

    But she could find Ruin.

    Yang turned to look at the other Dragon.

    [X] Ruin was still enthralled by the Memory. Yang was alone with the Dark.
    [X] Ruin was awake, aware and confused. There was betrayal in his eyes.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Ruin was still enthralled by the Memory. Yang was alone with the Dark.

    Been a few years and I probably skipped a good few updates trying to find my place but I'm caught up again.

    This feels right I think. They both get their own personal struggle while Yang finally meets our mysterious enemy.
     
    Update 470 - Evil Woman
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Ruin was still enthralled by the Memory. Yang was alone with the Dark.

    The darkness was disorienting. Yang felt like she was falling, but she never hit the ground. Ruin's body was on the ground near her, sprawled out in place as if he found a floor out of reach to Yang. His face was scrunched up, impossible to get a read on. Yang would guess somewhere between agony and anguish, but that was just a gut feeling.

    He wasn't getting up anytime soon. Yang didn't need to worry about him being a threat to her, at least for a bit.

    But it didn't really matter. Every time the voice in the Dark spoke, any delusions of safety fled Yang's mind entirely.

    "Yang Xiao Long." The voice in the Dark spoke slowly, as if speaking for the first time when saying Yang's name. "Yes, that's who you are. I can hear the Second screaming in hatred every time I look at you. You've made quite an enemy with Satanael, haven't you?"

    Yang cocked Ember Celica and looked around the darkness. The voice had to have a source somewhere. If it came for her, she needed to be able to defend herself.

    "It's a shame we had to meet under these circumstances."

    Yang felt a pressure, and she looked back to Ruin on the ground. The darkness solidified, briefly shaping into a limb that brushed Ruin's hair away from his brow. Yang fired towards that direction, but the projectile was swallowed by nothingness the instant it emerged from her gun.

    "I made a heavy investment on this one." The Dark sighed. "A shame it won't be paying off any further."

    "Who are you?" Yang asked, her voice a growl. "What do you want?"

    The voice didn't reply. Of course she didn't. The limb of darkness disappeared back into the general mass.

    "My story isn't all that interesting." The voice in the dark sounded bemused. "Let's talk about you, Yang Xiao Long."

    Every time that voice spoke her name, it slowed down, savoured every syllable.

    "Daughter of the Branwen Blood." The voice began. "Heir to the Power of Dragons. Hated One of the Second. Sister of an Intoner."

    Yang's mind conjured images of someone pacing past her as they spoke. She spun in place, trusting her instinct to tell her where any danger would be coming from.

    "You're an interesting one." The Dark clicked her tongue. "I've lost count of the years since the Branwen and the Dragonkind first began their schemes. Destiny declared they should never succeed, but the tools they put in place have remained. And at long last, one has come within arms reach of those abandoned tools."

    A phantom limb cupped Yang's cheek. She tried to grab at it, but her body wouldn't move.

    "I want you." The Dark declared. "If I cannot have Ruin, then I want you."

    Yang flared her soul. Even without her Aura, the Instinct of Dragons conjured flames. Yang didn't even blink this time, not with the shadow that fell over her. The flames chased away the hand on her cheek, and Yang felt herself breathe again.

    "But perhaps you're not ready to hear me." The Dark continued. "You're trying to think of a retort right now, aren't you?"

    Fuck you, Yang wanted to say. Or perhaps You're insane. Neither of them seemed right. Neither of them seemed appropriate.

    The runes inscribed in Yang's soul hurt so bad that it started numbing her to the rest of her pain. The spike still in her hand, for instance.

    "What are you?" Yang asked instead.

    She didn't expect an answer, but she needed to say something. And in that moment, something told Yang not to give in to kneejerk frustration. Focus. Don't say anything that doesn't at least try to do something.

    "Hm…" The spirit in the dark thought out loud. "What am I? There's hardly much point to answering that question. I could give you many true answers that mean nothing to you. Ask not what I am. Ask instead, what can I do for you?"

    "Do you think I'm an idiot?" Yang asked. "I saw what you did to Ruin!"

    The voice in the Dark sighed.

    "It was rather unfortunate." The Dark bemoaned. 'In a perfect world, I would have approached him the same way I approached Briar and Cinder. But he was heir to the Legacy of the War God. He was perpetuating the Sin of Babyl. Worse of all, his lover was a person I could not allow to exist."

    Yang felt something shifting, alarmed by the Instinct of Dragons in her soul. The moment she realised what it was, she realised she needed to keep the Dark distracted.

    "You know, I truly believe humans to be the most dangerous beings beneath the blue sky." The Dark continued. "Given an eternity, you will inherit every conceivable power. That woman held the power that ensured that no wound she caused would heal without her permission.

    "If any human was capable of killing me, it was her."

    Yang glared into the darkness. The Instinct of Dragons absorbed her rage, absorbed her anger, and flowed it through her very form. Her hair caught alight- No, her hair became flame itself. She barely even felt it in her heart. There was no time to feel it, with the shadow that hung over her now.

    "That man I had to approach with a heavy hand." The Dark continued. "That woman had to die. The Tower had to be burnt, just as the original was. And as that complicated my recruitment of Ruin, I had to take his very memory."

    "And send him to kill his daughter?" Yang asked.

    "One has to make good on their threats." The Dark answered. "A child who cries 'I'll kill you' at every possible annoyance soon loses their intimidation factor. I keep my word, for good or for ill. So rest assured when I promise you that I shall cause you no harm here."

    Harm was a complicated word. When Five was using her Song to bind people to her will, did she think it was causing them harm? That thought alone would have been enough for Yang to not let her guard down, even if she was at all capable of it.

    "I want you, Yang Xiao Long." Again, the Dark spoke each word with a deliberate slowness, a pace that felt like she was testing out the name every time she spoke it. "Unlike Ruin, I have no need for threats. But your very being is a pain response. If I was to simply make an offer, even one purely to your benefit…"

    Y'know what? Suddenly Yang didn't mind an inappropriate response. "Go fuck yourself."

    "You can do better than that-"

    "No, shut up." Yang interrupted. "You're acting like the only reason I'd refuse to help you is out of spite. You're a monster. You're an enemy of humanity. You tried to kill War-"

    "Shh." A phantom finger touched Yang's lips and sealed then shut.

    On reflex, Yang punched forward.

    Through the darkness, Yang's fist roared like a jet engine. She pulled the trigger of Ember Celica, and the Dust Projectile gathered around her arm, became another Dust Dragon around her fist. She struck towards the source of the finger in the darkness-

    And Yang felt a second finger touch her knuckle.

    The darkness erupted. A blinding light exploded out from Yang's fist, first golden but slowly shifting into a sky-blue. A silhouette of darkness tried to maintain itself in the blue sky, but the dark melted away to reveal a figure.

    She was as pale as a corpse with hair to match. Her veins were visible through her skin, pulsing with a black liquid that was visibly bulging the veins in places. She wore a dress the same pitch black as the darkness around her, and as the blue light faded away the dress obscured the third dimension and made it impossible to tell darkness and dress apart.

    Her eyes were the only colour in the figure, as red as the sky beyond the blue, encased in black sclera.

    She was completely unharmed from Yang's punch.

    But as the blue light faded away, Yang's arm erupted in agony.

    She had punched thoughtlessly. She had forgotten the spike still in her hand. The force inflicted by the punch being blocked had launched the spike out of her hand, ripping through flesh in the process. The gauntlet of Ember Celica on that hand had been torn apart at the entry and exit point of the spike, and Yang couldn't see how bad the damage was through the blood.

    There was a scream. It took Yang a moment to realise it was her voice.

    "It's as I thought." The woman shook her head. Yang's body was trapped in place, as if the finger touching her knuckle had put her in stasis. "There's no way to reason with you. But I still want you, Little Sun Dragon."

    Yang was too busy screaming to think of a response. If the words weren't being spoken directly into Yang's heart, she would have heard nothing.

    "I won't make an offer to one who won't hear it." She continued. "I shall simply act, and you will have not the opportunity to refuse."

    Her other hand shifted Yang's chin, forcing her to meet her eyes. The blue eyes of a dragon met the red eyes that were almost human.

    "Here is what will happen."

    "First, I will be alone with Ruin. As a sign of goodwill, I shall even tell you what is to come. I shall speak with him alone, guide him through the Dying Wish of a Dragon. He will be reborn, and I shall maintain his Pact with the Vraal. Thrice I have reached into the Graveyard of Civilizations, and that Vraal is the only success I have to show for the matter. I will not allow a repeat of the Destroyer of Heaven or the Golden Bird."

    "Second, I shall leave the War Chief alone. Just for you. By this I mean I shall rescind my threat to kill Ruin's daughter in the worst possible way. It is not as if I would be capable of it once he is reborn, as I will be unable to restore his memory so that he realises what he has done."

    "And finally, for as long as you are in Mistral? No Grimm shall come to harm you. No matter what happens, every single Beowulf will turn its claw away from you. I put in place no stipulation to this law. If you remain in Mistral for the rest of your life, the Grimm will never harm you. If you leave and then return, the protection will return with it."

    The corpselike woman leaned forward. Her mouth was close enough to Yang's ear that the movement of her lips shifted the air enough for her to feel it. But she did not breathe, and there was no warmth in her. It truly was like being embraced by a corpse.

    "You will know the truth of my words in time." She whispered. "And you will know that I am a woman of my word."

    "And when I come to offer you something in earnest, you will know-"

    She fell silent. Yang knew why, even without turning around.

    It had been some time at this point, since Yang had first sensed Ruin awaken. It was only now that the woman form the Dark noticed as well.

    "Gotcha." Yang smirked, her voice hoarse from the pain. "Got a bit distracted, huh?"

    "You…" Ruin spoke slowly, his voice thick with betrayal and anger. "That was my daughter?"

    The woman pushed Yang aside. She was still suspended in the air, but as the woman took her finger off of Yang, the girl was left able to move again. She stepped towards Ruin.

    "There is no point lying now, I suppose." The woman confirmed. "Yes. I lied to you, boy. Your past self angered me, and I intended to make you suffer for it."

    Ruin spat hellfire at the woman, but the fire was swallowed by the oblivion between them.

    "You know you cannot harm me." The corpse scolded him. "What do you hope to achieve?"

    "You lied to me." Ruin repeated. "You… You told me they would deceive me! I trusted you!"

    "Don't beat yourself up about it." The woman spoke like a mother speaking to a child in the throes of tantrum. "You had no memory, and I was your salvation. You never had any choice but to trust me."

    She stepped closer. "Now why don't we think logically about this? You can't harm me. You can't take back your actions. If you try to kill me, I shall defeat you and lock you away. I will make you forget again. Or you can entrust yourself to me, and I shall take the memories painlessly. The end result will be the same."

    Ruin looked at Yang, then looked back at the woman.

    "No." He declared. "It won't be."

    He raised a fist. The woman laughed. "Did you not see Yang Xiao Long try? You, in this weakened state, cannot-"

    Ruin's fist descended, and the man pierced his own chest.

    The corpse's laughter died.

    "You will not have your Vraal." The Dragon of Mistral declared. Blood fell from his lips as he pulled his hand away, revealing his heart in his grasp. "And you will not have my Dying Wish."

    A pale light started to bloom from Ruin's torso.

    Yang could only see the side of the woman's face. It contorted, into anger and then into fear. She clicked her fingers—

    —And Yang fell.

    A tree shot out of the ground to catch Yang. She blinked, and realised she was back in the light. The darkness was gone, as was the corpse-woman who had emerged from it. A wind rushed by Yang, and she felt her burning hair revert back to normal.

    "What was that?" Taiga Takeda asked. He looked to Ruin, then stopped.

    The Dragon of Mistral stood with his heart in his hands. The light blooming around him burnt louder, a dark-green light that threatened to eclipse him.

    "...It was all true, wasn't it?" Ruin asked. "That woman plucked the memories from my skull, and sent me as a weapon against my own daughter?"

    "It's true." It hurt for Yang to talk, but she forced herself to anyway. "I'm sorry."

    Ruin closed his eyes. "I… See."

    He stepped forward. Before his foot could fall, his stationary leg collapsed. He caught himself on his other foot, but the stumble brought him down on one knee and it was very obvious that he didn't have the strength to stand.

    Yang tried to sit up in her position, in the tree that Taiga had grown to hold her up, but her vision blurred. She slumped back before she could realise, and the darkness creeping in from the edge of her vision didn't still easily.

    "Dragon…" Ruin croaked. Yang saw him raise his hands. "Take… It-"

    The light left his eyes before the light left Yang's vision. His body fell, unmoving.

    The green light focused into a point, then flew into Yang. She felt a weight press against her stomach, low enough that she suspected most of it was beneath the point where she lost the sensation in her lower-body. She looked down and saw three Memory Bricks resting upon her.

    There was an echo in Yang's ears. A low roar and a scream. Even without hard evidence, Yang knew that she was the only one who could hear it. She alone could hear Bahamut devour Ruin's soul.

    He was dead.

    But it was over.

    That was the last thing Yang thought before the unconscious claimed her.

    ~~~~~​

    The battle would have been rejoined, were it not for the Vraal suddenly collapsing.

    Five looked down at the creature. It had fallen like someone had cut the marionette strings from a puppet. She stepped closer, ready for the beast to reveal its ploy and lunge at her.

    It didn't seem to be breathing. The Intoner brought down the kamas and cut through its neck. The scales parted far easier than they had at any point prior, and the head fell away from the body.

    It was over?

    …Well, that was disappointing.

    All that build up for nothing? Five felt blueballed. Only partially because she had been denied the thrill of a fight, only partially because an anticlimax was antithetical to her being. Her precious niece had been hurt, and now Five wasn't even going to be part of the revenge.

    Oh well. She suddenly decided she didn't actually care about how the Vraal died. Can't be disappointed if you decide you never cared about a thing ever actually, after all.

    "Hm." The woman who had interfered suddenly clicked her tongue. "Strange."

    "That it died like that?" Five asked. "I've never-"

    "No, that's obvious." The woman interrupted. "It's a Pact Beast. Its Partner died, so it died too."

    Oh. "Wow, Pacts are lame."

    The woman with the skull mask tilted her head.

    "Never mind." Five shrugged. "What's so strange, miss… What's your name again?"

    "I've gone a long time without answering to any name, actually." The woman shifted her grip on her kamas, transforming the weapon in the process. The blade disappeared into the staff, and the woman started using it as a walking stick. "But you can call me Maria, if you would."

    Maria. That name felt familiar for some reason, in a 'Five had read it somewhere but forgot where' way. Was this someone important? "And the other question?"

    "I'm still reacting to something." The old woman mused. "Something big. I was reacting to it before I even entered the drop pod to get down here, and I still haven't seen enough to stimulate the cause."

    "...I assume your Semblance is some sensory thing?" Five asked.

    "Preflexes!" The old woman chirped. She had the tone of a person making a pun only they found funny. "Hm… It's starting to get worse. I'd say we have another few seconds before something else attacks us."

    Five watched the woman. "You seem rather calm, considering what else has been here."

    "The same goes for you." The old woman noted. "You seemed rather invested a moment ago."

    "I don't remember anything like that." Five shrugged. She kicked the creature's body. "I'm just glad I don't need to put in any more work to kill this thing."

    "That's not what you were saying a moment ago." Maria claimed.

    Five frowned. What was she talking about?

    "Hm." Maria hummed suddenly. "I'd say… Three. Two-"

    An earthquake struck. Five moved quickly, grabbing the corpse of her future dinner and running out of the way. Maria stayed unmoving, so Five took position next to her. If she had a sensory Semblance, Five was going to rely on it.

    There was an eruption from the lake.

    "Ah, my age is getting to me." Maria mused. She looked out to the lake, and the thing emerging from it. "I was off a second."

    It was obviously a Grimm, obviously a giant. It was a many-tendriled beast- No, not tendrils. Vines and roots and plants, made of Grimm matter and covered in white thorns and spikes. It was the thing that had interfered with Five's fight with the Vraal earlier, was it? Just how big was it, if it could reach that far up the mountain?

    The tendrils formed a near-complete sphere around something that Five only saw for a second. It looked almost like a flower, or perhaps a flytrap. It was hard to tell, because the near-sphere was multi-layered. The vines were binding together in spherical webs or nets, rotating and thrumming to an invisible beat.

    As Five watched, the plant-like appendages began to bloom-

    Something silver flickered from the light peeking through the clouds.

    It was a sickle, a throwing scythe of sorts. One of Maria's, Five realised. It descended into the web of vines, shifting in the wind just enough to perfectly thread the needle. It stabbed into the core, and an explosion echoed out.

    The Grimm matter dissolved before the vines could finish falling. It was dead? Really? Five would say it's another anticlimax, but she didn't even have the time to get her hopes up.

    "That's the danger of big moves." Maria mused. "Especially if I have time to think about what my Preflexes are reacting to. I wasn't able to see that coming, but I had enough to know that throwing that sickle would deal with it."

    "...Is Preflexes a fancy word for future sight?" Five asked. "That was impressive, in a sort of 'I didn't even have time to start caring' way."

    "I wouldn't call it future sight." Maria answered. "It's a reflex, the way people have reactions to pull away when they touch an open flame, or jump at an unexpected sound. Except I get it a bit earlier. And when you've got experience with it…"

    She shrugged. "Well, it's not hard to simulate it in your head if you have enough information. And if you can game your brain right, sense-type Semblances are easy to repurpose. When I was falling from the pod, I just had to put myself through as many scenarios as I could and see which action in the air would remove the need to pre-react."

    "Hm." In all honesty, Five had lost focus halfway through the conversation. "Let's just wrap this up, shall we?"

    Last she had seen Yang, she was down the mountain a bit. Time to go collect her niece's sister and go and check on her niece proper. "Call down the airship already, will you? I've been running up and down mountains for too long, my legs are sore."

    Maria reached behind her and pulled a walkie-talkie out of her cloak. She beat her knuckle on the edge a few times to get it started.

    "Clear for pickup." She called.

    An unfamiliar voice called back. "Roger, Reaper."

    And suddenly Five knew where she had heard the name before.

    Reaper. Maria Calavera herself. One of the four participants of Mistral for the Strongest Under The Heavens tournament. A woman who had disappeared for over fifty years, only to return and take the championship in the Mistralian preliminaries.

    The victor of the last Strongest Under The Heavens tournament.

    …And also the Scythe User, to the point where there were multiple weapon classification types named after her to describe scythes.

    Man, as soon as she got past the usual period of time where the stress of the situation left Ruby too serious and dull to be around, Five's niece was going to be elated.

    ~~~~~​

    Yang didn't know how long it had been before she woke up. She didn't know where she was, either. It felt like she was in some kind of bed?

    She opened her eyes and looked around. Her body was… Not as hurt as it should be. She checked her hand and found no hole, checked her stomach and found no wound. She was healed. Right, Taiga had a healing ability, didn't he?

    Yang put it out of her mind and looked around.

    She was… In some kind of infirmary. Hospital beds as far as the eye could see. Yang could see Ruby on the other side of the room, surrounded by machines that reminded her of Winter's hospitalisation.

    But much closer, right next to her, was the War Chief.

    The Dragon Faunus was awake. She was also staring at the ceiling, her eyes making it clear she wasn't looking at anything that was actually there. Even as Yang moved, the War Chief didn't react. Even as the bed beneath Yang creaked, she didn't seem to hear it.

    Yang decided to wait before grabbing her attention.

    She looked to the side. There was a table next to the hospital bed, and there were a handful of Memory Bricks on that bedside table.

    Yang looked them over. They didn't have faces etched into them, the way regular Memory Bricks had. They had words instead.

    Yang used her Branwen magic to look at the names. It was easier than reaching out to pick them up.

    The first brick was labelled For My Daughter. Yang left that one alone.

    The other two-

    Darkness creeped into Yang's vision again.

    Damn it. She was still hurt. Not physically, but her soul was exhausted. She wasn't going to be able to stay conscious long.

    …Figure out what's going on with the Memory Bricks, then she can talk to the War Chief and figure out what was going on with that first brick. Then Yang could pass out and stay unconscious for however many months she needed.

    Yeah, that seemed like a plan.

    Nodding to herself, Yang reached her soul into one of the other two bricks and looked and what laid within.

    [X] Fate's Divergence
    [X] Dead Worlds
     
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