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“For todays last match, Cardin Winchester, please step up to the arena.” Professor Goodwitch announces to the class. “Your opponent will be... Ruby Rose.”
Ruby picks her head up off Blakes shoulder and gives her a quick kiss on the cheek as she gets up.
“Ugh, I’m fighting the midget that fucks animals? Great.” Cardin says mockingly as she enters the circle.
Ruby pauses in the middle of taking Crescent Rose off her back, taking a deep breath to settle her dislike of the bigoted moron. Lowering her hands to hang at her sides she instead turns to look at the combat instructor. “Combat class is for practicing new things and figuring out your optimal fighting style right?” she asks with a forced smile.
“Yes miss rose. it is.” Miss Goodwitch responds with a clipped tone. Ruby knows her well enough after this many loops that she can tell the only reason the professor hasn’t chucked Cardin through a wall yet is because she’s not legally allowed to and wants to keep her job.
“Great! I have some things I figured out about my semblance that I haven’t gotten to test in live combat yet so I won’t be using my weapon at first while I test them. Is that alright Professor?”
“Very well. In that case, if both sides are ready?” Miss Goodwitch paused long enough for Cardin to raise his mace, while Ruby simply tilted her head and closes her eyes with a beatific smile. “Begin.”
Ruby takes two steps forward and rotates a half step to the left, not even bothering to open her eyes to dodge same blatant overhead smash he always starts with, then simply reaches a hand out until it touches the haft of his weapon.
Pushing her aura out over the weapon, she tries to push past his aura and coat it like she would her own. She can feel it working, but he wrenches the mace out of the ground swings at her before she can finish.
Ruby uses Petal Burst on herself instead, weaving around both the weapon and Cardin himself to appear behind him, just a few inches away from where his backswing ends, her hand already positioned to rest on the head of the weapon the moment it arrives. A little more practiced and familiar with the way his aura feels now, she coats his weapon much faster this time, and with a light pulse of her aura the mace vanishes in a shower of rose petals.
Cardin stumbles as the weight of his weapon disappears. Ruby takes the opportunity to step closer, dismissing her semblance while intentionally not reforming the mace and releasing the loose iron molecules and steel shavings to scatter across the ground as she sets a hand on the back of his armor.
“What the hell did you just do?!” Cardin yells, whirling around right as his protective metal chest piece disintegrates off his body. Looking down in shock, he doesn’t react fast enough when a foot enters his vision, slamming into chest and knocking him to the ground.
Ruby finally draws her weapon and unfurls the full scythe mode, slamming the tip into her opponents chest as he scrambles to get back up. It doesn’t pierce him, but it does knock him back down onto his stomach this time, and drain a lot of his aura before scraping off his shoulder. With a flick, Ruby switches halfway to war scythe mode so she can lower the weapon to keep him pinned, with the blade digging into him, slowly chewing through his aura as she speaks to him for the first time.
“If you don’t start treating people with some respect, I will use your whole team as practice dummies for this until you run out of money to replace your equipment and have to beg on the streets for spare change. Never call my girlfriend an animal again. Okay?”
The buzzer goes off and Ruby releases him as the professor calls the match.
“I would have won if she hadn’t fucking cheated! She better buy me a new weapon!”
“Use of ones semblance is legal in tournament matches Mr. Winchester. Furthermore, when equipment is damaged or destroyed, the cost of maintenance and replacement falls to the owner of the equipment. If you had made use of the ranged weaponry I know your weapon has, apologies. Had, instead of rushing in, you could possible have reduced her aura before she was close enough to disarm you. Furthermore if you had not neglected your training in unarmed combat, you could have tossed your mace aside when she revealed that her experiment needed her to maintain contact with your weapon. Your aura training could also use some work. You’ve grown so used to letting your armor blunt the damage from attacks that when it was removed your aura shield was sloppy and hastily put together. Both of those strikes to your chest drained almost three times the amount of aura they should have, and if you had been even a moment slower bringing your aura up on the second on I would be cleaning blood off my floor and sending flowers to your parents.
“As for your claims that you would have won if shad fought you normally, I’m afraid I must disagree. You have so little variety in your fighting style and methods that miss Rose was able to dodge both of the strikes you made, with her eyes closed and accurately predict the position of your backswing within an inch. I recommend using this opportunity while you wait for a replacement weapon to brush up on your unarmed combat and brainstorm some different techniques to try out.”
Finishing her rant at Cardin, which she looked almost visibly happy to do, Miss Goodwitch finally turned toward Ruby. “As for you miss Rose, You showed excellent skill, spatial awareness, and understanding of your opponent. Also, while I’m always glad to see my students experimenting with new ways to use their semblances, and technically speaking no rules were broken, I would recommend you refrain from using that particular technique if you want to avoid making enemies. Most huntsman and Huntresses tend to have a particular attachment to their weapons after all.”
“Of course Miss Goodwitch. I would never dream of destroying a huntsman’s weapon like that. I simply don’t consider Cardin to be a huntsman. Huntsman are mean to protect people, and provide a feeling of safety. Cardin goes out of his way to harm others, both physically and emotionally. He doesn’t deserve the title.”
“I see. Well, I am only in charge of providing combat training you are allowed to form your own opinions on your classmates.” Which is about as close to an agreement as she was legally allowed to give on the subject.
Returning to her team, Ruby was immediately ambushed Yang, who pulled her in to a hug excitedly, “Since when can you do THAT?!”
Ruby tried to rub the back of her head sheepishly, but found that being crushed in a bearhug made that difficult, “Well, that was the first time I’ve really used it," She lied, "but I figured out how to... about a week after coming to beacon." For the eleventh time, "But I think I’ve always been able to, I just didn’t know I was able to...”
As yang released her another pair of arms snaked around her from behind, “Thanks Ruby. You know you didn’t have to do that right?” Blake told her, having heard everything Cardin said in perfect clarity despite being in the back of the room.
“I wanted to though. Plus, he needed to brought down a peg or ten.”
“I do have to ask though...” Weiss chimed in from the side, “How exactly does super speed result in... that...?”
“Petal Burst isn’t actually Super Speed. I just tell people that because it’s the only thing I ever used it for and it’s easier to explain.”
“Wait what?” Yang had an expression like she was just told everything in her life has been a lie. And getting to see that look is one of the reasons Ruby likes to wait on that particular reveal for a while in these loops. It’s always great. Every time.
“Yeah, I actually disassemble my body at the molecular level, wrap it in an energy field made from my aura, move it to a new location, then reassemble myself. What I did in the arena was just doing that to his equipment instead of myself, and stopping after the first step.”
“That suddenly makes all those times you used your semblance to carry us around during training retroactively terrifying...” Blake muttered.
“You know..." Ruby narrowed her eyes mischievously at Blake, "In order to reassemble an object correctly... I also need intimate knowledge of it. Inside and out.” Rubbing cupped a hand on her girlfriends cheek as she said those last words, chuckling at the way she shuddered against her.
“Wait...” Weiss interrupted with a look of suspicion as she slowly leaned away, “How are you able to use it on me then...?”
...Ruby paused, silently cursing Weiss for interrupting her flirting and trying very hard not to think about that one loop, before eventually opting for the actual truth this time. “Alright fine, I said object for a reason. When I use it on people, your aura mixes into the energy body containing your molecules and provides a blueprint to rebuild you correctly. And as a side note, even if I were to shut off my semblance partway through your aura would use the instructions it copied to rebuild you so I wouldn’t be able to atomize a person even if I wanted to. Theoretically.”
Ruby made sure to add that last word so they wouldn’t ask how she could have tested such a thing. Images of cinder turning Pyrhha to dust, flashed through her mind alongside her own attempts to give Cinder the same treatment only to find that as long she had aura it wouldn’t work.
As long as she had aura that is.
“I think I can also use it to build things as long I have the right materials and know the blueprints down the exact position of every molecule...” Ruby said, cutting off that line of thought before anything could show on her face.
“So you could make another Crescent Rose with a snap of your fingers?” Yang said with a laugh.
“And probably Ember Celica. Maybe Gambol shroud too... but the ribbon makes things tricky.” Ruby says, despite knowing for a fact that she can and has made them exact replicas of their weapons in previous loops, When Yang and Blake showed up with Gambol Shroud broken and covered in Adam’s blood. “Not Myrtenaster yet.” She lies easily, “Sorry Weiss. Sister and girlfriend took a bit of priority on learning weapons. Soon though!”
“Hmph. It’s fine. I know my weapon is too sophisticated to be copied so easily.” Wiess huffs as they make their way back to the dorms.
Maybe this wouldn’t be the loop where she wins. maybe it wouldn’t be the one where nobody dies. Where she makes it to old age with nobody else getting hurt. But at least it would be the one where she makes team CRDL go bankrupt.
That would make her feel better in the short term at least.