The idea of killing hit harder than any recoil ever could.
My stomach twisted, sharp and sudden, and my cloak faltered for half a second as my body reacted before my mind did. I had to force my cloak steady, had to tell myself to stay airborne. I'd trained for combat my whole life. I'd fought Grimm. I'd hurt people before.
But this felt different.
It felt wrong.
Like I'd stained myself with something that wouldn't wash off, no matter how hard I tried. The feeling crawled under my skin, cold and heavy at the same time. And what scared me most was how strange and how familiar, it felt.
It felt like killing a Grimm.
It didn't feel like killing a person as I would have imagined.
That thought scared me more than anything else.
I realized I wasn't panicking. I wasn't crying. I wasn't even shaking.
I felt nothing.
And that emptiness, that calm was what terrified me the most.
Then all-of a sudden there was a twitch.
At first, I thought my eyes were lying to me. Just a twitch. A nerve firing after death. Something meaningless. My brain scrambled for excuses because the alternative was worse.
I was wrong.
Her body jerked sharply, snapping upward like a puppet yanked by invisible strings. She pushed herself up with one arm then another, movements stiff and unnatural, like a corpse remembering how to stand after forgetting what life felt like.
My blood ran cold.
To my surprise and horror, she rose.
Pop
(10/10=https://borderlands.fandom.com/wiki/The_Bee- Float like a butterfly... – No amp drain. High amp damage. Reduced shield capacity. Increased shield recharge rate and recharge delay.-
Due to the midalling role, the effects of the bee applies to Yangs aura, as for why it is given to Yang, it's literally in the name, the Bee, bumblebee anybody gets it write it down in the comments.)
(Note from the author: making Yang an assassin burst type damage dealer was completely accidental)
The wounds across her body began to change.
Flesh shifted and crawled, folding and pulling itself together as if guided by something alive beneath the skin. The hole in her chest sealed itself, skin knitting together in a smooth, horrifying movement. Bone reformed beneath it with a faint, sickening crunch. Muscle followed, layering back into place like it had never been torn apart at all.
The arm she had severed herself earlier grew back in seconds, stretching outward from the stump, fingers forming last as if sculpted from living clay. The two arms Yang had twisted inside out snapped back into place, joints popping and rotating as they healed.
It didn't take minutes.
It didn't even take long seconds.
It was over almost as soon as it started.
All six of her arms were whole again.
Every wound was gone.
She stood there in the settling dust, perfectly intact, as if nothing had happened.
My grip tightened on Crescent Rose.
As she stood amidst the countless arrows made of Aura, the shining constructs cast a faint, ghostly light across the dark, dusty battlefield. Dust drifted slowly through that glow, turning the space into something unreal, like a frozen moment caught between breaths.
Her shadow stretched long across the ground.
The red Aura outlining her body sharpened that shadow, making it look feral and wrong. Six arms. Too still. Too ready. Her silhouette twisted into something that didn't look human at all.
In that moment, something finally settled in my chest.
This fight was never going to be easy.
At first, I'd thought it would be hard only because of her age and the way she carried herself, with a calm and confident stride, like a veteran huntress who had seen too many battles to be impressed by one more.
Now I knew better.
She wasn't a huntress.
She was something else. Maybe a Faunus. Maybe something far worse.
As the fight dragged on and the exchanges grew faster, another detail became impossible to ignore. No matter how much she was hit, no matter how hard the blows landed, I never saw the familiar shimmer of Aura around her.
She didn't have Aura.
That should have made her fragile. Easy to put down. A glass cannon at best.
But that wasn't what I was seeing.
She was too strong. Too fast. Her movements were sharp and relentless, every step purposeful, every strike powerful. She never hesitated. Never guarded the way someone without Aura should. And somehow, somehow, she still had a Semblance.
That shouldn't have been possible.
The thought nagged at me as I hovered there, cloak steady, eyes locked on her. Then it clicked.
Thinking about it now, the answer was obvious.
She was a manifestation of my own Semblance.
The "surprise" the so-called evil god had talked about.
The realization hit hard, but not the way I expected. There was no dread. No sinking feeling in my stomach. Instead, my pulse quickened, and a grin tugged at my lips.
I felt... excited.
Finally. A real challenge.
Sure, I fight Grimm every day, but it's too easy. Even fighting fifty of them at once isn't that hard anymore. They rush, they die, repeat. There's no thinking involved.
Throughout my life, the only opponents who ever really pushed me were my sister, who wins most of the time, and my Uncle Qrow, who doesn't even pretend not to beat me up.
This was different.
This felt like a real Hunter thing.
The kind of fight you tell stories about later. The kind Dad and Uncle Qrow used to talk about when they mentioned Team STRQ, eyes distant, voices low like they were remembering something dangerous and amazing at the same time.
As I recalled, she came from a world of demons and demon slayers. The evil god had called that world boring, but she's a god after all. She's probably seen things I can't even imagine.
That left only one conclusion.
She was a demon.
And for the first time in my life I felt like I was in an adventure.
I smiled as I noticed where she had landed after my sister struck her.
Right where I'd been aiming earlier.
That mattered.
My arrows and bullets weren't normal ammunition, they were Aura constructs. Most of the time, they dispersed or exploded on impact, their job finished the moment they hit something. But this time was different.
I'd kept them around.
Using my "Exchange" power, I traded their durability for time, ten extra minutes of existence. They wouldn't hit as hard if forced to move again, but they would stay exactly where they were, hanging in the air like a trap waiting to close.
I glanced at the glowing field of suspended weapons and let out a quiet breath.
I still needed a better name for that power.
Equivalent Exchange? ... No. Too lame.
Maybe just Exchange.
My thoughts derailed for a moment, but my body didn't stop moving.
Even as my mind wandered, I was still planning a combo attack, instincts stacking options faster than I could name them. I kept my position steady in the air, my cloak making small adjustments as I tracked her every movement below.
She slowed.
That alone set off alarms.
She raised one of her hands, not fast, not aggressive, but deliberate, and made a small, almost casual gesture. The air around her hand warped, the dust around her and something else I could faintly feel twisting together.
Suddenly, a ball appeared.
It was bigger than the others. Much bigger.
This one was the size of four of her usual projectiles combined, roughly the size of a TV. Its surface churned and pulsed, layers of energy folding in on themselves like something barely contained. Just looking at it made my skin prickle.
"...That's new," I muttered.
The doctor shifted in the air, his strange mount circling slightly as he leaned forward. Even through the beak mask, I could tell he was watching closely, curious, but also concerned.
My sister stiffened.
"Ruby," Yang called out, tension sharp in her voice. "That thing looks bad."
I didn't answer right away.
I wasn't worried.
Not because I underestimated it, but because she wasn't going to get the chance to use it.
I took a slow breath and focused.
Then I triggered the last function of the Aura constructs surrounding her.
Self-destruction.
Before the strange woman could react, every construct I had left behind detonated at once.
The explosions weren't massive. There was no single blinding blast or thunderous shockwave. Instead, the detonations spread outward in a wide ripple, popping and flaring in rapid succession. Dozens of controlled blasts overlapped, filling the space around her with light, pressure, and violent smoke.
The blasts didn't tear her apart.
But they did exactly what I needed them to do.
Her focus shattered.
The large projectile flickered as her concentration broke. The summoning stalled, then failed completely as one of the explosions clipped her arm. Her arm burst apart in light and force, destroyed, from the violent interruption.
She vanished into the storm of detonations.
Dust and debris billowed outward, swallowing the entire area in a thick, rolling cloud. The battlefield disappeared behind swirling black and red, visibility dropping to almost nothing.
I hovered above it all, eyes narrowed.
I could have tried to guess her position, watched how the dust moved, listened for sound, waited for a mistake.
But guessing wasn't good enough.
I wanted a clean hit.
I steadied myself and tried something I hadn't attempted before.
I activated my side Semblance again, but this time I didn't use it to move.
Rose petals burst into existence all around me, spiraling outward in a wide ring. They drifted slowly at first, glowing faintly as I reached out and guided them. One by one, they began to move forward, flowing together in a controlled stream.
They converged at the tip of Crescent Rose's barrel.
Power gathered there, thick, steady, and heavy in a way I could feel through my arms. The weapon hummed softly as the petals compressed tighter and tighter, forming a dense cluster.
This attack was a scatter-type shot.
But the dust cloud was still too thick the visibility was still too poor.
"Just a general area," I muttered.
That should've been enough. With a scatter-type shot, precision mattered less than timing. Still, the dust wasn't clearing on its own, and firing blind, even now, felt sloppy.
The area wouldn't clear unless I waited.
I could've used my cloak or my Semblance to blow the dust away. A single sharp gust, a controlled burst, and the battlefield would've been visible again. But that would ruin the surprise. It would announce my position and give her a warning she didn't deserve.
So I waited.
I hovered in place, weapon steady, petals held tight at the barrel, and let my thoughts drift just enough to stay calm.
I thought about how my sister had snuck up on her, how Yang had just appeared out of nowhere like the rules didn't apply to her when she got serious. I thought about how unreal my life felt sometimes. Flying through the air, fighting demons, flying next to a mad scientist, my sister and a mad scientist riding a flying seahorse. None of this would've made sense a few years ago or even a day ago.
Then my mind circled back to the beginning.
My original battle plan.
First, I would probe her with shots from the air. Test her reactions. Learn her patterns. Then I'd lure her directly underneath me, where the falling rose petals could be manipulated to wrap around her, restrain her just enough to stop the fight.
We'd talk.
No blood. No broken limbs.
That plan had lasted exactly until she cut off her own arm and threw it at me.
"Yeah," I muttered quietly. "So much for that."
Before my thoughts could wander any further, the air shook.
A deep, booming sound rolled across the wasteland, so strong I felt it in my chest before I fully heard it. My heart jumped in shock as the dust cloud was blown apart instantly, ripped away as if it had never been there.
My eyes widened.
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(11/18=https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Black+Knife+Tiche+Ashes-Black Knife Tiche is a Spirit and Summon in Elden Ring. Black Knife Tiche Ash summons an assassin that attacks enemies with her Black Knife imbued with the Rune of Death.-Due to the extremely high role, Ruby just has this ash of war, which she can summon like a stand, although she doesn't know how to summon it yet she needs to do that thing she does when she tries to access her multitude of abilities although it does activate automatically when she's near death.)
Three strange creatures floated near the ground.
They looked like swollen frog sacs, round and rubbery, their bodies stretching and contracting rhythmically. With each pulse, their throats ballooned outward, and then released another deafening blast of sound.
BOOM.
The shockwaves rippled through the air, visible distortions spreading outward in wide rings. The sound wasn't just loud, it was disorienting. It made my teeth rattle and my cloak shudder as I fought to stay steady.
And I wasn't even the target.
I saw its effect on the demon immediately.
She staggered, her posture breaking as the vibrations slammed into her body again and again. She couldn't stand straight. Her steps were uneven, her balance completely wrecked. The sonic waves tore through the remaining dust, clearing the field and leaving her fully exposed.
She looked up at me, glaring, rage burning in her eyes, but there was something else there too.
Surprise.
She hadn't expected this.
I didn't either but this didn't make me hesitate.
I still fired.
The bullet left the barrel and transformed into an arrow almost instantly.
Before it even traveled ten centimeters, the rose petals surged forward.
Most of them poured into the arrow's hollow core, flowing like liquid light and filling the empty space inside. The rest clung to the outside, wrapping around the shaft in tight spirals. Layer after layer formed as it flew, petals locking into place, glowing softly as they fed off the Aura holding them together.
Good, I thought. Hold together.
This arrow was different.
It was hollow, its Aura shell thin and flexible instead of dense and rigid. Slower too, intentionally so, and far less sharp than the ones I'd fired earlier. It didn't scream through the air. It glided, steady and controlled, exactly the way I wanted it to.
She didn't notice it at first.
She was too busy tearing apart the sound creatures below her, ripping through them with sharp movements and bursts of strength. One of the swollen frog-like forms ruptured under her strike, bursting apart in a wave of distorted air.
By the time she turned back toward me, it was already too late.
The arrow was there.
It didn't need speed.
It didn't need piercing power.
It just needed to arrive.
The moment it reached her, the arrow detonated.
There was no explosion of fire or force. Instead, a storm of rose petals erupted outward, filling the space around her in an instant. Hundreds of glowing petals spun wildly, forming a grinding vortex that screamed through the air. They tore at the space around her, wrapping, binding, and pressing in from every direction.
She reacted fast.
She tried to leap away, legs tensing as she pushed off the ground, but the petals were already everywhere. They snagged and pulled, coiling around her limbs and torso, dragging her back toward the center of the storm.
She was trapped.
I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.
Then.
Yang appeared.
Out of nowhere. Just like before.
A flash of gold and red, a sudden presence behind the woman, and then Yang's fist was already moving. There was no warning, no shout, just a single, devastating punch.
It landed square in the woman's back.
The impact was brutal.
Her body folded in on itself like it had been hit by a wrecking ball. Skin pulled inward. Muscle split outward in jagged lines. Her ribs pressed visibly against the surface of her chest as the force crushed through her.
It was horrifying to look at.