[hider=My New Year's Celebration is Totally Wrong, As Expected]
Let the record state that I do fear death. Anyone who says they don't is flat-out lying, because nobody out there [i]wants[/i] to get themselves killed. Nobody sane.
 
It's not cowardly to admit that, it's realistic. No matter who you are, if your head is screwed on straight, you don't look at death with any emotion except fear.
 
The lumbering beast chuffed, a noise that I didn't hear so much as feel in my ribcage, and stalked closer to me.
 
Which is why I can confidently say that, my pride still being intact and everything, I was scared shitless. Absolutely shitless, because I was a perfectly sane guy who, it bears repeating, [i]didn't want to die.[/i]
 
I edged backwards, feeling a small weight shift beneath my sneakers-- a terrible choice for a hike, in hindsight.

If I had to be entirely frank, though, which is something I always strive for— this whole ordeal was a terrible choice. There’s no hindsight about it: Any sort of sight would have done, but I decided to run against the grain. Blindly.

See, it was New Year’s Day. Where most of Shiroyama, the humble little mountain town which I called home, had milled in and out of one of the five operational, staffed, and still-useful shrines near the borders of the city in order to pay their respects and wish for a successful year— I had decided it best to act the contrarian.

If I was going to go through the trouble of following the masses in what tradition dictated, I was going to do it in my own style. Away from everyone else, the wish and rites made in private, and at a defunct shrine that nobody else bothered to visit and nobody else would bother me for visiting. The solitude was a comfortable thing that way, I didn’t have to worry about somebody saying I did something wrong, getting harassed by a miko for “not respecting the spirits” or some other stupid lie, or worst of all, having someone asked me what breed of prosperity I was wishing for.

I want to have a fulfillingly lazy, energy-conservative year, alright? That’s not a bad wish by any means, it’s the same as something like prosperity or comfort or great success on it’s own! I just didn’t need to work hard!

The weight beneath my sole was, apparently, a pebble. A pebble that had long been tossed through a river, rounded and smooth. Just enough so that when my quaking legs stepped back upon it, it slid forward, and they gave out completely. Inelegantly plopping on my ass, it didn’t take a genius to realize that this was it.

I was going to die. The lead-lined ball in the pit of my stomach iced over as it sank yet further, pulling me down with it. I wish I could have scrambled back, at least, but that was flatly impossible. Even if my back weren't pressed against one of the many hardwoods that dotted the forested mountainside, even if my shaky legs weren't liable to give all the way out after the fall, it was impossible.
 
Because I was pinned. Pinned by the crimson gaze of hell itself, glaring at me from within a plate of solid white bone against midnight black fur.
 
Despite the thing's canine looks, it was obvious that this wasn't a wolf. It was too big, nearly the size of a lion. Too rugged, because even knowing that it had a thick layer of fur to insulate it, the sheer mass it carried on its frame was comparable to a bear. But most of all, what had me spellbound and helpless was also the first thing you always learned about when someone told you how to differentiate these demons from common beasts.
 
The eyes. Those paralyzing, blood-colored eyes are the scariest thing I've ever seen. They weren't the eyes of a protector, incensed that you stumbled upon the young of their pack. They weren't the eyes of a predator, sizing up its next meal.
 
The eyes of a particularly disgusted girl actually came closer, but no girl, no matter how low on the social totem pole the person she was looking at was, could even hope to equal the raw, unfiltered hate that this thing was pinning me with.
 
No…
 
This obviously wasn't a mere wolf. It was something far more sinister, far more dangerous.
 
“G..Gri--AAAH!” I felt my voice hitching in fear, before devolving into a panicked yelp as it stepped forward again.
 
Grimm.
 
I was undoubtedly being cornered and hunted by a Creature of Grimm.
 
Dammit, there were people who fought these things?! And lived to tell the tale?! What kind of insanity did it take?! You had to be suicidal! 
 
No Hunter could even [i]begin[/i] to be called sane, fighting these things day in and out…
 
And thus, I realized that the fate of humanity was in the hands of those insane people who didn't fear death.
 
“Aha...hahahaha!”
 
At such cruel, cruel irony, I couldn't help but laugh. In that case, perhaps I would be able to understand how this happened. 
 
Obviously, this world works off of pure contradictions. Think about it. Those who don't fear death are those keeping everyone else alive. It takes either the mightiest warriors to fight off Grimm, or a simple piece of paper with a funny drawing on it. A lonesome high schooler visits an old, forgotten shrine to pay it respect and pray for an easy, safe year, free of hardship, and he's immediately rewarded with a step covered in black ice, and a tumble town the side of the mountain that ended in god knew where, a fractured leg, and now this.
 
I wished for a life of energy conservation…
 
Maybe the Spirit of Whitesnake shrine figured that it was easy to conserve if you were just dead.
 
“What an asshole god…” I muttered, desperately holding onto the flash of anger and the clarity that came with it. 
 
They were terrible last words. But they were also fighting words, and to hell with not going down fighting, right?
 
My arm, still somehow lucid through the massive adrenaline and endorphin dump, lashed outward.
 
A rock--little more than a pebble, but still a rock, bounced ineffectually off of the bony forehead of the beast, disappearing into the woods and crashing against something metal with a loud clang. It blinked, and growled at me--
 
And in that time, I gathered myself enough to scramble to my feet on my one and a half legs, to try and make a break for it--
 
Only something inside [i]me[/i] broke.
 
I fell with a cry of pain, landing in a crumpled heap in the snow.
 
The Grimm leapt with an angry howl, jaws open wide and massive, massive fangs ready to tear through flesh and bone.
 
I managed to turn, realizing that it was actually rather easy to come to peace with death. It wasn't as if there were no regrets-- there were many. Even a misanthrope like me would feel ashamed at putting his parents and beloved big sister through the pain of his passing. I never did get the chance to experience the glory of being a househusband, either…
 
A blur of black consumed my vision, and I hate to break it to everyone, but you don't see the life you've lived flash before your eyes, nor do you see the faces of the friends you've made along the way.
 
Ha! Not that I had any friends to be seeing, what kind of sucker was I supposed to be, here?
 
… The kind who died alone on a mountainside. That kind.
 
I closed my eyes, and felt a sad smile spread across my face as those fangs sunk deep into flesh.
[hr]
* * *
[hr]
It must have gone straight for my head. That had to be it, my brain must have immediately been destroyed. It was the only way I could have died so painlessly, that much was obvious. It wasn't like a quick and painless poison had entered my system or that I had been gently choked to death by some Judo or Jujutsu master. 
 
No, the only possible way that this beast of Grimm could have ended me in such a suffering-free manner is if I was immediately dead with the first blow, which meant that my head was probably chunky salsa in its maw. For my sister’s sake, I hope they never see that body…
 
Now then, I wondered what sort of heaven they'd sent me to? The classical city in the clouds populated by angels? The fields of Elysium, reserved for those who only sought to do good in their life? Now I won't try and dress up my methodology, but I think my crusade against the immoral and uncaring society we live in today was entirely for the good of humanity!
 
Valhalla, the eternal hall of mead and battle, was obviously right out. My personal paradise would be somewhere quiet, with interesting things to read, and nobody to bother me except the people I wanted to bother me.
 
Like my strong, intelligent, career-oriented wife, who I never had the chance to meet in life. Oh well. Perhaps reincarnation exists, and in another life I'll be able to be your lazy homemaker! Now would you want to come home to dinner, a bath, or me~?
 
Eugh. Even entertaining the notion of that line sounds dirty. Damn prideless otakus actually get off on that? Disgusting, disappointing. Go explode, you tasteless losers. Househusbandry doesn't mean debasing yourself to three things, fuckwads! The gods of hospitality must curse you!
 
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I'm not a warrior. I really hoped I didn't somehow end up in Valhalla. Because I didn't belong there at all, not amongst the atmosphere nor the clientele.
 
But if that were so, then why was I still very much feeling cold snow around me, and hearing the sounds of man struggling against beast?
 
I opened my eyes--
 
And fell back in shock.
 
Standing above me--
 
With the hellhound’s advance sternly checked and locked in place--
 
Was a man. 
 
Not a man, a boy. 
 
A boy who could only be a scant two or three years older than me, who wasn't yet 17.
 
A boy [i]whose arm was locked between the jaws of the beast.[/i]
 
“Word of advice--” he grunted, gritting his teeth as every fiber of his small, corded body strained against the Grimm’s power and momentum.
 
“Stay--”
 
Despite the obvious power struggle, he [i]raised his leg--
 
“On the trail!”[/i]
 
And if my sister's attempts to get me into karate as a kid stuck at all, he lashed it out like a piston, driving his heel hard enough into its sternum to send it flying-- a side kick.
 
A side kick [i]that sent a four-hundred pound wolf sailing twenty feet into the tree behind it.[/i]
 
I even heard something crack.
 
“Uh… Right.”
 
It was all I could do to just dumbly agree. The turn of events had left me so completely flabbergasted that my usual linguistic mastery had vanished.
 
Was I so powerless in the face of authority?
 
Well, when it came to someone who was so very obviously a Huntsman and had already shown enough power to suggest that they could kill me with their little finger--
 
Yes, you could call me quite powerless.
 
“Is it--”
 
As if answering the question on its own, it howled, a low droning wail, after rising to its feet. No, it was not dead yet. As one would expect of humanity's toughest foe. 
 
He spoke in response too, but his answer carried a markedly different tone. A different message, that only someone like him could give.
 
“Almost. Sit tight.”
 
Drawing in a deep breath, I saw every muscle of his back tense, relax, and then tense again beneath his black tank top--
 
Blinked once--
 
And heard a loud, cracking [i]thud[/i] as the impact of the scything kick he had thrown, somehow now [i]above[/i] the giant wolf, shook the ground beneath us.
 
Beneath [i]us.[/i]
 
As I was still twenty feet [i]away.[/i]
 
How he hadn't snapped his own shin with such tremendous force, I had no goddamn clue, especially since he [i]definitely[/i] snapped the wolf’s neck.
 
Moving at speeds an avid gamer and not-unathletic guy like me couldn't even keep track of, let alone hope to replicate.
 
Producing more force than the entire weightlifting team-- hell, a full factor more. I could only feel that again if I were to witness a car crash.
 
Utter ignorance of a mangled right forearm, copiously dripping and bubbling with scarlet plasma. A tear in skin and muscle that made the training dummies they used for the station’s K-9 units look like they had been lightly scuffed. It looked even more dangerous than my out-of-commission leg.
 
And it was [i]closing on its own.[/i]
 
Confidence and surety, as if it were a foregone conclusion when he put the wolf to death. Nerves of steel and utter sangfroid in the face of death itself--
 
Someone who didn't fear it at all. 
 
Hunters.
 
He rounded upon me with no hesitation, not even stopping to admire his handiwork in the form of the massive lupine demon fading into dust.
 
“You’re hurt, right? Let me see your leg.”
 
“I think it's fractu--Oi, what the hell are you--”
 
Expressly [i]without[/i] my permission, he'd rolled up my pants to the knee--
 
And without as much as even considering missing a beat, he plunged his fingertips into the remains of the gash on his arm, before pulling them free and painting a long red streak of his own blood down my calf.
 
They really were all insane.
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* * *
[hr]
By the time he'd convinced me to stop screaming curses in every language I knew (which, if we're specifically talking curses, is a [i]scheissegrosse[/i] number), I had a pretty clear idea of what was going on.
 
“So your power-- Is all about healing?”
 
“Semblance, yeah.” He absently corrected, guiding me to my feet while scanning our surroundings, a suspicious gleam in his eye. “Though it's likely not thorough with that little blood… Can you put weight on it at all?”
 
Frowning and feeling more than a little like some kid, I tested it, gritting my teeth and sucking some air in through them.
 
“Not a lot.”
 
That eye flicked back to me, concerned, before steeling and focusing straight ahead down the path he’d come from. 
 
“That's fine, I can support you.”
 
Actually, let's talk about this for a moment. Not only was my savior a Hunter, and therefore a certified badass no matter how you sliced it, but he was [i]also[/i] both [i]completely shredded[/i] and totally [i]babyfaced.[/i] How was that even fair?! How are normal guys like me supposed to compete with a mix of bishonen appeal and impressive physique?!

I’m revving up my autistic frogs!


I don't even care if he's a manlet, my two inches on him don't count against that level of Chaddiness! Hell, this turbo-normie even had those emo-bangs that swept over one eye, adding a vague sense of mystery that was compounded by this curt and businesslike demeanor!
 
Hunters are absolute bullshit! If I wasn't injured, being saved by you, and liable to get tied into a knot in two seconds flat, I would have totally punched that black hair off your head! How dare you exist with such superiority to me, mongrel?!
 
Yeah, no. I'm not the King of Heroes, and punching the hair off his head would just make him Saitama.
 
Maybe he'd look stupid if I punched off everything except the cowlick, but before I could further contemplate the matter, my weight was suddenly shifted as he forcefully lent me his shoulder. 
 
At least buy me dinner first, right?
 
“Sorry for being in a rush and roughhousing you,” (kyaaaa~) he said, a legitimate note of apology coloring his voice as I fought the adrenaline dump delirium. “But we really need to get moving.”
 
“Oh yeah, that's great reason for medical malpractice. Never gone wrong before.” I jabbed wryly. “Why? Didn't you kill that thing? Job’s [i]done,”[/i] a glance over to the small pile of black powder, nearly dissipated into the wind completely. “Can't you just call for transport and wait here?”
 
“No,” he firmly corrected me, starting us off at a brisk cadence where OW-- [i]OW EASE INTO IT, DAMMIT![/i] “A lone Fenris isn't much trouble, but they don't look like wolves, bark like wolves, and walk live wolves for no reason. That last howl was probably a call for help, and if there's a whole pack nearby…”
 
“...Can't stay still then. Right.”
 
A gruesome image.
 
He left it to me to sum it up for myself, which was honestly entirely unnecessary and a little insulting. You don't need to be a cryptic asshole to drive a point home, it's not like I'm braindead.
 
And like somebody who isn't braindead, I could use my own words to say things that needed saying, even if I didn't particularly appreciate having to do it. He should know this already.
 
“So, uh… thanks.”
 
“Hm?”
 
“You saved my life, so thank you.”
 
“Ah, don't worry.” He scoffed good-naturedly, adopting a cheshire smirk. “After all, you saved yourself. It wasn't me who saved you.
 
I processed that for a moment.
 
Then, I have to admit, I saw this Hunter in an entirely new light.
 
“That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard.”
 
He instantly flinched, as though struck, and soon enough that collected badass was just… [i]gone.[/i]
 
“E-Eh? But this is like the one time it [i]does[/i] make sense!” 
 
“How the hell is that supposed to make sense?” I demanded. “What, was that actually [i]me[/i] who kicked the Grimm twice, with my broken leg?”
 
“Your leg’s not broken!”
 
I snorted. Ha! Looks like you’re only human after all!
 
“Exactly, [i]you healed it after killing the Grimm.”[/i]
 
“L-Look, I agree that it's a stretch, okay?” He had begun to vaguely resemble my sister in his reaction to my onslaught. Ha! You may be good in a fight, Hunter-san, but never forget who's better in an argument after today! “I just stole the phrase from an…”
 
He paused, eyes rolling skywards as his brain ran through the dictionary looking for suitable words.
 
“An [i]acquaintance--”[/i]
 
“You barely know them and you're ashamed of them.” I surmised.
 
Critical hit! Hunter-San flinched! I've been listening in on conversations around me for too long to not pick up that trepidation in your voice, fool!
 
Ah, but I don't need to participate in them. They're about trite shit most of the time, anyways. 
 
He hastily rallied, despite taking great care not to overwork me. Another person would call this taking advantage of his distraction, but I call it asymmetrical warfare.
 
“Look, if you didn't scream and make all that noise, I probably wouldn't have found you in time, okay? You saved yourself by helping me get into the situation where I could lend my strength, you basically got yourself saved all on your own!”
 
I didn't need a mirror to tell that the look I sent him was [i]paper[/i] flat.
 
“Is that as good a reasoning as that [i]acquaintance[/i] of yours gives?” 
 
“He…” He sighed, exaggeratedly hanging his head for a moment. “Usually doesn't give me any, so no.”
 
“You have a worrying taste in [i]acquaintances,[/i] Hunter-san.”
 
“Luke.”
 
Huh? Oh right, names. We forgot names, how embarrassing. If I did this talking thing more often, I'm sure I would say that this blunder was most embarrassing.
 
“I'm Luke Schwarz.”
 
I just about staggered into a classic facefault, forcing Luke to all but catch me and hoist me back to my feet.
 
“That explains a lot… you're from [i]that[/i] bundle of monsters.” I said, referring to his family.
 
The Matriarch, and Most Accomplished Woman in Shiroyama, Holly Schwarz.
 
The Patriarch, the only known non-auric individual in the family and the boss of half of the city’s police force, the man I [i]still[/i] only knew as “Officer” or “Sheriff” Schwarz.
 
The twin sisters of violence, virtue, and vigilante justice, who had only finally stopped raising hell on the general populace of miscreants when they had left middle school for Signal Combat School, April and Dawn Schwarz.
 
And finally, the mysterious figure of more myth than fact that used to roam the halls of Naoetsu Private High School, having out of nowhere saved some girl in my class at the end of the semester before last after three years of being little more than a ghost at the center of a rumor mill reportedly stretching even outside the town itself.
 
Lucas Schwarz.
 
He even had the old black and red Gakuran uniform that our school used to have the male students wear-- before they updated it for my incoming class.
 
“Oh, you know of my family? Yeah, they're pretty wild…”
 
“You're out there yourself, man.”
 
Don't act like you aren't. You're the absolute antithesis of everything I stand for, so you had better own it around me!
 
“Well…”
 
“And speaking of wild,” I continued, tugging on the collar of the uniform that he'd now slung over his shoulder. “You wanna explain why you decided to strip before fighting that-- what the [i]hell is with this?”[/i]
 
I had only meant to slightly jostle the thing to grab his attention towards my complaints about the unwanted manservice, but I was thrown entirely off-track by the fact that it felt like this thing was lined entirely with [i]lead.[/i]
 
“Oh, that's my old uniform. Naoetsu High.”
 
“I [i]know[/i] what uniform it is, I attend the place. What the hell’s with the weight, you tard?”
 
“I had it repurposed. Training gear. The Vytal Festival is coming up, and every Freshman team wants in on it, so…”
 
I was now very acutely aware that those corded shoulders he shrugged so frivolously were carrying upwards of a hundred pounds, minimum. How the hell does anyone get that strong?
 
“Gotta train.”
 
“What are you, the Eternal Lotus of Shiroyama?” I groused, knowing he probably wouldn't get it.
 
Instead, he laughed, and I doubletaked.
 
“Ha! No, nothing that crazy. Whatever the heck Gai had Lee train with weighed as much as the average [i]house[/i], man. I've got nothing on that right now.”
 
“Y-You're familiar with Naruto?” I gawked
 
“The Chuunin exams were right around where it stopped being worth watching, [i]maybe[/i] the Sasuke Retrieval arc.” Luke continued, heedless of my jaw hanging lower and lower as he effortlessly tossed out opinions, very valid and correct opinions, [i]in my wheelhouse.[/i] Fuck off, normie! Reeeee!
 
Okay, so he watched Naruto as a kid. Fair, a lot of kids in our generation did, but I was sure his casual tastes didn't go much further than that.
 
“But beyond all that: Naruto is a gateway anime of the worst kind, and there's only one question on my mind about it.”
 
Despite myself, I took the bait. 
 
“And that is?”
 
“Is there a character who can [i]even touch[/i] Madara Uchiha? And I'm not talking just any Uchiha Madara: I'm talking Uchiha Madara with…”
 
And that was how I soon discovered that the most famous alum my high school would ever have was a total shitposting [i]nerd.[/i]
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* * *
[hr]
“I think we’re in the clear, so we can ease up a bit..”
 
If he was using our chats to disguise the distance we'd traveled, I had to give credit where it was due. I certainly didn't realize it, but a quick look back showed me our tracks in the snow going quite a distance up the mountainside…
 
Very sneaky. I had been too busy grilling him for his tastes in pop culture to even think of how far I was traveling on a damaged leg. A smart move was always to distract people into doing what you want without them thinking about it--
 
And even I wasn't immune, despite having always been cognizant of the fact that Luke's head was on a swivel the whole way. 
 
“So how do you know about my family, anyways?” He asked conversationally, albeit I could distinguish some actual curiosity behind the easygoing tone. “Just the local news, or..?”
 
“Your sisters were a class below me in middle school.” I answered succinctly. “So there's a whole slew I heard about you guys from being in the same school as them alone.”
 
“I’m so sorry.” He immediately bowed his head. 
 
It wasn't anything that he needed to apologize for, but it felt nice in a cathartic way to have him, the champion of humanity, bowing before a normal (lol) guy and noble (lol) loner like me.
 
Or was it schadenfreude?
 
Pff, nah, it was entirely petty. Not that I cared~
 
“That aside, my sister Sakura also works for your dad--”
 
“Wait, you're [i]Sakura’s[/i] little brother?! [i]Jason Rhodes?”[/i]
 
“Uh, yeah.” 
 
So he knew my sister? Alright, that was a bit out of left field, but not wholly unexpected. She directly answered to his father, after all, so them meeting wasn’t really that surpri--

My train of thought was brutally interrupted as a quartet of knuckles suddenly rapped against my skull, an excellent display of control over the enormous strength of a Huntsman. Enough to hurt, but not enough to seriously hurt, coming from someone who could liquefy my skull.

On one hand, it was impressive.

On another, it was frightening.

On the third and most important hand:

“Ow! What the hell’s your problem, asshole?” I growled in indignation, rubbing the side of my head.

“That’s what I ought to be asking you, idiot!” he fired back with equal heat, his lone visible steel-colored eye boring an imperious hole into my own. Hold on, I knew this look! Was I getting big brothered here? Hell no!

“Grr… You don’t--AGH!”

Another ring of the bell.

“Don’t give me that! You have any idea how worried she must be? Where do you get off running out into the mountains on New Years Day, anyway?! Go to one of the other shrines, where you won’t be able to fall off the side of a mountain!”

Big problem with your argument, Hunter-boy.

“Well hey, right back at you-- What were you doing on the mountain to be there in time to save me, on the far side from civilization? Awfully hypocritical of you to get on my case for the exact same stuff as you, senpai!” I crowed, feeling my momentum return as I worked through the idea of him throwing stones from a glass house.

Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t the case. From within the deep pockets of his coat, (which had been worn [i]over[/i] the previously mentioned uniform), he produced a rolled up piece of paper adorned with a number of strange, archaic-looking symbols and characters.

“I had business up there. The Whitesnake Shrine’s talisman needs replacing— and not some contrarian brat running up to it because he wants to do things differently from everyone else.”

“Redundancy isn’t a virtue, and if that’s the case, what the hell were you doing on this side of the mountain, instead of taking the steps? You can’t follow any hiking trails in the snow, asswipe.”
 
“Heh.”

His face became something halfway between a rictus grin and the snarl the Fenris had levelled upon me earlier.

“Doesn’t matter if you’re training…”

That didn’t sound healthy, but then again, as we’ve established, I’m the one sane party here. If anything, I should be leading the pack, but leading is both too much work and impossible since I have no idea where to go, so I’m stuck with hoping my life is in the hands of, at least, a benignly insane man.

“But anyways, I’m still going to ask, Jason.” he sobered up quickly. “Why were you up there instead of one of the five… ‘operational’ shrines, so to speak? Even in the summer, that would have been dangerous, let alone now.”

Hey, you know I’m barely any younger than you, right? What’s with this act of lecturing me like a little kid, seriously? I can handle going places on my own.

He shook his head.

“Not like that. I just said I needed to replace the talisman, right?”

I nodded, but stared at him rather blankly. Don’t try and lead me on, I’m not into mysticism and all that junk. Not since I was 13, and was writing my own novels. Which were glorified fanfiction. Basically, when I was still a chuuni, you might have had a captive audience, but now I just want you to get on with it.

“The way these shrines protect us is through talismans like those.” he explained, “See, Grimm are attracted to spiritual negativity.”

Why are you holding up that finger, and who did you copy that lecture pose from? It looks ridiculous, please stop.
 
“Most commonly, that means an excess of the classic ‘negative’ emotions. Anger, Fear, Envy, and the like. Not only do the shrines offer a place of communion with gods and ancestral spirits, which is a way to help ease the soul for many, but those talismans also act as…”

He paused, frowning as he tried to find a good term for it. Just don’t look at me, I don’t know any of this.

“I guess you could call them kind of like filters, in a way. The ambient negativity in the town’s area is basically soaked up and sealed within them, so that’s how we can get away with not having distinct walls like our neighbors in Redwood. But, they don’t last forever. Those little slips of paper can only hold onto so much before the seal breaks.”

“And that’s what the mikos are there for, besides keeping the places clean?” I ventured, starting to see where he was getting at with this. “And judging you for your appearance.”

[i]I’m sorry, Patron-san, but your fetid gaze may disrupt the calmness of this place. Please, try to find yourself in more tranquility.[/i]

She got reprimanded for it, but it still hurts a guy’s feelings.

“Yeah, and being part-time ninja--wait, what?”

“Forget it. Just keep dumping.”

He gauged me with some sort of look that I didn’t know how to read, before continuing at my behest.

“Anyways… yeah, and since the Whitesnake Shrine is both unstaffed and derelict, it’s basically become a historical restoration project for the Huntsmen in the area, myself included. We can’t be there all the time either, so when the charm craps out, someone like you coming up there’s dangerous.”

“Oh, so you think my eyes are too rotten too. I’ll attract Grimm if I look at the shrine the wrong way or if I’m having a bad day.”

“That’s not what I meant at all.” He frowned openly. “It’s dangerous for anyone without training to handle Grimm, but honestly, you’re starting to convince me yourself that the misanthropy won’t help.”
 
Okay, okay, don't act like it's my fault that society hates me as much as I hate it. Hell, it hates me much more, because there are some upstanding pillars of society that I [i]don't[/i] hate. 
 
Like my sister.
 
“Is it that bad to not want to deal with all the nonsense involved with going the same place as an entire town’s worth of people? If my earnest wish is drowned out by everyone disrespecting the shrines with their inane group photos and angering the spirits, that's gonna leave a guy like me SOL, you know?”
 
He scoffed.
 
“You [i]definitely[/i] don't believe in any of that. You sound like my Dust Apps teacher, now what's the actual reason for the nonsense of going to an abandoned, damn near [i]forgotten[/i] shrine and, however inadvertently, risking attracting Grimm?”
 
“I sound like I'm wiser and more experienced than you? Thanks for the compliment, I must be onto something.”
 
His frown became a frustrated scowl. He really wanted to press this sudden moral crusade of his, didn't he?
 
“I'll admit I made an uninformed decision, but let's get something clear: What's it even [i]to[/i] you? Why’s it matter so much?” 
 
This kind of nagging was exactly what I had gone that way to avoid in the first place! If you're so concerned about all my negativity, quit fostering it by bugging me!
 
“Because I'm not letting another person live out their life like that!”
 
“And [i]who[/i] the hell made [i]you[/i] the arbitrator of how people are supposed to live? Just because you're physically stronger? Just because you're a couple of years older? What do you even know about me? You're just some random guy to me, you know. If I let random people tell me how to live, I wouldn't have [i]any[/i] self-determination, and nothing to call my own!”
 
I pushed him away from me, but, as you might be able to predict, our insane differences in strength and weight meant that I was more just pushing myself off of him, staggering back and only barely catching myself on my bad leg.
 
And even then, I felt myself breaking into a cold sweat as knives lanced up through my calf.
 
“Jason, what the hell are you--”
 
“I'm standing on my own two feet.” I bit out, pointing my thumb towards my chest. [i]“That's[/i] how I've been living my life, Lucas Schwarz. All I need to worry about is fighting [i]my own[/i] battles the way [i]I want to fight them.”[/i]
 
“You can't win like that!”
 
“Says who?”
 
[i]“Says me.”[/i] He all but growled. “Jason, I don’t know what you’ve heard about me or think about me, but when I say I know about this, [i]I know about this.[/i] I’ve witnessed what driving everyone away like that, acting like you’re too good for them and you don’t need them [i]does.[/i] You’re not any stronger on your own!”

What in the hell did he possibly know about me ? Nothing. We’d never met, but he sure was being awfully presumptuous. Seriously, practice what you just preached before trying to step to me about my philosophy.

I opened my mouth to retort--

“Oh that’s rich coming from you, Schwarz.”

We turned, and saw a small woman roughly Luke’s age emerge from the woods further down the slope. Clad in a heavy, fur-lined winter coat, her long silver hair was parted into twintails that reached roughly halfway down her back, stopping just short of the pommel of the seax at her hip. Despite being paler in complexion than both myself and Luke, her face suggested Shiroyaman or Atlesian Ancestry as well, and likely would have been cute--

Had it not currently been twisted into a sneer that absolutely dripped with the same utter contempt she held in her dull gray eyes.

From my right, I heard a choked gasp escape the back of Luke’s throat--

And, as though he saw a ghost, he finally found his words after five solid seconds of just standing there, slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

“...O-Opal?”
[hr]
* * *
[hr]
“Quit looking at me like that. Actually, just quit looking at me and get out of my sight entirely.”

Even on this mountainside in a field of snow, in the middle of winter, that voice was still easily the coldest thing going. Low in a manner similar to my own, but where I was simply not deigning to speak with any more energy than I needed, she was still projecting it clearly, strongly, and openly.

It was a loud and extremely clear message, and judging from the way Luke flinched — [i]flinched![/i] — at her words, they had definitely reached the intended recipient. Hold on, was this the same guy that had just unflinchingly kicked a literal hellhound so hard he nearly decapitated it after it practically shredded his arm? Where was that bravado, dude?

Don’t tell me demons are easier to stand up to than girls. That’s not only ridiculous, it’s pathetic.

“Oh,” she continued with a disgruntled frown, eyebrows knitting together in annoyance. “But before you do, you can turn off your Alert Signal. Especially since there’s nothing to worry about. You get enough attention from the [i]Commandment,[/i] how greedy are you to want more?”

“Glad you’re doing well, but that’s not the kind of attention anyone would want…” he shakily replied, helping me deduce that whatever ‘the Commandment’ was, it wasn’t a good thing. “And what are you doing reading a Mistralese— not even that, Haven’s School Newspaper? Wasn’t it Mantle that you went to?”

“Shiloh’s shitty rag is the epitome of fake news. Veronique Pressman is the only journalist with a shred of integrity. Didn’t I tell you to stop looking at me like that? I’ll give your alert signal a reason to keep sending me notifications like it’s goddamn AMBER.”

I could have sworn I heard him mutter “Yep, definitely Atlas,” under his breath, which only made me worry even harder. Was raw malevolence an Atlesian thing? I don’t want to go back to the old country, not if this scary woman’s from there! If I ever find myself travelling abroad, it’s definitely to Mistral, where they don’t make people so full of hate!
 
“Right… I just set it to “in combat” when I ran across him,” he said, indicating me as he fished through his uniform’s pocket. “Didn’t think to turn it off yet…”

“Of course not. You never do.” she scoffed, not willing to let him off the hook.

Those contemptuous eyes the turned my way, and without thinking, I found my hand raising in an awkward wave. Despite the brief glint of [i]something[/i] that I noticed, there and gone again only for a moment, it seemed like I for once had managed to avoid increasing the general disgust of a female in my vicinity who wasn’t related to me by blood.

I might be happy, if I was sure that it wasn’t because there was no way to push the envelope further already.

With a huff, she addressed Luke again as he fumbled with his scroll. “You wanna explain why he’s still injured? Or did you just not care?”

“I couldn’t treat him fully, we had to get moving.”

“So you half-assed it. Why.”

“Fenris hunt in packs, Arisen.” I helpfully provided with a raised eyebrow. Even for me, this was starting to get excessive. For the love of god, too, it had better not be a tsundere act, otherwise you’ve completely missed the genre and should be ashamed of yourself. Cut off those twintails, you don’t deserve them if you can’t play nice too!
 
From what I’d learned of him in our short time together, Luke normally would have leapt all over a blunt video game quote like that, and I knew there was no way he wasn’t familiar with Dragon’s Dogma.

Instead, all I got for my trouble of putting myself out there was an absolutely withering glare from Opal. Great. Just shut up, got it. Don’t hurt me.

“An entire pack of them?! What the fuck?!”

“No... It was one. We had to move in case there was a pack.”
 
It was a completely reasonable answer, but what the hell felt so off about it? I turned to him—

And I could swear I just caught the tail end of him actively putting that characteristic pensive frown of his [i]back on top[/i] of something else.

[i]Weird.[/i]

Not worth pursuing until we were somewhere safe, but [i]weird.[/i] He’d make a damn shitty Hunter if he couldn’t keep a lid on things, whatever they could have been, until then.

“Oh wow,” the Atlesian drawled derisively. “So you had some foresight after all?”

Props to him, he wasn’t halfway bad at keeping up that mask of good nature during crunch time. Laughing it off only somewhat awkwardly, he responded with an attemptedly easygoing “Well, I’ve been working on it,” type of hedge.

“Hmph. [i]Perkele.”[/i] came her simple snort back, continuing to refuse him the same kindness. 

Okay, really, there came a point where, if I had to break out my dictionary of international profanity to understand the only conversation you were willing to have with an ally of yours who was just trying to do his job, you were taking your act too damn far. I didn’t care if he was some dumb Chad who dumped you or anything, you’re literally getting in the way of [i]my[/i] life here.

What a bitch.

“He’s not broken anywhere, but there’s a long hairline running down his calf that he’s aggravating to hell and back.” she surmised without missing a beat, before levelling yet another angry [i]look[/i] upon the guy who you’d [i]swear[/i] was supposed to be her mortal enemy by now. “You’ve been having him walk on that?”

The corners of his mouth tightened as he made a noise in the back of his throat that I had hoped were the beginnings of a protest, but he unfortunately seemed to think better of it. Stand up for yourself, at least a little! That’s an accusation of malpractice, isn’t that shit serious to you guys?
 
“No, I’ve been supporting him on the way down.”

“And not [i]carrying[/i] him? I know you’re morally weak, Schwarz, but I would have figured a knucklehead such as yourself to at least be strong enough to manage that after getting into Beacon Academy.”

“Alright, that’s enough--” I began, before Luke raised his hand in front of me--

“I wouldn’t want to [i]aggravate[/i] it more than necessary, so on that note, we should… get…”

And blanched again, eyes going wide as he stared past Opal and into the trees.

All at once, a symphony of low growls filled the air. In hindsight, Opal running into him and our argument beforehand was the absolute worst possible way to prevent this from happening. In fact, it rendered all that hard work from before nil.

Our frustrations with eachother had all combined into a great big [i]vortex[/i] of negativity, hadn’t they? My frustrations with Luke, Luke’s crusade against me, Opal’s outright hatred of Luke and my grievances against her had all effectively been a giant waypoint for all Grimm, just like that Fenris, in the area.

And they lead the pack he belonged to right to us.

I heard the sound of steel on leather as Opal drew her Seax, followed shortly by the loud thud of the weighted uniform dropping into the snow with enough force to still hit solid ground, as we all darted our gazes around us in a panic.

[i]“Vittu,[/i] Schwarz! I thought you said there weren’t any more of them coming! /you lying son of a bitch!”

“I didn’t, I just said they never showed up! They must have been tailing us out of sight!”

At least a dozen of those shaggy, black, low-hunched profiles were bearing their bone-white fangs as they stalked forward, with at least one from every direction.

We were surrounded. Each Fenris looked like it was even bigger and meaner than the last, and despite knowing I had two Huntsmen protecting me, that was still the odds of one versus six or seven, and they already worked together famously...

The ball in the pit of my stomach returned.
 
“Are we going to die?” I asked?

“Hell no!”

Without warning, Opal— who must have only been 5’3 and 110 pounds at the most— scooped me up onto her free shoulder, as though I were little more than the average duffel bag.

Again, this tiny girl lifted me. Bodily.

With one arm.

Aura really was insane…

“We’ve gotta make a break for Redwood! Schwarz!” She called, starting and then stopping as she saw her hated rival take up a fighting stance with a grim, dutiful look on his face. At least they [i]seemed[/i] to be back to all business now that there was [i]imminent danger…[/i]

“Go!” he barked, steel in his eyes once more. “I’ll--”

I blinked, and in that time he fairly teleported, at least from my perspective, into the large Fenris that Opal had nearly charged, knocking it sideways through sheer momentum.

“I’ll clear a path and hold them here! Just him there ASAP!”

My current captor ground her teeth…

But nonetheless nodded, muttering something under her breath before shouting out an absurd promise that I still, somehow, believed she would keep, simply due to the sheer Huntsman Insanity these two suffered from:

“I swear I’m following your calamitous ass to hell to kick it myself if you die, Lucas!”

She ran forward, not even pausing as she suddenly brought that huge, sword-sized knife across in a swift arc through the throat of the Fenris that had slipped past Luke and leapt for the two of us. Breaking clear, I hurriedly pointed out two that were trailing us and gaining ground, that same horrifying desire for murder in their eyes—

And was then whipped around to suddenly face the direction of our destination, as I heard the Seax enter the sheath once more and something else, something [i]buzzy[/i] leave another one—

And then with equal suddenness, the whole thing having only taken a second or two, the Grimm’s faces, which I had feared would be the last I ever saw, were each sporting a new, sparking metal horn.

I had just enough time to recognize them as kunai—

And then the world around me became a blur of white, brown, and grey.
[hr]
* * *
[hr]
[i]“Vittu, vituttaa niin vitusti!”[/i]

You know, if I had to guess at the most interesting dialect to hear incoherently swearing, it would probably be Northeastern Atlesian. Masters of pragmatism, theirs was the only language I knew of where you could string a whole bunch of the same word together and get away with it.

“Fuck this, I’m so fucking pissed off”, more or less, which basically echoed every other sentiment she’d aired prior.

We had been moving at a pretty substantial clip for ten minutes now, and despite her constant strings of profanity and obvious basal state of being disgruntled, coupled with my own of healthy cynicism, no more Grimm had come after us.

Color me shocked, but hey, better that than no improvement…

“I knew coming back here would be nothing but trouble.” she griped, finally switching back over to common Valic, which gave me an opening to try and figure out a few things that I needed to ask her, for the sake of trying to make sense of it all.

“...That distress call?”

She shook her head, ducking down at the waist for a moment and bringing me under a particularly low-hanging branch.

“No, I mean Vale as a whole. I should have put my foot down and stayed in Atlas, but [i]nooooo,”[/i]

Adopting a lighter, brighter, and very much sarcastic voice, she began to recite various quotes back to me: “ ‘Opal, you should go back and see your hometown for training, at least check out that famous martial arts academy!’ ‘Miss Sjostrom, everyone else is returning to their homeland, and I think you would benefit from it as well.’ ‘Hey, you want to get a lay of the land with me for the tournament’s host country during winter break? Better than being cooped up in the dorm with nothing but an old trig textbook to keep you occupied!’”
 
Who the hell gets entertained by math, though? Seriously?

“Yeah, well guess what, Old Trig would have been a damn sight better than [i]Schwarz, Tritten.[/i]” she spat the names out, albeit the former with a lot more genuine heat than the latter.

Really?

You really hate him so much you prefer math?

Are you some kind of weirdo? Maybe a savant? Look, I get not liking people, I really do, but I don’t think I’ve ever hated a single person more than I’ve hated pointlessly subjecting myself to [i]more coursework[/i]. That’s absolutely nuts even for a workaholic, which I very much am [i]not.[/i]

“So what the hell is your deal with Senpai, anywa--NNGHK!”

Bad move, Bad move! Bad Question to ask! 

“Uh, spine! [i]Spine!”[/i]
 
After a brief, agonizingly frightful moment of consideration, the vicelike pressure around my waist returned to a normal, firm grip. 
 
“My deal’s none of your business, kid, and on what [i]level[/i] do you call that walking disaster ‘Senpai’? You know him that well?”
 
This girl's mean streak was a mile long, especially when it came to my former rescuer and high school alumnus, so my choice in answers was extremely obvious. Self-preservation was something ridiculous to be worried about in the face of an Atlesian (read: typically very good) Huntress, but at least I could talk to her and have an infinitely higher chance of getting through than I could any Grimm.

So no hard feelings, Senpai, but I’m fighting for my life here as well. I’ll fight as hard as I’m sure you must be.

“No, just met him today and he went to the same school as I do, that’s all. Ma’am.”
 
“Relax.” She grunted, easily clearing a fallen sequoia that seemed to herald us finally reaching level ground, “I don't know how people can tolerate the guy, but my beef is with him, not everyone who's met him. He's too damn gregarious for that to make sense.”
 
“Tha--PTHHPT!” I began, sputtering as our landing caused a plume of white powder to erupt all around us and, consequently, straight into my damn mouth. “That's a bit hard to believe after you just tried to crush my ribcage, [i]forgive me.”[/i]
 
“I'm an Atlesian Specialist.” She shot back, testiness kept in stern measure but still evident in her clipped tones. “We’re trained better than to further harm the injured in transit.”
 
Tilting her head back, she regarded me with an almost appraising expression, as though she were trying to deduce my worth. 
 
Well, that's unnerving.
 
“No matter how much they annoy us, we're still [i]professionals.[/i] It's not like I actually hurt you, anyway.”
 
And on that note, we were off once again. Now without a slope to contend with, and seemingly at home in the snow as much as anyone could be, this time I truly got a front-row seat as to how blisteringly fast Huntsmen really were. While I'm sure this wasn't the mind-boggling speed that Luke apparently fought at, on account of the G-forces not yet significantly traveling not one direction or the other, the landscape whizzing past and the wind buffeting me easily suggested that Opal could easily reach Olympian-tier speeds while carrying nearly a hundred and sixty pounds worth of extra baggage in the form of her weapons and myself.
 
“You're awfully confident about that. How can you, with your Specialist training and Aura, really be so sure you won't accidentally snap a mere mortal like me as though I were a twig?”
 
Yeah, I could have gotten by with asking a simple question that didn't involve needlessly antagonizing her, I know that. 
 
But, hey, eye for an eye and all that, not to mention, her dismissal of that very real concern pissed me off.
 
“Do you crush every egg you pick up? Same thing.” She succinctly explained. “Not to mention, I also can directly see whether or not I've hurt you.”
 
“X-Ray vision?” I ventured. Since we were talking about bones and all, that was the first thing that leapt to mind, and considering how Semblances were just classic superpowers in my memory, it fit the bill well enough.
 
But, wait, did that mean she could see through people's clothes? That's terrifying in the eyes of someone with a personality as nasty as hers! I wouldn't trust myself not to judge people horrendously if I had that ability, let alone to not abuse it!
 
I mean, this isn't me saying I wouldn't instantly accept a power that useful and abusable, but even so, I knew that it would scare me if it weren't in my own hands.
 
However, my fears were quickly alleviated with a shake of the specialist’s head.
 
“No, it's called Triage Appraisal. You know what Triage is, if you got into Naoetsu, right?”
 
Oi Oi, how'd you know what school I'm from? I'm not wearing my uniform, here-- Oh, right. I said it was the same as Luke's.
 
“You went there too? What happened to Mantle?”
 
“No, but when you said ‘High School’ instead of ‘Combat School’ I knew it had to be that preppy place. He's an idiot, but I know for a fact he's intelligent enough to get in.” She explained, before darkly muttering something to herself under her breath that I couldn't make out through the rushing air. “Just answer the question: You know what Triage is or not?”
 
“The medical practice of sorting the wounded for treatment in order of severity.” I complied with her demand, despite having a million questions still buzzing about my head. He had originally intended to head to Signal, as his sisters were now? Or was he supposed to follow her to Atlas? “So you can tell when someone's injured?”
 
“I can see the nature and severity of the injury and weakness it may give you. That's how I know you were stupid to be putting weight on that shin, and that I didn't squeeze hard enough to do anything more than shut you up.”
 
How charming. You know you're going to end up as nothing but a spinster if you can't be a little less acerbic, right, Opal-san? Or are you a kindred spirit of mine, and you've already given up on finding love? That would be smart, because nobody likes bluntness these days~
 
I mean, damn, now I knew what Luke meant by knowing firsthand how miserable a spiteful loner’s existence was. I've always figured myself to be a pretty self-aware guy, but if I looked like this from the outside…
 
No, that couldn't have been the case. My ire was towards the moral failings of the society we live in, not a singular person.
 
“And is that how you're so familiar with Lucas’s moral weakness or injuries or whatever?”
 
Please don't look at me. Oh wait, she already did. Please don't comment on my black heart, Sjostrom-san! I might cry if I hear anything about it from you!
 
Instead, she laughed. It wasn't pretty like you would figure from a girl with her looks.
 
It was rough. Hysterical. And despite carrying on for half a minute and being accompanied by something that looked like a smile, I had a feeling it wasn't coming from good humor.
 
“Oh, I wish…” she moaned, wiping a tear from her eye as her gaze zoomed well off into the distance ahead of us. 
 
“No.” 
 
First the first time, I sensed something beyond the thick layers of anger and contempt in her voice. A pained warble, the slightest waver beneath that I only heard because I knew how to listen for it.
 
“I learned about that the hard way.”
 
Well, at least I didn't have every shameful thing about me painted across my chest like a neon sign…
 
“So what, did he--”
 
She squeezed again, this time not quite as hard, but the question died a valiant death upon my lips nonetheless. I can take a message.
 
[i]“Not,”[/i] she pointedly reiterated, [i]“your business.[/i] My life ended because of that man, that's all you're going to get. It's all I have left.”
 
I pondered that in silence for a moment. There were more than a few ways to take that particular line…
 
“Is he going to make it out of there too? We did just kind of leave the guy high and dry with like a dozen of those things and no weaponry or backup.”
 
“He’ll be fine.”  Opal told me flatly, managing to make words of reassurance sound like a pain to say. “A pack of Fenris isn't so bad when you have nobody else to be trying to look after.”
 
“You can tell from this far with that Appraisal?”
 
That was certainly an impressive pair of eyes she was sporting. How far away did the range of the 8 trigrams stretch?
 
“Pff, not a chance.” She scoffed wryly. “I need to see someone to do that. No, I just [i]know[/i] Lucas Schwarz. Even before he began seducing Gold Stripes, he’s always had the devil’s own luck, whether he admits it or not.”
 
They said that answers to the secretive questions came not from repeated interrogations but honest slips of the tongue.
 
After learning that “they” were actually right every once in awhile, and learning of another hint towards whatever deepseated issues lied between those two, I found myself going back to her previous statement.
 
‘It's all I have left,’ she had said.
 
All you had left, huh?
 
All you had left to say about the subject?
 
Or all you had left, period?
 
I wondered.
[hr]
* * *
[hr]
Well, at least that didn't quite blow up in my face, right? Honestly, though I sound desperate to find a silver lining, it was better than I expected things to go once I saw her walk out from the trees, like a grown-up ghost from the past.
 
Though I probably just got lucky in that the pack had been tailing me and Rhodes after all due to our bickering, which had cut things off early, I still wouldn't have dared hope for an outcome so tame. That's only got off with some light verbal browbeating was a… pleasant surprise, I guess.
 
My shadow roiled in disagreement, and I could feel the frown from within.
 
Well, it wasn't as though hearing all that was pleasant, don't get me wrong. Anyone who'd enjoy it needed a visit from Solomon “Mike Pence endorsed my Backyard Fence” Speer, because she was still unabashedly directing 100% of her soured personality towards me. 
 
Even so, I was still relieved in spite of it. At the very least, the fact that after all ties had been cut and four, maybe even five years had now passed since we'd seen hide or hair of eachother…
 
The fact that she was still hale and hearty enough to be around and willing to sling such abuse my way was, to me, still something of that silver lining I had been searching for.
 
The tumult in my shadow slowed to thoughtful halt, and for a while it was still and silent.
 
Then, a voice floated through my mind, albeit without the usual casualness or hint of ringing-bell laughter upon it that made it so fun to listen to.
 
[i]Luca.[/i]
 
Yes, Giada?
 
[i]Are you sure you don't need my help?[/i]
 
I exited my reverie, flexing my fingers one-by-one followed by my fist opening and closing, and watching the requisite muscles tense and relax with the motions.
 
It hurt like hell, but it was still functional. Just in time, too.
 
I whirled in a full one-eighty turn, dipping slightly at the knees to drop my center of gravity below that of the Fenris that had leapt for the back of my neck, before springing back skyward and bringing that same fist up into a short, tight uppercut that crashed into and obliterated its open jaw.
 
Yeah, I'm fine. These guys aren't that bad. Especially now that there's--
 
Of course, now having become well-accustomed to my uniform, that spring upwards became a leap carrying me some three, four feet in the air, up past the Grimm I’d knocked senseless--
 
But at the perfect height to reach for the borrowed Kunai that I'd hastily jammed into my waistband midair. I grabbed the handle, now long-bereft of any electrical charge that I could register after my many experiences with my father’s equipment, little sisters’ dirty tactics, and Vacuan Surrogate Elder Sister’s harebrained schemes--
 
Twirled it around my finger for an aesthetic flourish--
 
And rammed it home through the eye socket of the insensate demonic bastardization of a wolf, steel penetrating all the way through its cerebral cortex with ease.
 
--only three of them left. Besides, it's Vytal training season, right? Extra help only slows me down in the long run.
 
[i]Not that. We all know you're not the underdog in THIS fight.[/i]
 
I frowned, twisting the knife and yanking it out of the quickly-forming pile of dust.
 
Puns aside, what are you getting at?
 
[i]I'm getting at the fact that you’ve been trying to bottle up a whole teeming host of repressed issues that would make Piper’s arm blush ever since that Sjostrom girl showed up. You can't try and put on a brave face and hide them from me like you’re going to try to from everyone else, Tesoro Mio. We both know that.[/i]
 
……
 
[i]I'll ask again. Are you sure you don't need my help?

Because I’m not.[/i]

Something sharp and strong stabbed and clamped down upon my calf, and before I could answer her, the battle continued. 
 
I felt the Fenris’s fangs grinding up against my tibia, and with grit teeth, I elected to return the favor by ramming the blade straight through the bone of its faceplate, even as it pulled me off of my feet.
 
Fractions of a second from belly-flopping onto my stomach, I twisted and kicked as hard as I could with my other leg, my heel colliding with the ringed pommel of the knife—

And driving the blade that extra half-inch deeper it needed for the jaws to go slack on my leg, as more dust filled the air. At this rate, I was going to pollute the atmosphere as much as my mother’s Aston did on idle, or as much as much as any HJNS member did in a chatroom dominated by single females.

Speer was my boy and all, but there was a point where thot patrol ended and thot entrapment began, and it was a line Lauren had been very adamant at drilling into my skull. You’re not supposed to tap dance on it, man!

[i]Luca, focus. You’re not helping your case by trying to distract yourself.[/i]

I hadn’t meant to.

I’ll…

A growl, bark, and crunch of snow to my side.

My eyes darted that direction and my arm lashed out with a hammerfist, both before I quite consciously realized it. The strike collided thunderously with the Fenris, knocking it out of the air as well as making my hand explode into complaints from the meaty point of impact, as well as the small bones beneath.

Not out of the water yet, Lukey-boy…

I’ll have to get back to you on that, Gigi.

[i]I’m holding you to it.[/i]

Naturally.
[hr]
* * *
[hr]
[i]“Perkele! Tulla jksk kyrpä otsassa! Paskiainen molopää, jumalauta!”[/i]

I honestly could not agree more. Quit dodging, you spooky son of a bitch! I don’t want to die, and it’s not like telling my ride to throw better is gonna help either of us! Hell, it’ll probably hurt me, so that means it’s all on you! The ball is squarely in your court!

“It’s gaining...”

[i]“I know, dammit!”[/i] she growled, stealing a glance back at our new pursuer. “Fucking Geists! It keeps moving the damn mask around as soon as I throw!”

As I had the distinct misfortune of learning firsthand, Geists were what were known as a possession-type Grimm. This meant that, rather than using their own strength to fight humanity, they instead weaponized the nature around them, turning whatever object or material they possessed into a body through which they could fight. According to Opal, through her myriad Atlesian swears, their base form was apparently pretty weak.
 
This one, however, was old enough to have learned what did and didn’t constitute advantageous materials to possess and make a body out of. So, instead of something that suffered from mobility issues like trying to go whole-hog and possessing entire trees, this so-called “Borea Gigas” instead forged its body mostly out of snow and brush, with only the ends of its limbs taking advantage of the jagged hardwood branches that had snapped and fallen around it.
 
Which was just our luck, considering that this thing was both A) Smart and B) chasing us like we'd just told it we punched its mother.
 
Then again, there's a non-zero chance Opal actually [i]had,[/i] but that's beside the point.
 
In being mostly made of something that wasn't [i]all the way solid[/i], like snow, the Grimm held a distinct situational advantage over Opal right now:
 
While she was stuck carrying me, the only method she had of fighting against the thing was her knives. While she assured me that every throw buried a knife exactly where she’d aimed it, and I believed her, the loose, powdery nature of the beast’s composition allowed it to render her years of aiming practice all but moot, simply by shifting its one weak point, the mask, around like a pinball on speed.

This in turn kept the thing from ever giving up any speed by raising its arm to block, which would logically add some drag—while also acting as a method of slowing Opal down and gaining ground. Her speed was already diminished enough by my being her passenger, but every time she turned to toss one of those lightning-charged knives, that action for the briefest moment slowed her down.

And shaved the briefest moment’s worth of distance between it and us. Thanks in part to the baker’s dozen knives embedded throughout the things torso and in equal part to the many obstacles in the forest that she had to duck us under, dodge us past, or jump us over while the Grimm and its golemlike body could just bowl straight through, the Borea Gigas was now only three or four of its own arm lengths away from us.

I could tell this because, after Opal wisened up to its tricks and focused purely on trying to outlast the thing in a footrace, it raised its arm and started firing off branches at us—

[i]“Right!”[/i] I called, tapping the side I meant with my hand in case I ended up miscommunicating. If we got blown to smithereens because of me, I’d be too ashamed to even try and reincarnate into a man with better prospects in life.

She immediately swerved, and not a moment too soon. I could feel the rush of wind as the wooden stake slammed into the snow, the crash of the impact kicking up enough snow to crest over our heads. 

Holy crap, if that thing hits, I’m dead! Opal’s Aura may be able to tank it, but I certainly can’t!

And what was more…

“Dammit, forcing us to swerve means we lose even more ground!” the huntress all but roared in frustration. “Can it reach us yet, Rhodes?”

I tried to gauge the distance, and--

“It’s about to shoot again!”

“Do I have room to--” she began, desperately looking over her shoulder to see for herself--
 
It fired.
 
Time slowed to a crawl as, for the second time in as many hours, I stared down my own death.
 
The wooden projectile, some 3 feet in length and encased in a layer of sharpened frost, seemed to slowly, painfully drift through the air, almost lackadaisical in its short path towards my skull. 
 
We'd come so far.
 
In this journey down the mountainside, though they were both a couple of incomprehensible weirdos beyond even myself, with issues so deep-seated you'd find them only at the bottom of a Dust mine, I felt that I had grown to know these two huntsmen. 
 
I had shared laughter, hardship, and even anger with them, real, palpable anger.
 
I had seen them personally put themselves in harm’s way-- for my sake.
 
As the stake-branch came within a foot of scratching my nose, another one of those sobering moments of clarity came.
 
Ah.
 
I was describing camaraderie there, wasn't I? 
 
It seems through all that, even a monster of cynicism and sloth like me…
 
Even he could have made some friends, couldn't he?
 
Ten inches away now. I don't know when I became so proficient at judging distances, but it didn't matter.
 
Nine.
 
This was the end.
 
I'm sorry, Sakura. I'm sorry, Mom and Dad. I never told you how much even my troublesome and disappointing self loved you in spite of all that nonsense I say about everyone else.
 
Eight.
 
I'm sorry, Luke. I'm sorry, Opal.
 
It looked like, for all of my big talk…
 
Seven.
 
Not even my prized instinct for self preservation made me someone who could help you save them.
 
Six.
 
Please don't blame yourselves. I know how hard you tried.
 
Five.
 
Just… work out whatever you have to--
 
Four and a half.
 
At four and a half inches away, my attempts at making peace with my imminent death, which had been going so well, were brought to a screeching halt--
 
And the world blurred into real-time again, as an impossibility strong pull yanked my head and body away, even faster than that same spear which had produced such tremendous force of impact.
 
“Hold tight.”
 
And before I even had time for flustered panic in the realization that I, a self-respecting red-blooded guy, was being [i]princess carried by a girl I towered over[/i], that force of impact was there again.
 
Directly onto her back. 
 
“Ghah!”
 
While her Aura protected her from a brand new window straight through her solar plexus, that sheer force was only blunted, not mitigated completely. 
 
She stumbled. Tumbled. Rolled. 
 
Clutched me tight to herself.
 
And somehow, some way, through sheer dumb luck or some secretive Atlesian ninja training, found her feet back under her and [i]sprinted[/i] for all she was worth, even as one snowy ton of ice and birch [i]fist[/i] crashed into the earth just inches behind us.
 
For the second time in as many hours, I had been forced out of contemplating my own cessation of existence by a Huntsman literally shielding me with themselves.
 
Maybe due to having bumped my head on the ground, I was a little dazed, my first thoughts after being literally pulled away from the light went something like this:
 
[i]I can't ever complain about luck again.[/i]
 
Quickly followed by,
 
“Are you crazy?!”
 
“If it means getting the job done--[i]ARRGH![/i]” She roared, even as a second salvo crashed into her Aura. This time, though, she had braced for it and managed, just barely, not to break stride-- 
 
“Then I’ll gladly be the most insane damn person anyone’s ever met!”
 
The trees were beginning to grow sparse. That meant no more ammo, and no more shots, right?
 
Between ragged and flagging breaths, she still managed to pin me with a glare of pure spite. Maybe not at me, but at [i]something.[/i]
 
In a low, tired voice, coupled with a struggling, beginning to slow pace, she told me one last thing.
 
“Word… of advice: [i]Never[/i] take half measures.”
 
“H-Hey, keep it together! We’re almost there--”
 
Another shot.
 
Another hit.
 
A few spots of the snow behind us went red.
 
Gritting her teeth, Sjostrom [i]screamed[/i] as though she were the daughter of Ares himself, raging against fate and the world that was so intent on putting her down.

She forced herself to keep running.
 
Through sheer willpower, she made it one.
 
Two. 
 
Three steps forward.
 
Before sinking to her knees in the field of white, utterly spent.
 
The open field of white.
 
We were out of the forest.

I looked up, and understood, finally, why she had let herself stop.


The heavy footfalls of the Borea Gigas catching up to us reached my ears-- which I then covered.
 
Not because I didn't want to hear my own death, but because--
 
[i]BRRRRRRRRRRRRT[/i]
 
Because the sky was filled with [i]light and sound.[/i]
 
The heavy caliber machine guns tore through the snow and wood, so threatening to us before, like they were little more than paper.
 
The Borea Gigas was a big fish, sure.
 
But not even the biggest fish in the sea could survive the fangs of Redwood’s walls.
 
Hot lead sailed over us in twin streams for five seconds. Once the gunners ceased, an inky black cloud began to coalesce beneath that bone-white mask--
 
And then burst apart into that now-familiar plume of dust, as the mask gained an equally familiar protrusion.
 
Metallic.
 
Charged with Lightning.
 
Associated with Ninja and the country of Atlas.
 
Panting, bleeding, and [i]grinning[/i] in a victorious show of teeth, Opal Sjostrom’s last words to the biggest pain in her ass that was taller than five foot seven were exactly what you would have expected.
 
[i]“Sayonara, Saatanan Helvetti.”[/i]
[hr]
* * *
[hr]
The next few hours were little more than a blur, as the adrenaline finally left my system and I got hit with the resultant sensory crash.
 
I could vaguely recall us being met halfway by the guardsmen within the walls, who helped Opal load me onto their stretcher before whisking the both of us away to the nearby hospital. Evidently, they’d already verified who she was and only really needed to know the nature and extent of the obvious injuries afflicting the kid (me) she was carrying in.

I remember being questioned as we entered the stony gray walls. It must have been basic stuff, because no specifics leapt out at me as seemingly coming from left field: so probably just the whole “What’s your name, where are you from, what happened that put your leg out of commission, [i]good lord kid, you said how many grimm[/i]?” deal.

Opal and I finally were split up to go our separate ways once we entered Redwood General Hospital proper—a rustic looking building, befitting the rustic looking town. She was taken off to get the wound, which apparently wasn’t as severe as it had seemed when she received it, looked at as well as put through a small debriefing procedure of sorts, if I remember right.

Meanwhile, I was put under an X-Ray treatment to confirm her initial diagnosis, and then tossed on some painkillers, into a cast for my shin, and at a bed for rest. I was to stay there overnight, and would be either picked up or driven back to Shiroyama tomorrow, assuming no sudden complications arose.

Later that evening, I had gotten a call from the police station— or, rather, the same call the on-site Redwood PD officer had been using to relay the information to Sheriff Schwarz, who I had been told practically spittaked when he heard the name “Sjostrom” come up— was handed off to me. 

My sister was on the other end, and though I expected an earful from her about my egregious disregard for my own safety and how worried she was… She just kept saying that she was so glad I was safe and sound.

I took that opportunity to remind her that through thick and thin and beneath all the bullshit, I was glad that I had a sister like her.

I think it made her really happy.

The night was, thanks to the sleeping aids, mercifully without dreams of my near-death experiences on repeat, and instead simply long and restful.

The next morning, both Opal and I were given brief psychiatric screenings and, barring some papers that I was worried might end up in my student counselor’s lap in two weeks’ time, we were both given the green light for release, provided I not forget my crutches there.

I wasn’t going to, but the fact that they thought I might really disturbed me as well as, of course, insulted me. Who the hell did that before me, and why the hell did they take me for someone as stupid as them?

While waiting on the Transit system to return, I basically had an hour to kill that essentially amounted to getting to follow Opal around while she went about her business there.

“Look,” I said, as she patiently (for her) chewed on a cinnamon bun as we walked through the wintery streets, with the kids running around making snowmen and having snowball fights and all that other crap thankfully managing to keep us out of the crossfire of their play. “Why don’t you just try to talk it out with him, or something?”

“I do.” she replied in a manner that was [i]far[/i] too measured to be anything resembling true. “I’ve told him about my beef with him a million times over, and yet he still tries to act friendly with me, or even talk to me. If I could fix that faulty brain of his, I’d have done it ages ago.”

Uh, news flash: talking to somebody is actually supposed to be the [i]less[/i] severe offense to people in this predicament than trying to act all buddy-buddy with you. And telling someone “I hate you” without saying why isn’t much of a conversation, even if you say it 57 times over.

I wish I was making it up, and I wish that she hadn’t flatly told me about that moment herself.

“Oh, he knows why.” was her response to the latter concern. “He knows exactly what he did, and if he tells you he doesn’t, he’s lying through his teeth.”

We rounded the corner, drawing up to Lloyd’s Smithy, an extension of the Lloyd family household and birthplace of every one of the 15 kunai that Opal had lost yesterday. He was a man of principle, she’d said, who prided himself on the quality of his work—which made ordering a bunch of relatively cheap Kunai from him a smart move. They would always come out decently sharp, well-balanced, and in excellent temper and condition; the only trade-off being that this attention to detail and dedication to quality necessitated more time spent on her orders.

“Yeah, she’s right.” a solemn, familiar voice said from behind us as we made for the door of the forge. It was low, smooth, and melancholy—

We turned, me doing so with much less of an angry whirl than my tour guide, and our eyes fell upon none other than Lucas Schwarz.

It spoke volumes to how much we all wanted to simply be done with everything for a while, when the only attacks even Opal would deign to muster were a raised eyebrow and, “Seriously? A full day and you couldn’t grab a change of clothes?”

It was even a fair criticism, shockingly enough. Despite showing no visible injuries at all, thanks to that healing-based power of his, you could definitely tell the guy had been through a minor war or two against nature simply due to how shredded his clothes were.

Yeah no, I actually agree with the raging Atlesian here, what’s up with that? Your family has a nice house and an Aston Martin, don’t tell me that those are the only clothes you own, dude.

“Not really, no.” He replied with a wry smile, as though he just remembered some stupid pun in his head. “I was basically on my feet the whole time. Once I finished off the Fenris, I tailed you guys to make sure you made it in—”
 
“We did.” Opal curtly cut in. “I’m not the type to bungle something as simple as a half marathon just because there’s snow and a geist.”

“—Er, yeah, I heard about it, are you guys alright?”

“You mean besides the leg?” I asked, smirking at his disapproving frown. Sorry senpai, but it’s fun to be a smartass when you leave an opening for it a mile wide.

The female member of the party didn’t share my good humor, however, and simply said in tones as cold as the Atlesian north she represented,

“Don’t you even [i]think[/i] about it.”

“...Right.”

He reacted as though she’d taken that Pukko knife of hers on her belt and rammed it straight into him. He really was weak to that horrible personality of hers—

And for the record, I still wanted to know the history behind that. I hate being left out and I hate not understanding things. I needed to figure out a way to get one of them, at least, to talk. 

What was genuine here? What was bluster and bullshit? I couldn’t know.

“Uh, you were saying?” I asked, taking it upon myself to fill the very uncomfortable silence and, hopefully, break the tension in the air…

“Oh, I, uh… Right. Once I confirmed with the guards that you guys made it in in…” he hedged for a moment, wincing. “[i]Relatively[/i] fair shape, I doubled back for the Shirohebi.”

“Oh, right.” I nodded, suddenly piecing together why. “So you got the charm on the shrine replaced.”

“Yeah, that’s right. The Grimm’ll probably be a lot sparser in the whole area now. I spent the night there, and then headed back down to actually go in and check on the both of you right away.”

Opal snorted, but seemed to accept the explanation readily. 

“Your priorities are screwy as ever. Fat lot of good it does me now, but at least you finished what you started, for a change.”

He frowned, nonplussed. 

“We still have to go back, don’t we? If the charm’s in place, the trip’s going to go a lot more smoothly. For a change, we and the Transit guys can relax.”

“Please, you’re always too relaxed. You and the kid may be heading back, but I’ve got business [i]here.”[/i] she folded her arms and tossed her head back towards the door of the smithy. Raising an eyebrow, her accusatory glare morphed into a questioning look. “And it sounds like you’ve gotten pretty well-acquainted with this town as a whole to be running in and out so easily.”

“Ah… So you’re a patron of Lloyd’s, then?”

He looked up at the smithy, eyes drifting inexorably from the front door of the building proper over to the small, rustic house it seemed to be an extension of.

“For another dozen and a half knives, yes.” she replied firmly, following his gaze as it drifted before forcing him back into making eye contact with her. “Is there an [i]issue[/i] with that I should be aware of?”

Two gray eyes bored into two more. If I grabbed her knife and didn’t get tied into a knot, I could use it to cut the tension in the air easily.

This simple fact gave me a [i]horrible[/i] feeling.

“No, I’m just… Just a friend of Ben’s. It’s how I’m on good terms with the town, is all.”

One pair of eyes flashed—

“I don’t believe that ‘that’s all’ for a second, you nosy bastard.”

And in the blink of an eye and a flash of silver hair, Opal was suddenly right in Luke’s face, forcing him to step back in surprise. It looked like that horrible feeling was right on the mark. Sasuga Me.

“Schwarz. Why. Are. You. Here.” she bit out each word. “If you know Lloyd’s son, and if I know you, then I know you’ve got [i]some[/i] problem. And whatever it is, you want to stick your nose into this family’s business because of it.”

Hey, please stop! Please play nice! You’re two hunters in the middle of a cozy village, don’t start fighting! You’ll wreck the place!

To Luke’s credit, his grimace tightened, but he held firm. 

“He and Ben have been at odds the whole year, Opal. They’ve all but completely split because of Ben getting into Beac--”

“And you’re just going to run into the situation half-cocked, right? How like you. Do you even know [i]why?”[/i]


“Because Ben’s my [i]friend[/i], and I don’t want to let my friend and his dad just hate eachother for the rest of their lives!”

“Oh, so because [i]you[/i] don’t want to understand the situation, you’re going to butt in with your ignorant and one-sided ideas on the issue? Do you even know Daniel-san’s side of things? Do you know why he doesn’t like him going into this line of work?!”

“I didn’t say that— And because he thinks he can’t handle it!”

Now even Luke was shouting. People were starting to stare, and I wanted to shrink into the wall behind me.

“And you shouldn’t, you dumb asshole! You really don’t have any idea at all, and you’re still looking to butt in like fucking always!”

“Hey, that’s enough--”

Grabbing the dumbfounded object of her ire by his lapel, Opal took only a second to give me a look so dangerous I thought she might have been a Grimm.

“Fuck off.”

Those cold gray eyes of hers were completely ablaze with anger. 

This went beyond touching a nerve.

This went beyond a long-standing disdain.

This was— complete, total, and uncompromising [i]hate[/i]. I thought I knew about hate. I thought that the eyes of the outcasts looking upon the school idols were hateful. I thought that myself in the mirror whenever I heard about working was hateful. I thought that the eyes of a Grimm, as it gazed upon Man and all his works, was hateful.

None of them could compare with the pure, personal, visceral [i]loathing[/i] I saw in the eyes of Opal Sjostrom, when Luke Schwarz wanted to meet Daniel Lloyd.

[i]“And you.”[/i]

She rounded back on him, white-knuckled grip tugging him close until they were nearly forehead to forehead as she [i]stabbed[/i] that hateful gaze into his eyes.

“You’re right in ‘not saying that’, you hear me? Your [i]only[/i] right is in doing so, let me make this eminently clear, enough that even a stubborn, dense, and vexing [i]fool[/i] like you could understand:” 
 
Where they had been shouting before, she now spoke at only just above a whisper.
 
And it did nothing to mitigate the roaring sea beneath.
 
“You have no right to speak whatsoever. You have [i]even less[/i] of a right to try and interpose yourself between those two. That is [i]their[/i] issue, you hear me? [i]Not yours, you walking goddamned calamity.[/i] Here's a fucking hint: that man [i]doesn't hate [b]his own son.[/b][/i] He doesn't have a problem with Benjamin risking coming home with [i]this--”[/i]
 
She yanked his collar upwards, presenting the myriad tears in his shirt and coat to him.
 
“Or [i]this--”[/i]
 
She tugged on the side of her own jacket and twisted her back into view, showing off the hole torn by those stakelike projectiles, ringed with flecks of dried blood and showing bandages beneath.
 
“--Because he [i]hates him[/i], do you [i]understand how stupid that is[/i]? He's seen what we go through, [i]Hunstmen are his primary fucking customers.[/i] You think he [i]hates his only son[/i] because he doesn't want him to come home like us? Do you [i]really[/i] believe that bullshit?”
 
He worked his jaw, but was too stunned to answer.
 
“You’re nothing but trouble, and know nothing of what that family's going through. Got it? I'll issue an ultimatum, just for you, [i]Lucas. If you stick your nose in where it doesn't belong, I will end you my god damned self.”[/i]
 
She finally let go, shoving him away and turning for the door as he staggered back, pale as the snow he’d fallen into. All he could do was try and fail to remove the slack from his jaw, staring up at her with wide eyes.
 
Opening the door to the smithy, she bid me a gruff farewell, saying that my leg should get better in about a month--
 
And then frigidly looked over her shoulder, and fired off one last parting shot that I would never forget:
 
“I mean it, Schwarz. Don't let me see you out here when I'm done.”
 
“Opal--”
 
[i]“You've already torn enough of us from good homes.”[/i]

His words died.
 
The door shut firmly, and we saw her no more.
[hr]
* * *
[hr]
I hated being out of the loop.
 
I hated not understanding. 
 
I hated owing people something.
 
I hated a lot of things, but these things I truly never wanted to be descriptive of me.
 
Although, now I wasn't sure my usage of “hate” wasn't overly frivolous. Not after that. I definitely at least [i]disliked them heavily[/i], shall we say.
 
Therefore, being afflicted with all three at once, my very soul needed to figure out a solution to this conundrum I had wandered into.

To figure out what the genuine nature of the problem would be.
 
I looked to Huntsman, numb to the frigid air in his torn clothes as he was to the rest of the world. He walked with his hands shoved firmly into his pockets, and between his long bangs and the shadow that hung over his eyes, I had no way of reading his carefully stony expression as he lead me, bound by my cast and crutches to the pace of his dreary trudge, towards the transit station.
 
Not that it wasn't obvious that the guy had practically shut down and restarted in safe mode. I didn't know how people always managed to miss this, but when the friendly and talkative guy suddenly speaks in a monosyllabic monotone, that means there's [i]probably[/i] a problem!
 
The worst part? That was [i]progress.[/i] I valued silence, but nothing so uncomfortable as the kind he'd dimly [i]sat[/i] in for five minutes after Opal had torn him a new one, only breaking when he finally rose to dust himself off and beckon me to follow him with a “Come on.”
 
In the exact same “safe-mode” tone, he simply said “Here,” as we reached the Station.
 
The thing about Redwood is that they're full of pragmatists, I'd come to find. If they could repurpose something and get away with it, they would gladly do so as opposed to letting it waste away.
 
Case in point was the Shiroyama-Redwood Transit system. While plans were apparently in the “talking” stage for the Shiroyaman Tram Line to run through both cities in the future, for now they took a much more classic public transportation approach. 
 
A fleet of five repurposed Atlesian War Buses, which basically amounted to old-looking Greyhounds with a pair of chainguns mounted to the top as turrets, was always split between the towns. Typically, it went something like there always being two in each city whilst one was in transit.
 
It was a very ironic system and gesture of friendship if you knew anything about the area’s history. If you hadn't already guessed by the names, Redwood was purely Valic and always had been, while [i]Shiroyama[/i], literally meaning “White Mountain”, was originally settled by Atlesians and a smattering of the Mistralese.
 
It was strange, then, to realize that these buses were a scant three or four generations removed from traveling between the two, on the very same roads, to try and annihilate this city’s men.
 
And that this very same road was also paved by Vale’s army, using Redwood as the top of their spear, to conquer Shiroyama and bring an end to the war in our northern edge of the continent, after our hometown fought to the last man to defend against the onslaught.
 
And now they were used as ferries to and fro, carrying people and goods and turning their powerful cannons upon the creatures of Grimm, so each city could feel a little safer.
 
And, as I was unfortunate enough to learn, the Redwood drivers apparently were in good enough spirits to have [i]jokes.[/i]
 
“Woah, you kids look real [i]banged up[/i] already! Leave that bit to us, and show your tickets for the [i]Bangbus![/i]” He'd said, helpfully pointing to the turret up top with a grin.
 
...
 
I’m sorry, Redwood, but I'm going to revive my ancestor's wishes at your total destruction, if only on this dude.
 
I'm so [i]fucking[/i] done.
 
Thankfully, the Gunner shared my sentiments, and the inter-city friendship lasted another day.
 
“[i]Dammit[/i], Jerry, that bit’s been dead for [i]months[/i]. Quit creeping the passengers out and just take the tickets!”
 
I breathed a sigh of relief, handing my ticket in, and Luke wordlessly followed suit.
 
If his natural tsukkomi inclinations didn't leap at that one, I was sure that he was practically comatose.
 
The bus was sparsely populated today. Most were cleaning up after New Year's Festivities, I imagined, that or returning to their usual work and lives. Something I, amazingly, also wished for at this point. Let me return to Vita-chan and Sakura’s concerned-big-sister nagging, this rollercoaster called the past 36 hours needed to let me off.
 
I want off the ride, Mister Bones.
 
Snow began to fall again in big, fat flakes as the SRTS began its thirty-minute trek towards our hometown, visible even from my aisle seat through the window on the opposite side. Today was going to be an easy, smooth trip, Jerry had jovially called over the intercom, there were reportedly very few Grimm sighted in the area.
 
Well, duh. Luke had effectively bolstered the absorption rate of human bullshit by a whole fifth last night. 
 
If he was proud of that at all, though, he wasn't showing it. That must have been a very interesting seat in front of him. Truly, the full grey faux-leather and its smooth texture-- I couldn't do this.
 
“Hey.”
 
I had to break it, for his sake. Time to snap out of things.
 
One eye ponderously drifted up to meet mine.
 
“She was being a huge bitch, man. You, uh… You didn’t deserve that.”
 
People typically liked hearing, in the aftermaths of verbal beatdown, that they were unjustly persecuted by the offender. That they weren't in the wrong in the eyes of the witness, that they were victims.
 
Helpfully, even if I didn't know the story, I wasn't saying something I necessarily disagreed with, either.
 
However, Lucas Schwarz wasn't a typical person. Instead of brightening a little at my words of encouragement, he simply sighed. Instead of perking up, he propped his elbow against the windowsill, giving me one last measuring look before resting his chin in his hand and gazing out into the field of white through the window.
 
A pause.
 
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf0HYeQp760]And then he spoke.[/url]

The cool-headed and confident hunter I had first taken him for was not there. Nor was the genial and net-savvy memespewer I had met on the way down. Not even self-righteous and presumptuous crusader against cynical loners at large was present, even as a trace.
 
Instead, I was met with pain and regret.
 
“She wasn't always like this.”
 
“Hm?”
 
“Opal Sjostrom… she used to be a nice girl.”
 
I settled in as he began. 
 
“She used to live in Shiroyama too, long before Atlas. I don't remember if we were neighbors, but… But I do know we were friends.”
 
“We would play together pretty often, usually stuff like cops and robbers, pretending to be huntsmen or samurai from the war, stuff like that. Always at our house, at times it was almost as if I had a third sister.”
 
The wistful ghost of a smile passed across his face.
 
“I was actually really glad to hear that she's enrolled at Atlas right now… because we shared the same dream. Heroism’s a desire that runs in the blood of my family, yeah, but Opal was every bit as earnest about it as me when we were kids. We would help eachother learn all sorts of things: I taught her how to punch the kid who picked on her in grade school in the face, she taught me how to do long division in second grade, things like that.”
 
Bit of a weird bartering system there, guy.
 
“But at her home, things weren't so rosy. I never learned the exact details of what was going on, but there was definitely a reason she never invited me over. Eventually, it got so bad that the police had to step in--”
 
“Your dad.”
 
Shot in the dark.
 
“Mm, yeah. Dad was the one who brought her home that day. They kept the three of us in the dark about it, just saying that she would be staying with us for a while. I still remember how she'd just… [i]sit there[/i], no matter how often we'd go and invite her to play with us. She just wouldn’t respond for the first week… ”

He wrung his hands, and looking down at them, I saw that the knuckles had gone bone-white.
 
“Of course, at ten years old, you're a complete idiot no matter what… I remember this situation lasting for two and a half weeks before my curiosity and stupid, stupid mouth got the better of me. I asked my Mom how much longer she'd be living with us… I'm sure I didn't mean anything by it, but… Opal didn't hear it that way.”
 
“She was [i]there[/i] when you asked that?!”
 
“No, she overheard. She must have been in the next room over.  But I was a stupid kid, and asked a stupid kid question… And my mom… She's a strong willed woman. Strongest one I know by a mile. Owns everything she does… And told me that it would only be another week. They'd found her a foster family in the city, and were finalizing the paperwork.”
 
He glanced back over to me, but I wasn't even sure he was registering that he saw me. For all I knew, he was miles away.
 
“Immediately, she thought that we [i]hated[/i] her. That we wanted her gone, that she wasn't as welcome as we said she was. That's where her resentment began. We would no longer have the conversations we used to, would no longer play or watch TV together… it felt like I always had a glare at my back whenever the two of us were in the same room. I had no idea why, back then. I thought she’d just turned mean for no reason.”
 
“I…” He took a deep breath, visibly shaken. “I really was an idiot. At least now I have the decency to realize it, but it’s too little too late for her…”
 
“When the social workers came to pick her up, she didn't even say goodbye. She just walked forward as if in a trance. And when she looked back at us that one last time… Like I said, Mom’s strong, the type to always stand by her beliefs. But that moment, she told me, is the one thing she would gladly go back in time to try and prevent. She thought that we couldn't host another kid forever… but she's never turned one down since.”

...


“After seeing what she'd done to Opal, she never wanted to put another child through that pain again. She told me that herself.”
 
We heard a low, buzzing rumble from above, as a brief burst of hot lead sailed out of the turrets barrel and into some ill-advised Grimm well away from the bus.
 
“I didn't see her again until seventh grade, two years later. In that time I'd forgotten a lot of what had specifically transpired between us, but she definitely hadn't. The girl I knew used to be my friend… now she treated me as more of a rival. An obstacle. She still aimed to become a hunter, same as me, but now she was determined to beat me at it.”
 
“Wherever and however I trained, she would show up and do the same, just as hard at the very minimum. Whatever I was studying about the trade, she made sure to know at least as much, if not more than me about it. Even my anti-bully crusades…”
 
A wan laugh.
 
“She made sure to be an even more fearsome ranger than I. Naturally, being someone who wanted to be as great as my Mom and Dad put together, I responded in kind. We pushed eachother extremely hard in that year and a half…”
 
“And this is an extension of that?”
 
“If only.”
 
His face was turned away. I couldn’t see his expression.

It wasn’t like I needed to.

“We had actually begun to get along again. We could each rely on the other’s desire to keep going when things got rough to motivate ourselves. We learned where we were weak and where we were strong. Even as friends, classmates, and sometimes even family would come and go, we were always there. Racing eachother towards greatness. It wasn’t quite the friendship we used to have, but it was… something stable.”

“And then in the summer, when we were both priming ourselves for Signal’s entrance exam…”

He trailed off, before turning to me and showing me just what a broken man looked like.

“I failed her, man. I fucking [i]failed[/i] her.”

“...Failed her [i]how?[/i]”

“Completely and utterly. She thought she could trust me again. She thought that if anything went wrong, I could help. She thought that I would be able to deliver justice in its time of need… And I didn’t. Not couldn’t, [i]didn’t.[/i]”

No details, huh? Fine, but I get where this is going:

“And when you get burned by the same hand twice…”

All he did was nod, fighting to swallow the lump in his throat.

“She was off to Atlas soon after. For one of their combat schools. She had nothing left here. From what I’d heard, the foster family was more than happy to see her off, too...”

“And then this was the first time we’d met since then. I’m not surprised at all that she still hates me. Anyone would after going through all that.”

The bus pulled to a stop. We had arrived at the station in Shiroyama. Home, sweet home.
 
“So, I appreciate the sentiment, Jason,”
 
He rose a moment after I did, waving me and my crutches along with a small smile that I'm sure not even he would pretend I didn't see through. 
 
“But trust me when I say she's got [i]every right[/i] in doing what she does. No amount of my apologies will ever make it up to her. I really [i]do[/i] deserve her ire. Ruining someone’s life… no matter how well they come off in the end, you can’t take it back.”
 
“But to use your own words,” I replied, carefully navigating my way off the bus and spotting my sister, one step away from hysteria, all but sprinting towards me. “You can't just let it go on like this forever either, right?”

That pensive frown of his returned, and the most melancholic Schwarz that Remnant had ever seen furrowed his brows in contemplation.


“... I’ll have to work out how.”

“Good luck.”
[hr]
* * *
[hr]
Springtime had arrived. It had been months, now, since my leg and foot had been freed from their imprisonment in that ridiculously bulky cast. God bless modern medicine! Now I could run, jump, stand, and move about at my leisure!
 
Only, my leisure currently just involved my foot impatiently stamping the floor of our house’s living room, leaving a distinct imprint shaped like my heel in the thick carpet. Damn you, commercials! Who even paid any more money than normal for a product that interrupted their real-time programming?! Idiots?
 
Oh, right, society at large. 
 
So yes, idiots! Damn you, society, for encouraging these cheesy ads breaking up my coverage!
 
“I've gotta say, Jason…” Sakura began, plopping down on the couch next to me and offering me a handful from her bag of chips which I readily accepted. “I thought you didn't care for things like this! Who knew [i]you[/i] were a Vytal fan~?” 
 
Hey, quit it with the elbows and the nudging, dammit! Don’t make me fight back, my Annihilating Counter Strike will blow you to pieces, police girl!

“I’m [i]not,[/i]” I clarified with a huff, rejoicing as the feed finally returned. “There’s just a few names I’m interested in this time around, is all.”

“Hehe, you mean Luke, right? You know, I know of a really [i]pretty[/i] girl your age who also got--”

[i]“Forget it, Sakura.” [/i]

You may be as sunny on the idea as the blossoms in full swing outside you were named for, but I vehemently begged to disagree. That drill-haired bitch wouldn’t give me the time of day and I wouldn’t [i]want[/i] it, not from a vapid groupie like her.

“Yeah, I’m interested in seeing how Luke does, of course, but… there are also a couple others. From around here, no less.”

“Hoh?”

The tale of the tape faded out, for once with nothing being “VIRTUALLY EYE-DENTICAL”, and the camera zoomed into the field.

On the flat white disk, two contestants stood. We were well outside the finals, I knew that much, but I hadn’t paid attention to how the bracketing or whatever worked for this leg of things.

It didn’t matter to me anyways. This was the fight I had hoped to see, however possible. This was the one reason I really found myself watching when I could have been playing some games, or napping.

“Yeah.”

One contestant was a girl, with a short stature, Atlesian uniform, and silver hair styled into twintails. Seemingly obsessed with knives and blades to the point of having dozens on her person, perhaps the sharpest thing of all was her gaze, flashing dangerously as she appraised her opponent.

Said opponent was a boy, taller than her, with every long bang of his raven hair covering one of his eyes from view, save for one that stood straight up in some perverse mockery of a cowlick. He was dressed in a black and red uniform that didn’t belong to any academy— rather, an old number from his high school, as Professor Port wryly noted. What he didn’t note was how it was probably the most dangerous part of his ensemble, even moreso than the Lucerne he carried. Perhaps he wasn’t aware of its weight.

Even as the referee went through the motions of going over the rules one final time, both searched the other for a chink in the armor. Both found none.

There was no touch of weapons.

[i]“BEGIN!”[/i]

They wasted no time, launching towards eachother at a pace more at home coming from automobiles than people, and I found myself shaking my head in disbelief.

Hunters.

They don’t fear death.

They willingly throw themselves into danger at the drop of a hat.

They settled age old scores and rivalries by throwing every last bit of their ridiculous powers at eachother.

They proved their heroism to eachother by fighting it out.

Naturally, the solution the two that I’d met at the dawn of this year came to was exactly as I expected, prompting me to scoff.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KYa6sArWno]They’re all fucking insane.[/url]

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