Kapitel 1876: 107
Chapter 107 Notes:
"Penny?"
"Yes Ruby my beloved?" Penny asked, nuzzling against Ruby gently as she pressed a chaste kiss to her girlfriend's cheek, Ruby having regained some of her canine features in the last few days as she ate some of the grimm that wandered too close to Beacon. She still seemed abnormally light, but Penny wasn't concerned- Ruby was doing better every day on a steady feed of good food, cuddles, nuzzles, reassurances, hugs, group cuddles, fun activities, and lots and lots and lots of kisses. She'd be back to normal in no time! And Penny would be there every step of the way! "Is something wrong?"
"No, not… not really…" Ruby murmured, looking down at the group fighting below- a four on four sparring session meant to start qualifying teams for the Vytal Tournament at the end of the year. At the moment, Team CALC (Calcite) from Haven was fighting Team VDTT (Verdant) from Shade- it was a mixed year match, seeing as there were a bunch of students from all different education levels trying to get into the tournament. Cinder seemed… confused by Team CALC. Something about them seemed off, apparently, but Ruby's emotion senses weren't really sure why Cinder was suspicious, just that she was .
She couldn't sense anything wrong with Team CALC, but… hm. Their emotional spectrums seemed a bit… abnormal? A bit flatter than usual, and dampened somehow? She'd never seen anything quite like it… except maybe from Mercury when he'd first joined their mismatched family. Hm. Maybe they'd gotten assassin training too, and just hadn't worked past it.
"Hey Penny? Do… do you think you're going to have to leave us for the Tournament?" Ruby asked, furrowing her brow as she nuzzled further against Penny, entwining her cloak around the two of them as her ears twitched and a single shard of bone broke through the fabric on her shoulder, small but a sign of progress as the red Huntress continued to absorb and "digest" the grimm matter she'd taken in the last few days. "I mean… it's only teams of four… I… I don't wanna have to fight you. I know that we should do our best to win, but… I don't like seeing you hurt, and I never want to be the one to hurt you, ever. Especially when I-"
"You've never hurt me, Ruby. You are my beloved wishing star- everything you have ever done was make my life brighter. So what if you damaged my body on accident? That doesn't matter," Penny shook her head, gently kissing Ruby's cheek again and holding her closer as she pulsed her Aura in time with Ruby's own- red and green mixing in a way it hadn't in the last few days as she projected her emotions for Ruby to feel- with so much time spent between them, the days of confusion and misinterpretation were long past, and Ruby knew clear as day how much love and care Penny felt for her- and how much love and care she felt in return. "All that matters is that you care for me, and I care for you. Parts can be replaced. Please do not worry if we end up having to fight during the Tournament- as long as I do not take catastrophic damage to the soul core and memory banks within my body, I will be fine."
She paused, then tapped her head and heart. "That is, as long as my head and my heart area are not destroyed, I can be rebuilt. Possibly with some memory degradation depending on how damaged my head may be, but still."
"Penny, that… doesn't inspire a lot of confidence," Ruby deadpanned, butting her head against Penny's shoulder with a little grumble while she fiddled with the inactive form of one of Penny's Floating Array swords. "I just… I hope I'm ready for the tournament, y'know? But… you're one of us . Team RWBYP! I don't wanna have to lose you to some other three people just because the numbers don't balance out, and I don't want you to be left out either… I know it's selfish but… it's what I feel right now."
"If it is selfish, wishing star, then I must be selfish as well- I too wish to fight by your side during the Tournament, and do not wish at all to be partnered with a group of people that I do not know and have not built trust with. I cannot imagine that our team cohesion would be particularly high, nor would we be able to manage defensive maneuvers as well as Team RWBY does. Perhaps in a better world, we would be able to attend as a five person team, but the tournament rules do, unfortunately, stipulate that only four people are allowed to fight per side during the team rounds, for the sake of fairness." Penny sighed, then shook her head and smiled with a bit of sadness at her own words, squeezing Ruby's shoulder ever so delicately as she watched the grimm fire bloom to life in her love's silver eyes again- emotions rising as Penny saw that Ruby wasn't deliberately suppressing her weakened grimm half anymore. "Ah- your eyes!"
"I… My eyes?"
"Your eyes are glowing again! I think it is more beautiful than I have ever seen before," Penny grinned brighter, nuzzling her nose against Ruby's and planting a kiss on her lips for good measure. "I do not say this enough, wishing star, but your eyes have always been so incredibly beautiful to me. They look like little stars, and remind me truly of a wishing star."
"They- I… thank you. I don't say it enough either, but your eyes are beautiful to me too- when you light up at night, you really do remind me of a firefly," Ruby responded quietly, returning Penny's kiss with a delicate smooch of her own and a deliberately drawn out "mwwwwah!" to accompany it. "I'm… sorry I haven't been in a good place the last couple of days… You're right. I really… It still sucks, but you're right that beating myself up over what went wrong didn't do anything but make me feel worse. I think… I think I'm better now. But…"
She looked up at Penny, gleaming eyes of silver and burning orange meeting the greenest, brightest eyes in the world in a stare that was full of heartfelt love and emotion, their Auras pulsing in time with each other as Ruby spoke again. "If I fall… if I… start to think of myself like that again… could you help pull me back up?"
Penny nodded, sniffling despite her lack of tear ducts as she held Ruby close and their combined Auras began to glow with the scent of roses and spring. "Of course! I know you would do the same for me too, wishing star!"
"Thank you. Truly," Ruby murmured, burying her face into Penny's neck and just relaxing, her cloak starting to leak rose petals… up until the point that Professor Goodwitch snapped them both out of their romantic reverie with a twin pair of Ice Dust bolts snapping across their Auras with a resounding crack of breaking crystals.
"Weh!"
"Eep!"
"If you two have time to canoodle in class, Miss Rose, Miss Polendina, I suggest you do it outside instead of distracting the others who came here to observe their potential opponents?" Professor Goodwitch deadpanned dryly, rolling her eyes at the two not-quite-best fighters in school. She would have called them the best, but only in terms of sheer, overwhelming power. Pyrrha Nikos and Cinder Branwen both outclassed them entirely in skill, and their combined distractibility when it came to each other was… a weakness in a fight sometimes. "Or perhaps you would like to spar instead? I'm sure working off that hot blood you've accrued would be in your best interests, you two."
"Sorry professor!" Ruby yelped, jumping out of Penny's lap (much to their mutual disappointment) and back into her seat, clearing her throat and settling down with picture perfect posture… that was only ruined by her wrapping her cloak around Penny like an awkward side hug mixed with blanket sharing.
Professor Goodwitch sighed, pinching her brow and shaking her head while the rest of the class tittered and laughed quietly at the two girls' misfortune. She could just tell that some of them were going to underestimate the two. Idiots. Didn't they know that two pure maidens in love made for the strongest and most vicious fighters? Even if the two did inevitably split into different teams because of what Ironwood suggested, there was no way both Ruby and Penny weren't going to fight their hardest to impress each other during the Tournament itself.
"What am I going to do with you children…"
She shook her head and returned her attention to Team CALC, who'd scored a decisive victory over Team VDTT with seemingly very little effort, and signaled the start of the next match between Team CMNE and Team DRAD (Dorado) from Atlas- a set of fourth years with fairly middling scores that likely weren't going to make it to the end of the Tournament, all things considered.
She almost felt bad for putting them up against the dubiously most powerful second year team.
Meanwhile, as the match started and Professor Goodwitch returned to watching the two teams fight (with Cinder's team taking a decisive lead early on), Ruby and Penny resumed their previous position seemingly on instinct and continued cuddling as if they hadn't been interrupted moments prior- with, of course, Ruby stopping to cheer on Cinder as Team CMNE pulled ahead, of course.
"Go Cinder! Kick their butts big sis!"
"Miss Rose!"
"Eep!"
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein