Chapitre 21: Chapter 21
Days passed, and Nephrite's mood was always high. He and Pyrrha spent their days glued to each other, almost never without the other.
He wasn't slacking, though, not at all. When he noticed that the train was almost ready, an 'accident' happened, and the tunnel collapsed only a few hundred meters away from the train.
It was a test to see if this was an essential part of Cinder's plan or not. If it wasn't, it would be too much of a hassle when he had to scout out this place on a weekly basis, as he already confirmed a couple of their plans.
Although he found out about Adam's and Cinder's meeting in the end, it wasn't that relevant. There had been a few things he had noticed, though.
Grimm activity spiked, and it continued to rise like a rocket. The most active places also happened to be on the border of Vale's kingdom.
With the Atlesian fleet in Vale, the council had offered many missions to clear out the Grimm in order to show their confidence and stability. Ozpin too wasn't as passive and a lot of new intern teachers that used to be members of the Justice branch had appeared.
With their reputation as ex-top students and the excuse of the tournament happening soon, it was a suitable excuse for their appearance. It ramped up the difficulty of studying and many students just chose to sleep early to get rid of their exhaustion.
Beacon students had also often battled students from other Academies. This was a sort of ritual that extremely confident students had created in order to level out the playing field. After all, the hosts were at a disadvantage with students from the other Academies freely watching their battle lessons.
The festival was already in its first stage and they could find various Valean specialities all across the city. The hotels were filled up with people and the city was bursting with vitality.
With the influx of people, Nephrite's business flourished even more. It was an unrivalled street food brand in Vale. The Amity Colosseum was only a month away from the kingdom and excitement was at all times high.
With teams RWBY and BRON on a mission that would take 3 days, team CFVY and NNPR hung out together. Most of the time they ate together or sparred and not much else.
This gave the two lovebirds a chance to spend more time together alone. Nephrite also couldn't stand Ren's and Nora's passiveness and created various 'dates' for them, which Nora took with a wide smile.
Nora's not-so-subtle hints weren't enough, though, as Ren was used to them already. But with Pyrrha's and Nephrite's gentler nudging, they got closer to one another in a different way than before.
Their team missions sometimes lasted just a single day and unless it was a scouting mission or a small escort mission, they would be done quite early.
Their teamwork had already shaped itself up to be more concise and fluid than before. It was more than enough for their current situation, and they focused on their individual strengths and weaknesses.
Nora's hammer proficiency had increased to a point where she didn't just pound things with her full strength and she could somewhat unleash lighter, faster strikes.
It was a clever technique to disrupt the control and flow of the enemy she was facing. It only worked for the first few times, though, and it became a bit predictable with her straightforward battle style.
What mattered more was her ability to fight Grimm in a drawn out battle and she could handle a small horde.
Ren's situation was a bit more complicated, and he was pretty much capped with his mastery over a weapon, the problem was his inability to unleash a proper finisher move against larger opponents.
Ren sought to remedy this weakness with his mastery over Aura. In order to improve further, he meditated often and he and Nephrite shared their insights and ideas.
After two months of hard work, he managed to create a sort of 'Aura Needles' that combined with his deep knowledge and skill, which he used to identify weak spots with ease. Although it worked only on Grimm that he knew about, it was his speciality when it came to Grimm's biological structure.
Now he could even kill a deathstalker and similarly armoured Grimm if he knew about their weakness.
Pyrrha's progress was still smooth and had even accelerated. Although her mastery of her weapon slowed down, there were many venues where she could improve, one of them was her strength, which she chose.
Her previously 'light' chained attacks now pack a punch, and she managed to knock out one annoying first-year student with one swift combo, utterly ruining his image.
She also became much more defensive when it came to Nephrite and the other girls. She tried to hide it, but he could feel it.
Nephrite himself kept a bit more respectable distance when it came to body contact and they talked about it. It was Pyrrha's first relationship, and she was quite insecure about many things, even though she tried to mask it with her 'casual' face.
He was quite open with her and even told her part of the truth about this world, including Salem and the war that was happening. It was another shocker, but she got used to the constant influx of information that no one should know about.
Nephrite also decided to take a big leap forward. There was one thing he was sure he wasn't used to even though he already fought Grimm, and that was killing other humans, be it faunus and others.
It took him a long time to muster the will to kill someone; it was the very man that almost captured Neo many years ago. He wouldn't be a target just because he threatened Neo, but he did have to strangle his son when he was drunk.
The murder happened last year and now Nephrite knows that the father was the one responsible. The police did not care as the boy did not have a future from the moment he was born.
With that father's license, that man 'taught' his child by himself and didn't let him into a public school.
The more Nephrite found out about him, the more he was calm with the notion of ending him. He did feel sorry for that boy, but he didn't know him personally.
Would people grieve when they see murders on TV? Of course not, and Nephrite wasn't much different, it was a tragedy. But that tragedy happened all across Remnant and unless he could enslave every single human and faunus, this wouldn't end.
...
"Let's do this." Nephrite took out his weapon as he looked at the house before him, it couldn't even be called a house by how poorly maintained it was.
He opened the door, the 'house' didn't have any decorations whatsoever and except a bed, he found almost nothing.
The bed was just a mattress, and his target was currently sleeping there. His dirty and miserable appearance didn't spark even an ounce of pity, and Nephrite swiped with his blade.
Blood gushed out and a wide sword mark had split the mattress and the floor. His aura was so feeble that he felt no resistance, a sign of his dying body and soul.
The smell was awful and Nephrite disabled his sense of smell and just stared in a daze at the corpse for an hour. In the end, he sighed and left the body to rot like he did with his son.
He thought about many things during this hour. Sparks of emotions appeared and were snuffed out during this time. Maybe they were feelings of guilt, he didn't know.
He knew that this feeling would not occur again, and he did not know if it was a blessing or not.
Life would be extinguished no matter how powerful everyone was, and he knew that pointless guilt and other emotions over his future enemies were futile.
It didn't change much in him, he just adapted...
Days passed and more people arrived in Vale, and Beacon was getting even more lively and some occasional brawls occurred across the campus.
All kinds of people have met each other. Some were amicable and some not so much. Everything was going well. He confirmed that the train operation was, in the end, abandoned. It was after they found out that it wasn't the only 'collapse' across.
That day, Nephrite saw heads roll.
Team RWBY and BRON came back from their mission and talked about it during their lunch, it was at that time that the rules of the tournament were officially declared.
First-year students and second-year students across all academies would be fighting in their respective years.
The third and fourth years had picked the strongest teams that would clash with each other, a true last fight that no one wanted to miss.
The champions of the first and second-year brackets would also have a chance to fight the top champion, but that was more of a dessert where people didn't expect anything ground-breaking.
It was a big difference, after all...
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
Xouldrion
Xouldrion Creation is hard, cheer me up!
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
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Power Stone 
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