Capítulo 157: 59
Chapter 59 – The Phantom of the Archestra
"What are you doing!?" Jaune cried in a panic. Blake would have answered but for her last-minute dodge. Even then, the multi-coloured girl on rollerblades managed to slam her nunchaku into Blake's stomach. She was gone before Blake could counter-attack, not that she'd have been able to hit such a fast foe with the heavy weapon. She wasn't used to it.
"Losing," Blake coughed, staggering slightly as she looked toward Weiss. Her teammate was holding up okay, though it was clear she didn't have an edge over the dark-skinned man. If Blake lost, then she'd fall soon after.
She felt his frustration poor through their link. "I can see that!" he shouted. So much for his promise not to speak to her anymore. "What I mean is why!? Why do you… can you even fight with that?"
"No," she gave him the same answer she'd given Weiss. "But I know someone who can."
The implication was clear.
"I said no," he growled, "You need to live your life without me, you can't just keep doing things for me with no thought for anyone else. I'm dead, Blake!"
"But you still exist."
"W-What?"
Blake watched the girl skate around for another pass, this time throwing herself to the left as the girl approached. Her roll was clumsy, the large blade much more difficult to manoeuvre with. The crowd made pleased noises, some commentary drowning out all other sound. No one could have possibly heard her in the midst of all the shouting.
"You said to treat you like you don't exist," she explained, ducking behind some cover. "That I should live my life for me and my team, for my own happiness and not yours."
"I did."
"And you're happy with that?" she asked, "You're happy just… sitting there, watching me live my life, watching me be happy?"
"So long as you're happy, I'll be fine with it."
"Well that's bullshit!" Blake nearly shouted. Neon Katt's eyes widened, the girl suddenly veering off in a panic, but the disguised faunus cared not for her. Jaune's silence, not to mention his shock, was tactile. She wasn't one to swear normally, which no doubt let him know just how angry she was.
And she was furious.
"When did you become so selfish? When did everything become about you?"
"Wha-"
"So long as I'm happy, you'll be happy," she mocked, "Didn't you think for even a second that it might work the other way around too? That I might not want to watch someone I know, someone I care for, live a life of abject misery?"
Neon Katt dared to come by once more, but this time Blake threw all her anger behind his stupid weapon, swinging the ancient blade like some kind of steel club. The girl's Nunchaku came up in time, but they did nothing to stop the impact, ripping the girl from her feet and sending her stumbling back. Blake couldn't follow, not with how the blade's heavy weight dragged her a step or two after the swing.
"You're asking me to ignore you, to doom you to a life of silence and imprisonment, all so I can be happy. But guess what Jaune - that doesn't make me happy!"
"But your team-?"
"I made a mistake," Blake hissed. "A mistake that I'm trying to rectify, but I've learned enough that I'm not willing to make that same mistake again." Weiss was struggling to push through some sound waves emitted from her opponent's trumpet. It took all types. "You exist," she hissed, "even if it's only me who can see you. Even if we never get you a body, even if we're trapped together forever."
Blake stood up, holding Crocea Mors before her.
"You exist."
"Blake…"
"And if you are trapped inside me forever," she went on, "Then I refuse to be your prison. I refuse to put you through that. I can't believe you even suggested do that," her hands shook, a sign of her anger. He could feel it in its rawest form, pulsing through their link. "How dare you make me do that. How dare you suggest you're not worth the effort – that you don't matter!"
"But I'm dead."
"Not to me."
She felt his denial, "I'm just a voice."
"Not to me."
"I'm not worth-"
"You are to me," she snarled, shutting him up. "And I won't have you say it any other way."
Her breath was coming out in harsh pants, shoulders rising and falling as the blade before her shivered in the air. She was coming in again, another attack – another that Blake wouldn't be able to dodge.
"You are my friend. You are my partner, just as Yang is. You are one of the only people I trust." She took a deep breath. "I couldn't ignore you, Jaune. Not even if I wanted to."
And if that wasn't enough to convince him then she wasn't sure what would. But she would make sure he understood, no matter how long it took.
"I-…" his voice choked off. The myriad emotions she could feel were impossible to decipher, so heavy were they. "I'm… okay… I'll…"
"You don't need to say it," she whispered. There was no need for excuses, not between them. She neither needed nor wanted to make him feel bad, to admit his mistake. She just wanted him back. She pushed that thought through their link, hoping he could understand. "It's enough for me if you understand."
"I understand," his voice was hoarse. "I'm with you."
She could feel his love. She tried to ignore it. "For now let's work together to beat this girl. I need your help."
His heady emotions were replaced with something she recognised… the feeling of embarrassment.
"Yeah… about that…"
"Jaune?" she questioned.
"What makes you think I know how to use that?"
What? Blake looked back, which was a pointless move since he was inside of her, but such was her shock that she didn't even realise. "What do you mean you don't know how to use it?" she hissed, "It's your weapon!"
"You saw what happened to me in initiation."
"But that was aura… you died on impact!"
"True," he said, "but I'd also have died if a Grimm found me. I've never had any proper training. I've no idea how to use that thing."
Oh…
Neon Katt skated into her, ducking beneath Blake's weak parry and delivering a heel to the underside of her chin. She arced through the air, cursing as she looked down to see the girl preparing for her fall. Blake grit her teeth and activated her semblance, the girl below getting nothing more than a clone for her trouble.
"And you call my plans bad," Blake growled, cutting through the space the girl had occupied. She must have heard his sword whistling through the air, "What did you even hope to achieve if you'd landed in one piece?"
A pair of nunchaku came in for her face. Blake dodged them, trying to catch the sticks with one hand only for the other to clack painfully against her knuckles. The faunus opposite her grinned as she darted back. Why was it her misfortune to be against people with fast-paced methods of transport recently?
"Land, become a hunter, get a girlfriend, become a hero then marry said girlfriend and have loads of kids."
"You're joking," Blake sighed, rushing back to Weiss.
"Sadly not. I wasn't the smartest kid. When I said you were bad at planning, I never explicitly said I was better. Didn't you at least bring Gambol Shroud?" Of course she hadn't, otherwise she would have brought it out by now. She hadn't wanted to give him that out, for him to refuse to help because he knew she had her other weapon.
No plan survived contact with Jaune, that just seemed to be a fact of life.
"Blake," Weiss gasped as the faunus came up beside her, "Have you dealt with your enemy yet?"
Blake tried to think of a good way to answer that, but the brightly coloured roller-blader who dashed behind her probably did enough of a job there. Weiss sighed dramatically.
"He uses sound waves from a trumpet," the heiress whispered, "I can't get close, even with my glyphs."
"Ranged attacks?"
"He's got the advantage there," Weiss frowned, "The moment he starts playing it makes me sick… I think it's some kind of audial attack, straight into my eardrums." Blake hummed to show she understood. That would probably mess up their balance too, especially if it was enough to damage their inner ear. "He might have clones too."
"Might?"
Weiss shrugged, "I didn't get close enough to tell. They could be part of his style too… maybe hallucinations caused by what he plays, I don't know."
Audio-induced hallucinations? That was strange but not beyond the realms of possibility. If it had simply been murder music then surely those in the crowd would have suffered too, so he had to have some control over it. If he could control where it affected, then it wasn't too big a leap to say he could control how it affected either.
"Switch opponents," Jaune suggested, "If it's sound then it won't affect me if I'm in my ghost form." He floated out of her to empathise that. She wasn't sure how that helped since she would be just as vulnerable, but it had to be better than what they were currently doing.
"Mine uses roller-blades," Blake whispered. "You might be better off against her."
Weiss' grin was vicious, "I can think of an idea or two, yes." The suited man tried to follow her teammate, but Blake dashed between them, holding Crocea Mors loosely in one hand.
"Your opponent is me."
He looked her up and down.
"Do you even know how to use that?"
Gods but she was getting sick of hearing that. Yang was probably going to ask the same… Ruby would probably ask more troubling questions, but that was for another time. At that moment, she simply took the sword in both hands, imagining how she had seen Pyrrha use her own. Couldn't be too hard, right?
"It's a single-handed sword," Jaune commented helpfully.
She ignored him, focusing on the Atlesian student ahead, who fell back and brought his trumpet to his lips. Even prepared in advance for what was to come, Blake had no defence against the attack. Sound waves rolled over her, the world seeming to tilt as she tried to keep her lunch inside.
"If I get closer," Blake shouted – even though the person she was talking to was but a few inches away. It was hard to hear her own voice. "Can you do something?"
Luckily his voice wasn't as hers. She heard it perfectly, despite the noise. "Maybe. I don't know. I only see one of him though, so if those are hallucinations then I'm unaffected."
It was better than she'd hoped, since she could make out at least four, all in a line and playing concerto. If only she had her weapon she could have let Jaune shoot the right one. If only she'd had her weapon she could have beaten that other girl.
"Weiss has her on the ropes," he whispered, much to her pleasure. "I guess roller-blades don't do much on ice."
She could wait for Weiss to win, then take the guy two on two. But she'd begged and forced her way into this… she didn't want to let the team down. With one shaking step after another, she trudged forward, one arm held across her face, as though it could do anything to stop the sound waves.
He increased the volume.
Her ears felt like they might explode, both sets of them. Blake fell to her knees. Did he even know how much it hurt her, a faunus? Maybe not, since she hid her ears and he did have a faunus teammate.
"Blake!" Jaune gasped. She felt him slip into her a second later, the familiar numb feeling overtaking her arm. But why? He didn't know how to even use his sword. She would be better, if only because she at least knew how to use a weapon in the first place. She felt her arm lift back. "RARGH!"
"Whoah!"
The music cut off a second later. Blake didn't waste that chance. Eyes snapping open she surged to her feet, ignoring the agony as she dashed across the arena towards him. She didn't have a weapon, and as she watched him scramble for his she realised why. Jaune had thrown it. He's thrown his family's blade across the arena, a good fifteen feet or so. Her opponent dove to the floor, arm reached out.
Blake landed on his back.
He could probably judge her mood from the expression she wore – one of pain, frustration and extreme annoyance. His fingers curled around his trumpet.
As did hers.
"Do you even know how to use that?" Jaune asked.
Blake grinned and tore it from the man's grip, lifting it above her head in both hands. The Atlesian student panicked, covering his face with two hands. It came down with a mighty clang, before she raised and brought it down again.
"That's not how you use a trumpet, Blake."
Blake disagreed.
It was beautiful music.
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