"You know, if you keep frowning like that you'll get wrinkles before you're thirty, Buttercup." The latest annoyance in my life commented as he fell into the seat next to me with all the grace of a drunk bird.
…how fitting.
"What do you want, Qrow?" I sighed.
"Oh, nothing much. I just figured that if you're planning on using my two adorable nieces as bait, then I deserve to hear the full plan. Not the little outline you gave to Oz."
"I'm not using them as bait." I sighed again.
It was even technically true. No part of my plan required anyone acting as bait, just that no one interfered with Cinder's group while I tried to draw out Watts. Which meant they were mostly free to manipulate the Vytal Festival as they originally planned… once they reached out to 'tech support' to fix the random authentication error that prevented them from manipulating the stadium's settings anyway.
That did unfortunately mean we couldn't make too many moves against them while that was going on, so I could see why Qrow would think I was using the students as bait. But it wasn't like I hadn't added a few precautions to stop anything too bad from happening!
None of that really endeared me to the near perpetually drunk huntsman since that meant there was nothing stopping Cinder from messing with Yang or Ruby, so it was safe to say Qrow didn't like me very much – not that he gave off that impression to most people considering he seemed to find any excuse he could to follow me around and otherwise bother me.
It was fine though. I didn't like him much either.
Even if I wasn't expecting to hunt down his sister one day, the fact that he constantly showed up smelling like a bar or the alley behind one was enough of a reason for me to not want him around.
"Great! Then you won't mind spilling the plan." Qrow pressed.
Thankfully for my nearly exhausted patience I didn't have to answer him as a miniature red blur rushed up to him. "Uncle Qrow, did you see!? We won! At first we were all like 'rawr' and they were all like 'grr', but then we went 'woosh' and they were all 'oh no!' and then…"
I smirked at the annoying Huntsman as he was quickly overwhelmed by an excitable Ruby who seemed determined to relay every part of the fight her team had just won even if the retelling was more enthusiasm than actual details.
That was fine by me though, and I gave the other three members of Team RWBY a small wave as they trailed in after their leader.
"...with our super awesome combo attack!" Ruby finished, ending her recap with a dramatic pose and holding a hand up for her partner to hi-five.
Which Weiss did – even if she rolled her eyes while doing it.
"Yeah, watched the whole thing, Kiddo." Qrow responded once he had a moment to breathe. "Your team looked good for a bunch of first years. I knew some graduating teams from back in the day that weren't as coordinated as you four."
"After all the beatings Teach put us through until we got everything right, we better be!" Yang boasted, and my lip twitched upward a bit as Qrow realised he had indirectly complimented my teaching skills.
But as fun as it was watching Qrow try to deal with his nieces without giving away he was trying to grill me for information seconds earlier, this was the perfect moment to slip away.
"Well, while you all catch up I'm going to go check on how Leona is doing." I announced as I got up and started to walk away. "Have fun talking with your nieces, Qrow. I'm sure we'll have more time to catch up later."
If he tried to stop me, I couldn't tell over Ruby and Yang converging on their uncle to brag about their victory. After one more nod to Weiss and Blake, I was gone.
-o-
I didn't have to search very hard for my friend.
When she was working Leona tended to be in one of two places, either in a workshop trying to get better at making mystic codes or in the infirmary learning more about medical practices.
So sure enough I spotted her almost immediately when I walked into the stadium's medical room.
Unfortunately, she wasn't the only one.
"So besides the Aura Depletion, the main issue is the kneecap." A red-haired fox faunus said casually as she poked at an unfortunate student that was strapped to a medical bed. "Why is that?"
"Hairline fracture in the bone and slight tearing around the tendons, if he strains his leg before it heals the bone could shift?" Leona tried, consulting a scroll I assumed had the student's medical info on.
"The bone could snap in half or make its way to a different side of the knee entirely if the tendons give out first." Dr Tsune corrected bringing up a few related images on her own scroll. "When that happens the knee either gives out or starts bending the other way entirely. Like this, see?"
The poor captive student looked like he was going to be sick as Dr Tsune showed off one particularly disturbing image of a leg bending more than ninety degrees the wrong way before looking down at his own leg and beginning to look like he might pass out instead.
Which meant I should announce myself before things got any worse.
"Hey, Leona. Dr Tsune. Still terrifying your patients with your terrible bedside manner?"
"If my patients wanted good bedside manners, then they shouldn't go around kneeing war hammers when they are low on Aura and expect things to just be fine. Especially when they had a perfectly serviceable weapon they could have used instead."
The student mumbled something, but it only made Dr Tsune more annoyed as she smacked him over the back of his head.
"If your weapon is delicate enough that you're worrying about a solid hit taking it out of action, you either need to get better at not getting hit or get a better weapon." She scolded before turning to me. "And what do you want?"
"Nothing specific. I was being annoyed by a nosy pest and used checking in on Leona as an excuse to slip away." I shrugged. "If I'm in the way or bothering you I can go."
The fox faunus waved me off. "Take her. This was the last one that wasn't just scrapes and bruises and thanks to the little gizmos you two came up with I don't need to spend time explaining how to fix it the slow way."
I nodded back and waited in the hallway while Leona cleaned up whatever she needed to before joining me.
"So how was it?" I asked once we put a little distance between us and the medical area.
I wasn't exactly worried about someone overhearing us specifically, but the last thing I wanted was Cinder's group finding out we were on to them because we were careless.
"It's subtle, but there's a pattern if you know what to look for." Leona replied. "Students misjudging their remaining Aura, being overly aggressive with attacks because they swore there was an opening, dismissing incoming attacks because they looked like feints… nothing that can't be dismissed as nerves or adrenaline overcoming reason or even simple inexperience, but taken all together and how each injury makes the crowd more uncomfortable, I'd say they are already making moves beyond fixing the matches."
"We figured they would. We just couldn't prove it."
And we still couldn't, much to my frustration. Because we had no way of proving that Emerald Sustrai even had a Semblance, much less that it was an undetectable, single target illusion that she could use as far away as from the stadium stands.
But every use gave us a bit more information about the details of Cinder's plan and how it was evolving with the changes I had introduced.
For one thing, Cinder wanted the crowd uncomfortable and upset, something pretty easily accomplished by showing off Huntsmen students – the future first, last, and sometimes only wall against the Grimm – as either uncoordinated and clumsy compared to previous years, or them getting injured in what should be a celebration of skill. Not some blood sport.
She also seemed to want as many injuries as possible to reduce the number of people able to respond to the later parts of her plan. They didn't have to be crippling or grievous either. Simple sprains or injuries that took a few days to heal from even with Aura could put someone out of action just as effectively as a bone fracture after all.
But that second point was neatly countered by Leona without us needing to do anything special at all.
Her Mystic Codes could heal those kinds of minor injuries in minutes. Which meant all those injuries were already dealt with and even if the students were out of the tournament, they were still at one hundred percent.
It even had some knock on effects that reduced the unease of the rest of the crowd, seeing one student being escorted to the medical tent only to be seen walking about hours later perfectly fine.
What I didn't know was if Cinder was going to escalate in response to that or not. Though so far, the answer seemed to be no.
"All we can do right now is keep watching for any unexpected moves." I said eventually. "And it might not do anything but I can try talking to – Pyrrha, what are you doing here?" I stopped what I was saying at the sight of the red-head standing in the hallway, apparently waiting for us.
"Uh – hello, Miss Cross. Do you mind if we talk real quick?" Pyrrha said nervously, before glancing at Leona. "Alone?"
The urge to make a joke was there, but for all her nervousness Pyrrha did look pretty serious about something.
-o-
"So what's up? This is a little far for just a casual conversation." I asked once Pyrrha stopped leading me to where she wanted to talk – the top of the Amity Colosseum as it turned out. And while I felt walking all the way up here was a bit of a waste of time… I couldn't deny the view of the sun setting over Vale was incredible.
Pyrrha ducked her head. "I'm sorry. I've been trying to wrap my head around some things all day but I don't think I really managed it. I'd hoped I'd know how to start once we were here, but my thoughts keep running in circles and I don't know where to begin."
"Well, why not with 'why me'?" I suggested. "I know I'm technically part of Beacon's staff, but if you wanted a teacher's advice there were better choices than me. It's not like I'm all that older than you are." Appearance-wise anyway.
"That was actually why I wanted to talk with you specifically." Pyrrha admitted. "You're only a year or so older, but you're stronger, more skilled, and carry yourself with a confidence I can't help but envy."
I didn't have anything to say that wouldn't derail whatever Pyrrha was building up to, so I stayed silent.
Eventually, the red-head took a deep breath and turned to look me directly in the eyes.
"Do you believe in destiny?"
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