"...I feel I should apologize for bothering you like this, Miss."
"No, no. Absolutely not. Being polite is fine at all, but it is most definitely not warranted in this case. There is no excuse for a staff member like me to be caught sleeping on the job of all things."
Upon Tsune dragging Rio right back into her room, she had immediately started profusely apologizing to him, which had been quite the embarrassing ordeal for the both of them. The faunus woman had revealed how exactly she realized Rio had dropped by in the first place, after all.
"..."
Rio couldn't stop eyeing the camera with a tired smile.
It was one thing to walk in on the vulnerable sleeping form of the opposite sex.
It was another to put a blanket over said person and be caught doing so.
The atmosphere was most assuredly strange.
Still, Rio tried not to let it get to him.
"Well... there's nothing shameful about enjoying a break when you can. You certainly won't find me holding it against you. Um, besides..."
The boy looked away with a cough.
It seemed he was unable to completely rid himself of his embarrassment.
"Er, what I did was even more inappropriate. Intruding while you were sleeping, and even doing something like... um, that... without permission. I was completely at fault and have no excuse."
The nervous tapping away of a tablet ceased, and chocolate brown eyes were suddenly regarding Rio for a moment, longer than the boy was perhaps comfortable with.
But then the woman smiled.
"It seems you're just as she describes you... even if she doesn't seem to realize when she's doing it."
"Huh?"
"Don't mind me. And again, you don't need to apologize for anything. You didn't do anything wrong. In fact, I think it's very sweet what you did for a stranger. Or did you think women don't like to be swept off their feet every now and then? You're a bit on the young side, but it was still enough to get my heart racing, so thank you."
Rio blinked.
He nodded, unsure what else to say.
"And by the way, calling me Tsune is fine. Everyone else does," she said with a winning smile, and with a hand on her hip that felt deliberately eye-catching.
That said, Tsune was a rather buxom woman, Glynda's age or possibly younger.
She wore a white uniform that hugged her body, but quite honestly, Rio thought the less said about that the better. The situation was already awkward enough.
She wore white gloves, and those slender fingers reached out, rearranging the few electrodes on his chest.
"Understood," Rio promptly replied. "Miss Tsune then."
"Can I convince you to drop the Miss?"
"...There's no way I could do that."
"Fufufu—you're a serious one for your age, aren't you? Though, I already saw a fair bit of that even before you arrived."
Rio's mind briefly blanked at that.
Still, Tsune continued.
"Anyway, you're almost done, Mr. Amakawa. Oh, would you prefer Amakawa or Rio?"
"...Rio is fine," the white haired boy told her after regaining his composure, but almost as if on auto-pilot. The next words to leave his mouth even more so. "It's the name my mother gave me, after all."
Maybe it was because such a thing wasn't what she had expected to hear, but the faunus woman widened her eyes a fraction.
Then, a ghost of a smile decidedly touched her lips.
"That's very sweet," she said softly. "I'm sure she's very proud of the boy she raised."
"...If that is indeed the case, I'd be very happy."
Saying such a thing, there was a small smile on Rio's face, and the boy hid the fleetingness of it well.
However, he suddenly shivered.
That said, and after shifting in place, "...Miss Tsune, I did have a question."
"Hm?"
"From my understanding. My injuries were nonexistent. Why, um... was it needed for my shirt to come off...?"
Tsune twitched a bit, but otherwise didn't react; eyes remaining glued to her tablet.
"...Oh, that? It's fairly standard procedure. I simply wanted to make sure your aura was in well and working order. Besides, we do this for all the students who sustain as much aura loss as you had."
Looking up, she smiled.
"Although, the students I typically get in here have so much aura gone because they—lost—their match."
Rio tried to remain as still as possible as Tsune's gloved fingers were currently feeling for his pulse.
"You, on the other hand, are a different story. I have to say, I initially wasn't very interested in what they chose for the opening ceremony this year, but you made it quite entertaining. I didn't expect you to be able to fight so well. Why, you're already above the strength of a student."
Rio shook his head with a small smile. "I'm... flattered you think that. But I tried my best, as did they."
The woman hummed, and silence overtook the non-descript white room, the only noise being the ticking of the clock on the wall.
After a lull of hesitation, Rio spoke up.
"By the way... is my aura healthy? Are there any abnormalities that you can see?"
Upon seeing a confused look from the woman, Rio remained calm and elaborated a bit more.
"My place of birth, it didn't really have a doctor readily available to check my aura when I unlocked it, so I never really had a very good grasp on how it was in comparison to other children my age."
Saying it that way should be fine, right?
And it wasn't like Rio had just spun some lofty tale.
It was true that his 'abilities' hadn't awakened during the time he lived with his mother as a child. That being said, it was definitely a surprise when the power resting within him did reveal itself.
Even more so, shocking even, when he found out his abilities had such direct ties to his ancestry: spirit arts, an ancient type of magic that differed greatly from the much-acclaimed formula-based sorcery prominent in the Strahl, Galarc, Rubia, and Proxia Kingdoms.
Mom had to be aware I might show proficiency with it...
Rio let that idle thought whisk him away before he could stop himself, wondering what it would have been like, being taught to tame his power by his mother and father.
But the fleetingness of such a musing was cruel.
Because it would have never happened.
Such a future was snuffed out long before Rio was born.
From the moment his father befriended a certain mercenary who had just been run out of his old Kingdom, things had already been set into motion.
Lucius...
Rio had to push the white-hot feeling down before it exploded.
In the moment he was subtly regaining his composure, Tsune had stopped prodding him, eyes busy roaming over the tablet held in front of her. He could only assume it was medical diagnostics.
She hummed before answering his question.
"Your body is in great shape, and that in turn increases the vitality of your aura. Believe it or not, aura and blood flow do mesh together, and being deficient in one can lead to be lacking in the other. Anyway, you have an aura pool that is unusually high for your age. But again, pretty sure that's due to these."
Tsune cupped a hand around an exposed bicep, squeezing it. Rio tensed up at the cool touch before anything else, and Tsune flashed him a small smile, to which Rio could only smile back awkwardly.
Perhaps he would have felt embarrassed, had his mind not instantly delved into what she had just said.
He apparently had a cap of aura flow in this world.
What was more, she had told him it was unusually high for his age, but she sounded like it was still within the realm of possibility, mainly due to his physique.
Things were failing to add up.
Just what was aura?
How could machines generate a theoretical number to it, but fail to expose how clearly different it was from what he actually had in his body?
Regardless, Rio was just glad that nothing had been revealed that he wasn't able to explain away, or at least, nothing that hadn't been able to neatly coincide with the ineffable concept of 'aura'.
Things were suspiciously convenient in that way.
Now, Rio didn't necessarily believe that some higher being had whisked him away from his world, but if that somehow was the case, he supposed he should be grateful the application of his spirit arts meshed together so well.
Tsune suddenly clapped her hands in front of her.
"Alright~! All done! You're free to go. Ah, but feel free to come back whenever you need medical assistance. Or if you just want to talk. Either's fine. My door is always open for you, Rio."
Rio could only smile hesitantly at her.
Really, the woman didn't seem to have any reticence in closing emotional distance.
"Then... I will be relying on you whenever I am in need of assistance."
With that, Rio left, and soon, Tsune was alone in the room, with only her thoughts.
What an interesting boy. But...
A frown crinkled an otherwise beautiful face.
What could have possibly happened to give him so many scars?
...
...
...
This is okay, right?
Emerald, who was still on Amity despite the opening ceremony having long ended, wondered that.
She had needed to use the bathroom, which is why she very deferentially asked Cinder to go back to Beacon ahead of her. So, when the woman nodded un-caringly, Emerald very calmly went past several bathrooms, and started perusing the halls to find a certain white-haired boy instead.
She had told Cinder a fib.
But it was simple reconnaissance, and with little to show for it, there was no need to bring it up to the woman yet. She could do so after she found something worthwhile. Then she could just bring up what she learned very matter-of-factly, as if it were the most obvious thing to have done all this without being asked.
That's what kept Emerald's feet moving.
Her loyalty to the cause, and more importantly, to Cinder. To be as pleasing as possible. To be of help. To gain whatever her lady wanted, and then receive favor upon giving it to her. Yes. That wouldn't ever change. Just like it wouldn't change that Cinder had been the one to save her back then, in that gray-scale world.
On that day, a hand had reached out to her, pulling her out, giving her surroundings an impossible splash of color. To that dirty orphan in that alley, it was Cinder who had done so, no one else. Taking Emerald's hand in hers, smiling beautifully, and saying the words—
—"If I asked you to ... Do you think you would be able to kill that person in front of all these people?"
Emerald froze.
...No.
That was wrong.
That wasn't what Cinder had said.
Wait.
What... had she said that day?
A clamor of voices snapped Emerald to attention.
Her feet had somehow taken her outside of Amity.
And the area was packed.
At least, the fraction she was looking at was—the flat surface area of concrete where civilians and students alike were lining up in droves, either to catch a bullhead back to Vale or Beacon. Although, even more curious were the dozens of suited men and women idling around with cameras and the like.
Reporters? They waiting for something?
Well, it had nothing to do with Emerald, so she turned around.
She didn't head back into the stadium, however.
My feet hurt.
Instead, she glided to the arena's outskirts, not the bullhead airstrips, but the plethora of park-like hedges and benches that lay opposite it. It was a part of Amity that was just as well furnished and architectural sound, but significantly less popular due to how far out of the way it was from the air-docks.
Not to mention, unsafe.
Really, who designed a floating landmass, where a toddler, unsupervised, could walk off the edge if they wanted to?
Then again, that was probably Atlas in a nutshell.
For all she knew, toddlers had mandatory jet-packs installed in their snack baggies, which would match nicely with the tracking chips parents had installed in their children.
Emerald was exaggerating.
But her childhood was spent in the slums of another kingdom.
Sue her.
Basically, putting one foot in front of the other, Emerald retreated further behind the building, like some schoolgirl going to meet a boy she liked, or to go cry after being dumped by the same. She amused herself with that far-off, barely believable thought, anyway.
Only.
"Oh, I... didn't expect to be found here," a soft, unassuming voice spoke.
For a moment, Emerald didn't know what she was looking at.
That didn't hold true for the person seated on one of the benches, who after recognizing her, adopted a more welcoming expression. Or maybe the polite little smile he had on always seemed to look that way.
But still, out of everyone she could have run into, it was the white-haired boy who had just danced around trained Huntsmen with frightening ease.
The one who she, ironically or not, had been looking for.
For Cinder.
—"If I asked you to—"
Emerald bit down on her teeth hard, her stomach beginning to slosh around unhappily.
My feet hurt, she decided on again.
Trying to think of just that, she habitually looked around to make sure they were the only ones there, before shuffling forward.
Then, completely ignoring the way amber eyes widened, she strode over and plopped herself down right beside him. And given the dozens of empty benches around them, any confusion on his part was entirely justified.
He didn't say a thing, though.
Right.
This guy is weird like that.
Rio Amakawa wasn't a pushy person.
Their two interactions, as meager as they were, had expressed that in spades. And as proof of this, out of the corner of her eye, the boy shifted away in his seat a little. If she was some normal girl, a boy like him doing that to her would spark the end of her world.
But, because Emerald wasn't anything close to a normal girl, and because she had some semblance of Rio's personality, it was him just showing consideration and nothing more.
Of course, the strange part, and not for the first time either, was that it was being afforded to her of all people, someone who didn't smile when she didn't need to, was snappy with people when she wanted to, and admittedly, was a class-A bitch.
And that was a honest reflection, not just listening to Mercury.
That being said, because she hadn't quite reached Cinder's level of treating everyone and anyone with practiced courtesy, Emerald knew she didn't have anything like an inviting aura about her as she stared at the expanse of sky and forest before her, knees brought close to her chest.
Ah.
Something she hadn't even realized she had done.
Emerald had just done it unconsciously.
Though, she had certainly repeated it enough times.
In the past, and in alleys stained with piss and blood, she had hugged her knees just like this, as hard as she could. It wasn't to look smaller, nor was it to hide away from her reality. Or... maybe it was.
Because it was so she could pretend she didn't feel it.
It was to, if even for a moment, ignore the way her stomach relentlessly folded in on itself, the rampant hunger driving her mad.
I'm hungry.
Those thoughts, whose were they?
Was it the 'her' in the present? Or was it that past self who had chanted those words, endlessly, like a gods-forsaken mantra?
"...—olvo."
A voice drew Emerald back to the present.
No, to the carefully wrapped sandwich now being held in front of her.
With one just like it in his other hand, Rio continued to hold the other one towards her. Except, she was almost certain he hadn't been holding anything before she got here. Nor had there been a nearby bag or container.
Rio smiled a faint smile. "...Um, I don't think I'll be able to eat all of what I made. Would you please help me finish these?"
Emerald just stared at him.
What... What kind of lie is that...
Surprisingly, that was the first thing she thought of.
Because, Rio's tone of voice didn't even try to make it sound like the truth. He had obviously planned to eat what he had.
Even so... the sudden sight of meat, vegetables, and melted cheese... it was tugging at her stomach in a far more distracting way, causing it to growl. Or maybe it had already been growling, leading to the boy's offer in the first place. That probably should have caused her to feel something like embarrassment, but she found herself not caring.
Because... even though Emerald had never once allowed herself to be as hungry as she was during those days, she still could not forgive that it had been close to five hours since Breakfast. So she was already accepting the sandwich with two hands before she could stop herself.
"Ah, um, thanks," she quickly remembered to say.
Rio simply nodded. "You're welcome. Just don't be afraid to tell me if you don't like it. I'm still experimenting with the ingredients here."
"Huh? Does that mean you cook?"
Emerald hadn't meant to say that out loud, and cringed a bit when she realized that would probably spark a long-winded conversation.
But contrary to her expectations...
"Something like that." Rio smiled briefly before taking a bite of his half.
Well, he wouldn't find her complaining.
She eagerly took a bite of her own, albeit a more massive one.
Okay.
It was actually really good.
Emerald didn't do anything so weird as moan in delight, but she did take another bite. Then another and another. "Ah..." And before she knew it, it was all gone. Still, her stomach was hardly displeased, nor was her tongue.
A chuckle came from beside her.
"Can I take that to mean you liked it?"
The boy's words accompanied a certain amount of merry, and it made Emerald properly realize she had just scarfed it all down in front of him. Rio being of the opposite sex... either made that much worse, or just as unbearable.
She coughed.
"Y-Yeah. It was good."
"I'm happy to hear it. But... um?"
"...What?"
Emerald got a little wary at the still highly amused smile the boy was giving her. At least, that was until he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out something; something that took her brain a few minutes to latch onto.
His smile waned as he held out the napkin to her, and her brows furrowed in confusion.
Then she turned scarlet.
A flash had her snatching the napkin, and frantically turning away from him with a start. Sure enough, there had been a slight amount of sauce on her chin. Mortified, Emerald found she didn't want to look back into those amber eyes. "Ass," she muttered before she could stop herself.
Surprisingly, the boy laughed.
"I suppose that's fair. Sorry, there might have been a more polite way of letting you know. Or, maybe I should have let some get on me instead?"
"No, no one was expecting you to be that considerate, weirdo..." Once again, the words came out brisk and instinctual, the same as when she habitually fell into pace with Mercury, a fact she realized with a frown.
Well... not quite the same.
Rio didn't have even half the infuriating face or personality of her colleague.
And that was saying something since Mercury was perhaps the only one in Beacon to be able to pass as Rio's long-lost brother, especially since there were no male Schnees around.
Still, there was no antagonistic flame imploring her to keep up with the scathing retorts.
"...Hey," Emerald said after a while.
"Hm?"
"Why haven't you asked me yet?"
"And what would that be?"
The way he parroted that back was so adult-like Emerald didn't know whether to feel amused or annoyed.
She ended up deciding on bluntness.
"...People usually have questions when some weird and moody girl sits down next to them."
"Weird and moody, huh?"
The way his lips decidedly twitched was distracting.
"For some reason, that doesn't really come to mind when I think of Miss Emerald."
The words seemed to come out so easily and unassuming, that she wanted to curse both him and her for the way her heart dramatically decided to beat off kilter. But Rio wasn't finished, and it gave her the time to pretend the words hadn't done anything.
"As for the other thing... I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious, but it's really none of my business. If you wanted to tell me, I would of course listen. But if not?" He tilted his face towards her calmly. "Sitting in silence is more than fine. ...You may not believe me, but I'm, uh, actually not that good at talking with people..."
"You're right. I don't believe you," Emerald told him matter-of-factly, her head dipping away and back into her knees. She just felt the need to hide her face from him all of a sudden.
That was all.
For a time, nothing more was said between the two of them, something she thought she would appreciate, but after a while, that silence began to irk her.
Maybe it was because they had now gotten to talking normally, so now it was weirder that they weren't.
Emerald couldn't very well pretend he didn't exist this far in, after all.
She thought of something to say, anything to end this poisonous silence she herself had created.
"So. Um. Your fight."
Rio looked over at her curiously.
Emerald wanted to promptly hurl herself off Amity.
Okay, so it wasn't exactly necessary for her to be the bubbly and sociable 'Emmy' around someone not even suspicious of her, but come on? —"So. Um. Your fight." What the hell was that? Who was she? Mercury? There were things she could accept her partner-in-crime being better than her in.
Very few things, yes, but they still existed.
Losing in a battle of social skills though?
Hell no.
Emerald cleared her throat, hastily amending her words in an attempt to save her pride. "I mean. I saw your fight. You're strong, like... really strong."
And she actually did mean it.
Rio was already at the level where he was better than her. Fighting prowess-wise anyway. Adding her semblance into the mix would be a different story, naturally. But without it, the boy would be able to take her on, easily, and she imagined Mercury too.
That should have left Emerald anxious.
Yet, it didn't.
Maybe it was for the same reason Emerald didn't expect Pyrrha Nikos, a known accomplished fighter, to suddenly ambush her, or that she didn't expect that Rose girl, plenty capable with her speed, to burst into their dorm and slit her throat. The teachers too, and even Atlas with their current overcompensating grandstanding.
She was surrounded by enemies.
They just... weren't ones yet.
...Though, that would be changing soon though, wouldn't it?
The feeling in her stomach returned.
The white-haired boy shook his head lightly.
"If I seemed strong, my opponents were even stronger."
"Opponents you beat," Emerald retorted.
Rio corrected her with a smile. "I lasted fifteen minutes. Something I was only able to do because I'm confident in my speed. Draining all four of them of their aura? I'm hardly that capable."
Emerald hummed, if only to make it clear she wasn't entirely convinced.
Cinder certainly wasn't.
She purposely directed her thoughts in a different direction.
"Wait, you're, um, all buddy-buddy with those RWBY girls, aren't you? After a fight like that, shouldn't they be, I dunno, hanging all over you right about now? Gasp," Emerald suddenly said without feeling. "Are you playing hard to get?"
The boy's smile took a little damage.
Good. Served him right.
"Not... quite. You could say I'm hiding."
"From girls?"
"Miss Emerald, just what kind of person am I in your head?"
"No comment."
Unaware she was smiling, she looked away from him, not before enjoying the uncomfortable looking expression on his face, or the way his voice had frayed a bit.
Really, acting like he didn't know what she was talking about—like she would believe that when he said embarrassing words at the drop of a hat, and to her of all people.
Mercury did say he was a playboy.
Although... Rio seemed to be at a loss when people genuinely pushed back, such as that Aqua woman actually doing the pushing, to the ground even.
"So who are you actually hiding from?"
Rio's eyes drifted to the sky. Something like a cramped smile overtook his expression, and it was almost as glaring as the ensuing silence. It made Emerald suddenly feel the need to backpedal.
"Er, not that you have to tell me."
She didn't even know whether those were her real feelings or not. But in a strange amount of empathy—and really, the emotion was strange—she knew damn well she wouldn't appreciate some nosy bitch trying to get into her business.
And that made her the bitch in this scenario, huh?
That sounded about right.
But rather than taking offense, Rio just chuckled awkwardly. "It's not that I mind telling you. Just... the reason is a bit silly, so I was almost certain Miss Emerald would laugh at me if I said it."
She blinked, parsing through his statement.
"I won't."
A beat passed.
"...Probably, anyway."
Emerald was either an unparalleled criminal mastermind, mixing lies with truth, or she was just the special kind of dumbass who just revealed and kept on revealing she had a rotten personality, even further blowing her cover.
For her own self-confidence though, she was going to pretend it was the former, and take it as a good thing that the boy somehow seemed faintly amused by what she said.
"I suppose that's the best I can hope for then," he said with a chuckle, before his amber eyes slid to the side. "...Basically, I'm being actively hunted down by... twenty or so members of nearby news agencies..."
The reporters that had been waiting at the bullheads flashed in her mind.
"Because you won?"
Rio nodded, tiredly. "Apparently."
Emerald huffed, leaning back in her seat a bit. "Well, I don't know why you thought I'd laugh at that. It's not even that funny. You made it sound like they have dirt on you or something."
He coughed.
Emerald paused. "...Wait, do they?"
"Well, they certainly seem to think they do," the white-haired boy answered vaguely.
She didn't get it.
Rio sighed, before explaining.
Upon finishing, Emerald realized she ended up being right.
There was no use saying she wouldn't laugh, promise or otherwise.
Because when the boy said the words "illegitimate child" with a such a fleeting look of patience on his face, Emerald snorted, giggled, and before she could stop herself, she started laughing as well.
And Rio's smile turning more and more brittle may or may not have kept her going.
"S-So wait, they all want to ask if you're some secret love child between the Schnee and the working class?" Emerald asked between rasps of laughter.
"I believe that is the idea, yes."
"...Are you?"
"Both my parents very much had black hair, Miss Emerald."
She hummed, still chuckling at odd intervals.
"...Mom had green hair, I think."
Rio glanced at her.
Emerald completely froze.
Why...
Why had she just said that?
She... had just mentioned her mother.
When was the last time Emerald had even spoken a word about her, much less thought of her? It's not as if there had ever been a reason to do so. Emerald was born, then summarily abandoned and left on the streets. That was it. End of story. She certainly didn't care whether the woman was alive or dead.
"F... Forget I said that."
That being said, Emerald currently found herself confused, and more than a little embarrassed. Because even beyond the fact that her mother suddenly found her way into her head-space, she had just shared that information with someone else, something she had never done.
Not even with Cinder and Mercury.
And that gaping incongruity only left her more flustered, especially with how awkward she surely just made things.
But.
"I didn't hear it."
Emerald blinked, before looking at the boy next to her. Rio didn't meet her eyes as he just continued to stare forward; his expression unbothered. "If you said something strange, I didn't hear it," he explained calmly, shrugging.
So it's fine—that seemed to be left unspoken.
A beat passed.
A moment beyond that passed too.
Then, Emerald's shoulders unwound, and she let out a sigh. "You really are the enemy of all women, aren't you?"
The boy immediately started coughing and sputtering like he was choking.
"P-...Pardon...?!"
Very aware she was smiling this time, Emerald stood up and stretched. "I think I'm going to head back."
"U-Um, that's more than fine of course, but don't you think you should explain what you just—"
"See you, Rio."
"M-Miss Emerald?"
She clapped him on the shoulder before walking off, knowing full well he was watching her the whole way, right until the last possible second.
That didn't cause a spring in her step.
Definitely not.