50

Penny rose up from behind Ruby, her eyes wide in amazement at what had just happened. Like Sun, she had escaped the worst of the explosion, having been almost directly behind Ruby, when the two colliding attacks had shattered against each other. Even so, a few slashes of wind and Aura had reached her, mostly along her upper arms. They had sliced through the cloth of her blouse, and parted the skin beneath. However, instead of blood dripping out, those cuts in her skin instead pulled apart slightly, revealing gray metal beneath. Fortunately, they were so small that they were virtually unnoticeable in the low-light conditions of the docks…even to the more discerning eyes of faunus.

"Ruby?" asked Penny.

"Go help Blake, Penny," said Ruby, not taking her eyes off Adam. "You too, Sun."

"You sure?" asked Sun, not certain about this. He took pride in his combat skills. But there was no denying that Adam had had him dead to rights earlier. That guy was good, older and more experienced than any of them; maybe not by a colossal margin, but enough to make a serious difference. The thought of Ruby going up against him alone was a daunting one.

Looking past an angry, glaring Adam, Ruby gave Sun a level look, her expression steely and determined. "I've got this."

Adam's lips pulled back to bare his teeth, and a low growl escaped him. "Human arrogance...childish arrogance, twice the arrogance in one, it seems. I'll make short work of you, filthy human brat."

Penny ran past Ruby, moving to skirt the reach of Adam's sword. Adam made no move to stop her. Despite his grim, confident pronouncement, he remained focused on Ruby, his posture and behavior wary. Despite his words, he was taking her seriously as an opponent.

Despite what he had said, Adam was troubled by Ruby. Having an opponent meet one of his most powerful attacks head-on, and come out almost unscathed, was an unprecedented experience for him. Adam's Moonslice had brought down massive androids, was capable of cutting through even powerful Aura like paper and, at its peak, could reduce its target to dust. The more power he accumulated, the stronger and more unstoppable it was. That Ruby had actually managed to equal it was a daunting occurrence.

Ruby was also wary. She knew next to nothing of her opponent. But she could easily tell that Adam was not someone to be trifled with. She could feel it in his intense focus, his body coiled like a spring, ready to strike in an instant. She could feel the powerful sense of danger that came from being his opponent. Most of all, she could sense his Aura.

Adam's Aura was like a naked blade. It was hard and strong, with a deadly edge to it. However, that edge was jagged and rough, the kind of edge that made a clean cut impossible...but, in some ways, rendered the sword all the more dangerous, because it was more likely to rip and tear, rather than simply slice. It was the Aura of someone who had once fought with incredible conviction, conviction that had been ground and worn down. His commitment to his cause had been replaced with the overwhelming desire to shed blood, and cause pain to anyone he saw as his enemy. He didn't merely fight to kill...he fought to hurt, to harm...It was, at once, pitiful to behold...and terrifying to be the focus of.

Ruby's experience, all her training, the battles she'd fought, gave her a fairly precise idea of Adam's strength. Kyo or Sasame would have made quick work of him. But she gauged Adam to be somewhere above her, overall. This was a dangerous adversary, and there would be no holding back on his part. He had already decided to kill her. If Ruby wanted to come out the other end of this battle alive, she would need to tread the razor-thin margin between life and death. The prospect was frightening...but also exciting.

For a long moment, they remained still, frozen in their standoff. Then, by some unspoken agreement, they blurred into motion simultaneously, red and black rushing at each other. Adam's blade shot forth from its sheath, while Ruby turned, leading with a slash from her left-handed blade. Two crimson streaks intersected, the air screaming with the sound of their impact.

The shock of Ruby's interruption had brought the other portion of the battle to a sudden halt. Sun and Penny's rejoining of it kicked things off once again. Ilia was forced to wrench her eyes away from the confrontation when she saw Sun swinging his staff at her. Desperately, she retracted her weapon into its sword-form, holding it up. But it was a light weapon, not meant to take powerful attacks straight on. As a result, Sun's blow easily powered through her weak block, knocking Ilia back and away from Blake.

Meanwhile, Penny charged straight into the scattered troops of the white Fang. The pack on her back opened up, deploying what looked like a gun at first, until it abruptly unfolded to reveal a long, single-edged sword, with an almost wavy curve to its edge, before sweeping up to an elegant point. The edge was a light-gray, steel color, while the body and spine were a darker gray, with a line of pale-green running parallel to the spine. The bronze-colored hilt was decorated with a green symbol that was commonly seen as the on/off symbol on electronic devices.

Rather than move to her hand, Penny's sword instead hovered behind her back. Then, with a click, and the sound of metal sliding against metal, it separated, fanning out into no fewer than ten separate blades. They spread out, extending past Penny's shoulders, looking like the feathers of a set of disembodied wings.

Leaping into the air, Penny directed her swords into a sweeping slash at the White Fang members into her path. They were helpless, those who tried to defend finding their weapons sheared through effortlessly. Landing amongst them, Penny surged forward, spinning and dancing through their ranks, her swords sweeping around her in circular movements, executing successive slashes. Her attack brought the others running. However, Penny brought five of her swords together in a circular formation, the handles almost meeting in the center, the blades looking like the spokes of an invisible wheel. With a gesture, she sent that spinning formation of swords whirling through the charging faunus, knocking them into the air and scattering them like bowling pins.

Not far away, Sun separated his staff into its dual gun-chucks again, unleashing a fierce onslaught against Ilia, who found herself hard pressed to defend against the series of rapid attacks that came from a baffling number of different directions. She was driven back, Sun forcing her farther away from Blake. So occupied was she by defending against Sun's weapons that Ilia missed Sun jumping off the ground to go into a back-kick. His foot impacted her stomach, driving Ilia's breath from her lungs, and flinging her back to slam against the side of a container. Slumping to her knees, Ilia looked up to see Sun jump into the air, rejoining his weapons into a staff again, and bringing it down in an overhead swing, aiming right for her head.

Desperately, Ilia brought up her sword, bracing the round blade with her left hand (grateful the blade had no edges to speak of), and catching Sun's attack directly. It struck with incredible force, the power behind it making Ilia's arms scream. Bracing herself had barely managed to allow her to stop the blow from reaching her head. The impact relented and, the instant Sun's feet touched down on the ground, Ilia dropped her left hand and ducked forward, while bringing her weapon down and around, the blade unlocking and extending into its whip-form, while Ilia swept it at Sun's feet.

Sun immediately jumped over the sweep of the weapon, his ears catching the angry crackle of the yellow lightning that ran up and down its length. Now it was Ilia who went on the offensive. The flexible nature of her weapon, which would allow it to simply bend around impediments, along with its electrical charge, made blocking it nearly impossible, forcing Sun to duck and dodge the whip entirely. Ilia manipulated the weapon with deft flicks of her wrist, making its length bend and undulate unpredictably, making it harder for Sun to read, while the pace of her attacks kept Sun off-balance, and kept him from taking back the offensive.

Then Sun jumped upwards, his leap taking him out of even the extended range of Ilia's whip. As he did, he tossed his staff over his shoulder, his tail curling around it to keep the weapon from being lost, while Sun clasped his hands together in a movement that almost seemed as though he were meditating.

Light flashed off to either side of him, and a pair of glowing, gold-colored clones of Sun appeared in the air beside him. One was empty-handed, but the other wielded a replica of Sun's staff. Pulling up his legs, Sun allowed the clones to bend downwards, inverting so that they could plant the soles of their feet against his own. The three of them kicked together, Sun launching his duplicates down at Ilia like projectiles.

Ilia met the incoming clones with swift lashes of her whip, one strike each. Upon impact, the clones burst with a flash. Two in swift succession dazzled her, leaving Ilia blinking and grimacing as she tried to clear her vision. Then she heard Sun's shoes hit the ground behind her, and reflexively lashed at him with her whip.

Sun had separated his staff again, meeting Ilia's swinging whip with his left-hand gun-chuck, allowing its chain to tangle with Ilia's whip. Predictably, this allowed the electrical charge flowing through Ilia's weapon to run through the connected weapons, and down Sun's arm, making him grimace and grit his teeth against the pain. But he bore it, because it allowed him to bring his other gun-chuck around to slam into the side of Ilia's head, slamming right up against her temple.

Ilia's head snapped to the side, the stars exploding across her vision joining those created by the flashing explosion of Sun's clones. She was left completely unguarded when Sun smoothly followed through with a deft flip of his grip, that allowed him to bring the barrel of the handle he was holding to bear, right on the center of her chest. Pulling the trigger sent the Dust-round slamming home between Ilia's breasts at point-blank range. Her hand released her whip, ending the electrical discharge, while she was flung back by the impact of the shot, landing on her back with a cry of pain.

Ilia releasing her grip on the weapon also meant that her grip on the trigger was gone as well, ending the electric current flowing through it. Sun grunted and flicked his wrist, untangling their weapons, allowing Ilia's whip to clatter to the pavement. As he did, he grimaced and flexed his arm, feeling residual spasms from the voltage running through him. "Man, that smarts."

"Ilia!"

Sun looked up to see that Blake had recovered enough to stand and move on her own. Now she rushed to Ilia's side, crouching next to her, looking down, her golden eyes overflowing with worry. Perhaps he should have been miffed that Blake was apparently more worried about the girl who'd literally stabbed her in the back, with an electrified whip no less, but he mostly felt grateful at the knowledge that Blake was all right.

Making his way over, Sun moved to crouch on Ilia's other side, leaning over her. "She'll be all right," he said to Blake. "Her Aura tanked it. But she won't have any left after this."

Blake nodded, flashing Sun a grateful smile.

Ilia coughed, then groaned in pain, slowly opening her eyes and staring up at them. "You're both such idiots," she muttered.

"Even if we're on different sides, you're still my friend," said Blake, smiling down at Ilia.

Ilia sniffled, then let out a choked sob, turning her face away from Blake. "Why do you always have to be like this?" she complained.

Lifting his head, Sun took stock of their overall situation. Penny's intervention had allowed him to focus entirely upon Ilia. Looking up, he saw that there was little need to be worried about the orange-haired girl. She was currently in the middle of scattering the White Fang soldiers like fallen leaves. They were throwing everything they had at her, but Penny seemed untouchable.

Then, with a whine of engines, two bullheads swooped down to join the battle. One stooped down towards Penny, while its companion diverted, heading for Sun and Blake...and Ilia. Looking at it, Sun found himself staring down the barrels of a pair of chin-mounted machine-guns.

"Crap! Move!" shouted Sun. It looked as though the pilot wasn't going to spare a thought for Ilia. In her condition, the bullets would tear right through her unprotected body. Quickly, Sun scooped Ilia up off the ground, hefting her in his arms, and diving to the side. Blake also stood up, her shadow propelling her in the same direction, while it was riddled by the strafing bullhead's shots.

Rather than dodge, Penny instead recalled her swords to hover between her and the incoming bullhead, assembling them all into the same circular formation she had attacked with earlier. The formation of blades began to spin rapidly, their blurring forms intercepting and deflecting the bullets. The bullhead passed overhead, and the two airships quickly circled around for another attack-run.

Penny changed the formation of her swords. The blades rotated their orientation, so that they now formed a cylindrical formation, their tips pointing out ahead of Penny. Then they folded in half, the front ends folding back over their spines, then sliding back along it, while the handles rotated down at an angle, the swords becoming guns. The guns began to revolve in their formation, while Penny extended her hands out into the center of it. An orb of crackling, glowing, green energy began to form ahead of her hands. It was as though those orbiting guns had become the barrel for an even larger gun.

The bullheads descended again, this time apparently focusing all their firepower on Penny. However, by the time they were in range, it was too late for them. Penny pulled her arms back up against her sides, closing her hands into fists, then punched out into the sphere of green energy she'd built up. A blast of green light lanced out, slashing through the night sky, cutting both bullheads to pieces, spilling out their pilots, and a few other White Fang soldiers who hadn't yet disembarked.

From where they'd ducked behind a nearby container for cover, Sun, Blake, and Ilia looked out, staring at Penny in amazement. "That girl is dynamite!" exclaimed Sun. "Where'd Ruby meet her, again?"

"Ran into her on the street," said Blake, also shocked.

Ilia said nothing, the overall oddness of the situation exceeding her ability to comment on it.

"And the rest of the White Fang...?" wondered Sun.

He and Blake looked up, seeing two of the remaining bullheads hovering up high, their movements indicating their pilots uncertainty at what to do in this situation. They didn't dare descend into Penny's line of fire. Most, if not all, the soldiers on the ground had been incapacitated. That meant that the only real threat left was...

Looking over, Blake, Sun, and Ilia could see a pair of black and crimson blurs, dancing amongst the containers, their weapons streaks of violent red in the darkness of night. Ruby and Adam were still fighting. The intensity of their battle was such that no one felt safe intervening.

Ruby spun and danced, alternating attacks between her swords, while Adam countered with his own blade. Occasionally, he would supplement his sword-work with shots from his sheath, prompting Ruby to defend or dodge. As often as possible, Adam would return Wilt to Blush, then draw the sword again, using the movement to accelerate his attacks to incredible levels.

Raising Ibara in her right hand, Ruby caught Adam's slashing blade, using the force of impact to send her body into a spin that allowed her to bring Bara around in her left hand for a counter-slash, aimed at Adam's neck. Adam sidestepped and leaned away, carrying his neck out of Ruby's reach, while using his wrist to bring Wilt down so that he could attack with an upwards-sweeping slash. Ruby's body blurred, slipping to the side of Adam's strike, leaving a cloud of petals in her wake, her swift movement carrying her around behind Adam.

A deft move spun Blush in the grip of Adam's left hand, so that its barrel was in line to intercept Ruby as soon as she appeared behind the man. Ruby was forced to blur back when the rifle fired, a bullet shooting up through where her head had been. Taking advantage of the delay in her action, Adam spun Blush back around, slamming Wilt home, before drawing it, while pulling Blush's trigger. Using the momentum of his own drawing slash, Adam spun his body around to the right, bringing the blade around to hack at Ruby's midsection.

Ruby had already jumped into a cartwheeling leap that allowed her to spin up and over the line of Adam's attack. Coming out of her spin, Ruby slashed at him with Ibara, forcing Adam to raise his sheath to block the attack. Ruby followed through with Bara, but Adam was able to use Wilt to parry. Knocking both Ruby's weapons back, Adam took advantage of the opening between her arms to lash out with a side-kick that slammed home into her stomach, knocking Ruby back.

However, the kick didn't inflict much damage. Ruby had already sensed it coming, and had jumped back at the instant it made contact, killing nearly all the force of the blow. She landed just in time to see Adam come back down, his sword returning to its sheath, before he lunged at her, charging across the space between them, and unleashing yet another blindingly-fast quickdraw.

Whipping her right-handed sword down low, Ruby brought it up from beneath the line of Adam's slash, even as she bent her legs, allowing her to bounce the slash over her hooded head. In the meantime, Ruby also darted forward, her left-handed blade rushing for Adam's torso. With an angry grunt, Adam threw himself to the side, grimacing as he felt the edge of Ruby's sword graze his Aura, sending a stinging line of pain across the left side of his torso.

Snarling, Adam reversed course, bringing Wilt back along its original course, only to find that Ruby had vanished. Realizing that she was trying to flank him again, Adam jumped, throwing himself into a forward flip, carrying him clear of a horizontal slash from behind. While inverted in the air, Adam leveled Blush at Ruby, firing off several shots at her. Ruby advanced, while either shifting aside from the bullets in a blur of red, or cutting them down. Righting himself, Adam landed, still facing away from Ruby, inserting Wilt straight down into its sheath again. Turning one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, Adam unleashed another quickdraw slash, which Ruby jumped over.

Ruby's jump carried her over Adam's head. Adam had landed almost right up against a container. So Ruby turned in the air to plant her feet against the container's wall, her remaining momentum holding her against it for a second. From that horizontal position, she turned her body to slash down at Adam with Ibara. Adam jumped away, barely managing to escape the line of Ruby's attack. Leveling Blush, he fired another shot. But Ruby kicked off the side of the container, launching herself almost straight at him, but at enough of an angle that Adam's shot barely missed hitting her. Adam's response was to bring up Wilt to block her downwards slash with Bara, before Ruby shot past him.

Landing, Ruby turned to face Adam once more, only to gasp. Adam was coming right at her again, but he was different. His body had transformed into a black shadow, with the red parts of his outfit glowing starkly against that shadow. But what truly shocked her was the sense she felt of there being more than one of Adam. Ruby danced aside from her attacker's downward slash, only to see another black and red shadow detach from it to slash sideways at her neck. Ruby managed to duck beneath it, but then the real Adam charged right through the two shadows, the blade of Wilt glowing a menacing red as he brought it around at Ruby from her left.

Pushing off with all the strength her legs could muster, and adding her Aura to boost her movement further, Ruby shot upwards like a rocket, leaving Adam's sword passing through a cloud of petals. Standing in their midst, Adam's senses indicated that he was in danger, and he jumped back just in time.

"Hanabi!" The drifting petals sparked, crackled, then exploded like a chain of firecrackers, sending sparks and arcs of electricity dancing through the space they'd just filled. Up above, Ruby went into a spin, scattering still more petals around her, the petals then converging and congealing to form orbs of violet energy. "Hibana!" The bolts rushed down at Adam in a fierce barrage.

Adam's response was to insert Wilt back into Blush, then draw it again. This time, he wasn't slashing. Adam pulled only about half the sword from its sheath, holding his blade up to catch and intercept the incoming bolts. Instead of exploding against his sword, they vanished, their energy drawn into the blade, which shined with malevolent light, Adam using swift, sharp movements to catch each incoming attack before it could reach him. When the last of Ruby's shots had vanished into the blade of his sword, Adam slammed it all the way back into the sheath.

So that's where his power is coming from, Ruby thought, landing atop a crate and looking down at him. He can absorb attacking energy into the sword. It looks like he can store it away for later use.

That explained the source of the awesome power of the attack Adam had met her Kazebara with. He caught the energy with his sword, probably storing it within his sheath, then unleashing it for powerful strikes. She'd put a lot of energy into her Hibana, which meant that Adam would have quite a bit to work with.

Sure enough, the red of his outfit and hair began to glow, standing out starkly. It was the powerful glow she'd seen when he'd been about to use that attack on Sun. Then Adam rushed forward, planting one foot against the side of the container that Ruby was standing atop, and using his momentum to run straight up the side. Ruby gasped and sidestepped as he drew wilt forth in a blinding slash, upon reaching her. He's faster!

Sure enough, Adam alit atop the container, and spun around to shoot at Ruby again, slashing at her with Wilt at a speed that was beginning to rival his earlier quickdraw attacks. Manipulating her Aura through her feet, Ruby dodged desperately between the slashes, keeping to small, swift movements, making her form seem to double, then triple, as Adam's blurring blade cut through afterimages left in her wake. Ruby counterattacked, her own swords becoming streaks of red light, extending from the black blurs that were her sleeves. But Adam defended with both his sword and sheath, the ringing of metal against metal merging together so that distinctive impacts became a single, continuous ringing noise.

Ruby used her Shukuchi to quickly dart around Adam's body, attempting to flank him again. In doing so, however, she created an opening for Adam to return Wilt to Blush. Before Ruby could attack with her own swords, Adam had turned, pushing off in the same motion, accelerating to rapidly penetrate into her space, coming almost body-to-body with her. At this range, he was too close to properly execute a slash with the blade of his sword. Instead, he released the handle with his right hand, and pulled the trigger with his left, Wilt shooting out of Blush to slam the sword's pommel straight into the left side of Ruby's abdomen.

Ruby cried out in surprise and pain, knocked back by the hit. Adam's sword fully emerged from its sheath, while also rebounding from the impact against Ruby's body, to hang in the air for the fraction of a second Adam needed to continue rushing forward, snatching the tumbling sword out of the air. Ruby landed, her feet skidding almost all the way to the edge of the container. Looking up, she saw, not one, but at least four Adams charging her, their movements so swift that they seemed to flicker and blink around her in all directions.

He can do all this with his Semblance? It was amazing to consider. She'd thought that Adam's Semblance was similar to Yang's, simple absorption and return of attacking energy. But it seemed that Adam could get quite a bit of mileage out of this ability. First and foremost, unlike Yang, the absorption aspect of his ability negated the power of the attacks he intercepted with his sword, which meant that he wasn't taking damage in the process. He could use the accumulated energy to launch powerful attacks, or selectively boost his abilities. It seemed he could even Project it outwards to create clones that were capable of tangible attacks of their own. The idea that he could utilize his Semblance in so versatile a manner actually made it seem less like a Semblance...and more like a Manifestation.

But there wasn't really any time to consider the implications of this. With Adam and his clones circling her at incredible speed, it was difficult for Ruby to tell where his next attack would be coming from. The clones could attack too. Still, simply waiting for Adam to try and sink his blade into her flesh didn't sit well with Ruby, so she decided to attack.

With a yell, she slid her swords against one another, grinding their flats together in a scissoring motion, before pulling them apart in a wide sweep around her body. Both blades blazed with crimson light, Ruby's wide sweep creating an almost completely circular wave of wind that rushed out around her, slashing down Adam's clones in an instant.

Adam himself had managed to dodge to the one space Ruby's wide attack could not reach, directly behind her. However, he wasn't in much position to counterattack, his dodge having carried him into the empty air beyond the edge of the container. With nothing to stand on, Adam fell.

But he wasn't content to merely fall without trying anything. Leveling blush at Ruby's back, Adam fired several more shots as he dropped. Spinning to face him, Ruby swept her cloak around, hardening the folds of the fabric with her Aura, repelling the bullets until she was in position to work her swords to deflect Adam's other shots. Then she dove off the container after him.

Landing on the ground, Adam swept his sword up over his head to deflect Ruby's descending slash, putting enough power into the blow that Ruby was knocked up and over his head, coming down behind him. Adam spun about to face her, inserting Wilt into its sheath again. Then, in a flash, he charged at her, Ruby barely managed to bring her blades up to block. What followed was not one, but three slashes that came so quickly that they seemed to land in almost perfect unison. Their power seemed to merge together, and Ruby was knocked backwards with a surprised yelp.

Still, Ruby managed to land on her feet, skidding to a stop. However, when she looked up, she did so just in time to see Adam's entire form light up, sickly red and black energy illuminating his body. With an angry howl, Adam reversed his grip on Wilt, then drove it straight into the ground in front of him, the sword generating a roaring wave of red and black that bore down on Ruby, looking set to devour her.

Ruby's response was to cross her swords again, once again sliding the blades against each other as she pulled them back apart. With a shout of her own, she reversed her grip on Ibara, and drove the sword into the ground, in a movement that mirrored Adam's. A shining blade of crimson wind roared up to meet the darker-red and black of Adam's attack, Ruby's counter splitting his incoming assault around her, diverting its force off to the sides, where it slammed into the towers of stacked containers with a thunderous crash, prompting them to tip over, the stacked rectangles collapsing with the sound of steel slamming against pavement, making the ground shake.

Meanwhile, Ruby drew back Bara, and then slashed in Adam's direction with an overhead strike. Crackling arcs of crimson electricity climbed the length of the blade, like thorny, red vines. The lightning extended out from the tip of the blade, lashing out at Adam like a whip. His vision blocked by the explosion caused by their colliding attacks, Adam didn't see Ruby's lightning whip until it was too late, the lash of electrical energy rushing out of the smoke and dust thrown up by their exchange.

Adam shifted to dodge, but only managed to avoid taking the hit straight in the chest, instead allowing the lightning to strike him in the left shoulder. With a cry of pain, Adam was blasted back, knocked into a spin that slammed his back against the side of the container directly behind him. He fell to the ground with a dull thud, and the sharper clangs of his weapons against the hard pavement.

Panting for breath, Ruby forced herself to stand up, having to use more strength than she liked to wrench Ibara free from the ground. She wobbled, her legs feeling a bit weak and shaky, after all the power she'd put into those two attacks. Across from her, Adam was already getting up as well. Unlike her, he didn't look nearly as winded, even if he was a bit more battered.

Of course, that was only to be expected. Much of the energy Adam was using during their fight wasn't his. In fact, everything, from his earlier blurring speed, to his clones, to the massive wave he'd just unleashed, had all come from attacks that Ruby had launched at him. Ruby wasn't merely pitting her strength against Adam, but having her power neutralized and sent right back at herself. Adam's Semblance not only made him capable of dangerously powerful attacks, but also gave him an edge in attrition.

Ruby had fueled her counter against that last attack entirely from her own reserves, and now her Aura was beginning to get dangerously low. Her cloak fluttered behind her, ragged holes marring its red expanse, a sign that her protection was beginning to wear thin. She couldn't afford to let this battle drag out. If she fell against Adam, then her friends would be next. Blake and Sun were both worn down from their own fights (Penny too, in all likelihood), while Adam would still be comparatively fresh, because, again, much of the energy he was using right now wasn't coming from him.

Despite that, Ruby remained calm, closing her eyes and taking slow, even breaths, willing her heart to calm. She relaxed and immersed herself in the flow of her own Aura, allowing it to sooth her frazzled nerves and ease her tense muscles.

Across from her, Adam staggered and shuddered. He had reserves to spare, but Ruby's hit had still rattled him. What was more, it had made him angry. She could feel his tension growing, the anger tightening the flow of his Aura, making it halt and seize. He was furious.

"Not bad," he growled, glaring at her through the slits in his mask, "for a human." He spat the last word out, as though it were a racial epithet, which, she supposed, it was to him.

Ruby slowly opened her eyes, focusing her gaze on Adam, her entire being a quiet center amidst the hurricane of battle. She felt fully calm and composed, as though she could keep on fighting indefinitely, even though that most certainly wasn't the case. More to the point, she had seen the way to victory. It wouldn't be easy, but she could manage it. Their last exchange had solidified Ruby's understanding of her opponent...and provided her with exactly what she needed to take him down. It would be tricky though, like threading the eye of a needle, but it was something she could do.

For his part, Adam seemed infuriated by her calm and confidence. "I can see that Blake likes to make her friends do the fighting for her," he snarled.

Ruby merely smiled. "She isn't making me do anything," she retorted. "You're just not worth her time."

Her words definitely had a pronounced effect. Hearing Adam immediately bring the conversation to Blake had spoken to Ruby of a deep interest, bordering on obsession. Blake had mentioned their earlier relationship, but now Ruby could see that it had apparently led Adam to being fixated on her. That was fine by Ruby. It gave her more ways to get an edge over him.

Adam returned his sword to its sheath, standing tall. "You may think that you're some kind of hero, but that couldn't be further from the truth. You fight for a corrupt system that fuels the oppression of our people. You fight against us because you fear us, because you could never truly accept faunus as equals."

"Um...One of my big sisters is a faunus," said Ruby, canting her head.

Adam jolted.

Ruby giggled. "My adopted mom's a faunus too," she added, finding amusement in another confused jerk of Adam's body. "I've spent most of my life living with and around faunus and humans. None of them worry about discrimination, and they're perfectly fine with each other. Of course, it's a different situation, where I come from. I know things aren't as good in the Kingdoms, and that's a problem that has to be addressed."

Ruby's eyes narrowed. "But you don't actually care about that. You talk about justice, like it's some magic word that excuses what you do. But I can feel it. You like killing, you like hurting, you like the blood. I don't know what happened. Maybe someone did something awful to you, maybe even something unforgivable, but it's not even about that anymore. It's about you being able to hurt as many people as much as you can. You're not fighting for justice or the faunus. You're just fighting for yourself."

Having not picked her words to try and talk Adam down, Ruby was not surprised to see his lips pull back to bare his teeth, a low, angry growl escaping him. The gloved fingers of his hand clenched so tightly around the handle of his weapon that it began to shake and rattle in his grip. His entire body trembled, Ruby's words taking the simmering pot of his anger...and bringing it straight to a boil.

"You certainly don't lack for arrogance, you little bitch," snarled Adam. "Death alone isn't good enough for you anymore. I will make you scream while you die. And I'll make sure that Blake sees every minute of it."

Ruby said nothing in response, merely adopting her stance once again, schooling her face to tranquil impassivity, while staring across at her opponent. Seeing his words not even fazing her, Adam let out another angry growl, and sank into his own stance, ready to draw again.

Here we go, thought Ruby. The pair blurred, shooting toward each other once more.

They clashed again, as they had so many times before, their blades streaks of red in the night, crimson sparks scattering through the air as their Auras vied against one another. They shifted and danced, jockeying for position, cutting, blocking, parrying, riposting, and dodging. In the first few seconds of their exchange, they were a pair of black and red blurs, dancing amid arcs and flashes of red, the steady clang of steel on steel setting a rapid tempo between them.

Then, ever so slightly, Ruby's movements began to flag. Her dodges became narrower, her blocks more frantic. Her own attacks reduced in occurrence, as she found herself fighting more defensively. Realizing that her strength and stamina must be reaching their limits, Adam doubled down, channeling what little remained of the power he'd absorbed from her previous attacks through his limbs to enhance his speed and power. At the moment, he didn't have the means to unleash anymore clones or powerful slashes from Wilt. Unless Ruby tried another powerful attack for him to absorb, he'd have to defeat her primarily with swordsmanship.

Still, it seemed that that would be enough. Adam attacked more aggressively, pushing harder against Ruby, his sword becoming a flickering series of lines in the air. Each draw he made set him up for multiple slashes, which he sometimes followed through with a shot from Blush to keep Ruby off-balance. Gradually, he started to drive her back towards the side of a toppled container, aiming to hem her in...then finish her off.

Ruby worked her swords in tandem to keep Adam's attacks at bay. But it was a difficult proposition. Adam's raw strength was greater than hers, and it was an advantage that he was leveraging to its fullest against her. Still, Ruby fought hard, trying to find some opening she could use. She could sense the container looming up behind her, which was when she saw her opening.

Rather than try to resist, Ruby allowed Adam's next slash to knock her away, smacking her cloaked back against the container, jarring her painfully. The extra distance gave Adam the time he needed to sheathe Wilt, before he advanced again, the blade flying forth in a flash. With a smirk, Ruby shifted to the side. Adam's slash reached its full extension and, right before it would have cut into her, the tip and the upper portion of the blade sank into the steel side of the container.

Of course, between the speed and power of his technique, and the Aura-enhanced edge of the blade, Adam's sword parted the steel like a hot knife through butter. But that slight contact slowed his blade just enough that Ruby was able to leap upwards, kicking off the side of the container and rushing over Adam's head. She twisted her body to avoid the shot from Blush Adam fired up at her, managing to land behind him. Now Adam was the one pinned against the side of the container.

Moving swiftly, Ruby began her technique. She'd need to do this right to make it work. She rejoined her swords, before running the first two fingers of her right hand along the length of the blade, tracing its flat from the hilt to the tip. Akaibara let out a bell-like tone and came alight in her hands. The wind swirled inwards, gathering around the blade of the sword, condensing and concentrating. Kicking off the ground, Ruby tilted her body on its side, so that she drifted through the air in a horizontal position, going into a spin that brought her sword up, around, then down, carving a shining trail through the air, as she brought it down towards Adam. "Kazebara!"

Adam had already turned to follow her. However, despite the longer windup to Ruby's current attack, he'd allowed it, because it gave him the opening he needed to return his sword to its sheath. Last time, Adam had countered with his Semblance-fueled attack, the Moonslice. Now, as he faced her descending sword without any accumulated energy remaining...he grinned triumphantly.

The reason why became apparent when Adam raised his weapons to defend against Ruby's blow, the first half of Wilt's blade leaving the sheath, Adam holding them both up horizontally to brace against the vertical strike.

Ruby's blade met Adam's...and the energy of her attack vanished. The wind that she'd bound into a blade that could slice through a Deathstalker's carapace like paper dispersed. Her sword was stopped cold by Adam's defense, and all the power she'd invested in her attack simply…disappeared…absorbed into Adam's blade.

Then Adam snapped out his leg, catching Ruby in the midsection, knocking her back away from him. Ruby yelped in pain, hitting the ground, bouncing and rolling. She managed to get back up on her feet. But now she was in no position to respond to what was about to come next.

Adam brought his foot back down, Wilt slamming home into Blush. The red parts of Adam's outfit, along with his hair, began to shine malevolently, a victorious chuckle issuing from his throat as he focused on Ruby, then rushed at her, his body practically seeming to vanish from where it had been standing. The next instant...he was directly in front of Ruby.

A faint hiss escaped Ruby's lips.

Wilt flashed out from the sheath, faster than any of his previous attacks. The entire world turned red, all the objects within it, including Ruby and Adam, being reduced to nothing more than shadows. Before his eye, Adam saw the ebony silhouette of Ruby's cloak crumble into dust, scattering into nothingness. Then the world returned to normal, with no trace of Ruby Rose before Adam's eyes, save for a few drifting petals of bloody crimson.

Then he jolted sharply forward, an angry line of pain biting across his back. Adam yelled in pain and anger. Thrown forward, he twisted his body around, slashing wildly at his assailant. As he did, his eyes widened behind his mask. Before him was that red cloak, that black and red hair, those silver eyes... How…!?

Ruby was smiling confidently as she went on the attack now, striking with a speed and strength Adam had previously thought her no longer able to muster. Now Adam found himself on the defensive, Ruby's blades slipping past his attempts to defend. Her swords barely made contact with Wilt or Blush. Whenever Adam shifted to block one, Ruby struck with the other, before he could respond. Her two swords traced lines of agony across Adam's body again and again, staggering him repeatedly.

Adam hadn't been a fool, of course. Even though he'd put most of the captured energy to use against Ruby in that last attempt, he'd held off on using all of it. Even if he brought Ruby down, there was still the matter of Blake and her current paramour to deal with. The energy he'd stolen from Ruby's attacks would be enough to deal a severe blow to either of them. But the possibility of Ruby escaping his strike had seemed unlikely.

With an angry growl, Adam bulled through the next two slashes Ruby landed on him, shouldering them with his Aura, and accepting the damage as a necessary evil. He returned Wilt to its sheath, then almost immediately drew it again, his slash forcing Ruby to dance back out of its reach. Then, a black and glowing-red clone of Adam surged forth, unleashing another slash at Ruby, which she ducked, followed by a second clone, this one striking with a downwards stroke, Ruby shifting aside from it her cloak drifting up to envelop her body. Then Adam charged forward again, seeming to merge with his clones, having already returned Wilt to Blush, only to draw the sword again in an attack that cut right through Ruby, only for him to be confronted with the image of her cloak bursting into a cloud of petals upon contact with his sword.

Now Ruby had flanked him again, landing another three blows, knocking Adam off his feet. Landing hard, Adam still had the wherewithal to use his momentum to come back up to a standing position. Even as he did, he fired Blush at the incoming Ruby, but she shifted aside from the shot without even breaking stride. Instead, she brought Bara up to counter Wilt, while slashing up with Ibara, her blade cutting at Adam's Aura, up and across his chest, sending him staggering back again.

Their dance had changed. Now Ruby slipped aside from Adam's every slash and shot, seeming to know every attack's direction and timing, while her own swords flawlessly slipped through every gap in his defense. She was a blur, dancing around Adam, her blades hard to follow against the fluttering backdrop of her cloak, her movements always seeming to slip out of Adam's line of sight, every stroke of her swords coming from a dead-angle of his vision.

Each attack of his that missed, and each blow that Ruby landed, only served to stoke Adam's anger further. Less than a minute ago, he'd had her exactly where he wanted her. He'd completely outmatched her. That last use of his Moonslice should have ended the fight right then and there. But now their positions had been completely reversed. Worse still, it seemed as though Ruby knew every move he was going to make, often even before he knew what he was going to do.

Ruby danced. During their original exchange, she had allowed herself to feel and experience Adam's rhythm. Now she'd fully internalized it. Even when Adam had been pressing her, seemingly overpowering her, she had actually been in full control, deliberately flagging her movements to build Adam's confidence and arrogance, his assurance of his imminent victory. Then she'd used Kazebara, knowing full well that Adam would absorb it, and immediately use it to counterattack overwhelmingly. In that instant, when Adam had been possessed of complete assurance of his victory, he'd left himself wide open.

Now Ruby was on the offensive, while her opponent flailed with an impotent defense. She danced to the beat of his movements, able to tell when he was readying to slash, able to feel the extra beat in his melody, which signaled Wilt's return to its sheath. She was aware of the half-beat of his draw, and the rest that followed it. Ruby layered her own movements over Adam's own, reading both his offense and defense to slip her blades through the gaps in his awareness, landing hit after hit, steadily chiseling away at his Aura.

The clank of Wilt's hilt striking against Blush alerted Ruby to Adam's sheathing. Rather than the half-beat of his usual draw, she felt him pause for a full beat, and she knew what was coming. From behind, the flair of Adam's jacket kept Ruby from seeing his sheath, but she knew he was about to unleash the last of the power he'd siphoned away from her Kazebara to launch an attack at her.

Adam drew, his movement accelerating to a ridiculous extent, a flashing wave of crimson lashing out at Ruby. Adam was rewarded with the sight of her cloak, cut in two, before it dissolved into another cloud of petals.

The next thing Adam knew, the edge of Ruby's sword bit into the Aura around his left wrist. Adam yowled in pain and anger, trying to turn towards the source of his pain. But the cut was followed by a heavier, blunt, blow, Ruby's foot kicking his hand. His grip weakened by her earlier sword stroke, Blush was knocked right out of his hand.

"No!" shouted Adam, watching his sheath go tumbling away. Then there was a flash, a ringing sound filling the air yet again. Ruby had rejoined her swords, and then traced her fingers along the length of the blade. Taking it up in both hands, she held it up over her head, while electricity crackled up and down its length. At the same time, currents of air swirled around the sword, winding inwards, combining with the lightning, transforming from red and washing to a brilliant violet color, a nimbus of energy wreathing the length of Ruby's blade.

"Yoake no Bara!"

With that, Ruby brought her sword down with a roar like thunder.