21

"Room service! Ordered by a Mister Jaune for a Miss Emerald!"

Emerald groggily woke up, feeling warmer and more comfortable than she'd ever been.

Everything smelt fresh and clean. That was wei-

"Ah!" Emerald jerked to attention, feeling a bare shoulder slip out of the bathrobe she'd fallen asleep in.

She angrily jerked the stupid robe back on, noticing that she had been tucked into the sheets of the large hotel bed.

Oh no. She'd done it. She'd slept at a hotel with J-

Where was Jaune? She was alone. When had she fallen asleep?

Another knock at the door drew her out of her confusion.

"Miss Emerald? Are you awake? A mister Jaune ordered Room Service for you ahead of time!"

She gingerly walked forward, her toes tip-tapping gently against the carpeted floor as she gingerly walked towards the door.

"H-hello?" She hated how confused she felt and sounded.

"Miss Emerald? I have your breakfast right here. If you could open the door I can deliver it to you."

"C-could you just leave it at the door?" She asked, trying not to sound as if she was begging.

"I would if that's what you wanted, but there's a lot of food here, miss. It would really be easier for both of us if you could just open the door."

Emerald hated that she was too short to peer through the peephole thing at the top of the door.

She took a deep breath, feeling that her Aura had returned to her in full, ready to inflict Hallucinations upon the woman on the other side of the door if she tried anything funny.

She unlocked the door to a flood of delicious smells and a cart filled with platter after platter of food.

Emerald couldn't stop the flood of drool that began to spill from the corner of her mouth.

Nora Arc happily dug into the breakfast her brother Jauney cooked for them.

Pancakes were her favorite.

Syrups, sauces, creams, jams, fruits, butters, chocolates, ah~

They could have so much infused OR topping them! Sometimes BOTH!

They were the perfect breakfast food! And Jauney was magic. And not just with food. He was either magic, or he had like, fifty Semblances.

Magic made more sense at this point, honestly. She and Ren both just kind of accepted Jauney didn't make sense.

But Jauney only let her have eight at a time, only more on special occasions, or when he was in a good mood, insisting that she eat whatever other food he'd put on her plate.

That's why she was suspicious when she had a dozen today morning. Not that she was complaining, but it was sus.

Her Jauney was in a sussy good mood.

Her older sister Clarent, the family tomboy, dug into her mountain of scrambled eggs (with a slew of veggies sneakily mixed in, Jauney was always secretly evil about veggies! Even if he somehow made them delicious!) and sausage hash, famished from the Arc Family morning training session.

Her hair was tied back in a casual spiky ponytail while still sweaty and dressed in her skintight red and blue sports bra top and bike shorts.

Nora glared off the boys that were side eyeing her pretty big sis. Guard dog mode engage!

Robin on the other hand, a long blue streak of hair dyed in her neat long hair, had taken a shower before food and dressed in a prim and tidy black and blue velvet combat outfit.

She was elegantly enjoying a more traditionally East Mistralian fare though a bit more robust in the nature of a Huntress in training, having two bowls of rice, pan seared salmon, tuna tataki, miso soup, and a spicy pickled cabbage dish called kimchi.

Her admirers weren't blatant so it was fine. She did need to break someone's legs once when they got uppity about getting her attention though. GUARD DOG NORA!

Ren also was also handsomely quietly savoring a meal similar to big sis Robin, but with pickled slices of lotus head instead of kimchi. Handsomely.

Nora growled at some girls primping their hair and trying to catch his attention. GUARD DOG!

Jauney on the other hand was dressed in a pink 'It's Bloody RAW!' apron and cooking using his multiple portable stoves as he packed lunch like, in the words of the twins Avaline and Rhona: the good house husband he was.

He always set a little food aside for himself, but said that he'd end up eating a lot just from making sure everything tasted just right, so he didn't need looking after.

It didn't stop big sis Clarent and Robin from hunting him down on occasion with candy bars and snacks. And anything he didn't keep or eat Nora and Ren got to keep! Mwah ha ha!

Jauney had started to also make breakfast and lunch at the same time since they'd all started at Sanctum, always doting over his elder sisters and worrying they weren't eating enough or well enough.

Robin was good at taking decent care of herself, but that was kind of a fair concern when it came to Clarent, who'd usually just fill up on protein shakes, jerky, and whatever the cafeteria daily special was. Or just bread.

Preferably whatever filled her up more and was easily on hand.

When he'd realized that's how she'd been living at Sanctum for three years now, Jaune had forced her into a seiza and given a lecture about nutritional balance, only holding back on doing the same to Robin because she was technically a year younger than Clarent and thus felt uncomfortable with lecturing her elder sister.

It was weird how Clarent and Saphron could be so different. Fraternal twins were still twins. They should still have been pretty similar, but Clarent was such a boy about things. Well. So was Nora though.

She growled at a few girls giggling at Jaune's back. They had albums in their hands. They weren't quite as bad as the normal hussies. Still, just in case! Guard doggy Nora mode!

Clearly Jauney didn't care about public perception and Nora had never seen her big sis Clarent look so embarrassed as Jauney bullied her about eating better. Publicly. In the cafeteria, dummy Jauney.

Her big sis beat up anybody that made fun of her about it though, even going as far as to defeating a student two years her senior.

That had caused a fuss from the older kids about dishonorable kids not obeying the natural pecking order, but then Jauney went and beat up all those same people as a firstie and that was the end of that. Everyone was too embarrassed to admit they lost to a first year student.

Ha. Brother Jauney was special. They had no clue who they were messing with!

He'd mess them up! Break their legs!

"Nora, just eat instead of thinking about legs to break." Jaune chided as he tested the flavor of a sauce he was finishing up, causing Nora to go back into digging through her meal.

Also yeah, Jauney was magic. He had mind reading.

"It's not mind reading!"

LIAR!

"Ok. This one's for you, Clarent." Jaune handed the biggest boxed lunch, wrapped in a thick scarlet cloth.

"Oooh! Thanks lil' bro." Clarent grinned, giving him a sloppy eggy kiss on the cheek, as Jaune rolled his eyes.

A more modest box lunch in a blue velvet cloth was for Robin.

Robin just gave a calm and demure hug.

"I will eat it gratefully." She informed him elegantly.

Nora wanted to know how she could be so graceful. Even mommy Noelle wasn't so smooth.

A large pink cloth wrapped box was Nora's. Jaune had also packed her a small side pouch of sakura mochi from sneaking into Mistral yesterday (Jauney said Mistral and she believed him with his weird shadow trick) under Jail Specialist Pepper's watch.

"She's just doing her job, Nora. I can't blame her for that." Jaune groaned. "Don't ever say that to her face."

HE WAS MAGIC! Coincidence? Nora thought NOT!

"And this is for you Ren." Jauney shook his head at her, the traitor, as he handed a forest green wrapped box to the other handsome brother of the Arc family. "Enjoy."

Nora knew Ren had gotten some snacks too.

"I will." Ren smiled with a small laugh. "You could genuinely open up a restaurant."

"We'd roll in Lien." Nora agreed easily.

She could hear a few jealous mutterings from the other people in the cafeteria that watched the Arc family antics (and smelt their food), knowing that Jaune had once thanked a few people with breakfast for helping his older sisters with some random things like homework or getting rid of something that Nora didn't hear properly.

People had tasted the fruit of temptation.

They needed to back off. It was Nora's fruit! And Ren's. And Clarent's and Robin's!

Guard dog Nora! Bark bark!

"Never. Jaune's food is ours!" Clarent cheered triumphantly, holding her lunchbox above her head with one hand as Jaune rolled his eyes and handed a smaller boxed lunch to the passing teacher.

They'd come to an arrangement that agreed for a bribe of Jaune's food, he was allowed to make meals for himself and his siblings in the cafeteria daily.

Jaune still had three lunch boxes left, wrapped in black cloth.

Aha. Nora knew Jauney was up to something!

"Nora, I'm always up to something. That's an unfair accusation." Jaune sighed, his Semblance swallowing up both lunch boxes alongside the table and portable stoves he'd been using to cook with. "That's like saying the sky isn't blue."

"It's sometimes red!"

"That's true." Ren agreed with a smirk. "Nora Arc: One. Jaune Arc: Zero."

"Got you there baby brother." Clarent teased with another eggy kiss to his other cheek.

Jauney groaned.

"Well it's good that you know how to read. I can toss these away then."

Emerald flushed as Jaune tossed the children's books behind him, the objects just disappearing into empty space.

"I-I needed to know the names of the things I stole and what they meant. Books helped with that."

She had a great semblance for getting away with thievery, but Jaune's Semblance that let him carry whatever he wanted made her jealous.

She'd been jealous of normal kids too. Stealing their books and learning from them to steal from those kids she wished she could have been, trying to steal their futures. It was a dumb and childish sentiment. Their parents just bought them new books.

Then she'd begun to occasionally walk out of bookstores with the occasional book here and there, always able to sell the things second hand once she'd worn them out after enjoying herself on occasion. It was one of her few luxuries.

"Well, no more stealing under my watch unless they're from bad guys. If you want something, you tell me. I'm glad you're smart though, that'll make everything easier."

Still. Jaune clearly had some sort of plan.

He wanted to make her useful. He wanted to teach her things. He wanted something from her.

And she'd already tasted what luxury felt like. The food and beds. The lack of fear that she'd be robbed, killed, or kidnapped in her sleep.

He'd already broken her in! She couldn't go back!

Well she could, but she'd be so much more miserable than she used to be!

She'd tasted the forbidden fruit! Luxury and comfort!

If he cut her loose, she was sure she'd end up crawling back to him, abandoning her pride like a dog.

"You and Nora are having some of the same odd thoughts today." Jaune muttered, barely audible to Emerald's ears. "Look, it's nothing that complicated. Plus you've got a pretty strong Semblance that should probably just carry you through anyways. Let me just lay it all on the table ok?"

Jaune slapped a blank sheet of paper on the table of their hotel room and began to scribble a timeline on it.

"This is like an experiment I guess. I need to do some guest lecturing which is technically teaching and I'd like to build up some experience, confidence, whatever. So I'm just taking some of my free time to try tutoring you a bit, ok? It's not too complicated. It's more for me. But we need some incentive too… So we're going to… let's say you and I are going to make a bet."

Emerald perked.

A bet implied loss, but also… potential reward.

Her garnet eyes glimmered in greedy interest.

A test. Jaune was testing her.

"Well, basically yeah. Kind of a test. Once again this is more for myself, but you know. Ok. So have you heard of the Sanctum Sponsorship it's over in Argus, so that might be a bit further than you're aware-"

Emerald's eyes widened.

She'd never heard of Sanctum, but a Sponsorship was one of the few ways that street kids got off the streets into something good and legitimate.

A Huntress! He wants to make me a Huntress!

"Kind of yeah? Well we'd just be seeing how well I could teach you to get you to qualify. Sponsored students usually get tutored once they get picked up to bring them up to par but I can do that myself and save us all the hassle. The only thing that they need to do is reach some of the bare minimum educational standards and prove themselves in combat. Which is honestly kind of the only thing they actually care about."

Jaune grinned, as if confident that she'd pass, somehow.

She hadn't even done anything but he was proud. Of her? Her Semblance? His belief in her?

She wanted him to keep looking at her like that. Emerald didn't know why.

"Should be a bit of a shoe-in 'cuz your ability is great for the test. Misdirection is a hell of a weapon. I know someone that's a right terror because it's her specialty."

Emerald felt her skin flush in anticipation.

He thought she was good enough to get into a Huntress training school? That she was that special?

Her heart started fluttering and her stomach started to flop wanting her to hurl up her breakfast.

Her palms felt clammy and sweaty.

"So here are the basic training goals and promises." Jaune began writing down, not looking up and noticing how nervous she looked and felt.

"I'll provide food and shelter, including a place to train. I've already got an upperclassman at Sanctum bribed to offer their evenings to run you through conditioning and the basic test questions on most days since I won't be able to comfortably sneak out for more than an hour daily. I'll make you a straightforward weapon that you should be able to handle well enough and teach you how to fight a little dirty. I'll talk to someone I know and give you tips for your Semblance. That's the easy bit."

He looked up, his bright blue eyes meeting her garnet ones, suddenly her stomach flopping again.

"You still following?"

"Y-yeah!" Emerald tried to look as tough as she could.

Jaune gave her a chuckle, patting her on the head, making her warm.

"Don't be so tense. If this doesn't work out, we'll try again next year. And I'll house you in Argus then instead. It's way less rough over there than here too. It might as well be half owned by Atlas."

He wanted to keep her. He was willing to take her in.

"O-ok." Emerald couldn't help but to stare down at her toes, feeling warm all the way down to the tips of them.

Was this how it felt to belong to someone? Why did everyone make it sound like such a bad thing?

"Okaaaaaay?" Jaune dragged out in slight confusion, then shrugged.

"Well. Effectively I'll teach you whatever I think you'll need and practice lecturing. Then we'll get you to take the Sponsorship test in about two months right after the summer break for Sanctum starts. Should be a week or so after that I think? If you place, you can start immediately next school year and I'll personally get you caught up to everything. It'll be more fun than what I'm already putting up with."

Emerald nodded, not really understanding what that all meant, but the implication that she'd be by Jaune's side was good.

A part of her hated feeling that she'd been tamed so quickly, but the other half of herself relished in this strange sense of security.

"And additionally," Jaune grinned, calling forth a large box covered in black cloth.

A faint fragrance and aroma drifted mysteriously.

Emerald's nose twitched. Her throat tightened. Her mouth felt dry and wet at the same time.

"I'll make sure to give you plenty of incentive whenever you do well. And I'll give you a taste ahead of time so that you know exactly how sweet the fruit of success tastes!"

Emerald gulped.

He was a devil with blue eyes. Her owner was a devil. He knew exactly that she'd been supping upon the fruit of temptation. He'd been planning this all along, the devil. She was just a dog to him. He owned her.

That's exactly why her shaky hands were reaching for the boxed lunch without her own sense of control.

"Ah ah." Jaune stopped her, stepping behind her and helping untie the lunchbox, making her pulse quicken. "This? This is something you really want to savor, so we'll do this the right way."

Emerald whimpered.

She didn't really remember what happened after. Just that blissful bite after blissful bite followed, Jaune's hands on her own, teaching her how to eat in order, cleanse her palette, to use her tastebuds in ways she didn't know mouths could feel.

A seemingly perfect order of flavor and sensations that curled her toes and made her feel like she was floating on a cloud.

If Jaune had drugged her food she didn't even care.

Emerald didn't need any other drug.

Just this food, no it wasn't mere food. It was ambrosia. Like North-Western Mistralian myths.

She'd made a deal with the blue eyed devil and he now owned her. Body and soul.

And his Aura tasted of juniper berries.

Fourteen year old Kamina Aomaki stared at the little girl Emerald Sustrai as she single mindedly ran down the track.

She was street trash. Underfed, shorter than she should have been at her age. Not even from Argus either.

He picked her up from the slums of Mistral itself.

If Jaune Arc had told him that he was getting her in a condition to be sold on the black market he'd have believed that more than his actual plan, even if the black market presence in Argus was significantly weaker.

Sanctum's craziest little firstie wanted to Sponsor the brat.

He snickered.

I mean he had to hand it to the little guy. Dude was ambitious.

The Sponsorship system existed for the Mistralian Houses as well as the Criminal Families to effectively hire and train their own inhouse Huntsmen forces (even if not every student made it through and past Haven in the end). The conditions to get in were relatively low actually.

Except up in Sanctum. Even though they only really cared about combat ability.

Argus was always joked to be half-Atlasean. They were tighter and stricter up here about criterion. That did however, mean that a Huntsman gained via a Sanctum Sponsorship tended to be valued by the families a bit more than somewhere like Taima Preparatory in Kuchinashi or the private circle programs in the capital itself.

Still everything could be surprisingly manageable if you greased the right palms. His family had gotten two underlings in training in that way.

Companies and brands could sponsor too, but they weren't aware of the real nature of the system managed by the families. Sometimes they'd even take their puppets and place them on a Tournament Circuit, letting them additionally gain a company or brand sponsorship to save themselves some pocket money.

It was all a big underhanded system.

But hell, he was pretty sure the school's Loyalist Faction would consider letting her in with the intention of crushing her spirit just to hammer the tall nail that was Jaune 'Little Professor of Atlas' Arc.

"After this lap, get on the rowing machine and give me ten minutes!"

"Yes!" Emerald, this street trash nine year old girl had a fire that burned behind her eyes.

Whatever Jaune had done had burned loyalty into mere street trash.

He owned her, Emerald knew it, and she fucking relished in that fact. That fact was the girl's anchor. She was crazy.

He supposed all Central Mistralians were, and that's why the Idealists aimed to try to change Mistral, but this was more than that.

Kamina hid a grin behind his hand.

"Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck ha ha ha ha."

This was too goddamn funny.

He was an Aomaki. A branch member of one of the many branch families of the Great House Hitenmaki, but part of the Great Houses nonetheless. He'd had the information network to look into Jaune Arc.

He and his father Julius Arc had been involved in the protection of Kuroyuri about two years back. That wasn't that important on paper. Despite its size Kuroyuri was a small settlement in the big picture. It had value as a midpoint for trade, but that was about it.

But while in Kuroyuri, the Arc family had taken down an Elder Grimm, a Nuckelavee that had suddenly become very active, already having taken down five settlements (three of them being CRITICAL breadbasket settlements that needed to be rebuilt) before it met its end.

Now they currently had a small stone statue to the two of them in Kuroyuri's central square.

There had been witnesses that claimed that Jaune himself, a damn six year old, even managed somehow to land the final blow.

He felt that had to be taken with a grain of salt, but he'd also personally seen that brat take down Iwou Goten, the second son of the Head Court Guardian Goten of the Great Houses' Guardian Clan Goten.

The Goten clan was also once called Iron Shield Clan known for being one of the few Hereditary Semblances on Remnant. The Schnee wanted everyone to believe that it was just them, spread propaganda about it for prestige, but only civilians bought into it. They may have had their Glyphs of Summoning, but Mistral had The Black Turtle Shield, ancestrally known as the Kurogane no Tate.

The idiot was here in Sanctum because he'd never be able to build up followers and a seat of power back home in the capital, but he knew nothing about building alliances, trying to rely on throwing his name and weight around for everything.

Jaune had crossed the defensive threshold of his Semblance before Iwou even got a chance to put it up to land on a table by Iwou, meeting him almost nose to nose to tell him to back off. From a horizontal ten meter standing leap. It didn't make any fucking sense. Especially when everyone knew his Semblance was some variant of Item Displacement.

Which meant that his jumping technique was an Aura Footwork Art that could be taught and learned.

Iwou was forced to concede then when his muscleheaded ass realized this fact as well.

There were recordings of his fight then that STILL had martial artists attempting to decipher any hints of how an instantaneous ten meter long jump with no visible Aura (though there was a ripple in the air at his feet) input was even remotely possible.

Someone had managed a two meter version they were already advertising and selling instructions for that they called Shunpo, but it was a bastardization of Jaune's technique at best. Not to say that it wasn't selling well and gaining popularity in the Capital from what he was being informed.

It wasn't as if Huntsman couldn't already do as such, but a subtle explosive dash was very handy for more clandestine situations.

The funny thing in the end was that the kid had flashed that technique to act as a deterrent just because the second class lout had messed with his fucking older sister. His older sister who was pretty hot. Kamina wouldn't lie.

He'd absolutely tap Clarent Arc one day once they were both in Haven and away from her crazy younger brother's vengeful hands. Robin was pretty too, more traditionally acceptable as a partner, but the way she looked at everyone sometimes gave him the creeps.

But the kid was the funniest fucking brat he'd ever met in his life. Plus he made better food than the clan chef.

He let out a satisfied burp.

"Damn good meal." He grinned, recalling the two layered bento he'd had before the training had begun. Getting one of those a week for doing little more than watching over Emerald and barking out what to do seemed like a steal.

He saw Emerald get on the rowing machine and begin the next step of the exercise, relying on her Aura to bolster her stamina rather than her strength on instinct to maximize her gains.

Perhaps the adage that one genius attracted others was true?

The kid had two adopted sibling in Lie Ren who was unusually adept at Aura techniques (apparently apprenticing under the hot as sin Specialist Noire, partner to the hotter than sin Specialist Pepper), and Nora Arc who people were already beginning to nickname The Bloodhound as she was already acting as an overeager bodyguard for the Arcs even at her young age.

At Sanctum of all places. This school wasn't even nearly as bad as Taima Prep was about the subterfuge and backstabbing.

And with some high tech tool that Jaune had made for her that hung from her hip she went from competing against third years to crushing fifth years his age for short bursts of time.

He'd paid for the Scroll recording of her breaking the legs of some older kids that were planning on trying to blackmail Robin Arc for some dumb reason or another he didn't know or care about the details of their futile goals.

All he knew was that Nora Arc was impressive for Sanctum standards.

He'd gotten it all hushed under the table and had been paid by one of Jaune's meals for the first time ever then.

He wouldn't necessarily say that it alone was worth it, but it came with the fact that he'd now made a connection to the 'Little Professor of Atlas'. That was the real value of the deal.

Now the kid was showing him the gem he'd plucked off the streets of the Capital all casual like, as if daring him to try to poach the talent before his eyes. Kid wasn't even leaving any supervision, letting him handle it in his entirety. A single girl out of her depth and element under a teacher's influence with no supervision.

What a joke.

He knew ride or die loyalty when he saw it.

He was one of the Idealists, after all. Game recognized game.

But of course as a Faunus, Jaune only could throw his weight behind the Idealist Faction in the end. Especially since the seat of their power was down south in the currently completed Oniyuri and with very little actual influence this far north.

Still it was a nice display of stating that their boats were indeed hitched together. Rather it was a method Kamina would be taking advantage of to actually grow the Idealist Faction proper, using Jaune's influence.

Honestly it was a gift that was more than Kamina could have asked for.

Beyond that, with the death of the Nuckelavee meant that the Branch Family Aomaki of the Great Family Hitenmaki, located in the budding new town of Oniyuri did owe him a debt. But there was nothing saying he couldn't accept anything extra for helping the kid.

Good food was good food.

Though it seemed that Jaune probably even figured out what his Semblance was, even if he'd been keeping that ace up his sleeves for the Rite of Clanship Ritual to determine the candidates for the new heads of Clan Hitenmaki.

He flashed Fatigue Recovery, subtly giving Emerald a new burst of energy as she began to struggle in the last minute of her row machine workout.

He'd thought he kept a good lid on his Semblance, uniquely suited for training, but also for cheating at the endurance based ritual tradition of his family.

Not enough, he supposed. He'd have to be extra careful then. If the kid had requested this of him that meant that he was being warned that one of his competitors from the other branch families likely knew of his advantage.

That was on him. He'd not thought that a Hitenmaki monkey (ninja) would have bothered to sneak all the way up here in Sanctum for little ol' him.

He'd have to stop being complacent and put together more contingency plans.

Thankfully he now had a pretty interesting ally.

And if Kamina ended up bagging and wedding one of his hot sisters down the line? That would be a definite bonus to tie their alliance together officially without the bullshit games that the Mistralian houses had to play.

Kamina always enjoyed more upfront and direct brawls anyways.

Even his Semblance agreed with that philosophy.

Emerald's owner was special.

She wasn't so childish to believe he was magic, but he was indeed a genius. He was even smart enough to predict and figure out what she was thinking as she was thinking it.

Not only that but he did things that couldn't be easily explained.

For example, it took incredible talent to twist Semblances to work in similar but alternating ways. The books she'd been learning from in the past two months made that abundantly clear.

It was something only Martial Stars, Aura manipulating martial arts masters of the Greater Clans of Mistral were capable of doing, and there hadn't been a Martial Star since Ozrai the Soaring Lightning Fist of the South Star.

But Jaune could manipulate his Semblance to displace himself instead of just objects.

That was why even though he'd taken an airship to Atlas, he still appeared in her hotel room to reward her for her training efforts with his ambrosia once per day. Sometimes breakfasts, sometimes dinners. Whenever her master had the time to make for her.

Heck he'd done that on her train ride up to Argus. While the thing was in motion.

And he made time every day. Even though it was usually only for anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour.

The room service that she'd be allowed to order on his Lien was good, but it just wasn't the same.

Once again, her master had given her the taste of the forbidden fruit.

Emerald was actually kind of scared that there might be deeper darkness to earn her loyalties with. That… as tempting as that might be it wasn't necessary. She had already sworn herself to Jaune in her heart.

He owned her. She was his sword. That was all.

The law of the streets, the blood of Mistral had taken their toll.

She was just lucky that her devil was oddly kind.

After a month of conditioning and training she was given her own personal weapons.

She still lacked a lot of experience, so she was given firepower and the means to bind her foes. Her objective afterwards was to train for the remaining month to get used to them and use them to passable proficiency.

It took her almost a week to get used to the kick of her revolvers and have any real accuracy. Even with the training rounds. Luckily the folded sickles attached to the barrel gave a weight advantage for dealing with the kick, even if it interfered slightly with her aim.

But with Hallucination, she could deal with her enemies as mostly stationary targets for now.

If that didn't work she could fall back on melee sickles or even launch a sickle as a chain-blade, or even as a bladed-bola to bind her foes. That third option gave her the alternate method of tying up distant foes with the bladed-bolas and falling purely back on her revolvers as a pure ranged option.

They were a deep garnet, to match the color of her pretty eyes, her devil had said.

Emerald could feel her heart sing when he'd said that.

Because from another perspective, they were the color of deep blood. A reminder of her duty now as his sword. As her owner's blade.

She'd been given the opportunity to name them. An opportunity to prove her loyalties.

She'd given him a brilliant smile and declared that they would forever become the Thief's Garnet Oaths.

Emerald felt a grin tug at her lips at the memory.

There were five other kids ready to take the Sanctum Sponsorship. They were all older than her and didn't even look at her like a competitor.

That suited Emerald just fine. Her ability was misdirection. This was what she wanted.

Some pretentious bag stated that only three slots open for this upcoming school year. Any prospect that managed to win would be guaranteed a slot.

And Emerald swore on her non-existent honor that one of those would be hers. That she'd begin to build up her honor today.

Jaune had stated that there was always next year. That she shouldn't stress it.

She didn't care. She just wanted his pride.

She was going to win. Even if she had to cheat and steal it from the others. It was the Mistralian way.

Well central Mistral. North-Western Mistral was even more honorbound (with a different idea of what honor meant at that) than the rest of the Kingdom, the oddballs.

Then again she was in North-West Mistral now, wasn't she? How much would she have to learn to act like them to blend in? Blending in made stealing easier.

Two other older kids, both bigger and tougher looking boys sparred against the proctor and Emerald let Hallucination take a subtle hold on her fellow competitors, making them slip up in such small ways that neither side would notice that anything was wrong, but enough to make them underperform.

Neither won, of course, but one of the two did well enough regardless. The second boy looked horrified, sweating and paling tremendously, clearly terrified of what his owner would do to him for underperforming.

That wasn't Emerald's concern. The only owner that mattered was her own.

"Prospect: Emerald Sustrai. Sponsor… Jaune Arc? …Heh. I-no. Come and … step up to the stage."

Her eyes narrowed. She didn't like the tone of distaste that the proctor had for her master.

"Well…" The proctor drawled, sniffing disdainfully at her, even more than he'd done for the bigger and older kids. "We'll see if young mister Arc has an eye for ability."

Emerald just smiled, even if her eyes were dead.

She was going to kill him.

The bell rang and the proctor lazily pointed his Shotgun-Konobo at her, clearly expecting nothing from a nine year old girl.

Emerald was already in motion, dashing a short two meters diagonally to the left and approaching the proctor as her Hallucination version of herself went right.

From his perspective she'd leapt barely out of the way as he fired completely in the wrong direction. She could see the referee standing up from his chair, realizing something Semblance related was happening that he didn't understand.

It was too late for that to matter.

She unholstered a single Oath as she took deliberate aim at the proctor with both of her small hands.

Inhale. Exhale.

And struck a shot right between his eyes.

"Gah!" He screamed in pain, his head ringing, unable to react to the follow up shot of the sickle blade of her Garnet Oath firing as a bladed bola wrapped around his legs.

Emerald leapt forward, slamming the butt of her grip into his chin, pistol whipping the adult as she swung in an unskilled, but vicious uppercut. She landed on top of the man as she knocked him over with her small weight being leveraged against his imbalanced state.

The now bladeless Garnet Oath DUG the tip of its barrel into his temple as he laid on his side, his arm pinned down by her weight as Emerald squeezed her thighs down on him as hard as her little form could manage to prevent him from moving.

"Give up!" She spat angrily.

"Wha-" He tried to throw her off him, but her heels dug at his ribs from the other side and he was disoriented, unable to use his full power.

Wrong answer.

She fired, wincing as the .45 Dust Magnum round shattered against his Aura and scattered against her own as his head slammed into the arena floor, cracking it. The shrapnel from her own shot hurt. But the thought of failure hurt more.

The arm under her slackened slightly from the head slamming into the ground.

"I said give up!"

"CRAZY! GET OFF-"

Emerald pulled the trigger again, but her arm had been jerked up by the referee who'd leapt into the arena, firing the shot aimlessly into the air, echoing in the arena.

Her free hand was flying down to the other holster.

"Victor! Emerald Sustrai! Sponsored by Jaune Arc!" The referee announced, still gripping her arm as her other hand had already begun to pull the second Garnet Oath from its holster, rising not at the man grabbing her hand, but at the proctor pinned beneath her. "Match over!"

Emerald smiled as she re-holstered the second Thief's Garnet Oath.

She knew exactly what her victory condition was. It was a concept that both Kamina-sensei and her master Jaune had brought up, though the former emphasized it more.

It was an important method of attack for someone like Emerald, who currently lacked skill and experience, but had the ability to isolate an opponent in battle. Throwing away everything you didn't immediately need for victory was the way you survived growing up in the streets, after all.

It suited her well.

She wordlessly tugged the bladed bola chain free from the proctor's legs, clicking it back into the Garnet Oath, the small motor pulling the chain in to slot the sickle properly into place for her.

She snapped the blade shut, re-holstered her weapon with a smile.

"Thank you for the match." She smiled at the proctor brightly.

But that smile didn't meet her burning eyes.

She couldn't wait to see Jaune tonight.

Her heart roared with pride. Emerald had purpose.

She was his blade.