52 Chapter 52

'Was this it?! Was this as far as I managed to go?! I'm supposed to prevent the disaster of Vale! To...to just die here?! To let everyone else die as well?!'

"Stop..."

'No...NO! I refuse to go back to my old scared self! I'm not the weakling that needed to be rescued in the Emerald Forest anymore!'

I clenched my fists as hard as I could, my knuckles turning white from the force. The Ursas immediately leapt forward, their monstrous frames crashing towards me.

"STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!"

I subconsciously screamed for everything to stop! Unwilling to accept the dark reality in front of me as the grimm fell closer. I waited for the inevitable weight of the Ursas to crash into me.

And waited.

And...waited?

But, it never came.

My eyes widened as I was met with a stunning sight.

"Wh...what is this?"

The large grimm in front of me had stopped, just a foot before my face much to my confusion. Its burning red eyes were still focused on me but it had become still. Was it dead? I slowly reached out to touch it.

"Ah!?"

I stumbled backwards in surprise as the Ursa in front of me snarled, trying to swipe at my face. However, it was unable to reach me, its body seemed stuck, hovering in the air. Around me, Russel also floated, the Ursas around him hovering as well. Looking around, all of the previously rampaging grimm floated harmlessly in place. While they roared and thrashed their limbs, their bodies weren't able to move any further.

"Aero?" Glancing towards the voice, I noticed Weiss and Raelin were also floating, looking at me with a confused expression. "Did...you do this?"

Wait. WAS I responsible for this?

"I...ugh!" A sharp pain suddenly ran through my brain forcing me to grab my head. Intense exhaustion suddenly spread through my body as if I had sprinted several miles. At once, the grimm and my team visibly shook, slowly starting to lower back to the ground.

"Aero! Don't lose focus! Keep them like that as long as you can!"

Gritting my teeth and enduring my intense headache, I strengthened my will, trying to focus on the grimm. Although my headache intensified, the Ursa stopped descending and continued to float. While the rest of my team landed on the ground.

"Weiss...guys...if you're going to do something...you better hurry!"

Weiss nodded. Using her semblance, a dozen white glyphs appeared in the air in various spots all around the hovering grimm. "Everyone now! We need to strike while the grimm are vulnerable!" she said. As her feet touched one of the white glyphs, it shot her forward at high speed. She aimed at a grimm that was floating upside down, piercing its neck while it tried to get back to the ground. The light in the grimm's eyes faded and she shot towards another glyph.

At once Russel and Raelin understood Weiss's plan, each of them jumped towards their own white glyph to launch themselves. With the added speed and force of the glyphs, the three of them flew like lightning all around the battlefield. Quickly making short work of the grimm who were still helplessly floating and unable to control themselves.

During this time, I forced myself to hang on for as long as I could. When the last grimm was finally killed, I let out a massive gasp of air, not realizing I had held my breath. Like a puppet losing its strings, I crumpled to the ground with a dark purple flash of aura breaking around me. Sweat poured off of me as I lay there still gasping for breath.

"We...we did it?" Russel looked around in elated disbelief at the still disappearing grimm on the forest floor. "WE DID IT!"

"Haaaaaa..." Weiss let out a sigh of relief, wearily leaning against a nearby tree.

"Ugh. "I slowly pushed myself up. "Pretty sure that fight shaved a few years off of my lifespan. If I hadn't-" Wait a minute...

My eyes suddenly shot open at the sudden revelation. "That was my semblance!" In the heat of the moment, I had completely forgotten about that! "Just now, when everything was floating! That was me!"

Weiss shook her head. "Yeah we get it Aero, you did that. Thank you, I'm sure you think you're very cool."

"Ah? Wait, why aren't you..."

Oh. Fuck. The real Aero already unlocked his semblance. This is common knowledge among the students in my class. So they wouldn't find this strange or exciting like I do at all. If anything they'd just find it suspicious if I suddenly announced it.

"Nevermind, just got excited..." This IS still an incredible moment...but it would have been nice to celebrate it with others.

*************************************

Thankfully after that exhausting event, no more grimm ended up appearing. Since our team was spent from the prolonged fight, we stayed where we were, managing to rest for awhile until...

"OHMYGOSH! There you guys are! Aero are you alright?! Guys, I found the last group!" Nora appeared first followed by the rest of her team. Sophie and Cardin looked especially beat up.

"Alright..." Sophie nodded. "I'll go tell Port and the others. Meet us halfway when you're ready." she paused, glancing at Cardin for a moment, before shaking her head and leaving.

"Oh uh, hey Aero..." Nora waved at me with a sheepish look, quietly walking by my side. "I uh, turns out me and my team may have been somewhat responsible for the large number of Ursa that appeared. And...we all got a month's worth of detention."

"I didn't even do anything..." Blake murmured bitterly.

I ignored Blake, turning back to Nora. "Yeah, I figured it was you and the others who had a hand in that."

The normally energetic girl avoided my gaze, her eyes drifting downwards with a guilty expression. Neither of us spoke for a while as we started towards the other groups. I occasionally glanced at the depressed Nora silently trudging along.

"Haaaa..." I let out a deep sigh at this. To be honest, I can't find it in me to be mad at Nora despite what happened. It would be nice if she changed, but it's not like want this incident to permanently scar her.

I lifted a hand, patting the sorrowful girl on the head. "Well, it is what it is I guess."

"Huh..." Nora looked up at me in surprise, her eyes going wide.

"I did predict an unexpected attack would happen right?" I asked, with a small chuckle. "Everyone makes mistakes. Some of them are...bigger than others. It's a part of life. Thankfully your mistake wasn't unfixable since no one got hurt."

I took my hand off her head. "Everyone's on a team, so that we can help cover for each other's mistakes and imperfections. So use this event to become a better Nora."

"A better Nora..." the girl quietly said to herself.

She was silent for a while before finally, nodding firmly. "Yeah...yeah! Aero, from now on I'm gonna work towards being a better Nora! Ah, wait I already came to this school to be better. Um, okay! Then I'll become even better than what I would have before!"

"That's more like it."

*************************************

Unsurprisingly, the field trip was announced as canceled when we got back to Professor Port. Thankfully our other classes were also canceled for the rest of the day. Very likely not wanting to overburden the students after what just happened.

"Ugh..." I pushed open the door to our dorm, the rest of ARJN lifelessly dragging themselves inside and getting to a bed.

"Mmm...Aero, that bed is mine." Jaune wearily said after I had fallen into it.

"I don't care, I already laid down, and I'm not getting back up. Just...go sleep in mine or whatever." Jaune hesitated for a moment before sighing and going to a different bed.

Feeling something cold on my neck, I reached around, finding a crimson leaf that had fallen on me. Pulling it off, I was about to toss it away before remembering something.

"Hmm." Holding the leaf in my hand, I tried to replicate that desperate feeling when surrounded by the Ursa from before. The leaf silently laid on my palm, not moving. "Come on..." Despite focusing even harder, there was still no visible progress.

'I nearly got killed unlocking my semblance! So I'm NOT about to just sit back and get nothing after going through all that!' At this point, my head started to hurt and my body was still tired from the field trip, however, I still refused to budge. Eventually, the leaf lightly twitched, before slowly lifting up and hovering an inch off of my palm.

I laid there in silence, quietly the leaf float. Unable to take my eyes off of it for even a moment.

"This...is my semblance." I quietly murmured to myself with a smile.