CHAPTER 32

YANG XIAO LONG POV

She entered the Ring and smirked at Jaune as she punched her Gauntlets together.

"Say Vomit Boy. Are you ready to get 'Yang'ed'?"

The boy gave her a flat look and her smirk widened.

She knew that her puns weren't good. In fact, most of them were horrendous. But riling up others with her pun was something that she enjoyed immensely.

And if others didn't share her interest in puns then… it's their loss.

That said, she discreetly spied Jaune's new sword.

Her sister had told her that she and Pyrrha had been working on a new weapon for Jaune. That was understandable as Jaune's last sword was… lacking.

It wasn't to say that there was something wrong with it. But it was just a plain old metal sword in a world where everyone uses Mechashift weapons.

Though from what little Ruby had told her about the sword, it must've been very expensive to build. Not that she blamed Jaune. A good weapon was an investment that could last a lifetime.

"Miss Xiao Long. Mr. Arc. Are you two ready?" Professor Glynda asked and she gave an enthusiastic nod and saw Jaune gave one as well.

"Very well then." The lights in the room went out until the only lights were focusing on the arena. On them. "Start."

She jumped forward as soon as the fight began, leaving a broken ground in her wake as she punched Jaune with all she had.

He brought out his shield and blocked it.

That was expected.

What wasn't expected was him not even moving an inch from the punch. As if he had not even felt it.

She smirked and threw another punch, trying to go around his shield but he moved at the last moment and blocked her attack. Again.

She wasn't about to let that stop her and let out a barrage of punches, ranging from an overhead blow to an uppercut. All of them were blocked.

It seemed that Pyrrha had prepared him well for this fight.

No matter.

She changed her tactics and moved around, attacking from wide angles and looking for that chink in his armor that she could exploit.

To his credit, Jaune did manage to stop her for a time. But fighting for as long as she has, she had learned how to fight against people who were good at blocking her attacks.

One mistake on Jaune's part, one move too slow and she was inside his guard.

She smirked as she let loose a literal barrage of punches, using head blows to try and disorient him.

Left, right, straight jab, jab, jab, hook, left, right and last but not the least. Upper Cut.

Jaune few in the air and she quickly moved to follow. To end this while she was ahead.

She reaches Jaune in a moment, her fist cocked for a punch.

At the last moment, she saw Jaune 'move'. A red object blurred toward her and…

PAIN!!!

She fell to the ground, her insides jarred from the impact, and then bounced like a stone on water and skipped two more times before she slid on the ground until she came to a stop.

She felt the burning pain in her side abdomen and felt some blood well up in her mouth.

She forced it back down. No point in showing the blood to the enemy. She wasn't going to show any weakness.

She looked ahead and saw Jaune with his red sword, standing in a carefree stance, waiting.

Her gaze went to Jaune's sword.

How had that thing hit her so hard?

She felt another flare of pain shoot up in her sides and then felt her aura react to her injury as it slowly starts to heal her internal wound.

The fact that Jaune had been able to hurt her through the aura meant that the strike must've been harder than even she had thought.

She looked at the screen showing both of their Aura and her jaw dropped.

Jaune was at 94% while she was at 81%.

How???

She had let loose a literal barrage of attacks. And she knew that while she was no Pyrrha Nikos, able to cleave through a Boarbatusk armor without a pause, her punches held weight.

So how the heck had she only lowered his aura by 6%.

She had seen his fight with Cardin Winchester and knew that he had a lot of Aura. But this was absurd.

Then she blinked as his Aura went from 94% to 95%.

She blinked again.

Her eyes weren't playing tricks with her.

This…

She licked her lips, suddenly not so sure about her immanent victory against Jaune.

"Yang. I'm still waiting to be 'Yang'ed' here." Jaune sad and she felt her eyes twitch.

There was no way she was going to let that slide.

She went to a stance and moved toward him, heer partially charged semblance giving her an added boost as she moved her hands forward and used Ember Celica to let loose a barrage of Dust rounds against him.

He blocked them. Because of course, he did. But the attacks were never meant to hurt him. Only serve as a distraction.

She zigzagged as she moved toward him, using the dust rounds to keep him from peeking above his shield as she finally reached him and moved to the side, trying to maneuver around his shield.

A shield that was starting to seem like an insurmountable mountain to her.

With a deft swiftness that she had not seen from him till now, he ducked away from her punched, and rolled back.

She moved forward to take advantage of it but he had already brought up her shield in front of him.

She let out a hiss of frustration.

Did the boy know nothing else aside from blocking with his shield?

What was worse was that it was working.

She threw another barrage of punches, trying to find another chink in his defenses. It was somehow much harder this time as Jaune had started to move around instead of being a sitting duck, making it all the harder for her to reposition herself to find an advantageous position.

"Do you know nothing else other than how to block?" she taunted but a bit of the frustration she had been feeling seeped into her voice.

Much to her surprise, Jaune paused at her words.

Oh… did she hurt his feelings with that?

Well, he'll just have to learn the hard way to not let his opponent's taunts get to him.

She moved to the side to get under his Shield and then did an about turn as another red blur almost took off her face.

She jumped back, her heart hammering in her chest at the close encounter with the sword that had decreased by aura by 1/5th in a single hit.

She looked at the screen and saw her aura sitting at a comfortable 79%, losing 2% to her semblance use while his Aura was now at 97%.

She felt the clutches of despair reaching for her heart and clenched her fists. She won't-

She brought her arms in front of her to block the shield charge and was sent flying. She did a backflip and landed on the ground, her arms stinging a bit from the hit as she stared incredulously at the Blondie charging at her once again.

What the heck did his parents feed him.

Because she definitely wanted in on some of that if it made him this strong.

And fast.

She moved out of the way of another one of his shield bash.

Now that he had lost the element of surprise, she could see that his shield attack was fairly easy to read.

And… it looked like she was starting to understand his fighting style.

In the past month since the start of the term, Pyrrha had taught her boy toy how to block.

But because of the time constraint, that's all she had been able to teach him.

Which meant that Jaune was shit when it came to attacks.

Well, perhaps not shit but not good enough to matter against someone like her who has been training to be a huntress since a young age.

She felt some of her determination return to her as she held back the urge to look at the Screen. The sight of his Aura regenerating at such a fast rate would only serve to decrease her morale.

With a new wind in her sails, she charged him once again.