Blake

Sleep proved difficult to come by as thoughts kept circling in my head, many of them concerning Pyrrha. For the life of me, I just couldn't figure out what was happening with her. It seemed as though I couldn't keep my mind off the girl, however hard I may try to distract myself by doing other things.

What could any of this mean? That day had me experiencing feelings I'd never had anything close to, so I had no idea what they were. The word crush kept coming to mind, but I had trouble believing that a crush was the case. I mean, there could be no denying that Pyrrha was insanely attractive in a purely physical sense, but I wasn't sure if I even liked girls. Furthermore, since when had I, the antisocial bookworm, ever had romantic feelings for anyone?

These thoughts kept me wide awake for hours, but eventually I fell into a troubled, dreamless sleep. I woke up what seemed like seconds later, not feeling refreshed at all. It was more like I hadn't slept and instead blanked the rest of the night out of my memory. I looked around the room and noticed that none of my teammates were anywhere to be found. The shower was running, however, so clearly someone was still around. I didn't have to wait long to find out who, because the shower suddenly shut off. A few minutes later, at which point I still hadn't bothered getting up, the bathroom door opened to reveal Yang, whose normally luscious mane was currently still soaked and therefore hanging like ropes, devoid of its normal lustre.

"Morning, Blake," she called out cheerfully when she saw that I was awake. "Ruby and Weiss went into Vale, so it's just you and me today!"

"Morning. Why'd they go into Vale?" I asked.

"Well, actually Weiss wasn't a huge fan of the idea, but she wanted to make sure Ruby didn't go overboard on cookies or weapon accessories."

"Ah," I replied, nodding slowly.

"I think the main reason Weiss didn't want to go is because she's nervous about being alone with Ruby," Yang told me, much to my surprise.

"Why's that?" I asked, seriously confused by the blonde's words.

"Come on, Blake, isn't it obvious?" she replied. I looked at her expectantly, hoping she'd get the hint that no, it was not obvious, at least not to me. "Okay, maybe not. Right, how do I put this..." She trailed off, looking pensive. "I'm pretty sure Weiss... Likes Ruby," she finally explained. I looked at her in shock, mouth agape. "You didn't notice?" Yang asked amusedly.

"No..." I replied, still in shock.

"Have you seen the way she looks at her? The only time the Ice Queen becomes the Lukewarm Water Queen is when she's looking at my sister!" Yang exclaimed. "She frickin' melts."

"And you know this because...?" I asked.

"Hey, I notice this stuff. I mean, while you were in the library yesterday and I accidentally hit Weiss' head on the doorframe, she started yelling-"

"Shocking," I cut in.

"Yeah, I know, right? Anyway, she calmed right the hell down when she looked at Ruby. It was like 'BE MORE CAREFUL YOU IDIOT WERE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME- watch what you're doing next time'."

"But what about how hard she is on Ruby for studying and stuff?"

"Man, if Weiss had been a dude in this situation and you asked that question..." Yang replied, laughing. "Anyway, I think that's just Weiss' weird-ass way of showing concern. She wants Ruby to do well, so she's a drill sergeant. She hasn't mastered the 'friend' business yet from what I can tell."

"You really think she likes her? Weiss, of all people, liking Ruby?" I asked, still not believing Yang's theory.

"Not really our business, but yeah, I'm pretty sure."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Anyway, wanna do something fun?" Yang asked, suddenly full of excitement.

"Like?" I replied, full of trepidation. The brawler's idea of "fun" tended to involve breaking stuff or setting it on fire accidentally. Either that or finding things to tease Ruby about. Older sister instincts, I suppose.

"Kill some Grimm? It's good practice," she suggested.

"Why not?" I shrugged. "Let me get dressed first." I got a change of clothes and entered the bathroom, where I opted not to shower until I got back. No point getting clean if I would just be going out to get sweaty and dirty in the Emerald Forest. Instead, I donned my usual attire and retrieved Gambol Shroud upon exiting the bathroom. Yang was loading Ember Celica, filling both gauntlets with shotgun shells that could obliterate most things in a short range.

"Ready?" she asked as she loaded the last shell. I nodded. "Sweet. Let's go." I followed her out of our room and into the forest, where she hoped to find plenty of Grimm to destroy.

"How about we make a game?" she suggested after a few minutes.

"How?" I asked. "Killing Grimm is serious business."

"Whoever kills the most is the winner!" she replied, in a tone that said it should have been obvious. "The loser gives the other person a prize."

"What would this prize be?" I asked warily. Again, you had to be careful agreeing to Yang's ideas. She wasn't as bad as Nora, but not knowing what she had in mind before going along with her plans can very easily go badly for you.

"I don't know. What would you be willing to give me?"

"Are you implying that you're going to win?"

"No, but if I do. What would you give me?"

"What would you want?"

"Hmmm..." The blonde stared off into space. After a while, her eyes lit up. "You have to go for a week without reading smut. If you do read any, you have to read it out loud to the whole team!" she exclaimed.

"Even Ruby?" I asked, wondering if she'd thought this through.

"She knows what smut is, she just doesn't know you read it. Willing to risk her finding out?"

"If I win, you have to read a whole book of my choosing. Might be smut, might not," I told her.

"You're on," she replied with a cocky smile. "But we can't split up. Otherwise we could just lie about how many we kill."

"Yeah, because there's so much danger of me lying to win a bet," I told her sarcastically. She shrugged, before calling out, "come on, bitches! Come at me!" I sighed and prepared for a possible attack.

It wasn't long before a Beowolf burst from the trees twenty feet in front of us and to the right. As Yang rushed forward, hoping to claim the first kill of our bet, I switched Gambol Shroud into its pistol form and shot the Grimm three times between the eyes. It fell back, lifeless, and Yang was forced to come to a skidding halt lest she trip over the corpse at full speed.

"That was my kill!" she complained. "You're like one of those assholes in the online shooter games," she added in an undertone. I figured she'd forgotten about my Faunus hearing, because a human wouldn't have heard what she said but I did.

"You're not faster than a bullet, Yang," I replied. "There is no way you could've killed that Beowolf before I did."

An hour or so later, we arrived at the forest temple where we'd collected the relics for initiation. I had fond recollections of this place, like Ruby falling from the sky, or Nora riding in on an Ursa shortly before declaring herself "Queen of the Castle". My heart did a strange flutter in my chest when I realised this was also where I'd seen Pyrrha running from a Deathstalker in a flat sprint. Pyrrha. Why can't I stop thinking about you? I wondered. Once again, the word crush came to mind, but I still had trouble believing that it was the case. There had to be a better explanation. If I could take a step back and analyse everything objectively, that might have helped, but alas, there was no way for me to do it.

I considered talking to Yang about it, given that she'd said the day before that she was there if I wanted to talk, but even with being more open with her, I still didn't feel particularly comfortable discussing emotions, especially those I didn't understand.

As I stood there, contemplating this, I suddenly heard a loud bang. My head snapped round in the direction of the sound and I saw Yang standing over a dead Beowolf, one of her gauntlets smoking.

"We're even now, Blakey," she told me, smiling. "Thanks for not stealing this one."

"Blakey?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, it's either that or kitty cat. You need a nickname," she explained. I rolled my eyes in response. "Anyway, let's find some more pricks to kill."

I followed her deeper into the forest, where we eventually encountered a King Taijitu.

"Ideas?" Yang asked, dropping into a low stance with her arms raised.

"Take one head each, don't get hit or bitten," I told her.

"One head each... Hehe," Yang muttered, chuckling.

"Good lord, Yang, can you save that until after this thing is dead?" I asked exasperatedly. Before she answered, the Taijitu's black head lunged at me. I rolled to the side and slashed it with Gambol Shroud in katana form, causing it to recoil in pain. Meanwhile, Yang had fired off a couple of long-range blasts at the snake's white head, eliciting an enraged hiss. It bared its fangs at her before lunging, but the brawler was prepared. She sidestepped the attack and threw all her weight into a punch aimed at the snake's eye, firing Ember Celica when her fist made contact. The white head exploded as the black head tried to hit me again. This time, I jumped and landed gracefully on it, using my cleaver to attempt to slice through. Unfortunately, the scaly hide proved to thick for my blade to cut before an aggressive shake of the head threw me off. I twisted in midair and landed on my feet, much to Yang's amusement.

"Hey, why is it that cats always land on their feet?" she asked, grinning at her own joke. I ignored her and instead focused on the remaining head of the Taijitu. It lunged again, and I thrust my katana into the roof of its open mouth. The impact hurt my arm quite a bit, but the Grimm was clearly worse off than me. It struggled to raise its head as I removed my sword, the red glow in its eyes quickly fading. The Taijitu gave one last shudder then was still as it began to dissipate.

"Are we counting this one, or..." I asked.

"Nah. Or we could say we each get a kill, because we killed a head each," Yang replied. I shrugged, indicating that I didn't care either way.

A couple of hours later, we were both tired and hungry. Our score for the bet was even and there didn't appear to be any more Grimm to kill. I suggested going back to the school for food and rest, and Yang wholeheartedly agreed. On the way back, however, we stumbled upon something that made us stop dead in our tracks.

A lone Ursa, ambling around aimlessly. It had its back to us and so it didn't know we were there. Lilac met amber as Yang and I turned to look at each other, both of us speaking a silent challenge to the other.

Still not saying a word, we both rushed forward, clamouring for that last kill which would win the bet. With the longer reach of my sword as compared to Yang's gauntlets, I was able to sever the beast's spinal cord with a well-placed katana strike, before sliding under its legs and slicing open its abdomen with my cleaver. I then rolled to the side to avoid being flattened by the corpse as it fell forward. Yang looked at me, smiling.

"I guess you win. What am I reading?" she asked.

"I'll figure it out," I told her. "Anyway, let's eat."

"Agreed." With that, we headed back inside in search of food.

A/N: There's another chapter. Thanks to everyone who followed and/or favourited so far. Wow, it's been ages since I've said that. Anyway. More doubt and insecurity in Blake's mind. Just what is going on (if you can't work it out, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you shouldn't read a shipping fic. Moving on)? For the way Blake killed the Taijitu, it's basically Harry killing the Basilisk in the second Harry Potter book/movie (books are better. If you say otherwise, you're wrong), except the sword is also a gun and I would find this scene way more interesting because Bellabooty. Anyway, that's all, so leave a review and follow/favourite if you want. Thanks for reading.