As Roman was getting ready to attack, Jaune couldn't help but feel as if there was something wrong. A detail that kept nagging at Jaune, like the faint memory of a word on the tip of his tongue.
Something about Stealdid not add up.
Roman had taken Jaune's swords with a gesture. He had taken Ruby's speed with a muttered word. He had demonstrated two applications: stealing the physical and stealing the energetic. It was as straightforward, terrifying and as efficient as a rune could possibly get. And yet... something in the pattern was missing. Something subtle and structural, like the hinge of a door he could not quite see.
Jaune squeezed his eyes shut for a split second, trying to chase the thought. It eluded him.
Ruby, however, had not been lost in thought. She had been watching Roman with the same sharp awareness she used when dissecting the internal workings of a weapon. Her silver eyes narrowed, and she tugged Jaune and Yang closer.
"Okay. Listen," she whispered quickly. "Roman's Reversion rune can block or reflect an attack, but Yang can absorb any reflected force. If she drains our kinetic momentum every time our attacks get reversed, he won't be able to bounce anything back at us."
Yang nodded. "So I get to be the shock sponge?"
"It is genius," Ruby said.
"It is also stupid," Jaune murmured honestly.
Yang gave him a thumbs up. "That means it is perfect for us. But... we'll have to fight extremely close to each other if I'm going to be able to drain it."
Jaune wanted to protest, but the truth was staring at him. Ruby's plan did not try to overpower Roman directly. It focused on forcing Roman's reflection into Yang's absorption cycle. If Yang acted as the anchor, then Jaune and Ruby could strike without worrying about their force snapping back and crippling them.
One problem, though.
"Roman will just steal the runic energy from you," Jaune said, looking at Yang. "If you're the one using your rune the most, he'll take your reserves and your whole kinetic storage could collapse."
Ruby shook her head. "Jaune. Think earlier about what actually happened."
Her expression was chillingly calm.
"Back when I was carrying Yang," she went on, "I was the one moving and using Accel. Yang was the one attacking. But when Roman stole something, he took my runic energy instead of Yang's. He took my speed and not Yang's power."
Jaune stared at her, the itch in his mind sparking.
Ruby continued, voice measured.
"Why? Yang was the one burning him with Inferno. I was just the legs. If Roman could steal anyone's energy, he should have stolen Yang's and shut down the fire completely. But he didn't. He took mine."
Something clicked. A bright, almost painful jolt of clarity ran down Jaune's spine.
Roman didn't steal runes. He stole the energy that runes generate. He stole the byproduct and not the source.
Ruby saw the change on Jaune's face and gave a tiny nod.
"When we feed aura into our runes, it generates a special energy," she said. "The energy flows through our bodies and interacts with it in different ways. For me, Accel creates pure speed. For Yang, her kinetic rune stores momentum inside her body. For someone like Nora, who has her Discharge rune, that stored energy becomes lightning."
Jaune finished the thought, voice lowering.
"And if Roman steals the runic energy from someone like Nora… he would only electrocute himself."
Ruby's eyes sharpened. "Exactly."
Yang's grin spread slowly as the understanding dawned on her as well.
"Steal can only take the type of energy, that runes generate" Jaune whispered, finally catching the elusive pattern that had bothered him. "And if the energy is volatile or dangerous to the body, Roman cannot process it. He can't shape it or contain it. He'd be taking raw force directly into his own body."
Ruby nodded. "That is why he targeted me. My energy is clean. Pure motion. Easy to use."
Ruby looked at him meaningfully.
"If I'm right, meta rune energy like your weakness rune can't be properly stolen, either. Meta runes are functionally different from regular runes. Born from your understanding. So even if he did steal the energy, it would just dissipate in his hands. In fact, because of the nature of it, it might just weaken him, instead."
"And Yang's rune..." Jaune said slowly, "she's basically a living bomb."
Yang crossed her arms and smirked. "A beautiful bomb, I want to add."
Ruby and gestured toward Roman, her smile now a razor edge.
"Roman didn't steal Yang's energy because he couldn't do it safely. He stuck to me and took the one power he could use."
Jaune felt the weight of everything fall into place at last.
Roman Torchwick, master thief, dual comprehension level runes and self proclaimed strongest under Rank 2… was limited by the nature of the energy he dared to take.
The grin that spread across Jaune's face was not something Roman had expected. Ruby's mirrored it with an icy sharpness. Yang's was all teeth and fire.
Roman saw the three of them smiling at him like predators.
His expression soured instantly.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me," he snapped. "How? How did you figure it out in one single exchange?"
He looked directly at Ruby as though she were personally responsible for ruining his night.
She shrugged with a bright, innocent expression that fooled absolutely no one.
"Some people call me a prodigy," she spat out.
Roman pinched the bridge of his nose again. "Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable."
Jaune exhaled once, deep and steady.
Their plan was risky, but now it made sense.
Yang would be the anchor, the momentum sink and the absorber. Roman would avoid stealing anything from her because her stored kinetic energy would tear his own body apart. Ruby would strike in bursts, timing her attacks so that any reflected momentum went straight into Yang. Jaune would weaken Roman at every opening, condensing the debuff onto his senses or limbs.
They did not need to overpower Roman's Reversion.
They simply needed to bleed it into the one person who could eat reverse force like candy.
Roman saw them lowering their stances.
He lifted his cane, annoyed and wary.
"Wait! Maybe we should have a bit more chin-wagging after a—"
He did not finish.
Jaune dashed in first with Ruby beside him in a flicker of red, Yang following from behind with a burst of gathering heat around her fists. They moved as one, driven by momentum, clarity and the sudden revelation that their enemy was not invincible.
The copies of Crocea Mors suspended around Roman snapped forward, slicing through the air as if pulled by an invisible wire. The ringing hiss of their blades filled the streets, a chorus of steel that seemed to swallow even the distant roar of the wider battle.
Ruby spun her scythe in a tight arc, redirecting three shimmering replicas with short, efficient deflections. Jaune stepped into the path of another two, smashing them aside with the flat of his armored forearm. Yang punched one away a twist of her wrist.
But the storm didn't slow. Roman's fingers twitched, and a dozen more blades reoriented themselves midair, all glinting with the harsh, stolen power of Jaune's Sword.
Jaune exhaled once, then condensed Weakness.
He forced the metaphysical pressure down into a needlepoint and flicked it across the battlefield. It touched Roman's senses in a silent, invisible bloom. Roman staggered almost imperceptibly. His eyes narrowed, his breathing hitched, his balance faltered. His reaction speed fell out of sync with his physical movement. He wasn't slow, but he became misaligned—half a beat late, half a step off.
He felt it immediately and grimaced, the flicker of frustration cutting through his practiced showmanship.
Ruby burst forward careful not to use her rune, just so Roman couldn't steal the energy from it. She snapped the haft of Crescent Rose against Roman's guard. Roman met her strike with his cane-energy blade, the blue sheen cutting across the asphalt with a sizzle. He didn't bother to using Reversion.
Roman was still deadly, still unpredictable, still effortlessly talented—but now he was juggling too much.
The three students stood almost shoulder to shoulder. That closeness made their movements tighter, faster and slightly overlapping. Ruby twisted into Roman's guard and slashed with the blunt edge of her folded scythe. Jaune followed at her flank, aiming for Roman's ribs. Yang hovered just behind, fists raised, waiting to absorb anything Reversion snapped back their way.
Roman snarled. Swords clattered at his mental command, converging into a defensive screen. Ruby hammered at it. Jaune ducked beneath a sweeping blade and darted for Roman's waist.
Lux Aeterna. Still hanging from his waist. Jaune's hand touched the hilt.
Roman almost saw it a split second too late but he was still able to counter it.
He flicked Reversion.
Jaune's momentum inverted violently. The world lurched, spinning inside-out for a heartbeat. His body snapped backward—
A hand tapped his shoulder. Sudden stillness.
Yang pulled the kinetic snap into herself, bleeding away the catastrophe that should have launched Jaune across the block. Yang's feet dug trenches into the ground, the heat on her shoulders rising like a small sun.
"You good?" she barked.
Jaune nodded once, breath sharp. Then they were back in motion.
They attacked again, now in a rhythm: Ruby struck, Jaune followed, Roman parried, and Reversion kicked. Yang met the backwash each time, draining the momentum the instant it rebounded. It became a cycle, again and again and again, like a heartbeat.
Roman was feeling it.
Not just the pressure of three talented fighters working in complete synchronization, but the strain on his aura. He was pulling from two reservoirs at once: Reversion and the growing storm of Crocea Mors copies orbiting him. Every blade in the air demanded steady control. Every reversal devoured aura.
But he wasn't out of tricks. Ruby struck high and Roman sidestepped, eyes flashing. Her weapon flickered.
Crescent Rose vanished from her hands and appeared in his.
Ruby blinked at her empty palms. "Oh come on!"
Roman used it exactly once. He swung the massive scythe toward Jaune, realized the blade's weight was unwieldy in close quarters, and dropped it with a curse just in time to block Yang's punch and Jaune's rising kick.
Ruby retrieved the scythe in a blur of motion.
Then Roman stole it again, to which she grabbed it again.
Then he stole it again.
"Are you five?" she snarled.
"Depends on who you ask," Roman said, ducking another flying blade. "But compared to all of you? Absolutely."
But Jaune could see it now. Roman's aura was steadily draining.
Steal, reversion and blade control.
He was burning through everything he had.
And then—Ruby, mid-swing, abruptly disengaged. Jaune mirrored her, dropping low and sliding backward. The barrage of flying sword copies followed them immediately, forcing the pair on the defensive.
Yang, glowing like a second dawn, stepped forward.
Her shoulders cracked. Her fists clenched.
Heat rippled off her skin, shimmering like the air above a furnace. Jaune saw the glow building in her chest and arms, a molten radiance that made her hair lift as if a breeze passed through it.
Roman's face thinned in alarm.
"Shit—"
Yang lunged.
The street broke beneath her feet in a burst of cracked asphalt.
She slammed into Roman with a combined eruption of Kinetic and Inferno, her entire body exploding outward in a column of violent, rippling force. The blast detonated like a warhead between them.
The explosion swallowed everything.
Ruby and Jaune were thrown backward instantly, skidding across the concrete hard enough to tear grooves into the ground. The shockwave ripped through storefronts, uprooted streetlamps and shattered windows a block away.
The flare lit the street in a white-orange blaze. For a heartbeat, it was impossible to see anything beyond the violent, blooming light.
Then, through the burning air—
Jaune saw Roman.
Standing in the inferno, mouth curled in a thin, strained smile.
"You think this is funny?"
He flicked his hand. Reversion ignited.
The explosion compressed in an instant. Yang's blast snapped backward, collapsing toward her like a rubber band recoiling. The inferno slammed into Yang. She absorbed it, body glowing white-hot—
And she released it again.
Roman reversed it again.
Yang reabsorbed.
Re-released.
Again.
And again.
And again.
It happened too fast to track. A strobing cyclone of radiant energy crashed back and forth between them like they were playing catch with a miniature star. The pressure was unbearable. The ground cracked. Buildings buckled. The air itself screamed as the competing explosions carved out a crater beneath their feet.
Jaune and Ruby could only shield themselves as the shockwaves hurled them backward. Their bodies rolled across the ground uncontrollably, tumbling through pulverized asphalt and broken glass.
Then—
Silence.
Heavy, suffocating silence.
Smoke covered everything. An entire block was reduced to a smoldering crater of ash and debris. The air tasted like burnt stone and melted steel. The edges of buildings sagged inward like wilted paper.
In the far distance, the fighting between LUCID and Dragon Gang continued as a faint, distorted roar.
But here, at the epicenter?
Only dust… and the fading echo of a battle that should not have been survivable.
Ruby coughed once, pushing herself onto shaky elbows.
Jaune staggered upright beside her, eyes burning as he squinted through the drifting haze.
Where Yang had stood… where Roman had stood…
There was only a swirling cloud of smoke.
And no sign of either of them yet.
.
.
AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon