"The Mistral Regional Tournament Finals have just come to an end folks, now let's greet our two finalists! First, our Mistral born and raised Pyrrha Nikos! A quickly rising prodigy is the arts of combat, who has yet to be even touched in the tournament! Started Sanctum this year, and is already top of her class!"
Haru heard the announcements as he stretched his limbs out, having just taken out his last opponent. He had barely convinced his Dad to let him enter the tournament while he took care of some business in Mistral, and thankfully he had managed to get some time off of school. He had gotten his father to not mention this little tournament to Yang or Ruby, simply because they would be worried about him.
He wore a black hoodie, with his red scarf wrapped around his neck. His hoodie had short sleeves, with the scars on his arm still showing slightly. He had his pipe hanging from his lips, and hanging from his waist was a small dagger. He would have brought his Whirling Rose, but his weapon was still being built by his oh so loving Big Sis Ruby. Haru wore a red cloth around his forehead, and his shorts were black, showing that he was wearing some armor strapped to his shins, with his crimson tennis shoes having his Uzumaki Flame Swirl on it.
Standing in front of him was a 13 year old girl roughly the same height as him. She had short, scarlet red hair the length of her neck. She wore a brown leather armor plate over her chest, strapped around her to another brown leather armor on her back. She had a bronze collar around her neck covering her collar bone. Around her forehead was a bronze crown that covered the sides of her head, and her forehead, along with the back of her head. She had her budding chest protected by a lighter bronze plate. She wore a black skirt with a red cape around her hips, with a black belt with two cases of ammo. She wore bronze greaves over her legs, with brown leather boots.
Her weapons were a regular sword and a bronze shield.
She seemed to have just begun the process of going into puberty, while Haru was just a bit tall for the age of 11. She had a smile on her face, and she had a light amount of sweat on her already from earlier matches no doubt. He was the same, having been using his aura quite a bit, and exerting himself physically against about 20 different older opponents so far. For some reason, that number didn't agree with him, like he could do better than that.
"Hello." Pyrrha greeted him, and Haru waved at her.
"I like your hair." Haru said the first thing that came to his mind.
"Thanks." Pyrrha said with a small blush on her face, while Haru scratched the back of his head rather sheepishly. He didn't know why, he had always loved the color red, which was why he never dyed his tips from red to the same color as the rest of his hair.
"Next up is a young boy named Haru Rose from the little island of Patch, has yet to go to any training school, but has defeated each opponent he has been faced against in this tournament! This is just a testament to his skill, are we looking at another Prodigy!?" The announcer's voice called out loudly, while Haru grinned and took a deep inhale of his pipe.
"You know, smoking isn't good for you." Pyrrha commented to him with a concerned tone.
Haru grinned lightly.
"With the contestants both ready, let the fighting... BEGIN!"
Pyrrha started to run towards Haru, who leaned his chest back. Taking his pipe out of his mouth, he leaned forward and breathed out ice dust that quickly took the shape of dozens of shuriken made out of ice. Pyrrha's eyes widened and she rolled across the ground, before she drew her sword and deflected one of the shuriken. Haru drew his knife and just as he blocked her sword as she rolled into a standing position. Haru breathed out a shield of ice in front of him when she broke through his guard with her high strength, and her sword got stuck in the ice.
Haru gave the ice a headbutt, and Pyrrha was forced to hit herself in the face with her sword and the ice. Her aura defended her from getting cut, but she still felt the force behind the blow, and what could have been a fatal attack if she hadn't already activated her aura.
"You hit me..." Pyrrha said as she stepped back and avoided his dagger, before she smashed the ice shield into chunks against the ground, before she swung her sword at him. Haru breathed in dust from his pipe while he blocked her sword with his dagger, and she tensed when she realized that he never breathed out smoke... meaning that the ice had been from dust that he had breathed into himself, infused with his aura, and then controlled into not only the shuriken but also the shield.
She got her shield up in time, and she was happy she did when she was pushed back with a stream of flames erupted out of Haru's mouth and blasted her off her feet. Haru winced as he was knocked back by the recoil of his own attack, before the two of them landed on their feet.
"I'ma do it again, hit you that is. Super pretty hair or not, I have to win and show my Dad that I can be a Hunstman." Haru told her with slightly grit teeth, and she nodded for a second... and she looked at the bright white bronze that she was forced to toss aside. He had effectively destroyed her shield, meaning that she would be doing this with just her sword. Thankfully she had more reach than him, and she seemed to be vastly stronger and faster than him, but in that quick bout she had seen that he possessed more skill than her.
Despite being in her first year of training school, she was hailed as a great prodigy, who had never been hit in a fight thanks to her natural talents.
She had just been hit though, and the scoreboard that showed her face and Haru's face, with two bars under them showing "Health" bars for their Aura, and how much of it that they had. His use of Dust and the recoil of his own semi-successful attack had taken a small bit of his aura, while Pyrrha had lost a small bit more than he had.
Haru brought his pipe to his lips and took a small bit of dust from the pipe, while Pyrrha stomped on the side of her shield when he sent a wave of ice mist at her. Her shield came up, and the super heated metal melted his ice, as well as cooled itself down so that Pyrrha could put it back on her arm as she started to run towards him. Haru threw his dagger at her, and she batted it aside and sped up. She was on him in a few seconds, while he threw a punch at her. She dodged the punch, and slashed his chest with her weapon, sending him skidding back.
Haru twitched his finger.
Pyrrha's eyes widened when she saw a glint coming from his finger, and she turned her head and dodged just as the dagger passed by his. Connected to Haru's finger was a ring that had metal wire coming out of it that was connected to the end of the dagger. She was given an elbow strike to the gut... but 11 years old didn't have as much physical power, she WAS pushed back though with a grunt. She smiled for a moment and covered her stomach, catching his foot when he kicked at her. Haru hopped up off his feet and threw his other leg at her in a kicking motion, and she blocked it with her shield.
Haru brought his hand up to his mouth and revealed that he had switched what hand his pipe was in, before he sucked in more dust.
Fire or Ice!? Pyrrha asked herself in her own mind, before she was surprised when neither of them was the answer. She pushed Haru away from her when a crimson hand MADE of aura came out of his back and stretched towards her. She smacked the hand away with her shield, before a layer of ice covered not only her shield, but her entire left arm. She kneeled down on the ground and punched it, freeing her shield and arm from the ice.
"I don't have to breathe out to unleash Ice and Fire." Haru said to her as he charged forward, and Pyrrha was a bit worried that the hand hadn't vanished yet. She blocked his dagger, and her shield blocked his punch, but she had to use her knee to block his third arm of aura. Haru kicked her in the shin, and she gave him a headbutt, before she pushed him back and stabbed towards him. His aura arm caught her blade, and she smashed her shield into his face. The aura hand vanished into thin air when Haru covered his face for a second in pain.
That arm takes up a lot of concentration, and can be used to channel Nature's Wrath when he inhales Dust instead of just breathing it out and then shaping it. Pain or breaking his concentration makes them go away, and it is aura draining. Pyrrha thought with an impressed look on her face when she noticed that their aura's were still at about the same level.
The two of them charged at each other, and Haru was surprised when Pyrrha showed that her sword could shrink down and turn into a handgun. She forced him back with a few shots, while she gathered her thoughts. Haru breathed in deeply, before he shot a ball of fire at the ground. The fire spread out and she covered her eyes from how bright it was, before she felt something knock her off her feet. She grunted as she was pushed down to the ground, with Haru on top of her.
She shot him in the head, and his head exploded. Before she could look horrified at killing him, the Haru on top of her started to crack and lose color, turning ice blue, before shattering into ice.
The ground under her rumbled for a second, and she did a handstand when a crimson hand burst from the ground and nearly impaled her. She looked towards the flames and saw Haru sitting there in a spot with no flames, before she grabbed the crimson arm and used it to launch herself over the flames. She landed in front of a surprised Haru, before she was surprised when stabbing him only made this one burst into flames. She looked around, before she saw that the flame and ice clone had crimson balls inside of them that shot towards the wall... and inside of it?
The wall tore itself away, to show Haru with some kind of ninja tarp covering him, hiding him from her eyes until now.
"You make clones?" Pyrrha asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well... kind of, my Semblance CAN be used to make a Max of two clones... Six Arms in total." Haru said, since his Semblance let him make four arms out of aura, he could use clones to BE those arms for him. That limited him to two clones at any given time, and using them took half of his reserves of aura because he split his power in half.
He might have a LOT of aura, but aura seemed to be a very light energy that didn't last up as well as chakra he had in his previous life.
At the moment, his aura was down in the Yellow... her aura was in the Yellow as well, but she had a smaller amount than him.
Haru threw his dagger at Pyrrha, who seemed to wave her hand past the dagger just as its path changed ever so slightly so that it would make it easier to dodge.
Magnetism... Polarity... Electrokinesis... maybe Aerokinesis? Haru thought as his mind came up with the four most likely powers that would let her do that, and why she was hiding her power. Pyrrha grabbed the wire that he had, and when Haru got no shock he ruled out electrokinesis right away, and when she pulled him towards her, he blocked her sword by making a dagger out of ice and spitting it into his hand. She smashed through the ice, and slashed him across the face, while he kneed her in the gut.
He grabbed her by the front of her armor, before she was flipped over his shoulder and smashed onto the ground. She blocked a punch with her shield, and Haru's dagger returned to his name. Her sword became a handgun again, but he manifested an arm out of his back and it blocked the bullet before it could hit his aura. He raised his hand up, gripped it into a fist, before he was pushed off of her. She tripped him off his feet, before she stood up and nearly broke his nose using her forehead guard. Sword and Dagger collided, before Pyrrha dodged when Haru shot a dragon's head shaped fireball at her.
Haru breathed out ice next after inhaling more, before he formed a scythe made out of ice and took it into both of his hands.
He started to run at Pyrrha, and she ran at him as well, with their weapons both in mid-swing.
"He-hey Pyrrha." Haru said as he was backed against a wall, rather nervous at the moment. He had seen Pyrrha 4 times over the last four years, and each time that they had met each other it always ended up with them having to fight. That was not why he was nervous though... Pyrrha had... bloomed into a woman. Last time he had seen her, she had still been the same height as him.
He was blushing... he was BLUSHING! HIM, Haruto fucking Uzumaki... Well, Haru Rose now. Still though, Pyrrha had become beautiful enough to have even him blushing.
He was also nervous about the fact that he would now be attending school with his rival. Not to mention that this rival of his hadn't beaten him, and he hadn't beaten her either. Each time they fought, they fought for hours until they were both out of aura and knocked out cold.
Pyrrha was physically stronger than him, while he was more skilled and had a better mind towards combat than her. He could come up with Multi-Step Plans in seconds under stress, while she had the natural talent and skill to counter his plans and the strength to make him have to work in a fight. Pyrrha was one of those girls that had a strange amount of physical strength, maybe even the amounts of freakish strength that Yang had... Haru said MAYBE of course, since Yang could get stronger. Anyway, she was extremely talented just like him in a fight, they were about equal levels of skill actually, but where they differed was experience. Haru had more experience in fighting physically stronger, and more experienced opponents, while Pyrrha had amazing levels of physical strength, and her natural skill with her abilities evened them out.
When she fought him, she was not the Invincible Girl... he was her weakness, the kind of opponent that was the only kind that could truly defeat her...
In the last year she had... grown up. She had hit a growth spurt that now had her at easily 6 feet tall in height. She had gotten even more toned, in the feminine sense of the word, and she had the muscles of a strong, and beautiful, woman. Her red hair now went down to her waist, but she still kept it in the high ponytail. Her bright green eyes were clearly happy to see him, and she had changed her outfit. Bronze V-neck armored top with no straps, and above that was a brown leather top that covered the bronze one. Part of her stomach was showing near the bottom, and her shoulders were in clear view.
She still wore her crown and the gorget around her neck. Her crown was now decked with two teardrop shaped emeralds on either side of her head.
She wore a tight red Mini-skirt in a darker shape of red, and over that was her hip-cape in a lighter shade of red. She wore her bronze greaves still that went up to a little above her knees, and she now wore her symbol of a spear in a shield on her right hip. She had dark down gloves going from above her elbows to her hands, covering them, and on her left arm was a bronze forearm protector. She now had a bronze band around her left bicep, and her vivid green eyes matched the new ear piercings she got.
She DID still wear the same style of boots from when they first fought though.
He was 5'7" and she stood at 6'0"... when they fought last year they had stood at the same height... not the same, she had still been an inch or two taller... but now she was a good 5 inches taller than him!
"Haru!" Pyrrha called out as she wrapped her arms around him in a hug, picking him up and squeezing the air out of his body.
She had thought that she would never see her one real friend again! With her attending Beacon this year, she wouldn't be able to fight in the Mistral Regional Tournament anymore, and she might have never been able to see Haru because of that. She had almost literally jumped for joy when she saw her multi-color haired friend.
"You look... good." Haru said after a moment, not sure what he was supposed to say.
Normally, they would be fighting each other by this point in time... and Pyrrha's breasts were pushing against his neck as she hugged him, making this slightly nice yet uncomfy for him because of the fact that she had REALLY bloomed into a fine looking woman. She was a rather large chested girl now, and when she let him down he was relieved.
"Thanks, I haven't seen you since the Mistral Regionals last year. I didn't think I would ever get to see you again..." Pyrrha said after a moment, a light dusting a red of her cheeks when she noticed that Haru had changed from baggy clothes that he wore when they fought, to the super tight black top that he wore now that showed off his own body.
The two of them didn't even notice that they weren't saying anything, just sort of ogling each other's bodies. They looked away from each other after a bit, a bit of an awkward atmosphere between them.
Pyrrha jumped when she felt a hand touch her backside, and she turned around to see a frowning Yang behind her.
"Tight, toned, and thin... What do you need with my little brother ?" Yang asked with her arms crossed under her chest, having never seen this girl before in her life. She didn't trust such a bombshell of a girl, an OLDER girl around her little brother. Pyrrha blinked, before she looked between Haru and Yang, seeing the family resemblance that the two of them had right away.
"Oh, YOU must be the overprotective big sister that Haru told me about when we were fighting each other in the last Mistral Regional Tournament, you... whoops." Pyrrha said when she saw Yang's furious expression directed at Haru.
"You entered a WHAT!?" Yang asked, with Haru looking at Pyrrha with dull eyes.
"Yes, Pyrrha... tell my OVERPROTECTIVE big sister that I enter tournaments." Haru told the red haired girl.
"Sorry." Pyrrha said as Haru was grabbed by the scarf as Yang started to drag him away, with Pyrrha following after them.
"You and I will talk about this later in private Haru, be sure of that... what were you THINKING! Is that what you and Dad do in Mistral every year? Do you risk your safety in tournaments... you are not allowed out of my sight again young man!" Yang told him roughly.
She had heard that those tournaments were filled with stronger people each year, with two people every year fighting each other until they were beat up and knocked out... to learn that her brother had been doing these kinds of things behind her back was enough to enrage her. Granted, a tournament was safer than him becoming a Huntsman, but she was still angry that he would risk getting hurt like that.
"I can walk on my own Yang!" Haru said roughly as he slapped her hand off his scarf, and the two of them glared at each other for a moment. Pyrrha felt awkward standing in between them.
"Sorry if I'm interrupting, but Haru really likes fighting, and he is really good at it! He is a great warrior that you should be proud of." Pyrrha told Yang, who scowled.
"Do you think I care, Haru is my little brother! I don't want to risk losing him just because he has a wild streak." Yang said with a frown.
"Hypocrite." Haru muttered with a frown on his own face.
"Yeah, I'm a hypocrite, I like taking risks... but I would rather die than lose you." Yang said as she poked his chest, and he scowled more.
"Then why don't you treat Ruby like this?" Haru asked her, and Yang's eyes softened as she gazed at the scars on his arms.
"These tournaments are safe... right?" Yang asked after a moment, and Pyrrha nodded.
"Completely, there are trained medics at hand, and if you run out of aura you normally lose right away. Haru was never in any danger... but I have to ask, why are you so concerned? He really is strong." Pyrrha questioned, with Yang scowling at Pyrrha. Yang placed her hand on top of Haru's head, before she brought him in close.
"I love my little brother, so I want to protect him." Yang told Pyrrha the most simple version of why she wanted to keep Haru from doing dangerous things.
She only just met Pyrrha, there was no way that she could tell Pyrrha the horrible tale of when Haru almost died because of her mistake... the feeling of holding her dying brother in her arms, being covered in his blood as he was rushed to the hospital... the few times they almost lost him... and how she had lost their mother, her step-mother, not long before she almost lost Haru... that each time she saw the scars on his body she was reminded of why she needed to protect him.
She thought of Haru fighting, and she felt like she could lose him... she didn't experience the same trauma with Ruby, who had been sleeping through the entire thing, completely unhurt. Yeah, they all almost died if not for their Uncle Qrow, but Haru had almost died even after they were rescued... he had been hospitalized for a long time, and for a while he didn't even wake up. To see him so... lifeless, she never wanted to experience the same thing, or let him get hurt again.
"Haru likes fighting though, so shouldn't you give him a chance to prove himself?" Pyrrha asked, knowing that Haru truly enjoyed fighting things. She also knew of his desire to prove himself to his family, that he could defend himself.
"Let's go before we are late for the opening ceremony, come on Yang." Haru said with a softer tone to his voice. Hearing her genuine desire to protect him always erased the anger he felt at her, because when he heard her say those things it reminded him that he now had a family that loved him... it filled him with warmth, and he was never a person that held a grudge.
He would PROVE to Yang with his actions that she didn't need to worry!
Pyrrha followed behind them as they walked, while Yang put Haru in a headlock and gave him some light teasing.
"... So... I didn't know you liked girls bigger than you. You always struck me as a Dom... is my little bro actually a Sub though?" Yang whispered with a suggestive tone to her voice. She was JUST teasing him, and not actually giving him permission to date... she didn't even want to THINK about handing HER little brother over to any girl that didn't have her complete and utter approval.
"Oh yes, I just love to be dominated by my girl... seriously Yang... does it even matter?" Haru stated sarcastically.
Pyrrha was blissfully unaware of what they were talking about as she stared towards the entrance of the school and noticed that there were a good number of students this year.
All in all, she was excited for this school year.
She had been reunited with her best friend after all.