Day 37 part 1: A dark patch in History

Ryu walked out of his team's dorm grinning in anticipation, though he had been fully recovered from his wounds for two days now, today was the day he'd been looking forward to: the first Combat Class since his recovery, today, for the first time since the Mistral Regionals, Ryu would face Pyrrha again, all through breakfast Ryu was fidgeting and lost in thought, the others were mystified as to the cause of the normally composed Iaidoka's excess energy, neither Ryu nor Pyrrha had told anyone about their rematch, except for Professor Goodwitch of course, they'd had to ask for her permission to arrange their fight during her combat class.

Yang looked at her boyfriend in confusion. "Hey Breezy, you alright? I'm usually the one with energy to burn."

Ryu flashed her an easy smile, ever since he'd resolved to live for the fiery blond's sake, he'd found it easier to smile, as if he'd been storing up happiness over the years, and it was finally being allowed to trickle out, in fact, all of his emotions were more intense than they had been in years, not by alot, but it was noticeable.

"I'm fine Yang, just looking forward to being able to fight again today, because after my absence from the sparring ring for the past week, Goodwitch is sure to set me up against someone today." Yang accepted that with a smile and a nod.

"Hey, maybe it'll be against me, we could finally settle our tie." The blond brawler smiled as she made that suggestion. Ryu returned the smile, sorry Yang, today's rematch won't be against you, but you're definitely going to demand your turn at a rematch afterwards, you never could resist a challenge. The Wind Samurai thought as he looked into his girlfriend's lilac eyes.

Their first class that day was History of Remnant, they'd finished with the Faunus Rights Revolution, and were moving on to the Grimm Wars, today's topic was particularly attention getting, and nobody was sleeping or messing around after it was announced by Dr. Oobleck: The Grimm Kings.

Once the whispers died down, Dr. Oobleck began his lecture in his usual caffeine induced hyperspeed. "Today's subject is a rather disturbing one, and one that mostly no one remembers, this is because all records of the Kings were taken by Huntsmen and Huntresses of the time and destroyed, leaving only a few materials on these frankly terrifying beings to remain." Dr. Oobleck took a slurp of coffee and zipped to the front row of the lecture hall.

"Though few records exist, those few that do leave no doubt, the nine Kings of Grimm exist, and they have been responsible for the near destruction of ensouled life on this planet, at least twice that we know of."

A student with blue hair and a tattoo bisecting his left eyelid from forehead to cheekbone raised his hand, Oobleck zoomed over to the young man.

"Mr. Fernandes, you have a question?"

"Yes Dr. Oobleck, if these Grimm Kings were so dangerous, why did the Hunters of the time destroy all the records of their existences? Weren't they worried that new Kings would turn up?"

"My boy, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that they are dead, remember, I said that the Kings exist, not that they existed, the Grimm Kings are very much alive, each one is sealed away, but the Hunters of the time had no way to kill such powerful beings, so they settled for imprisoning them in places where their unusual, and extremely powerful, abilities would be rendered useless, the records were destroyed in an attempt to erase the Kings from the memory of man and Faunus so that nobody would ever be tempted to find the prisons, they kept only enough knowledge on these beings to provide their descendants with usable information on the creatures, should one, or Dust forbid, all of them were to break out of their cages, this course is simply to provide basic information on the Kings as a whole, so that is what I will do!" Oobleck zoomed once around his classroom, before stopping to slurp more coffee, and continue his lecture.

"The first known appearance of the Kings was during the First Grimm War, approximately ten thousand years ago. Mankind, both Human and Faunus, were struggling to literally carve out a place in this world, which at the time, was totally overrun with Grimm, as you know, they succeeded in forming the four Kingdoms and beating back the Grimm, at least initially, however, it was at this point that the first of the Kings surfaced, within a month, Mistral had fallen and was completely destroyed, it was in response to this that the first true Hunter organisation was founded. Albert Arc put together a group of eighty of the best warriors in the world, and they split into groups of nine. For obvious reasons, I won't go into what detail we have about the nine battles to seal away the Kings, suffice it to say the nine Kings were locked away at great cost, the only survivor of the endeavor was Albert Arc, who returned to his home in Vale, where he lived out his life with his wife and son, the Arc family has been Vale's most prominent Hunter Families ever since then, and even into the present, as you all may have guessed by now, we have one of Albert's descendants in this class: Jaune Arc." The green haired Doctor zoomed over to stand in front of the young Arc, who looked uncomfortable with the fact that every eye in the room was fixed on him. Ryu felt sorry for his friend, but at the same time he was fascinated, he'd had no idea that Jaune's family was so ancient, it went a long way to explaining why the white knight wanted to become a Huntsman so badly, he had a long legacy to uphold.

Day 37 Part 2: Rematch

After Dr. Oobleck's class came the class Ryu had been waiting for: Combat class. Professor Goodwitch informed Ryu and Pyrrha that their fight would be the last one of the class. So Ryu sat with his team and watched, waiting for his turn.

The last fight came onto the display screen as Professor Goodwitch announced it.

"Ryu Kawisaka vs. Pyrrha Nikos." Both fighters walked into the ring, Pyrrha had Milo and Akouo on her back, and Ryu held Wind's Fang and Wind's Claw in his left hand, they shook hands before taking their positions in the center of the ring, Pyrrha's weapon's leapt into her hands, Milo was in it's xiphos mode, Ryu crouched and hovered his right hand over the hilt of Wind's Fang, while his left thumb hovered over the release button, and his left index finger slid inside Wind's Claw's trigger guard. When Professor Goodwitch gave the signal to begin, Ryu vanished, Pyrrha raised Akouo and caught the high speed kick that would have blasted her off her feet, but Ryu didn't stop there, lifting his other leg, the wind samurai dropped to the ground and attempted to sweep her feet out from under her, but the red haired amazonian jumped over the leg sweep, only to see the point of Wind's Fang heading straight for her face as she fell, Pyrrha's hand and the bronze circlet in her hair both glowed black, as the tournament champion yanked herself backward in midair, Wind's Fang returned to it's sheath, and Pyrrha went on the attack, placing her shield between herself and her opponent, the redhead charged, Milo chopped down at Ryu's head, but was caught by Wind's Fang's hilt, Pyrrha's left knee jabbed at Ryu, who rolled gracefully backwards, coming out of the roll on his feet. Wind's Claw turned aside two slashes from Pyrrha's red and gold sword. They both aimed a kick at eachother at the same time, the two kicks struck eachother and rebounded. Both fighters danced back, then Ryu vanished again, this time a clang sounded as Pyrrha's sword caught Wind's Claw in a swipe. Ryu hadn't yet drawn Wind's Fang, and was still holding his weapons in his left hand, just above the hilt of his sword. Ryu made several more swipes with his sheath, each one Pyrrha dodged, until, rather than attack with the sheath, Ryu drew his sword into a blindingly fast slash, Pyrrha leapt back from the strike, and Ryu could feel the subtle nudge of Pyrrha's Polarity Semblance bumping his blade an inch above his intended target, before Pyrrha shifted her sword into it's spear form and charged again, and it was Ryu who was dodging the tip of Milo's spear form, Ryu turned aside the spear with his right forearm and closed the distance, jabbing with Wind's Fang's hilt, Ryu ducked a slash from Milo in sword form, and had to roll out of the way of Pyrrha's follow up kick, Ryu stopped in mid roll and kicked back and up, catching Pyrrha in the stomach as she charged. The wind samurai tumbled to his feet, and turned to face the amazon, for a second the rivals stood still, they moved at the same time, charging forward, Pyrrha aimed a kick at Ryu, who spun to the left, and jabbed the tip of Wind's Claw at Pyrrha's stomach, aiming for the spot he'd kicked, Pyrrha twisted her hips and Ryu felt another magnetic nudge on his sheath, ensuring that it missed it's target by a hair's breadth, Ryu's foot lashed out just behind his sheath, but Akouo caught the kick in one of it's indents, Ryu created, and then inverted, a small forcefield with his aura against the sole of his outstretched shoe, with a small hop, Ryu planted his other foot on Akouo and pushed off into a back handspring, to land on his feet. Immediately, Ryu vanished in a storm of wind to reappear behind Pyrrha, drawing and slashing at an upwards diagonal, and hitting nothing but a few hairs from her ponytail, Pyrrha managed to duck under the strike, turning, Pyrrha stabbed with Milo's sword form, Ryu barely managed to dodge it, then he vanished in another gust of wind, to appear on the other end of the arena, green light began leaking from Ryu's body, then he began speeding all over the arena, leaving behind dozens of greenish afterimages. Pyrrha's eyes flickered over the afterimages before throwing her shield, Akouo, like a discus, she guided it's flight with her Polarity so that it hit all the images, they all dissipated into thin air, which was when Ryu struck, he was on the tournament champion in a flash, unleashing a barrage of slashes, Milo turned some aside, and Pyrrha dodged or magnetically pushed more away, when the entire arena heard a click, BANG! and a razor sharp metal disk flew from the mouth of Wind's Claw, Pyrrha tried to push the disk away with her Semblance, but it remained unaffected, and a tiny red flash showed where it struck her aura.

"Like them? I made these disks out of a nonmagnetic alloy, just for you." Ryu said, as he ducked Akouo's return to it's owner.

Pyrrha grinned as her shield clicked back onto the bracer on her left forearm. "Not bad, but you won't catch me off guard twice." Pyrrha's weapon shifted into rifle mode and the champion began to open fire on her friend, Ryu didn't even have to activate his Semblance to cut the Dust rounds out of the air, before returning fire with a wind blade, which Pyrrha took on her shield, the impact caused her to stagger back a step, in an instant, Ryu was across the arena floor, and the wind samurai struck Pyrrha's shield again with his sword, then he lashed out with his foot, Pyrrha dodged the kick, then shifted her weapon into spear form and went on the offensive, Wind's Claw deflected a spear thrust, but Akouo slammed into Ryu's face. The slightly stunned wind samurai staggered back, he took a thrust with a blaze of emerald aura automatically materializing to defend him from serious harm, though a shallow cut appeared in his side. Activating his Semblance, Ryu slashed Pyrrha across the torso before she could even lift her shield. They disengaged and clashed again, back and forth they went, striking, dodging and blocking, Ryu sheathed his sword, then he shaped a tornado blade and struck, Pyrrha, who knew from their last fight what the tornado blade could do, rolled beneath Ryu's strike and slashed him across the back, Ryu kicked her in the hip, and struck with the tornado blade, successfully launching her across the arena, to slam into the wall in a flare of red light. Pyrrha staggered to her feet, then both fighters charged, swords at the ready, Ryu vanished and Pyrrha let go of Milo, her hand, and the sword glowed black, and when Ryu struck, Milo flew straight at him, both swords stopped an inch from their targets' necks.

Professor Goodwitch spoke into the dead silence that followed the fight. "This match is a tie!"

The students exploded into applause.

Day 37 part 3: Lightning

Purple Lightning watched the sparring match between Ryu and Pyrrha from a hacked security camera with a wide grin nearly splitting his face in half, a mad giggle escaped him as the Wind Samurai fought the Invincible Girl, the giggle became an elated laugh as the fight ended in a draw.

"Well, Wind Samurai, it seems you've gotten past your problem, and you'll actually be a worthwhile opponent." Lightning drew a katana, and drove it into the monitor in front of him.

"I look forward to our next encounter, Ryu Kawisaka." Lightning walked away, giggling insanely, yes, he was most definitely eager to fight Kawisaka again, and the next time, Lightning would drive his sword through the young swordsman's heart, emotionally, and then, literally.

(Author's Note: I hope I did that fight well, I've been looking forward to writing it for a while, please read, enjoy and review, thank you.)