*Darkness… Unknown Location…*

Nothingness, that was the only word that could describe the location he was currently in, he was just a single entity in the middle of a pitch-black environment, the only two things he could sense were the solid ground under his feet and the heat coming from his mouth due to his nervous breathing.

"Whe-Where am I?" He whispered rubbing his forehead before flicking a small blond strand of hair from his view, a weird feeling kept bugging him around his neck, like it wasn't the first time he came to this place but just can't remember a thing about it, a déjà-vue.

He looked down at himself and saw with puzzlement at the seemingly very expensive suit he was dressed in, he slightly opened his light blue jacket and saw the name 'Valentino' stitched on it, just pronouncing the name gave a taste of refinement in his mouth, however, he never heard of such company existing in Remnant.

His eyes then shifted down to the tie hanging from his collar and crossing between his light emerald shirt, there was a row made of skulls vertically stitched to it in a dark purple background with dark yellow lines crossing the tie.

This clearly wasn't his familiar choice of clothing, especially for the tie…

However, this would soon be the least of his concerns as he looked down in horror at his right hand, or to be more precise, at the stump where his hand used to be.

"My-My hand!" He shouted in horror as he held his mutilated forearm with his other remaining hand, his shock suddenly turned into confusion when he realized that he wasn't bleeding, neither he saw any flesh or bones sticking out of his torn hand, the only thing he could see was a white material resembling some kind of stone constituting the stump.

"What the hell does this mean?! What kind of place is this?!"

Suddenly, goosebumps began to appear behind his neck, an unsettling feeling of something appearing out of nowhere… something lurking around his position… and slowly approaching him from behind…

His head rotated to his left in the most dramatic and suspenseful way ever, only to be glancing at not one, but thousands of hands coming out of the dark in one coordinated pace, violently grabbing him from every single square meter of his body.

"Wha-What the hell is this?!"

He tried his best to hold to the ground using his feet but all his efforts were hopeless as he was suddenly lifted from the ground by the greyish rotten hands and slowly drawn back to where they came from. He kept cursing and twitching around to free himself from their grip, but nobody replied to his screams besides the echoes of his own voice, until once again, another entity appeared to spectate this terrible event.

…

"Now, let's have you punished Kira Yoshikage…"

He looked down in pure bafflement at the rose-haired girl facing her back at him with an expression as cold as a Victorian statue, she shouldn't be above the age of sixteen with her light pink hair reaching down her ears and her eyes as cutely colored as her hair, without mentioning her adorable short pink robe and the Alice band keeping her straight hair back, and still, her expression was harsh, malicious even.

But all of her cute appearances was suddenly eclipsed by the indescribably horrible knife wounds on her back, cuts he wouldn't find even on the most gruesome dead bodies.

There's no way she could inflict herself these kinds of wounds, what kind of vile monster have the rage and the brutality to do this to her?!

He wanted to beg her for help, tell her to save him from these horrifying hands pulling him from all sides, but none of these words came out of his mouth as they were replaced by others he didn't even realize he uttered them in the first place.

"Tch! Killer Queen, blow these things up!"

*bwaaaaaaaarp*

Killer Queen appeared beside him and tried to trigger his first bomb, but before he could even activate the charge, he was also grabbed by the hands and immediately immobilized him. Their attempt was swiftly punished, the hands kept pulling their preys out to the point where they literally shattered them in pieces.

Surprisingly enough, neither him nor Killer Queen was feeling any kind of pain, he just felt a slight discomfort when he got split up in pieces and that's it, and like his cut right hand, none of his torn body parts were bleeding which only made him more confused rather than terrorized.

Once again, his mouth began to speak without him giving any demands to do it, it was like he had no control of his body. "Whe-Where are they taking me?!" The girl huffed in an unconcerned manner, almost mocking him. "Who knows? But… I'm sure it's a place you will never find peace in it."

The flock of hands violently started pulling him in fulgurant velocity toward a purplish-black hole, only to be immediately disintegrated with no trace of him left beside the echoes of his gruesome screams.

And then he woke up.

"Ga-Gah!" Yoshikage suddenly jumped out of his bed all shaky and sweating like a waterfall, before slowly calming down as he realized it was all a nightmare, he rubbed his palm on one side of his face while stabilizing his breathing and heartbeat.

It wasn't the first time the blond got this nightmare, nearly every fifth of the month he gets the very same horrifying dream, those rotten filthy hands dragging him to a location incomprehensible to him. However, something different occurred from the previous incarnations, that girl showed up, he never saw that girl before, who was she and how does she know his name?

Kira stayed a couple of minutes sitting on his bed thinking about the subject before dismissing it, he simply cannot let himself worry about a dumb dream right now, because for the first time in his life, he has school to go.

He stepped out of his bedsheets and then glanced at his alarm clock displaying: *7:45 AM*.

If he recalled correctly, classes begin at nine so he got quite a large time to go to the bathroom while everybody is supposed to be asleep and pick up something to eat at the dining hall too.

This is strange, it's 8:52 and still no sign of team RWBY nor team JNPR since he woke up, when he passed next to their rooms, he heard a lot ruckus coming from them like they were rebuilding their dorms from the ground up, who knows what they were doing… and thank god he wasn't sharing his room with any of them if they were going to do this kind of racket every morning.

At this moment, Yoshikage was attending this morning's class supervised by Mr. Port, a slightly older man than Ozpin with a massive grey mustache and even more massive stomach covered by a red burgundy suit with yellow outlines and interlines.

Class didn't even start and he was already rambling about his allegedly "thrilling" adventures as a young Huntsman, the blond slightly glanced toward the other students around and simply related to their bored expressions and constant yawning.

What an anticlimactic following of yesterday's exam…

"Grr… Goddamn tie…" He grumbled while loosening the node of his suffocating red tie for the third time, he never was very familiar with uniforms and other formal attires, and this black suit was a little bit too stiff and tight for his figure, like for real, he can't even move right in these tight clothes! Did they even get his sizes right?!

And the blue vest underneath it only made it worse as it kept scratching his chest despite being a white shirt between the cloth and his skin. Seriously, how can such prestigious establishment have such an annoying dress code?

And thank god, they aren't forcing them to always wear these during battle…

"This is getting ridiculous, where the hell is Ruby and the others?" His wondering was immediately answered when the door of the class suddenly opened with the boy's acolytes busting inside with a clear sense of exhaustion in their faces.

"So-Sorry, we're… late…" Gasped out Weiss while trying to regain her breath after the awful sprint her and the others had to make across the campus.

"No worry my dear! We just got started! Please, all of you take a seat! When was I? Oh yes! So, I had no more my battleaxes in hand and was literally face-to-face with the giant Ursa… So, I dodged one of his attacks and tried to slam him on the ground with my bare hands-oh! Did I mention that the Ursa was four-time bigger than the regular one? So, I grabbed one of his arms, then…"

"Hi, Yoshikage!" Cheerfully waved Ruby to the blond as she walked toward the row of chairs where he was sitting followed by the rest of team RWBY, Yoshikage didn't reply with a wave but rather with a very stern frown followed by his arms crossing in front of his chest. "Where have you guys been?"

Ruby's waving hand melted down and hid behind her frightened posture at the sight of the blond's deathly glare, letting Weiss taking the mantle to answer the boy's question. "Me and the girls had to make some decorations in our room, but don't blame me! They're the ones who thought it would be a great idea to waste time building some makeshift bunk beds!"

Yoshikage wasn't satisfied one bit by their excuse but preferred to not argue any further, he simply doesn't have the single care about what kind of "decoration" they had to make, however, he prefers if they could ease up the whole coming late thingy if that was going to jeopardizing his grades.

And so, the discussion finally finished, leaving professor Port the only person to ramble about his probably fictitious exploits, until Jaune's whispering voice attracted the girl's look while Yoshikage preferred solely giving him an ear.

"Psst- Hey guys! Me and the guys were thinking about visiting the city this weekend, you guys' down?"

"Yeah sure! That'll be awesome!" Whispered Ruby with a gleeful smile, she then turned her gaze to Yoshikage who seemed to completely ignore the discussion. "Hey, you're coming too right?"

The blond boy suddenly twitched for a second before replying with a mumbling voice. "Umm, I've got things to do…"

"Oh, come on man!" Groaned Yang, warping her left arm around the blond's neck and pushing him towards her with firm movement. "You can't deny going out with your friends like that?!"

Who said you were my friends?

Normally, the feeling of the blonde's generous assets pushing on a boy's shoulders would melt any guy nearly instantly, but Yoshikage's lack of tolerance to any useless body contact only made him annoyingly glare at her, but she couldn't see it thanks to her golden locks covering most of his face.

"Hey, since you live here, you can be our tour guide and show us the city!" Pyrrha leaned forward, the rest of the group all agreed which only made Yoshikage's grimace even more upset, not you too Pyrrha…

The only places he can show them are gang hideouts and illegal dust labs, and maybe even the abandoned flat of a recently deceased junkie if they acted well.

"You coming too?" The blond peered toward Blake who's question seemingly made her jump a bit probably because she was too invested in the book between her hands.

"Um, yes." Replied the amber-eyed girl while she lifted her book to cover her meek smile. "I don't know Vale that much and thought it would be a nice opportunity to go look around, also, I guess it could be a good opportunity to get that book from that store you told me about…"

"Yeah…" Sighed Yoshikage rubbing the bridge of his nose for a moment before reluctantly accepting their proposal, if even Blake was going with them, why not? Now that he thinks about it, he does have some shopping to do downtown…

After the silent cheers of the boy's companions, the class finally resumed, just the moment where professor Port called Weiss to show some kind of demonstration.

"Ugh! How long are you going to keep acting like a child!"

"Weiss, wait!" Called out Ruby as she followed Weiss exiting the professor's class after an infuriating argument with her leader, the silver-eyed girl tried to reach for the heiress' arm only to be suddenly shoved back by her elbow.

"Can't you just drop the infantries and act as a true leader for once?!" The heiress burst out with a spiteful glare; Ruby stood frozen for a second completely confused by the girl's hurtful words before mumbling a half-assed reply. "Wha-What do you mean?!"

"Since the first day I saw you, you've been nothing but irritation and annoyance! And the exam only solidified the fact of how much of a reckless little brat you are!"

Such hurtful words pierced poor Ruby's heart like a spear, the silver-eyed girl's lips simply trembled while they tried looking for any words to utter. "Bu-But Weiss… what about how we worked together back in the forest? All the talk about being a team?"

"Not led by you." Ouch! What a way to rub more salt into the wound. "I've done nothing but train and study for months to be in this school. Only to be led by an incompetent little kid that barely came out of kindergarten, how's that fair?!"

"Weiss, I-"

"I simply don't understand why Ozpin made you leader of the group, I could name you so many people that deserve more to be a leader than you and besides me, like Yoshikage for example, him and Pyrrha are probably the most competent person I've seen in this school, how the hell they didn't get to be leaders, while you and that goof of Jaune got it quite easily?!"

The girl simply turned heels with her white ponytail despicably slapping Ruby's cheek and walked away.

"Ozpin made a mistake."

Ruby could feel the tears rolling around her silver eyes after the hurtful accusations of her supposed teammate, only the appearance of her big sister happened to comfort her. "Come on Rubes don't listen to her, she doesn't know what she's talking about…" Yang then turned toward the heiress with her lilac eyes slightly fading into a bright red. "Ugh, if I get a hold of that little bi-"

"Easy now." Interrupted Blake before looking at Ruby with an apologized stare. "She didn't mean any of that, she probably just got too focused by the battle."

"Yeah don't worry…" Followed Jaune putting a hand on the girl's shoulder and trying his best to give her the most uplifting smile he could make. "You know how people get too tensed during a fight…"

"Yeah, I guess you guys are right…" The girl's spirit finally lifted as she wiped her tears and grew a small joyful smile on her pale face. "Y'know that she called you a goof, right?" Jaune's eyes suddenly stretched out in shock before the clumsy blond began sheepishly chuckling, hopefully, she was just joking, hopefully.

Yoshikage was the last student to exit the class and silently join the rest of the group with his usually unconcerned gaze, Ruby looked at the blond approaching them which made him recall the words that Weiss said earlier.

"I simply don't understand why Ozpin made you the leader of the group, I could name you so many people that deserve more to be a leader than you and besides me, like Yoshikage for example, him and Pyrrha are probably the most competent person I've seen in this school, how the hell they didn't get to be leaders?!"

A few moments passed before the group finally headed to the dining hall for lunch, this time, Yoshikage had nowhere to escape since Ruby and Yang grabbed him from both arms and forced him to sit down with them and the others.

"So, how do you guys handle with five members in your team?" Asked Pyrrha after slightly giggling at the weird threatening look Yoshikage gave to the sisters in each side of his shoulders. "How are you guys calling yourselves now? Team RWBYY?"

"Well, actually, it's more like RWBY-Y" Briefly corrected Ruby with a small smile across her pale face before she licked the jam from the knife, she just used to spread her bread, which triggered Yoshikage to eye her with a perplexed frown. "What's with the dash?"

"Oh y' know…" Followed Yang on the other side of his shoulder depicting the same smug-ish expression as her sister. "As Professor Ozpin said, you're just an 'auxiliary' member, you kinda not really an actual member in our team. You just stick with us from time to time, and sometimes if you need our help we'll be here, and if we need yours, well don't think too much about it. Consider yourself like a sidekick!"

"A sidekick? What are you trying to say here?" A very menacing tone was felt coming from Kira's mouth and toward the female blonde nervously chuckling and waving her hands in front of her while she and Ruby tried to explain themselves without sounding that insulting, even Blake joined them with a book hiding her features from the boy's killing intents.

"Oh y' know, you're like the… side dish."

"The drummer…"

"The third wheel…"

"The backup boyfriend…"

"The green Power Ranger…"

"The morning after pil-"

"Alright! Alright! I got what you guys are trying to explain! Sheesh" Sighed the blond while taking a sip from his coffee, if he was this much of a liability he can just quit! Yang and Ruby gleefully tried to explain to him that it was all a joke and that they genuinely appreciate his company, but that still didn't wipe that irritating glare off his face.

In the meantime, all members of team JNPR gave an amused look at the scene unraveling in front of them, it's like seeing two rookies trying to tame an angry lion until the loud voice of a large male interrupted them.

"Hey, you guys! It seems like y'all having fun here! You don't mind if some friendly fellas join the discussion, huh?"

Four boys menacingly surrounded the group's lunch table ruining both their cheerful ambiance and appetite, the most prominent one of the bunch was a large boy with a pretentious smirk on his face, appearing right behind Jaune who just gulped in fear after recognizing who it was.

"He-Hey Cardin! How's goin-"

"Pretty good Jauney Boy!" Mockingly replied the tall boy while shoving the palm of his hand on Jaune's head and forcefully messing his hair like he was some kind of toddler. "I was just wondering when you little piss haired fuck was planning on introducing your little group here to us!"

Cardin's vulgar words were met by most of the group's revolted glare, especially for Yang fuming for calling the blond boy "piss haired", Jaune on the other hand seemed rather amused as he took it as a playful joke. "Well that's my team JNPR and this is team RWBY…"

"Yo! How the fuck did Ozpin choose you to be a leader?! You're probably the wimpiest piece of shit in this entire academy!" Sneered the guy in the green mohawk while hopelessly trying to flirt with a very, very irritated Blake, he tried to playfully poke her black bow only for his hand to be rewarded with a swift slap of the girl. "Jeez calm down girl! I was just playing with you?"

"How about you go play with yourself!" Harshly remarked the amber-eyed girl wondering if she needed to spill her tea on him so he can buzz off.

"Easy now Russel!" Tamed down the leader of his team before switching his superior gaze toward the strange quiet boy sitting with team RWBY and finishing his breakfast in a rather unconcerned manner about the events happening around him, like he feels too superior to cater to the likes of Cardin and his band which made the tall bully profoundly insulted.

"Hey, you! Aren't you the one who looked like he was going to crap his pants when Ozpin called him on stage?"

Yoshikage nearly choked on his coffee at his mention as he realized that all his hopes of ending his breakfast unbothered went down the gutter, the four bullies all turned their mischievous chuckles at the poor boy. "Yeah, I fucking remember that! How much of a social outcast you have to be to end the test with no teammate to partner with?!" Followed Russel approaching Yoshikage.

The young blond's eyes started to glow in a deep purple as his right hand slowly reached to the butter knife next to him, only to be obstructed by both Yang and Nora standing in front of Russel. "Hey! How about you guys stay away from our friend here?!" Threatened the blonde with a defensive stance and a mean frown.

"Yeah! Take a hike or we'll break your legs!" Jumped the orange-haired girl clenching both her fists in front of her, the two girls' menaces were taken very lightly by the group but fortunately seemed to scatter them off.

"Yeah, whatever! Come on guys let's get the hell out of here… see you all at this afternoons' battle practice!"

"Yeah get the heck out of her you moro-" Ren's hand swiftly covered Nora's mouth before she could attract their attention and brought her down to her seat, in the meantime, Pyrrha turned toward Jaune and gave him a very worried glance.

"Where do you know these guys? They're bad news!"

"Ah don't say that!" Mumbled the blond boy with a naïve smirk. "They're just joking around, rough humor that's all!"

"I'm not calling that humor!" Argued Yang with a stern glare unusual for her cheerful traits before switching her gaze to Yoshikage and resting a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, don't let yourself pushed around by these guys! We'll be here for you!"

Yoshikage replied to Yang's consolations with no change of emotions. "Thanks, but it's alright, I can take care of myself…" He rested the knife in his hand, glad that he didn't have to shove it on someone's throat, but how long will it last before these four thugs strike again?

Yoshikage bit his lower lips, concluding that even in a place like this he will have to make some enemies in the long run. If this goes into too extreme lengths, then he will have no other choice but to dispose of them.

Weiss finally reappeared at the sparring practice, but she didn't give a slight glance at her classmate and neither less at Ruby who just looked at the white-haired girl with worry and sadness amassed in her chest, the heiress simply sat in a corner of the arena and focused on Ms. Goodwitch explaining the premise of the dueling practice.

"Each opponent has a 'health bar' connected to their Aura, if one student's bar reaches red, the student must be declared loser. All techniques are permitted besides those that could endanger the student himself or any of the crowd, and I need to warn you once again that you have to be very aware of your surroundings, we cannot afford to rebuild the amphitheater each time somebody let himself go, especially you Miss Valkyrie."

And so, the duels started, most of them were low to barely average in Yoshikage's opinion, the only a few people who caught his interest was Pyrrha and probably Yang, even Ruby proved to master her Crescent Rose like second nature, she did say that she built it by himself though.

To be honest, he was quite surprised to see this high level of fighting for first graders, but after spectating Jaune's pitiful fight, his high hopes immediately crumbled to near zero.

"Alright…" Spoke the blonde teacher as she looked down at her Scroll tablet to see the next contenders. "Russel Thrush from team CRDL and… Yoshikage Kira from team… or to be more precise, in partnership with team RWBY…"

Yoshikage suddenly woke up from his daze at the mention of his name, he looked at the teacher to make sure he was the one who was called before Yang gave him a punch to the elbow and cheered. "Come on, don't be afraid! You can do it!"

Yoshikage replied to her with an annoyed frown while rubbing his elbow before finally standing up and heading to the fighting area, under the cheers of his classmates more eager to see him in action than the boy himself.

"Come on Yoshikage!"

"Show him what you've got!"

"Break his legs!"

"You got quite the cult following here pal, surprising for a social freak like you." Commented Russel while juggling with his daggers and looking at his opponent with a vicious smirk on his lips, the blond didn't reply to the thug's taunts besides a cold glare while wearing his leather gloves.

"Hey teach!" Interpellated the mohawk boy pointing a finger at Yoshikage. "Fancy pants over there doesn't have any weapons with him, what's the deal?"

"I forgot to mention that Mr. Kira decided to fight unarmed for this training session…" Simply replied the teacher while lifting her glasses. "Unconventional way for a Huntsman to fight, but if he thinks he has the ability to do so, then all rights to him." Her surprising response was met with several small whispers from the surprised audience.

"Is he seriously going to fight without any weapons?"

"I heard that he used a knife at the initiation exam, but this is just ridiculous!"

"Oh okay…" The thug hid a small chuckle between his daggers before openly mocking the blond's fighting strategy. "I don't care if you want to play Kungfu Shaolin now, but don't expect me to hold back my blades from gutting you like a filthy pork!"

"Ah yes, about that Mr. Thrush, Mr. Kira doesn't have-"

"I'm not expecting it…" Bluntly replied the blond boy while cracking his knuckle in the most sinister way, similar to how a street gangster cracks his knuckles to beat some poor guy into a bloody pulp. "The only thing I'm using is those gloves so that putrid blood of yours doesn't stain my hands…"

"Yeah, Yoshikage! Don't let him scare ya like that!" Eagerly cheered Ruby with no response from the blond but instead from the mohawk boy popping a vein in irritation. "Yeah, let's see where that pretentious glare of yours will be when I turn that pretty face of yours into a spiderweb!"

The teacher was initially hesitant to start the battle but finally did so, at the ring bell, Russel immediately stood forward and sprinted at the blond, daggers raised on a level to stab him right in the waist and pan him the ground like what a Beowulf would do.

Yoshikage just simply looked at him approaching for a precise distance before launching in a fraction of a second a violent front kick directed to his opponent's right knee, making his opponent's leg suddenly straightening up and stopping him dead track.

"Whateuh?" Before the boy could even react, Yoshikage swiftly gave him a sharp slap to the side of his neck, urging him to stagger back due to the immense pain erupting from it. "Agh! Fuck!"

"Mr. Thrush, I urge you to refrain using any profanities during the battle." Sternly scolded the teacher while looking quite unfazed at the event that just happened in front of her, unlike the audience who gasped in astonishment at Kira's surprising attack.

"A front kick to the knee to stop him right in his track, followed by a fulgurant hit to the neck so he can destabilize him…" Explained Yang with an intensely impressed smirk on her lips, as an expert in hand to hand combats, the girl simply cannot praise the blond enough for his incredible technique.

"Still, that hit to the knee could be very dangerous since it could easily shatter somebody's leg if he doesn't have an Aura…" Commented Pyrrha wincing in worry, Jaune looked at her a tad confused by her concern and added. "Pyrrha, we shoot each other with guns, and still, Yoshikage doesn't seem like to do much damage to the guy…"

The group looked at the display monitor on top of the arena, showing that Russel's health bar barely receded by a few pixels despite the apparent pain he was feeling, then how the hell can he hurt him like that?

"Acupunctures." Blake's composed voice made all her friend's eyes look at her, her attentive gaze meticulously kept on Yoshikage's movements. "He's hitting weak points he knows would hurt his opponent, just a small touch is enough, even if you have an Aura."

"Yeah, you're right…" Followed Yang slightly surprised by Blake's sudden knowledge of such information even the blonde girl herself only has a few basic bits of knowledge in that. However, there was one thing that the black-haired girl grimly noticed and had gone over Yang and the other's head.

That hit to the neck, she learned it when she used to be with him, with enough force it can block your opponent's windpipes and choke him to death even if he had an Aura, it's like a kill switch on the human's body, something that only somebody ready to take lives should know.

Blake's eyebrows unsympathetically frowned, Yoshikage is pulling his punches, that's obvious, why would he kill the guy? But where the hell did he learned that horrifyingly lethal move?

Lethal moves or not, Ruby cannot help herself but praise her friend's endeavor as her eyes sparkled in amazement. "Good job! Yoshikage!"

Kira's left eyebrow twitched for a moment but quickly came back to its original state, while he had to admit that the silver-eyed girl's screams started to irk him, he couldn't allow himself to be distracted by it. Russel finally recovered from the hit and turned at the blond boy with intense rage in his eyes. "Bastard! You're done!" He then flicked his right dagger forward trying to slash open the boy's torso.

"Yoshikage watch out! He's reaching to your torso! Try to block him with your hand or something!"

Ignoring Ruby's useless advice, Yoshikage didn't find any difficulties in giving a right hook to the inside of his elbow bending it and completely nullifying his attack just before following up with a one-inch punch delivered to his left shoulder.

"GYAH! FUCKER!"

"Mr. Trush!" Shouted the teacher frowning at the student's lack of manner but you can't blame him, an electrifying pain traveled all around his body while he held his numb shoulder, it felt like somebody jammed a taser in him or something.

Ruby didn't fully understand what Yoshikage just did, but she still clapped his wonderful attack. "Yaaay, that's right!" This time, her cheers were rewarded by the quick glare of the blond, begging her to stop.

Despite the seemingly ferocious hit, Russel's health bar barely moved since his Aura was protecting him from most of the physical damages, which garnered him the loud rants of his teammates. "Hey, Russ'! Stop being such a cry baby! He's barely doing you any damage!"

"Yeah well, how about you fucking fight him next time?! He fucking hurts like hell!"

"Mr. Trush. This is you're last warning, if you cannot keep your manners, I will have to speak to you after class."

Russel looked with worry at Ms. Goodwitch's severe glare but decided to ignore her, the rage building up inside of him was too intense to keep his posture right. "Fun time's over! Let's see how you'll deal with this!" He tapped the handles of his daggers at each other, and in a haze of sparks, pulled out a long metal chain connecting the two blades suddenly materializing into two blunt objects and turning the weapon into a pair of meteor hammers.

Yoshikage's traits tensed at the dual chained metal clubs twirling around the viciously smirking boy, both Yang, and Pyrrha made the same expression as their hand-to-hand combat expertise taught them that Russel's weapon was a complete counter to Yoshikage's fists.

Russel viciously licked his lips and approached the blond with his dual hammers, Kira had no other choices but to take a step back to avoid getting inside his range and get hit, he couldn't even grab one of the blunt objects without leaving himself exposed to the other one.

His concentration was at full gear, if he left his eyes away from those meteor hammers for one sec it will be over for him.

Unfortunately for him, his right ear gradually started ringing from the constant shrilling yelps of his excessively excited leader, spewing mindless tactics only solidifying the fact that she knows jack shit about martial arts.

"Shut the fuck up! Damn!" Yoshikage genuinely wanted to scream these words from the top of his lungs, but he had to constrain himself in giving a piercing glare to the girl, her frightened face turning even paler as if she stared at a Beowulf.

Unfortunately, that mere second of distraction proved to be disastrous for the boy as a meteor hammer suddenly smashed his left cheek, his head violently jerked to the side while a spurt of blood leaked from both his mouth and nose.

"Ah crap! What just happened?!" Cried out Ruby in panic, only for a female voice coming from the back of the amphitheater to reply. "That's what happens when you keep blabbering like a child!" The silver-eyed girl knew that it was Weiss' irritated voice, but she simply couldn't find where it came from.

Weiss looked with worry at Yoshikage's bruised cheek, his busted up lower lip and bloody nose, she was even more distressed when she saw his health bar losing half of its length and turning into yellow, normally a hit like that shouldn't be this affecting but maybe his Aura isn't that powerful enough and it was his body who took most of the damage instead.

The heiress didn't know why but she was genuinely appalled by her teammate's situation, she covered her mouth with her hands and started silently praying for his wellness.

Yoshikage barely had time to recover from the last hit that he started to feel the chains of the mohawk boy's weapon suddenly wrap around his leg before being violently pulled forward and making him fall on the back of his head. While the impact fortunately didn't wound his skull even more, the pain still left an injured hiss pass through his clenched teeth and forced him to wrap his arms around his head.

In the meantime, Russel, with a predatory grin carved on his snake-like face, started wrapping the blond with his chains, like a cowboy, would wrap a pig with his rope to immobilize it, or more fitting with the bully's demeanor, like a snake would wrap itself around its prey to suffocate her.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" Shouted Yoshikage still having the audacity to give his opponent his usual unfazed cold glare despite the flow of blood coming from his nose turning the front of his girt teeth to bright red, also for some reason, Ms. Goodwitch didn't scold the boy for his slipup, maybe because she was too absorbed into the fight to even notice.

Despite both his arms and legs being clenched around his body, Kira still managed to stand on both his feet by using his weight, fortunately only his upper-body was enchained, meaning he could stand straight on his legs without any difficulties.

"Ha! You'll see!" Russel declared while yanking Yoshikage forward using his chains to get him closer, just before his Aura began glowing in an orange color and a thick smoke began flowing in between his reddening fingers.

The chains periodically started taking a volcanic orange while the blond started noticing that the temperature around him began to increase, it was until he realized that this heat was coming from the chains around him that he horrifyingly understood his opponent's true power, the sense of panic written on Yoshikage's face informed Russel that he knew what was happening, causing a devious smirk stretch around his serpentine jaw.

"So, you finally noticed my Semblance's power? Heat! With my hands, I can generate heat through any kind of conduits, like my metal chains for example! I'll fucking cook you alive!"

The high temperature began melting the chains and burning the blond's skin, he tried his best to sustain the pain scorching his torso and arms was simply too much to handle, causing an agonizing yelp to escape from his mouth and his cold steady demeanor breaking down to a whimpering

The cries of pain coming from their friend urged team RWBY and JNRP to cover their mouth and watch the event unfold with shocking silence, horrifyingly enough, nobody realized that those cries were of genuine pain, there was no Aura to protect him from the chains fusing with his flesh and digging deep inside of it like butter until he gets sliced open by them, that is if the heat alone didn't already kill him.

They were looking at person slowly getting killed and nobody knew about it, maybe beside Ms. Goodwitch who instead of stopping the fight decided to let it last just a little longer for some reason despite the constant red blinking on her Scroll tablet warning her of the boy's critical condition. She wanted to see something with her own eyes first.

The amphitheater was dead silent, only Yoshikage's screams of agony, Russel's hysterical laughter and his teammates' cheers reverbed on the room's tall walls.

"Now where's that smugness of yours huh? I hope ya don't mind I get a bit closer; I really want to see that whimp face of yours-"

However, he definitely didn't expect the flicker of a pinkish arm coming out of the blond's shoulder, even less when said arm violently dug its fist deep inside his stupid mug and squashed his nose like a pancake, before retracting back inside Yoshikage's shoulder at the same incredible speed it came out and leaving behind it a trail of blood and busted teeth leaking from the bully's disfigured face.

For the other spectators, the only thing they saw was the seemingly instant transition of the boy's face from a shit-eating grin to a smashed-up face with the shape of a fist drawn on it, causing many of the viewers to gasp in surprise at the sudden event.

The boy staggered a couple steps back from his opponent while holding his bloodied face and wondering if he was hallucinating that ghostly arm coming out of Yoshikage and punching the lights out of him, a punch so powerful that it broke through his Aura and directly dealt physical damages to his face.

Russel tried to find any other hypothesis, it can't be one of his arms since they were both restrained so it has to be one of his legs, but the boy knew how to differentiate between a punch and a kick thanks to his 'friendship' with Cardin and that hit was definitely a punch.

Then what could it be? The pain and wounds were here, but the cause of it all was simply unconceivable, is this guy… haunted or something?

His thoughts soon shifted toward the taste of strange metal object suddenly appearing inside his mouth, he spat the object out and looked down with confusion at the golden coin between his fingers.

One side of the coin had an image of a person with a shield emblazoned with a cross surrounded by two olive leaves while the other side had a lion standing in front of a shield emblazoned with some kind of sun as beams of the sunshine emanated from behind it, but one thing both sides shared was the small phrase engraved down the coin.

"Ex Unitae Vires"

What language is this? Could it be some kind of family crest or something like that?

Russel's eyes slowly lifted toward the blond to ask him about what this thing could be, but before he could even utter a single word, his traits were petrified by the sight of terror his eyes laid upon. Despite the pain slowly scorching his body, Yoshikage had an expression that didn't showcase a single sign of agony but neither he had that composed cold glare he is so famous for.

Unbeknownst to the mohawk boy, his taunts and annoying fighting style successfully got under the blond's skin, a feat that very few had the competence to achieve, however, his reward wasn't that pleasing as he was the first individual to discover an expression never seen on Yoshikage's face since the beginning of this fiction. Anger.

"DIE."

Those were the only words that came out of the blond's mouth, seconds before the fingers Russel used to hold the coin began to crack as small explosions began erupting from them like lava, slowly the cracks ran down his arm and over his shoulder until it reached his left eye and split it in two, during that the blasts only increased in intensity until his entire body was engulfed in a giant ball of flame shaking the entire amphitheater.

The power of the shockwave was so powerful that it made even the tall ceiling drop some bits of dust and the blonde teacher slightly projected her forward and inadvertently drop her Scroll tablet, even she completely underestimated the power of the boy's explosion.

The smoke finally discarded, showing Russel seemingly alive and without any cracks all over his body, he was completely tainted in coal black and his hair reduced to ash. The boy kept stumbling around just before he dropped the coin in his hand and collapsed soon after, his health bar took some time to process the damages before it suddenly turned from green to red than basically nothing.

The amphitheater plunged in a weird silence, the students didn't know if they should cheer or be scared by what the boy just showed them, the three other members of team CRDL simply held their heads in shock at what just happened to their teammate while both team RWBY and team JNPR stood wide agape at the devastating strength of the boy's explosions, before finally starting to clap and cheer for their friend's victory.

Soon followed by the remaining audience, surprisingly enough, the only person not clapping was Ruby who just stayed on her seat silent and somewhat depressed despite her teammate's victory.

Yoshikage on the other hand didn't react to all the praises and simply asked the teacher if he could leave so he can get changed and tend his wounds, she obviously accepted with a nod before tapping on her Scroll to discard the health bars and end the fight.

In his way, his eyes merely caught with those of Weiss standing up and clapping with rest of the audience, she suddenly staggered after she realized that he was looking at, just after a brief moment passed before she looked back at him and gave him a congratulatory nod, Yoshikage simply smirked and nodded before he finally headed to the amphitheater exit.

"Holy cow! I never thought Yoshikage would recover from that!" Exclaimed Yang happy to see her teammate win the fight despite the perils that he encountered.

The medical staff soon appeared to pick up Russel's unconscious body under the unconcerned look of Ms. Goodwitch who simply adjusted her glasses and officially announced the end of the fight, she made a quick debrief on the fight praising Yoshikage's endeavor and savoir-faire in dealing in a very dangerous situation, proceeded to call the next fighters.

"Well, this shirt's gone…"

Yoshikage looked nauseatingly at the burn marks and holes covering his blue shirt and simply threw it away to the bin, the leather gloves were gone too. He looked down at his naked torso, miraculously enough the chains only left some first degree burns that would heal over time, he then adjusted the pieces of cotton in his nose to make them feel less itching but he was more used to them than another crispy fella with a broken nose as well.

That's where he remembered the event of earlier, the burst of rage that came from his chest… if he pushed just a little bit in that bomb, he would definitely have killed that guy, and let's see how you gonna pull yourself out of that.

He was pretty sure that he never had any murderous urges or that they became very mild ones, but when he is in a fight, he can build up such a fierce brutality, an animosity comparable to the creatures of Grimm, this never was something he thought that he needed to control when he had the liberty to simply jump out of a window and escape as if nothing happened…

But now, if he wanted to stay in this school, he must master the beast inside of him … and also cut those goddamn nails holy shit when did they grow this long?!

The boy reached to his nail clippers and started cutting the nails of his fingers until the sound of the door opening behind him caught his attention.

"Hey Yoshikage, do you mind a sec…"

The small little head of Ruby Rose slowly came out of the small opening of the door, just before staring at Yoshikage's naked bent back and jerking back in embarrassment. "Ow! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I should've knocked!"

"Yeah, you should have." Yoshikage dryly said while he was putting a white tank top. "You can come in now."

Ruby finally decided to enter the room, her blushing cheeks quite apparent on her pale visage, then closed the door behind her before looking around the blond's small bedroom and complimenting it. "Hey, quite a decent room you got there Yoshikage."

"Thanks." Dully replied Kira while sitting on his bed, before asking her with the most stoic frown ever. "But I don't think you came here to compliment my room, right?"

The silver-eyed girl startled a bit due to the boy's fierce accusations before finally looking down and admitting her true purpose. "Ye-Yeah, I just wanted to say that… I'm sorry for what happened this afternoon, I shouldn't have distracted you in mid-battle, y' know when there's a battle in front of me I can't help it but be all enthusiastic and…"

"That…" Yoshikage sighed through his nose while closing his eyes for a moment, trying to gather enough words to express his toughs but finally gave up. "It's… alright."

"Oh well, I never thought it would be that easy…" Ruby's cute face finally began radiating in relief before staring in confusion at the two purple irises severely digging in her soul completely immobile.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well-huh… Y'know how sometimes you make people feel uncomfortable with that really spooky glare…" The silver-eyed girl began sheepishly chuckling before realizing the threatening pair of hands approaching her pale visage with Yoshikage's sinister scowl hovering above them like a vindictive ghost. "Yeah, that glare."

Ruby swallowed her saliva and just gawked terrifyingly at the long fingers nearly brushing her petrified cheeks, they were cold, thin, and meticulously immobile, like they were owned by a fresh corpse, or a murderous psycho killer, the kind of sick killer who takes his victims' hands and turn them into their girlfriend or something.

The air felt heavy, unbreathable even, those vicious fingers simply prohibited the poor girl from even exhaling the air built in her lungs, and those freshly cut fingernails, this terrifying dark purple cloud radiating around these skeletal hands, those murderous eyes glowing in the shadow of an emotionless visage. She had to scream but couldn't, her mouth just stayed agape completely paralyzed, the horror freezing every nerve in her body from top to bottom.

Is he… going to kill her?

…

…

…

"Owowowow!"

"What did you say about me being frightening?" Sternly scolded the blond boy while pinching one of Ruby's cheeks and slowly stretching it, the pain intensely erupting urged the poor girl to wept out an apology with a few tears of pain rolling down her face. "Ouch! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-" Yoshikage finally released the pressure on the young huntress' cheek and rested his hands on his waist.

"Jeez! When did you turn into a male version of Yang?!" She cried out while rubbing her cheek with a bothered glare at him, still, despite how hard she frowned those eyebrows, that cute face will never be threatening not one bit.

"When you started annoying me in mid-battle!" Exclaimed the blond, he then pointed a sharp finger right at her nose and playfully threatened her. "And if you do that again, I'll pinch your other cheek! Maybe even both!"

"No please have mercy! This is starting to seriously becoming my weak points at this point!" Begged the silver-eyed girl while covering her face, her goofy nature took the blond by surprise as a slight chuckle accidentally burst out of his mouth.

Seeing the mild smile on Yoshikage's sharp face definitely warmed the huntress' heart, with the proud conviction that she made even a stone wall like Yoshikage slightly laugh, she decided to leave the boy alone and opened the door of the room just before she stood there for a second and turned toward him.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

Ruby looked down for a moment with a thoughtful expression before raising her head and giving him a glowing smile. "No, it's nothing, see you tomorrow Yoshikage."

And the door closed, Yoshikage stood silent wondering what the girl would want to tell him but just brushed it off, he then closed the curtain as he saw that the sun had set during their discussion and crashed to his bed.

"Well, that was pretty strange…" He muttered while looking at the hand he pinched the girl's cheek with, he simply didn't know what made him do that, he knew far well than anybody that he never was the joking type and here he is playing with her like she was a long-time acquaintance or something.

But then it felt nice, it felt good, it felt… fun. This sharp and sudden surge of happiness erupting from his chest was something he never felt, is this really how it feels to laugh and make jokes with… friends?

…

Ruby Rose, a very peculiar girl with a heart as gold as her sister's hair, and while he had to agree with Weiss about her ecstatic demeanor and hot-bloodedness sometimes becoming a liability to both her teammates and herself, but when she came to his room and apologized for her blunder, the boy knew that she was caring towards her teammate and just took her role not only as the leader of her team but also as a future Huntsman very seriously in comparison to the people in her age, maybe that's why Ozpin found some leadership material in her that Yoshikage didn't see in the spot. And to be frank, the boy genuinely admired her for that, maybe if he stuck around with her he could learn a thing or two about dedication…

The janitor started to pass the broom around the fighting stage of the amphitheater, a clear annoyed frown on his face due to the messed-up state the student left it. "Goddamn brats and their weapons, can't they study something else? Like law or something?"

His grumbling thoughts were soon interrupted by a slight shining object on the floor, he crouched down to it and saw with shining eyes at the small gold coin. "Holy shit! Looks like somebody dropped a nickel down here, looks pretty weird, must somebody's family precious trinket, too bad it's mine now! I wonder how much this gonna cash out in a pawnshop…"

His shit-eating grin suddenly faded away at the hearing of a sharp 'clank' when his fingers made the slight contact with the coin, then nearly instantly, a bright explosion traveled from the tip of his fingers to the rest of his body in a matter of seconds, leaving behind him not even a pile of ash.

The explosion was eerily silent and the smoke immediately scattered away, the janitor's sole last token of existence was the broom simply falling to the ground