Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY.

Road to the End Volume 2

By: athrunzala

01: Yang 2.0

While Yang remained asleep over the next two days, Blake spent her days in the mansion's weapons laboratory, which was buried below the training room. Of course, Ruby was in there as well, having made a few modifications to Crescent Rose herself, the scythe not becoming any smaller, but gaining the ability to fire in a tri-burst at the flick of a switch, a feature that Weiss had questioned at first, but was reassured that it was a necessary change that had to happen for her to be more effective in the field'.

"1/4."

The cat Faunus was buried in her work, not noticing the outside world for the most part. But she had a truth she was hiding from the younger huntress. She was using this to distract herself.

"1/4!"

"Thanks, Ruby."

"No problem! Oooooo! What can it do?"

Blake rolled her eyes at the inquiry. She had almost forgotten that Ruby was a weapon fanatic. It was nice to have her for company, but she had a question of her own, and she figured that now was better than never to ask it.

"Ruby, I'll be honest, it doesn't really function too differently from my old one. I had the base firearm made thanks to the General, but I wanted a blade again as well."

"Ooo. Simple. Nice."

"I have something to ask you as well," she admitted, her face turning a slight shade of red.

"What's up, Blake?"

"It... It's about Yang."

Ruby's expression changed slightly. She was starting to become protective of her older sister, so the inquiry was a little strange, especially coming from somebody who knew her almost as well as she did.

"What about her?"

"You wouldn't... happen to know... how she..."

"How she what?"

"Does she hate me? She was smiling in Patch, but I'm not sure if that was a front."

Ruby had to think for a moment. She had left Patch again not long after coming home, but that didn't mean that she hadn't sent Yang messages, or hadn't heard her in the night.

~Previous Winter~

The snow was starting to fall, the white flakes coming silently down, their descent illuminated by the shattered moon. Normally, Ruby would have been sound asleep, the falling crystals completely missed by the teen. Tonight, however, was different. She was wide awake. Partially because of the sounds coming from the next room.

It had started with a loud thud that had woken her up, followed by a second one moments later. She knew the sound of the closets in the house opening and closing like the back of her hand. It was as if she had never left when she woke up in her bed almost an entire month after the Battle of Beacon.

She was tempted to get out of bed, and go check on the occupant. She knew Yang was in there. That was one thing that she knew all too well, as the completely made and folded bed next to hers was still devoid of the young woman's presence. This served to make the room seem emptier, as she had gotten used to sharing a room with the blonde and their team mates at Beacon.

It was when she heard the crying, and no footsteps answered it, that she left the warmth of her bed to head to the hall and stand outside the door. As she stood there, she couldn't help but feel for her sister. She knew that the older girl was trying to be strong, to put up a front, and wished that she would just let it down every now and again, just to let somebody in. Somebody other than her.

"Blake... Why did you run? Why would you do what you said you'd never do?"

The blonde's voice was wavering heavily, and the younger girl in the hall could tell that she was on the verge of a breakdown, but also figured that it was better to let her cry it out than attempt to intervene, as her last attempt at helping had been so solidly rebuffed.

As she turned back to her bedroom, a soft voice came from the room, but she couldn't decipher it, so she left it alone and returned to her bed, where she spent the rest of the night lying on her side, staring at the empty bed next to hers.

~Present time~

"I don't think she does, Blake. She just... She just needed answers. She kept mumbling something else, and all we could make out of that was your name, so we just left it as her repeating her questions, only quieter."

The raven-haired woman looked at the floor, her amber eyes downturned and showing sadness.

"But, she probably got over it all after you told her why, right?"

"She... She seemed to.. but I just..." she turned towards the door as it opened. "Is she...?"

"Awake? Yeah."

"Awe yeah! She's back in the game! I wanna go..."

"Sorry, kiddo," Qrow said, catching his younger niece at the waist, "She asked me to get Blake. No offense, but I think she has... other things to talk about."

"Uncle Qrow, if you are saying what I think you're saying, then you don't know Yang like you think you do."

"Kiddo, trust me. She wants to talk to kitty here," the older scythe user said, amending it to include, "No offense intended," as the Faunus narrowed her eyes at him, her eyebrow twitching slightly.

"Only Yang uses that phrase... Nobody else. Got it, Qrow?"

"Alright. Alright. I got it," he said, raising his hands to cover himself, lowering them only once he was certain that Blake was well past his location and on her way to where Yang was lying in bed.

In the recovery ward, Yang was looking over Ruby's handiwork. Sure enough, there were hallmarks of her enthusiasm to help her sister out there. The doctor had told her that it was capable of withstanding 3.5x the impact force of one of the rounds from Crescent Rose at point blank without losing structural integrity, which was shocking, given how light it was. They had even offered to put synthetic skin over it, but reminded her that it would be slightly expensive.

So she had decided against that, choosing, instead, to have the second chance at life that her younger sibling had made be on display for the world to see. While it wasn't in a color she would have liked, the younger girl had gone out of her way to design and make this so that she could fight again, so it meant more to her to not hide it. When the door handle jiggled slightly, she immediately hid the limb, wanting to surprise the person coming through.

"Yang?"

"Hiya, Blake!"

"You seem... awfully happy over this."

The blonde lifted her left hand, keeping her right limb hidden beneath the blanket, and motioned for her partner to come over. When the Faunus did, she was caught in an almost all encompassing hug that came from not one, but two limbs.

"Yang?"

"Thank you. Thank you for coming back... I... I really mean it."

This statement took the other female slightly by surprise. She hadn't expected to be thanked, much less hugged, by the blonde, after what had happened. And here she was, getting both.

"Yang I... I don't deserve this."

The blonde released her prisoner and patted the opposite side of the bed, as she had been placed in a normal sized one, as opposed to a simple hospital bed, something she was certain Weiss was behind. Not wanting to lose the moment, Blake took the hint and rounded the bed, where she joined her partner.

"You could have left once we got here. Gone to Vale. But you didn't. Or you never even come with Uncle Qrow to the house. But you did."

"But that was because Ruby..."

"Ap ap ap. I'm not finished. I had a feeling Ruby would do something like that. She is just like her mom, always thinking about other people before herself. But that's not the point. The point is that you came back when I really needed you."

"You do know I am liable to run again, right?"

"I know. I get that it's kinda... your... thing," the blonde said, making air quotes as she uttered thing, "But I want to believe that you'll give me another chance. Blake I... I really..."

The human's lilac eyes met the Faunus' own Amber gaze, where they stayed, locked, trapped in a battle, one which Blake ended.

"How do you like the arm?"

"Like it? I LOVE IT! I can fight again, Blake! I can do what I used to before he," she said, her voice laden with disdain for any reference to Adam, "did what he did."

"You know that they are going to want you to train with it before they release you, right?"

"Psh. Yeah. I know."

The two continued talking for hours, rekindling their friendship and bringing themselves back to where they were at before they lost their school.

Out in the hall, Winter smiled at Qrow.

"Pay up."

"Awe. Come on. That wasn't even remotely fair."

"You bet me 50 Lien that they would say three words. And those three were never said."

"Fine..."

He fished the payment out of his pocket, handing it over to his partner in crime as of late, making sure to pull her in as he did so.

"So... later tonight?"

"Maybe."