CHAPTER 33

RUBY ROSE POV

She cringed as she saw Yang being hit by another one of Jaune's shield bash.

Yang flew back and she could see the telltale signs of her Semblance being activated as her Hair started to glow and her eyes turned red.

Yang used the Recoil from firing Ember Celica to stop herself from being thrown out of the ring and jumped back into the fray, his fists cocked as she tried her best to take Jaune's head off.

Against someone else, it might have worked.

But over the past week, Pyrrha had been teaching him how to block attacks from a brawler like Yang.

And while Pyrrha might not be as good as Yang when it came to boxing, she definitely more than made up for it with her greater Strength and speed.

And with how quickly Jaune learned things, his defense had been improved to the point where going against him in a head on fight was almost pointless.

Problem was that while Yang was a skilled fighter, she mostly relied on frontal attacks and her greater strength to defeat her opponents.

Unfortunately, that wasn't going to work for her. Not when she was against Jaune.

Yang threw a Semblance charged fist at Jaune as she saw Jaune's feet skid back a foot before he managed to put a halt to Yang's attack.

It was the first time Yang had managed to push Jaune this far but once again, it was pointless.

So far in the fight, Yang had managed to find a way through Jaune's defense three times, punishing him with a barrage of attacks each time.

Except that with how immense Jaune's aura was, she was not even able to decrease his aura by 10% even once. And with how quickly Jaune recovered...

She looked at the screen and saw that Jaune was sitting at a comfortable 93% while Yang was at 56%, thanks to being hit twice by Jaune's sword (which had yet to be named) and his shield attacks.

Yang's Aura dipped another percent as she pushed her semblance, gaining another burst of speed and strength as she punched and kicked Jaune in a vain effort to break through his defense.

The fact that Yang had resorted to kicking Jaune's shield in order to get an advantage showed just how desperate she had become.

She held a sigh at her sister's predicament.

Yang really was a bad matchup for Jaune.

If Yang had her mobility or Weiss' versatility or even Pyrrha's unparalleled Skill then she might have been able to work around Jaune's defense and decrease his aura bit by bit over the course of what would've undoubtedly been a long fight.

But the only thing Yang excelled at was Strength, Speed, and her skills as a brawler. And Jaune countered all of them quite easily by simply putting his shield in front of himself.

Frankly, the fight was painful to watch. To see her sister get so desperate just to get through Jaune's shield and failing time and time again.

What was worse was the fact that Jaune was holding back.

He had not used his handgun or charged his Blade with Dust. If he did then the fight would become even more disadvantageous for her sister.

She didn't know if she should feel grateful for that or not.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Pyrrha give her a sympathetic smile.

She gave back a weak smile and then focused back at the Arena where Yang had disengaged from the fight once again, frustration clear to see in her eyes.

The bell denoting the end of the class rang a minute ago but Professor Glynda had yet to stop the match. She doubted that Jaune and Yang would stop even if she did.

"This is bullshit!" Yang said, loud enough for the entire class to hear.

"What?" Jaune asked, looking a bit confused at Yang's sudden declaration.

"I said that this is bullshit. You've not attacked me a single time since the start of this fight." Yang said. And while her words weren't strictly true, she could see where Yang was coming from.

After all, Jaune's main strategy during a fight is usually to defend against his opponents until he's able to find an opportunity to attack and then use his heavy sword to take a chunk out of their aura. And then he went back to his Ironclad defense until his opponent either tired himself/herself out or made another mistake that he could take advantage of.

Jaune shrugged "It's just how I fight."

"Yes. That's 'exactly' how you fight. And I'm not going to fight your way anymore!" Yang declared. "So you either come at me or I'll stay here and wait until this fight ends in a draw from time out. But I'm not going to attack you anymore."

Ohhh… this was interesting.

Jaune looked a little surprised by Yang's declarations and then he hesitated a moment before raised his sword and started walking toward Yang.

Yang punched her fists and waited for him, the fire in her eyes reigniting with determination.

Jaune raised his sword and tried to hit Yang with an overhead strike.

She heard Pyrrha groan beside her and felt the urge to hide her face at her leader's attack.

It was just that bad.

There were so many openings in that one attack that she didn't even know where to begin.

To be fair to Jaune, the attack was not of a completely amateur level. In fact, one might believe that Jaune had been practicing swordplay for a few months at least. That meant a lot when he just started learning how to fight a mere month ago.

But… it was still bad. And full of openings.

Something that Yang immediately took advantage of by punching Jaune's side abdomen with such force that he was lifted from the ground and thrown to the other side of the ring.

But instead of following that attack with another one, Yang stayed in her position and waited.

She glanced up at the screen and saw that Jaune's aura had dipped down from 93% to 91%. Oh never mind, it up to 92% again.

Yup! This was definitely going to be a long fight.