Red

Sapphire POV:

"Alright, Sapphire wins. Blake, your aura's in the red," I hear Ruby announce from the side of the arena.

With that, I run over to Blake and create a small fire in my hand to warm her up.

"Thanks," I hear her whisper to me.

"Don't worry about it, I did this to you anyway," I reply with the same level of a whisper.

I spent about a minute in peaceful silence just using the flame in my hand to warm up my shivering teammate, and it felt nice and gave me time to think.

Yang is a skilled fighter, but she is stunted by bad habits and anger issues. She takes hits she could normally dodge or block because her anger blinds her. Her semblance is powerful, but it has also likely kept her from learning. It rewards her berserker-like behavior with power, but this will someday put her in a bad position if it is not fixed.

Weiss has had extensive formal training, but her endurance sucks, and she is a bit stiff. Her semblance is versatile, but she seemed to stop using it when I disarmed her. I don't know if this is because she was too exhausted and distracted by her disarmament, or she simply can't use it without her weapon. I will have to ask her.

Blake is skilled and experienced, but she lacks proper defense. She relies too much on her semblance to take blows for her and is lacking in defensive techniques. Her first response to an attack is always to use her semblance, but once you grow used to her semblance, that serves to make her predictable.

Everyone has weaknesses, but such exploitable ones can not be allowed to stay. I will have to talk with Ruby after our match about weeding these weaknesses out.

Blake's voice breaks me out of my thoughts.

"Mmmh, warm," She says with sleepy eyes from the comforting warmth.

I let a humored smile come to my face. I don't know how she intends to hide her Faunus heritage if she acts so much like a cat, but it's cute, so I will tease her about it.

"Hmmm, That's good then, let's go, my little kitten, you can take a nap later," I reply with mirth in my voice.

She snaps out of her sleepiness with a heavy blush spread across her face, and she doesn't say a word before running off the platform. I don't follow her, as now I am going to face Ruby.

Ruby POV:

I watch Blake come off the stage with red visible on her cheeks, but I don't question it. I am too excited to fight Sapphire to pay attention to such things.

"Yang you'll be monitoring, here's the whistle, blow into it to start and end the match, ok, bye!" I quickly say, as I hand over my whistle to Yang and dash onto the platform.

I'm practically bursting with excitement as I unfold my Crescent Rose, which Sapphire noticed.

"Ruby, no offense, but the excitement on your face as you hold Crescent Rose, looks rather, well…." She speaks with a complicated tone of voice.

I know she is trying to tease me, but I pay it no heed. I also ignore Yang taking a picture with her scroll as she laughs to herself.

After Yang finishes entertaining herself, she finally brings the whistle to her mouth.

-Fweee!

With the whistle as the signal, I bring the blade of my scythe behind me and fire a dust round to launch me forward. I wait for the distance to close before flipping around and planting my scythe blade in the ground, and spin on it to deliver a dropkick to Sapphire's left side. Sse blocks it with her sword in a similar way to how she blocked yang's ax kick in their match, but I don't let up.

I once again fire my scythe, and I use the force from that to deliver a vertical slice to Sapphire. She avoids it by stepping back, but I continue to push. I deliver slash after slash at Sapphire and give her no room to make her move.

This advantage doesn't last forever though, as, when I try to deliver a hammer-like strike with the back of my scythe, she blocks it with her sword and kicks me in the chest. I am sent backward with Crescent Rose, and Sapphire pursues me. Before I hit the ground I spin around and plant the scythe blade into the ground and use that to spin around and kick at my pursuer.

Instead of blocking it like the first time though, Sapphire just sidesteps my kick and brings down an overhead chop to my side, and forces me to the ground.

Before she can pursue this opening I bring my scythe around and sweep her feet. She avoids this with a back handspring, but it gives me time to get on my feet again.

Sapphire once again rushes in, so I intercept her with a horizontal slash. She, however, dodges this by sliding underneath it.

I try to bring down Crescent Rose like a hammer again, but she kicks me in the gut. Once again sending me backward.

I use Crescent rose to right myself and land on the ground. I see Sapphire bring down her sword on my head. I immediately activate my semblance and leave the strike to only hit rose petals.

I change my strategy to more of a hit-and-run. I use my semblance to run in and send out a series of attacks, and, before Sapphire can retaliate, I retreat with my semblance, only to repeat the process.

This seems to work for a while, but she is holding out. I only manage minor damage to her aura, but I am not dissuaded. As long as I keep this up, I have a good chance of winning this.

Just as I think that Sapphire flares her silver aura, and is surrounded by purple lightning. I don't recognize this. She didn't do this during her initiation.

I grow cautious at Sapphire's actions and hold off on attacking, but it doesn't take long to see what she is up to.

Suddenly, Sapphire disappeared from her location and appeared in front of me. I notice lightning occasionally arcing across her body, but it is controlled and stays within the bounds of her person. It gives an almost ethereal purple glow to her, but my admiration is cut short.

She slashes at me with her sword, and I am forced to block awkwardly with the shaft of my weapon. This allows Sapphire to grab the handle. She then kicks me and disarms me in an all too similar way to Weiss.

As I land on the ground I see her set Crescent Rose down and walk toward me. I am not going to win in a fistfight, so I need my weapon back.

I wait for her to get a little further away from Crescent Rose, before ramping up my semblance and ruching toward it. Sapphire seems to have predicted this, however, as of right when I reach for Crescent Rose, A sword comes flying my way, forcing me to dodge away without grabbing it. She had thrown her sword at me.

I try to get up and try again, but an unarmed Sapphire comes in front of me before I reach my feet. At this point, I know things are looking really bad. I barely know anything about unarmed fighting, and I doubt Sapphire is in the same boat.

It seems I was right in that, as, as soon as Sapphire gets close enough, she throws out a powerful punch to my stomach. I dodge this by a hair, but it was sloppy, and sapphire takes advantage and sweeps my legs out from under me.

I try to get up, but I am met with a roundhouse kick to the head and am forced down again. I try to sweep her legs, but she remains steadfast and kicks me again.

-FWEEEEEEEE!!

I hear the Whistle even though I know that I am still not in the red, but with Yang's personality, I can guess why she called the match.

"That's enough! Ruby lost, there's no point in continuing to beat her up," Yang yells from the side.

I let my muscles relax, and I lay there on the ground. I catch my breath, but before I can get up, a hand comes into my vision.

"You okay?" I hear Sapphire's voice ask with concern.

"I'm fine, no need for worry," I reassure as I grabbed her hand.

"Good, I need to talk to you and the rest of the team, but we should probably talk back in the dorm" I hear in reply as she stands me up.

"Alright, we can talk after teamwork practice," I tell her.

She nods and lets go of my hand, but I wasn't quite stable on my feet yet. I grabbed the closest thing to me to keep myself from falling, and that happened to be Sapphire. I immediately regret that as she turns her head to me with almost palpable mirth in her atmosphere.

"Now, now, Little Light, I know you want to hold me, but people are staring," She says with fake regret, poorly hiding her teasing intentions.

I feel my face go red, and I push myself away. I look around to see Yang with a teasing smirk on her face and her scroll in her hand.

"Well, well, well, what a wonderful photo. I might just have to send this to dad to get it printed and framed," Yang said with an increasingly evil smile.

"Don't you dare!" I say.

All she does is laugh in reply, and Blake, Weiss, and Sapphire are not any better.

That's it, I will make the rest of today's training hell. I will make them regret teasing me if it's the last thing I do!