"The right one is for you. The left is your mother's."
"Got it."
Two plates balanced in my hands, I headed over to the dining table, Raven's covered plate placed in her usual spot. I didn't bother with the table myself, heading over to our living room area and dropping down to a cross legged sit between the front of the couch and the coffee table, TV and console turned on.
Surprisingly, dedicated game consoles weren't all that popular across Remnant, the form of entertainment mostly regulated to an on the go pastime that functioned on every scroll on the market. Naturally, as a niche luxury item, they were especially expensive, but given it was one of the few things I asked for, Tai bought without any complaint.
While I split my attention between eating breakfast and gaming, Raven came inside at some point, she and Tai at the table, talking. Me, recent missions, Signal, more hushed conversations I couldn't pick up on. They talked about plenty, Raven clearly disinterested at times, but still engaging. Arguments aside, something that'd been at all time high near the start of my training, they got along just fine, no different than what would be expected for a couple.
It was nice to see them back at their norm or at least settling into this new norm that'd taken form over the past month.
"Keys…scroll…and…have either of you seen-"
"Over here, dad." I called out, reaching beneath the coffee table and holding up the light brown satchel he always took to work. Tai, all done with his own plate, came over, ruffling my hair as he took it by the strap, slinging it over his chest.
"Thanks, buddy. I'll see you when I get back."
"Have fun at work."
"That's always the hope." He said with a faint chuckle, letting my hair be, plenty of the dark mess now blocking my vision. I blew it out of the way as he moved on. I really should ask for a haircut or something. I'd never had to deal with hair that grew out this much so everything that came with it was a first for me.
After grabbing a few more things and another goodbye, Tai set out, headed to the center of the island to catch an early airship to Vale. Ah, work commutes. Another benefit of being a child was not having to deal with anything remotely similar. Sure, Raven technically dictated my schedule now that she was training me, but I more or less did whatever I wanted outside of that, most of that time my own.
I shuffled a little closer to the table, Raven taking a seat on the couch directly behind me.
Usually my own anyways. It was rare, but from time to time she stuck around to watch over me. Another change that slowly cemented over the past month. It'd been a bit unsettling at first, even after my conclusion that she meant well, but I'd gotten used to it.
My bangs were suddenly swept aside, Raven pulling back parts of my hair. "Has Summer taught you to tie this?" As if. She liked to mess around with my hair, the styles she pulled it into growing weirder as it grew longer, but she barely knew more than me about dealing with longer hair. More than once, she'd complained about Raven never letting her touch hers.
"No." I answered. Besides, if my hair was going to end up more like hers than Tai's, shouldn't she-
"Pay attention then." Remote grabbed from the table, she turned off the TV before I could even pause the game, our reflections now spread across the black screen. She gathered up my loose hair, pulling it back high before tying it around itself and creating a short ponytail. "Got it?"
Of course she didn't bother with clear directions or giving me a second to comprehend the motherly attention.
"Maybe?" I mean how hard could it be to tie some hair up if I really needed to?
She didn't leave things there, forcing us to swap spots, her way too long hair if you asked me, spread across my legs. "What are you waiting for? Show me."
Screw it, weird as this was coming from her of all people, might as well roll with it.
Compliments were a rarity from her and when it came to physical affection, shoulders pats were the farthest she went if she decided to show any. Defensive as she was about her hair, Summer cursed at during any of her sly attempts to get at it, I never would've though this woman would let anyone touch it.
She was really leaning into the mother role in her own way and pace.
I tried to replicated what she did, but she had far more hair than me. The result was a ponytail that was somehow messier than when she left it to flow freely in the mornings.
"Again." She ordered.
Doing hair wasn't exactly how I expected to spend my downtime before we started our usual practice battles, but I guess it wasn't the worst thing I could be doing.
Eventually, after one final messy attempt that she must've deemed passable, Raven stood up. "Keep it tied up during training." She said before stepping away, headed towards the stairs.
I guess she must've noticed the strands starting to get in my way.
I slid back down in front of the coffee table, eyes dropping to my plate. My now completely emptied plate.
"Did you just eat all my food?" I called out. She said nothing but I could've sworn I caught a quiet chuckle as she headed up the stairs.
XOXO
"I'm Summer Rose! The Silver Reaper!" Summer cheerfully exclaimed. How cringey. "Come on, Tally. That's your cue." She whispered.
I sighed. This was quite possibly the stupidest thing I've used my Sharingan for so far and I've used it for some very stupid things just to test what I could and couldn't do.
"I'm Talon Xiao Long! The Crimson Reaper!" I exclaimed, matching her energy as I jumped from around the corner. With the help of my Sharingan, I perfectly stuck the landing on the chair Summer had set up beside the one she was on, my foot balanced along the front of its seat and the other between the bars of its wooden back.
"And together, we're the eyes of justice!" We exclaimed together. "No evil shall escape our sight!"
I've said a lot of things throughout the years. That single handedly grasped and ran away with the title of cringest.
"Perfect." Summer dropped her fists from her hips, chair clattering slightly as she leaped off it, grabbing the scroll she'd set up to record us. "Awww, you're so cute." Summer was back beside me in instant and I found myself on the end of dozens of flashes from her scroll, some of which she joined me under, our cheeks pressed together as she took pictures.
Summer was always quick to dote over me and take pictures. That went double today. I couldn't blame her, the reason drawing a similar grin to my face.
A dark red cloak, almost exactly like hers, was wrapped around my body. Instead of the metallic rose emblem that secured her cloak at the neck, a black tomoe kept mine secured, and while the entirety of hers bared no design, mine had a giant rose emblazoned at the center of the back.
Apparently, she'd had the whole thing tailor made for me. A delayed gift to celebrate my semblance.
"When you get older, we're going to be coolest huntsman and huntress duo ever." Summer said as she pulled away, swiping through the mountain of pictures she'd just taken. "Grimm might just run away in fear."
I couldn't argue with that. If I wasn't a child, I probably could look pretty threatening in this thing. Throw on the hood and have my eyes glow from within the shadow it cast? That sounded pretty badass to me.
If it weren't for Salem and all the other shit involved with her, I might've just made it my goal to aura farm anywhere and everywhere with them but in the future I'd be keeping them concealed. Didn't want to make my eyes a target if I didn't have to.
"Oh, crap baskets. We're going to be late." Summer muttered. She placed her scroll down and handed over the bar of chocolate she'd promised for going along with that stupid video. "Wait a sec while I grab some stuff."
I did exactly what she said taking a seat on the chair I'd been balancing on as I undid the bar's wrapper while she zipped across the room. Summer called a rather modest apartment home. It was barely more than a single room but was easily bigger than any apartment I ever stayed in.
Near the entrance to the place was the living room area, a flat screen installed on the wall alongside an entire entertainment set and couch. In the center was her large unmade bed, end tables on both sides. Then there was the kitchen area where I was, several chairs set up along an island separating the rest of the room from all the usual appliances one would expect. Other than that, there was a hall leading towards the bathroom and a closet.
It was a bit of a mess, some empty cans of sodas and an empty box of pizza along the kitchen island, some clothes littered across the ground, and various DVD cases out of place but it wasn't anything I wasn't used to. This place was sort of my weekend home.
From time to time, my parents would pawn me off to Summer who was always eager to take me, no doubt so they had time to do what parents did. As much I'd rather do without the image, it was good to know Yang was on track to being born despite my presence.
Her age would be about the only concrete thing I could use to stick events on a timeline. The show had never been exact when it came to anything before the main plot. Or even during it now that I thought about it. Baring big time skips the passage of time was always a bit ambiguous.
A problem for future me to deal with.
I deactivated my semblance as I watched Summer pull a black belt of pouches from one of the end tables beside her bed and clipping it around her waist as I ate my bar.
"Turn around Tally." Summer called out, glancing back towards me. I did as she said, shuffling filling the apartment, followed by clicks. I heard the clang of her weapons, but she thought better of bringing them, other, much more familiar sounds filling my ears. I had enough experience with firearms in my previous life to recognize when someone was checking and loading a gun.
I'd always been a believer in the saying that the cops were only around to clean up the bodies. Naturally I also followed one key piece of advice.
Stay strapped or get clapped. Even in a world without Grimm there were still monsters after all and you were your first line of defense.
"Alright, ready to go?" Summer asked. I turned back around, her cloak now fully wrapped around her body, handgun no doubt hidden somewhere beneath it. It was a little ironic how my own mother didn't at all care to hide where she put her weapons, but Sumer was real careful about me not knowing exactly where hers were.
Good to know she was also a follower of the stay strapped or get clapped mentality. Then again, it was likely a necessity with her eyes. Going anywhere without a weapon would be a risk for her.
"Yeah." I dropped out of the chair as she came over, taking her offered hand. If I didn't, I'd just end up being picked up.
We headed out, Summer leading the way to the door across from her apartment. It took several series of knocks and calls before it finally opened.
"Not so loud." Qrow groaned shirtless and a single squinting eye open. The room behind him was almost an exact mirror to Summer's except for the naked woman spread across his bed.
"Qrow." Summer whispered haughtily, a hand thrown in front of my eyes. "Come on, think about what you're teaching him."
"Uh, sorry." I heard a shift, Qrow closing most of his door. "What'd you need?"
"The movies? Remember?" I didn't need to see it to know the pointed look that Summer had aimed his way. This was hardly the first time she chided Qrow about something he did in front of me.
"Oh, right." Qrow groaned. "You two will be fine on your own, right?"
Summer sighed. "Yeah, we'll be fine. This one better not be crazy enough to do something that'll get you evicted."
"She's not…probably."
Another sigh left her before Summer led me down the long hall of the building, her hand falling away from my face. "Looks like it's just me and you."
"Then it's the first mission of the eyes of justice?" I asked, mostly to cheer her up more than anything else.
"Exactly. The Eyes of Justice don't need anyone else to have fun." She said with a grin, her annoyance quickly forgotten as we headed down several flights of stairs.
Beeps. Countless footsteps. Chattered. All sorts of sounds filled my senses as we stepped out into the streets of Vale. While the style of everything was a bit different, this place was a city through and through. The crowded sidewalks, bumper to bumper traffic, and constant stream of noise all things that I didn't miss while on Patch.
Thinking about it now, I was probably the country bumpkin equivalent to these people.
Despite my best effort to avoid it, Summer took me up into her arm as we merged with the crowd.
As much as I enjoyed these weekends with Summer, the short periods the closest thing to the ordinary childhood I once lived, I couldn't help but find Vale itself…suffocating.
Maybe it had less to do with the place itself and the people.
Driving to and from work. Hanging out with friends. Loitering around. There were so many people in the streets and from what I've read in books and on Remnant's internet equivalent, few, if any of them, knew how to use aura or even a weapon for that matter. Even if they had no idea about Salem, they were one wall away from countess monsters. And they chose to remain defenseless.
I didn't understand it.
As we stopped at a crosswalk, Summer's arm suddenly shot out, stopping an inattentive young boy from running across, a truck speed past them.
"Be careful." Summer warned, the shocked boy nodding rapidly before returning to the friends behind him. They spent nothing more than a few moments talking about what could've been a fatal accident before sharing laughter as they talked amongst themselves.
No, I understood them perfectly.
The walls protected them for so long that what were the chances that it'd be breached in their lifetime? There were already huntsmen to deal with the Grimm. Why bother torturing themselves over the monsters when they had plenty of people whose whole job was dealing with them?
Why give up the easy life?
I dealt with the temptation to live just like that every day since I found myself here. If I just ignored the Grimm and stayed behind the walls like everyone else, I might be able to live an even better life than the one I once had. This world had almost everything I was used to in a different form after all.
I could have it easy.
Until Salem came knocking anyways. Even then, maybe the main cast would win. RWBY hadn't been done by the time I reincarnated but surely the heroes would prevail in the end. I could just find somewhere to wait for that to happen.
"Tally?" Summer questioned, following my gaze. "Want to try and make some friends?"
"No." I said childishly look away from her and them.
Even if I understood them, there was one thing I agreed with Raven about.
These people were fools.
I wouldn't entrust my future, my life, to strangers. Not when I could do something about it myself.
XOXO
(A/N: Feeling real tired these days. Sorry if you don't catch me in the comments.)