(A/N: I'm two for five!)
XOXO
The distant hoots of owls hidden amongst the surrounding trees.
The whistle of the winds blowing by.
The occasional creak of a silent home.
Eyes closed, I kept my ears out for anyone and anything, hearing absolutely nothing beyond the usual. It was the dead of night and everyone else, including the little rowdy alarm that was Yang, should be sound asleep.
This was the perfect time to get some more practice in.
I opened my eyes but held off on activating my Sharingan. It took several deep breaths and far more focus than usual, but a pure white sigil appeared on the floor just ahead of me, big enough to nearly touch the corners of the colorful carpet at the center of my room. A gloved hand rose out from it, palm firmly planted on the ground.
Creaks, sounding far louder than usual, filled my room as it pushed itself out of the sigil.
The sigil faded away as my summon stood across from me.
Long hair with bangs framing most of its face, expression stuck in a permanent scowl. Eyes that unblinkingly stared down at me. One hand grasped the handle of the katana at its waist, the other around the scabbard. The light blue aura that made up all those features lit up my darkened room.
Replicating the beowolf Winter had shown off? Easily done, especially at that small of size. Creating a summon that accurately reflected their size? Also, not all that difficult. The hard part was animating the thing.
Expression shifted in an unfriendly one of pure focus I've seen so often it was a part of my day to day, my summon took a step forward, katana unsheathed in the blink of an eye, the slash traveling over my head too fast for me to fully track.
I couldn't properly animate any Grimm, even after using drawings and a little prior experience to recreate them. My guess? My limited exposure to them. Picturing accurate movements of things I'd yet to see in person wasn't easy.
My summon, a perfect recreation of Raven returned the blade to its sheath, returning to staring down at me, moving in sync with my intentions and the movement of my aura.
I tried all the others, Summer, Qrow, Tai, even Yang. I got some degree of success but none of those summons were quite so easy to animate the way I wanted as this one. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Fending off Raven, and failing more often than not, had beaten her approach to combat and habits into me.
Unfortunately, and I'd been more than a little disappointed when I found out, this was the only part of the Schnee family semblance I had access to. The platforms, time dilation, and all the other capabilities were beyond me.
Which actually made some sense, I guess. It was the most complicated semblance I'd tried to copy, Glynda's, as powerful as it was, absurdly simple by nature. Expecting to do all that after only seeing Willow use summoning was like expecting Kakashi to know every single water style jutsu there was after copying one from Zabuza with how varied that semblance was. Convenient but not exactly logical.
Summoning alone was a strong enough ability, so I wasn't going to waste any time sulking about it. I could just get my hands on the rest of the semblance's abilities in the future.
Hand raised towards my closed door, I reached out for my sheathed sword beside it.
…
...
...….
It shook then flew into my grasp. As I turned back to my summon all that remained of it were the fading light blue particles of the aura that formed it falling into the carpet like flakes of snow.
The other two weaknesses I had.
First, since each semblance required that I match my aura to that of the original wielder's, I could only use one at any given time excluding my Sharingan. At least at the moment. No amount of reading I did mentioned anything about anyone being able to split the nature of their aura or anything on the subject really. It might be unprecedented but that was no reason to assume I wouldn't be able to figure someway to find middle ground and use more than one or even all at once.
That possibility demanded experimentation that was currently on the back burner. My current training was meant to find a way to supplement the inherent weakness born from the first.
Tightly grasping my sheath, I took another breath, focusing.
…
...
...…
My skin darkened, taking on the hard texture of the sheath.
And it'd only taken around a dozen seconds!
I took a breath before trying again.
Switching between semblances mid-battle wasn't feasible like this. Seconds might not be much on paper, but I've been through enough to know firsthand that much time was the difference between me putting down a beowolf or its claws and maw tearing through me.
And it would tear flesh. A complete reconstruction of my aura meant I had to withdraw all of it into my body, aura shield included.
I'd either have to completely outclass my opponent or have such a clear advantage to ever bother switching semblances midbattle but why would I in those circumstances?
Though that was only the case without my Sharingan.
After a few more switches between semblances, I activated my Sharingan. Once more my hands darkened as my flesh took on the weighty material of the sheath. I tossed the blade into the air, and, just as it was about to hit the floor, I stopped it, pulling it back into my now normal hands through Glynda's telekinesis.
Only two, maybe three seconds.
My Sharingan cut down the reconstruction of my aura significantly, minimizing the weakness, but a weakness was still a weakness.
Getting rid of that delay was the most important thing to tackle right now.
A low cry that turned to a wail came from beyond my room.
Sword set aside, I left my room behind and headed into Tai's former office, the room transformed into a nursey for Yang. The crying girl had pulled herself to an unsteady stand, holding on to the bars of her crib.
She quieted the moment she saw me, babbling as I came over to check on her. I might as well be the one to handle her late night cries for attention since I was already up.
I don't care how many nights it took, I was going to get rid of that drawn out vulnerability. There'd be no point in having so many different semblances if switching between them came with such a glaring weakness.
XOXO
One chubby hand reaching out and the other gripping the edge of the couch, Yang babbled and made all sorts of other meaningless sounds, eyes fixed across the room.
"Come on, Yang. You can do it." Tai encouraged, kneeling beside the dinner table with one of her many toys in hand. Raven sat beside him, idly watching the whole thing as she ate. More noises left Yang, crying just a few decibels away, but after more reaching she finally released the couch.
Then took her first step. Then another. And another.
They were slow, Yang shaky, but Tai cheered her on every step of the way until she finally made to him. Gushing over Yang and her laughs, he lifted her with a wide grin.
I smiled as I looked above the scroll I was recording from, having been on the other side of the couch just out of Yang's sight.
Tai was the most enthusiastic about the achievement, there was no contest there, but even Raven had a small smile as Yang reached out for her. Perhaps not what others would call celebration but for Raven it was a lot. She was really going out of her way to try and do what was expected of a mother for Yang, hitting the mark in far more ways than she ever did for me.
She hadn't even cared to stop her training outside when Tai yelled for her to see what he thought were my first steps.
Stopping the video, I slid back onto my seat on the couch, sending it to Summer and Qrow.
We really were one big family. A happy one despite the odds of that in a world like Remnant.
I peeked over the couch again, Sharingan active. Raven's small smile was still in place. Strained but still there.
A shame this was likely to come to an end.
Sooner rather than later if my guess about the timeline of things were right.
XOXO
(A/N: Just explored some things involving the Sharingan and one last scene with a focus on the family as a whole. One of these days, once someone finally asks him about it, there will be a deeper explanation on how his copying of semblances work but for now, the basic general rules I've set work.
Depending on how complicated the semblance is all it could take is a single look or watching it be used several different ways before he could copy everything it does. Of course, he can only copy active semblances, passive ones completely beyond his reach. Those two conditions are all that are important right now.
That aside childhood arc/intro is just about done with one very important final thing before we move on. Look forward to it.
As always, I hope you enjoyed and here's the link for those who want to read ahead:
patreon .com/ thirdratewriter
Everyone, raise your hands and lend me your energy so I can keep writing for the whole week! Or give me your powerstones. That works too.)