In the middle of Juuban, reality belched. This was not as rare an occurrence as one might be led to believe, at least not in this area. Today, rather than some humanoid monster stepping forth, or some form of cyborg, there was a quartet of girls who seemed almost colour coded.
The first to step forward was a petite girl clad in a striking crimson cloak. Her short black hair framed a youthful face, but her silver eyes gleamed with determination that belied her age. She carried an oversized scythe, folded into a compact rifle at her back, its mechanical form whispering of function and danger.
Beside her stood a taller girl with pristine white hair tied into a side ponytail. She wore a combat skirt of icy whites and blues, her regal bearing enhanced by the rapier at her side. Her piercing gaze swept the unfamiliar streets with cool efficiency, the weight of responsibility evident in her every movement.
To her left was a shadow that moved with feline grace—a young woman with midnight-black hair and piercing amber eyes. Her bow-tied headband concealed Faunus ears, and her lithe frame seemed perpetually poised for action. A pair of sharp, curved weapons rested at her back, shimmering faintly under the sunlight.
Finally, the loudest and most vibrant of the four strode forth, her long golden hair catching the light. She exuded confidence, her fiery demeanor matched by her outfit: black and gold, with a mechanical gauntlet covering each arm. Her lilac eyes sparkled with a mix of curiosity and restrained amusement as she surveyed their surroundings.
Yang Xiao Long looked around and let out a low whistle. "Okay, this is new. Definitely not Vale—or anywhere on Remnant."
Ruby Rose stepped beside her sister, her eyes narrowing as she glanced down at a device in her hand. "The trail leads here. Cinder’s been hiding out in this area for weeks. She has to be close."
Weiss Schnee folded her arms. "So, what’s the plan? Walk through the streets and hope she decides to show herself?"
Blake Belladonna spoke softly, her gaze sweeping the skyline. "If she’s been here for this long without causing a scene, she’s either planning something big—or she’s lying low for a reason. Either way, she won’t stay hidden forever."
Unbeknownst to the four newcomers, their arrival had drawn the attention of two figures across the street.
“Haruka,” Michiru Kaioh murmured, her voice low yet musical. She stood poised, her delicate grip adjusting the violin case she carried as her oceanic eyes settled on the strangers. “Look at them.”
Beside her, Haruka Tenoh observed the group with a discerning gaze. Clad in a sleek black jacket, her sharp blue-green eyes narrowed, and her short blond hair stirred faintly in the breeze. "They’re armed," she noted flatly, her tone laced with suspicion. "That’s... unusual."
Michiru tilted her head slightly, studying the quartet’s vibrant outfits and distinctive weapons. “Do you think they’re connected to the strange energy we sensed earlier?”
Haruka’s focus shifted briefly to the golden-haired girl—Yang—whose laughter punctuated the quiet street. "Possibly," she said, her voice clipped. "They don’t look like ordinary enemies, but I wouldn’t trust them just yet. Let’s keep our distance and observe."
As the two deliberated, one of the newcomers—a petite girl with striking silver eyes—turned abruptly. Ruby’s gaze locked onto Haruka’s across the street, sharp and unflinching. For a moment, the air between them seemed to crackle with an unspoken tension.
Weiss Schnee, noticing Ruby’s sudden stillness, followed her line of sight. “Is something wrong?”
Ruby’s grip tightened instinctively on the haft of her scythe. “We’re being watched.”
It wasn't hard to figure out who it was. The two women crossed the street as one, their movements deliberate and synchronized, their wariness evident. Anyone could tell these two had something in their mind, never mind experienced fighters like these four.
Yang was the first to notice the approaching trio. She nudged Ruby lightly with her elbow and tilted her head toward them. “Looks like we’ve got company.”
Ruby straightened, taking a step forward as her team fell in line behind her. "Hello!" she called, her voice friendly yet cautious. “Uh, can we help you?”
Haruka stopped a few paces away, her stance casual but ready for action. “That depends,” she said coolly. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Ruby hesitated, glancing briefly at her teammates. “We’re... travelers,” she began, carefully choosing her words. “We’re looking for someone dangerous. She’s been hiding here, and we need to stop her before she hurts anyone.”
Michiru’s gaze softened slightly as she studied Ruby’s earnest expression. “If that’s true,” she said evenly, “then why are you armed as if preparing for battle?”
Weiss stepped forward, her regal demeanor unyielding. “Because the person we’re pursuing is dangerous enough to warrant it. She’s not from this world, and if you know anything about her, it would be in your best interest to tell us now.”
Haruka’s expression hardened. “We don’t know who you’re talking about. But if you’re bringing trouble to this city, that makes you a problem.”
Yang smirked, crossing her arms. “Bring it on, Blondie. We’ve handled worse.”
“Yang,” Blake said sharply, placing a steadying hand on her partner’s arm.
Ruby stepped forward, raising her hands in a placating gesture. “We’re not here to fight,” she said, her tone firm but conciliatory. “Please—we’re just trying to help.”
Haruka exchanged a glance with Michiru and nodded. The quiet communication between them seemed to confirm a decision.
Michiru spoke again, her tone cautious but less adversarial. “If you’re telling the truth, then perhaps we should talk. But if this is a trick...”
Ruby met her gaze, her silver eyes resolute. “It’s not. We’re on the same side—I promise.”
"Funny you'd say that, when you don't know what side we're on," Haruka shrugged. Internally, she was wishing Setsuna wasn't so preoccupied with investigating some other matter. Then again, given the timing it might be somehow connected to that. "Let's talk somewhere quiet."
A famous Scottish poet once wrote: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley. Which, in modern English, reads as "the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry". As it was then, so is it now, save that it is the best laid plans of faunus and human girls rather than mice and men. The point is, their plan to have a nice peaceful sit down to chat about Cinder and the stuff she'd been up to since coming to this dimension had a spanner tossed in the works by one simple fact that was referenced, in brief, at the start of this chapter:
This is Juuban. Even if RWBY weren't here for a fight, that didn't mean things were going to stay peaceful for long!
“Eeek!” screamed a red-haired girl who was most definitely not Naru Osaka, but if you saw her from the back, you might think it was her for maybe half a second. She squirmed in the crystalline grip of a towering, kaleidoscopic Youma, its jagged, refracting limbs shifting in and out of focus. “Seriously! Am I cursed or something?!”
In the blink of an eye, the six of them were ready for battle. Turning to face the threat, they found themselves staring at the towering humanoid Youma, its shimmering body splitting into twin images that danced and flickered like mirages in a desert.
“Tsk, is that some kinda Grimm…?” Yang growled, her fists igniting with fiery determination as she cracked her knuckles.
“I’m not sure they have those here,” Weiss replied, her icy voice tinged with exasperation as she summoned a glyph beneath her feet. “Besides which, it’s far too sparkly.”
Blake narrowed her golden eyes, analyzing the situation. “That hostage complicates things. We need to separate it from her before we strike. I’ll create a distraction.”
Ruby tightened her grip on Crescent Rose, her silver eyes alight with determination. “Blake! Weiss! We need to get that girl out of there! Yang, keep it busy!”
As Team RWBY moved into action, Haruka and Michiru exchanged a glance, their silent understanding clear. In a flash of light, they transformed into Sailors Uranus and Neptune, their elegant forms glowing with otherworldly power.
Ruby darted forward in a burst of speed, Crescent Rose spinning in a blur of red. She aimed for the Youma’s legs, hoping to knock it off balance, but its crystalline form flickered, and her blade sliced harmlessly through a shimmering afterimage.
“Oh, how cute,” the Youma taunted, its voice dripping with mockery. “But you can’t even hit what’s right in front of you.” The creature’s body shimmered again, splitting into multiple reflections that danced around them like glinting shards of light.
Blake struck next, her shadow clones weaving between the prismatic spires the Youma summoned to defend itself. But the clones were illusions too, and before she knew it, the Youma had shifted position, causing Blake’s attacks to miss by a fraction of an inch.
“Getting a little... confused?” the Youma cooed, its form shifting again. “I think it’s your turn to miss, my little shadow.”
Blake cursed under her breath as one of her clones attacked her, a blurry reflection in the Youma's twisting mirror of reality. “Watch where you’re swinging, Weiss!”
Weiss, caught off guard, barely managed to deflect the attack, but the Youma had already set its trap. “Hah! What a joke.” It flickered again, swapping places with one of Blake’s clones and leaving Weiss open. Her staff barely intercepted the next barrage of crystal shards that launched in her direction.
Yang cursed as she charged in to save her teammate, but the Youma used its illusions to send out false openings. One of Yang’s strikes landed against an image of the Youma, the real one slipping behind her to fire off a beam of radiant light that forced her to retreat.
“Dammit, it’s toying with us!” Yang yelled, her fists still burning with fiery determination. “Come out and fight, you coward!”
“Oh, I’m right here,” the Youma’s voice echoed, a thousand different versions of it laughing in unison as it began to split further, its form twisting in on itself like a fractal. “Tell me, how do you plan to beat me if you can’t even hit what’s real?”
Haruka clenched her fists in irritation. “We need to focus—each of us needs to trust that we’re attacking the real one. It’s a battle of precision now.”
“We can’t keep chasing after it,” Neptune added, her gaze sharp. “It’s adapting too quickly.”
Ruby grit her teeth, her eyes darting between the reflections. “We need to figure out which one is the real one and—”
Before she could finish her thought, the Youma's voice rang out again. “Trying to solve riddles in the middle of a fight, little girl? How naive. This is a game you’ll never win.” Suddenly, a new reflection of the Youma appeared right in front of Ruby. In an instant, the figure shifted, and the “Youma” swiped at her.
The blade of Crescent Rose went straight through the illusion, as Ruby’s heart skipped a beat. She barely evaded the real Youma’s strike, but the near miss left her reeling.
“Is that what passes for strategy here?” the Youma taunted, twisting in midair as its forms moved like fluid light. “You’re all so predictable. You attack the wrong target and leave yourselves wide open for counterattack.”
Ruby’s voice cut through the confusion, loud and firm. “We need to make it pick. It’s trying to confuse us with too many reflections, but if we force it to reveal itself—”
“Exactly!” Yang said, the idea clicking in her mind. “Let’s turn its own illusions back on it. Keep it distracted, make it think it has the upper hand, and then—”
“We’ll hit it hard when it’s least expecting it,” Haruka finished, her voice unwavering. She raised her sword, gathering energy. “Let’s make it choose who gets to fall next.”
The Youma, seeing the attack coming, tried to shift again, but this time, its illusions were slower to form. It was still trying to move at full speed, but the persistent pressure from Team RWBY and the Sailor Soldiers kept it distracted.
Suddenly, the creature flickered and released a burst of light, scattering its reflections into a dozen copies that all surrounded them. “You think you’ve won? How pathetic!” the Youma snarled, its voice overlapping. “Look around. You won’t find the real me. How will you defeat something you can’t even touch?”
“Now!” Ruby shouted.
In that instant, Yang burst forward with a blazing roar, punching through a cluster of illusions and hitting the real Youma square in the chest with an explosive, fiery punch. As it staggered back, the false images collapsed, and the team was able to focus their attacks.
Blake sent out a flurry of shadow clones, each one attacking from a different angle Blake sent out a flurry of shadow clones, each one attacking from a different angle, forcing the Youma to focus on blocking from multiple sides. Weiss quickly dropped a series of glyphs under the creature’s feet, freezing one of its legs in place just long enough for Neptune to call on a wave of water that encased part of its body, restricting its movements.
“Space Sword Blaster!” Haruka’s voice rang out as she swung her blade with precision. The golden arc of energy flew straight for the Youma’s heart, cutting through the air with terrifying force.
“Deep Submerge!” Michiru’s command was clear as water rushed forward, crashing over the Youma and freezing part of its form solid.
Ruby didn’t wait. She leapt high, Crescent Rose in sniper form, and aimed for the vulnerable spot revealed by their combined assault. “This ends now!” she shouted, and fired a single, powerful shot.
The combined force of the team’s attacks—Yang’s blazing strike, Blake’s clones, Weiss’s glyphs, Haruka and Michiru’s coordinated attacks, and Ruby’s sniper shot—finally overwhelmed the Youma. With a violent scream, the creature shattered into countless crystal shards, its form dissolving in a burst of refracted light, leaving only a faint echo of its taunting laughter in the air.
Except... That echo soon twisted around until it became a full on throaty laugh, as the youma's illusion shattered revealing that it was still perfectly unscathed.
"Want to try that again, girls?" the youma jeered. "I think there's a patch of pavement you missed! Hah!"
"That thing is really getting on my nerves..." Blake muttered. "Even my senses were fooled."
Neptune’s gaze flickered toward Uranus. “We could try a concentrated attack, but if it fails…”
“It won’t fail,” Uranus said, gripping her Space Sword. “But we need an opening.”
The team fell silent as they regrouped, the pressure mounting. Even if they thought the fight was over, it might be just another illusion. How do you overcome that when you cannot trust your own senses...? Ultimately, Yang was the one to break the silence, stepping forward with an ominous, intense expression across her face.
“There’s one way to make an opening,” she said, her voice low and steady in a way that made the others pause.
Ruby turned to her sister. “Yang? What are you talking about?” Her sister looked back at her, determined and strong. Horrid realisation struck Ruby like a freight train, and she recoiled in horror at the possibility. "No! Yang, you can't! You saw what happened to - "
"You'd rather let that thing run amok?" Yang spat. "Look at the damage it's done already! I can end this! Right now! Get everyone behind me - If you catch a glimpse..."
Before Ruby could come up with an effective counterargument, Yang was darting forward. Neptune tilted her head and Haruka went to give her backup, but Ruby stepped in front of both of them.
"Get your strongest attack ready," she warned. "If you can see Yang's reflection in anything, make sure you don't look at it."
The seriousness in her voice put even the two Outers on the back foot. So the blonde was about to use an attack that powerful...? What the hell could it possibly be?! They watched in rapt fascination as she... Reached for her top? Whipped it off, over her head and -
"Don't look!" Blake yelled, and suddenly she and Weiss were jumping in between the Sailors and Yang! "Attack the monster while it's distracted!"
"Tsk, this is ridiculous..." Weiss grumbled darkly, apparently to herself. "Though I cannot dispute how effective it is."
"Hey, dummy! Take a look at these!" Yang yelled, and... To the utter shock of Uranus and Neptune, the monster stopped. It was rather blatantly staring right at Yang's chest. Completely forgetting what it was in the middle of doing to leer blatantly, its guard completely down. Actually, the creature almost seemed to be... mesmerised by the sight. It was utterly bizarre! As far as either of them knew, youma do not have sex drives, even if they're perfectly happy to exploit the sex drive of human beings...
“Blake, now!” Ruby called.
Blake dashed to the left, her shadow clones flickering around her as she darted between the spires of crystal that erupted from the rooftop. With precision and grace, she lashed out with Gambol Shroud, her blade slicing through the spires to clear a path. Her clones provided cover, distracting the Youma and cutting off potential escape routes.
“Understood,” Weiss said curtly, summoning a series of glyphs that formed a shining staircase in the air. She leapt onto them, her Myrtenaster spinning as she called forth a cascade of ice that rained down over the battlefield, encasing parts of the Youma’s body in glimmering frost. Its movements slowed as the ice crept across its crystalline surface.
“We’ll follow up,” Uranus declared, her voice sharp with command. She and Neptune stepped forward, their attacks charged and ready.
“Space Sword Blaster!” Uranus unleashed a golden arc of energy that cut through the remaining illusions, striking the Youma directly and causing it to stagger.
“Deep Submerge!” Neptune followed up with a swirling orb of water, the liquid energy slamming into the Youma’s frozen form and shattering some of its crystalline limbs.
Ruby, standing at the ready, turned to Weiss. “We need one final opening.”
Weiss nodded, her glyphs shifting into a new pattern, forming a shimmering platform high above. “Ruby, go! I’ll boost you.”
Ruby grinned, gripping Crescent Rose tightly. She launched herself onto the glyph, Weiss’s magic propelling her into the air like a comet. With a roar, she spun her scythe, the weapon transforming into its sniper form as she unleashed a powerful shot aimed at the Youma’s core.
At the same time, Neptune and Uranus combined their powers, the swirling water of Deep Submerge merging with the golden brilliance of Space Sword Blaster to form a torrent of energy that struck the Youma head-on.
Blake, not one to waste an opening, threw Gambol Shroud’s blade, her ribbon wrapping around one of the Youma’s weakened limbs to pull it down, further destabilizing it.
“Everyone, now!” Ruby shouted, Crescent Rose blazing with energy as she dove down, her scythe poised to strike.
In perfect synchronization, the combined attacks of Team RWBY and the Sailor Soldiers converged on the Youma. Ruby’s scythe cleaved through its shimmering core at the same moment the magical attacks struck, the sheer force of their combined power obliterating the creature in a burst of radiant light.
"Yang!" Ruby yelled, rushing towards the blonde girl, who was on her knees and panting heavily. "Oh no! I was afraid of this! Control yourself, this isn't you!"
"Tiiiiits~" Yang burbled, pawing at her own chest. For a fleeting moment, Uranus caught sight of them and -
"Nice..." Uranus whispered, which earned a stern cough from Neptune. "Huh? What? Did I say something weird?"
"It would be better if you didn't approach right now," Weiss said. She and Blake were gently guiding the two of them away from the sisters, for some reason. "I'm afraid that this is part of the reason we came here to search for Cinder, you see -"
"No, Ruby, you don't get it!" Yang moaned, loudly, uncaring of who heard her. "Tits are supreme! Tits should think for us! I kept them sealed for far too long, don't seal them again, it feels soooo good~"
"It's so stupid..." Blake grumbled. "You wouldn't even believe us if we told you, but... We've seen some really strong people brought low by this stupid power. We were lucky to be able to seal Yang when she got it, before... Before she used it on us, or got addicted to it herself."
"Addicted?" Neptune asked. "Addicted to what, exactly?"
"Titnosis," Weiss said, the word spilling out of her mouth like a bitter poison. "The power to enchant, bewitch and bewilder the unwary using your tits." Her pretty nose wrinkled. "That is my least favourite part of the matter, by the way. I can say that I have breasts, but Yang has tits. No matter what I try, I can only think of them as tits."
Aha... Okay then? This was really not what either of them were expecting. At all. It was honestly pretty unbelievable. Like something out of a porn parody.
"Right now, Ruby's gotta get the seal back on without seeing or touching them," Blake shook her head. "It is not an easy thing to deal with. A look or a touch can be all it takes to melt you brain. A mere glimpse could set your mind to simmer without you even noticing."
"Really?" Uranus shrugged. "I mean, that's kinda ridiculous. Actually, make that extremely ridiculous. I've seen some weird things in my time, but hypnotic tits? No matter how big, perfect, round and mouthwatering they are, tits can't affect a person like that."
"We thought the same way, once upon a time," Weiss ominously intoned. "Oh! Ruby, the hostage!"
"Tiiiiits~" the former hostage burbled, on her knees, making groping motions at the air in front of herself, eyes glued firmly to Yang's chest. Well now. That was... unsettling, to say the very least!
Go back - Go to the parent episode.
Sun Apr 13 15:07:14 2025