Destiny No More

Chapter 6

Her nightmares were getting worse by the day. Practically every night she would find herself struggling to fight a battle she couldn't win. That she couldn't stop.

At first she had shrugged it off, hating it but knowing that it would pass. Only, it never did. Every night, she tried to sleep, and every night the nightmare returned.

The same nightmare, every time. A dream of death and destruction, of heartache and betrayal.

A dream that always ended in fire atop the tower.

And then she woke up.

She would be drenched in sweat, as if she had just fought a battle for hours on end. Her muscles would ache, and her mind would be restless. When she looked in the mirror, her hair was a mess, and her eyes moved erratically, scanning any sort of movement with a paranoia that she couldn't get rid of. Her team was always growing more worried, but even in spite of the disturbing dreams, Pyrrha reassured them to the best of her ability.

It was never enough and they constantly worried, asking what they could do to help. She told herself it was a sign that they cared, and they did, but she struggled to keep that frustration from boiling over.

She found herself needing more and more time alone in order to sort her thoughts and gain her bearings lest she snap at her friends. She had started to usher them on ahead of her in the mornings.

Which happened to be the source of her current frustration.

Pyrrha sighed in frustration, once again trying, and failing, to navigate the school. She had learned just how unfamiliar she was with the school grounds lately, but she had thought she was more than familiar enough to not get lost going to breakfast!

Clearly, she had been wrong.

She tried to not let her anger get the better of her, her years in the spotlight back in Mistral helping her to keep her calm, but it was starting to falter.

Her anger was only fueled by her ever present headache and sense of nausea, both of which had been driving her up the walls over the last few weeks. She had gone to Tsune numerous times, to the point that it had almost become routine, and each time she was met with the same 's resident doctor had no idea what might be wrong with her.

Tsune had taken blood samples and sent them off to be tested, but they were still weeks away from hearing anything back. In the meantime she had been given some slightly stronger medication to help alleviate the symptoms.

Once that had failed she had been given some even stronger ones.

Pyrrha had lied about how she was feeling on her last visit, saying that the medication was helping despite the fact that it wasn't. She'd given up on there being anything the doctor could do. She had only really gone at Jaune's insistence and to check on when they were set to know for sure what was wrong with her.

It wouldn't be until after the festival.

Pyrrha didn't plan on going back.

She turned the corner, seeing another hallway nearly identical to the one she had just come down. For a moment she had considered hitting the wall in an uncharacteristic fit of rage, but she managed to wrangle that desire back before it could actually happen.

Ten minutes later, however, and she was no longer trying to hold back her anger.

Whatever deity watched over Beacon clearly saw what was about to happen to the prestigious academies hallways and decided to finally give her a break.

As she rounded another corner, seeing another identical hallway, she spotted Ruby standing next to one of the windows, staring out with unusual intensity. Before she could even fully process her luck, Ruby had turned to see her.