Never Change

Chapter 31

Yang ducked under the leg that her dad sent at her, before blocking the next punch with her forearms. Still, she wasn't quite strong enough to stop herself from sliding back from the blow.

She growled, pushing forward, zig zagging from side to side to throw his tracking off.

She went in for a punch, so sure that she was going to connect that she ignored the rest of his body, and tunnel visioned on his stomach.

A fatal mistake.

Before she knew it, he was gone. She felt her arm become twisted behind her back. She blinked, and her back was on the ground.

"You're too tunnel visioned," he said, as walked over to the towels by the small stool, picking them up and giving Zwei a couple of pats on the head and head scratches.

Yang sighed in exasperation, shoulders slumping as she sat up, "I know."

"I watched every single one of your tournament fights, you know."

"Let me guess," she mocked, "I was sloppy."

"No, no..." her dad chuckled, "You were... predictable. And stubborn, and a little boneheaded, and maybe a little sloppy."

"Do you realize that you used your semblance in every round of the tournament?"

"Yeah..." Yang swallowed her instinct to bite back, "What about it? Everyone else uses theirs..."

"Not everyone else's is basically a temper tantrum," her father chuckled when she sent him that look, "I'm serious! In the doubles round against Team... FNKI, was it? You were easily provoked by your opponent, almost too easily taunted."

"Your semblance isn't a guarantee. You've missed before, haven't you? You miss your punch, and suddenly you're off balance because you put in too much energy into that one punch."

Yang reluctantly nodded, remembering her spars against Percy.

"You can use that energy, but whenever you use your semblance you have to go all out. Time your semblance, make sure to use it when the opponent is too weak to dodge! Save it up over the entire match, and use it when you're on the backfoot and in need of a momentum shift," he lectured, "Most importantly, stay calm."

She could see his point, but there was part of her that wanted to reject it, too.

He chuckled, "I wasn't the calmest of teenagers, either. But my semblance depends on me staying calm, and adapting to the situation, no matter what happens. To be in control, and not a raging brute who only knows how to punch."

"You definitely have your mother's stubbornness, that's for sure."

"Oh, so now we can talk about her?" Yang shot back. Growing up, she'd always asked her dad about her biological mom, but Taiyang had always refused to answer.

His shoulders slumped, "Yes, yes we can. I was wrong to keep things about your mother from you, but at the same time, I didn't know if you could handle it."

"Raven was great in so many ways," her father reminisced, his hand on the trunk of a tree, "Her strength, her ambition, her dedication to whatever cause she thought was worth fighting for... until she wasn't so great. One day... just a few days after you were born, actually... she saw something that... spooked her. At the time, we were still taking missions from Ozpin against Salem, fighting the same fight you're fighting now."

"And when she came back... she isolated herself. Didn't pay attention to you; honestly, she never did. She never had a hand in raising you, even in the first few days of you being born. When she came back, she wouldn't talk to me, or Qrow, or S-Summer," her dad caught his own stutter, but Yang heard it all the same, "Or Ozpin, or anyone! And a few days later... she left. She left because of what she had seen, and the burdens of motherhood. She left for the bandit tribe that she came from, and never looked back."