The Huntsman of Red V2

Chapter 26 The Pride of Vale: Part 8

For as long as Ruby could ever remember, Shirou had always been there for her. He never aged a day, always retaining a youthful vigour and image that he explained was a body in the prime of his life. A majority of the explanation had flown over her head at the time, but she believed that she got the gist of it. In a sense...he'd achieved what all women dreamed of: a forever twenty-one body. Yang would be jealous, surely, but more importantly, it gave Ruby time to 'catch up.'

Boys were always the talk of gossip in Signal Academy, and it wasn't as if she or Yang were uninvolved in the matter. It was just that compared to the other boys in her grade, Shirou far outranked them. He was attentive, kind, and always seemed to know when she was feeling down and bake her a batch of her mother's cookies.

Shirou was the best. He was the 'keeper' Yang would always joke about her finding. Jokes on Yang because she'd already found him!

Ruby would have blushed at her childish thoughts and aspirations if not for the fact that it felt as if her heart was being wrenched out from her chest from grief. She could hear her blood rushing past her ears while her rather feeble frame continued to buck and kick at Ector's hold, her arms flailing.

"Calm down!" Ector grunted while using his weight to pin her in place, before she suddenly flipped and reversed their positions.

Calm down? Shirou was shot. H-He had a hole through his chest then disappeared.

"Let go!" She tugged at the arms held in Ector's grip. She was on top of him right now, but she wouldn't be going anywhere unless she pried off the firm hold Ector had her arms in with his hands.

"Stop being so unreasonable," Ector winced from her abruptly planting her foot onto his face to pry his grip off of her with leverage. Aura mitigated any damage, but no one would like the feeling of getting stepped on, but Ector's patience in tense situations had long since been fostered in his time in Mt. Glenn.

Rather than let go, Ector hardly seemed affected, causing Ruby to reflect on her prior thoughts about physical strengthening being unnecessary with Crescent Rose on hand. She felt like she was a chicken pecking at a dog who brushed everything off. It didn't help that she was panicking.

[Shirou!] She tried calling in their mental link as Master and Servant. Shirou had explained the details, but she hadn't been paying attention at the time. All that she knew and cared about was that if she thought of him and called out to him, he could respond to her. However, once again, only silence was heard in her mind.

She pursed her lips and started thrashing against Ector harder. She needed to help him! It was always him helping her, and now when he was injured and alone, she was doing nothing!

[Please!] she kept calling.

Unknown to her, but her eyes were beginning to glow in dull silver light.

Her mother had left her life early on, and it was because of Shirou that she never felt empty or disheartened with thoughts that she may have been abandoned. Shirou had let her see her mother one last time in their childhood where she understood that her mother must have been on a mission that even now, she'd yet to return from.

Others told her that it was likely that her mother had already died including Yang who tried to console her, but her father, Uncle Qrow, and Shirou remained adamant that she was still alive.

Regardless, it didn't change the fact that Shirou was all she'd had as support in her parents absence. Her mother was missing, and her father would constantly travel searching for her, leaving Yang and her alone with Uncle Qrow who wasn't always around.

She already considered Shirou dear to her...so what was she still doing her and not there with him!

The only consolation she had in this moment were the two red sigils on the back of her right hand that her father nearly had a heart attack over after discovering his little Rose got a tattoo.