RWBY Through Worlds

159: Tired Soldiers

Though Shine chose the people, the team was not agreed about doing this.

The half of it that had been in Beacon had already promised to not argue with her--and so far they were sticking to it, begrudgingly.

Except Tai and the other half of the team who had made no such promise yet.

Qrow was the most sure this idea was a terrible one, and he could be pretty convincing. The more he talked, the less Raven wanted to do this.

"You're all not strong enough to resist that many," he kept saying. "It's crazy, and taking any of the Maidens with you is even crazier. What else are you going to do, take the Relics?"

"If you'd let me think--" Shine didn't want to listen to this. "--I'd be grateful."

"Listen--" Winter tried to get Qrow to shut up. "--we've already decided. And it's a whole kingdom. It sounds like they won't live long if we don't act immediately. Are you serious about just abandoning them?"

"You think I like this?" Qrow almost bit her head off, but it sounded more like he was freaking out than angry. "I don't want to! But it's a suicide mission!"

He rubbed his knuckles.

"What happened to your hand?" Yang asked him.

"Nothing." Qrow put it behind his back.

"After Weiss and Meridian left," Libby hissed to Yang, "he punched the wall real hard. I think he was angry about Vacuo. We all are. Cussed up a storm, too."

"Oh." Yang understood the feeling.

"Likstar," Qrow appealed to her more directly, "do you not understand how these things work? On top of that, Salem might just be waiting for you to walk in."

"Nothing about that changes our responsibility," Shine insisted. "We did this. We need to make it right."

"You can't blame yourself," Qrow said. "We left to protect it. We knew it was a long shot, but staying wouldn't have made it any better. We'd just have been caught too... And now you're going to play right into her hands."

"It's nice to hear you think about that," Shine said. "But it's not that simple."

"Really? Because usually you'd say it was," Qrow said. "You're supposed to be smarter than this."

"Thanks," Shine said.

Qrow looked like he was going to scream. But after a moment of probably mentally counting to ten, he said tightly, "What will you do if it's tougher than you thought?"

"Qrow, if my own demons have not ended me yet, I'm not that worried about this world's," Shine said. "If it does work on us, though, you can say I told you so."

"There won't be anyone left to say that to." Qrow sounded miserable. "All those people...it's probably too late for them. What if you just walked in and they're already dead? Then it really was for nothing, and you'd be risking your lives anyway."

"Ultimately, that makes no difference," Shine insisted. "You have no faith."

"What is there to have faith in?" Qrow said.

"Well..." Shine tilted her head. "You're not drunk."

"What?" Qrow couldn't believe she just said that.

"I just noticed--after getting news like that, usually we could expect that," Shine said. "And this was pretty bad news. But you didn't even try. Isn't that miraculous?"

"How is that miraculous?" Qrow thought she was crazy. "I didn't have time to think about something like that--" He stopped suddenly.

Winter gave Shine a surprised look.