[Kishka Burzanova]

KISHKA BURZANOVA

How long had it been? She couldn't remember anymore. The past few days had gone by in a hazy blur. One day, fighting with Argent. The next, staring off a cliff, towards a not-unwelcome demise. And now, face-down in the Gardenin' Club room, on the floor, staring at a potted flower small enough to be at eye level. Low enough to the ground to stare back at her. She didn't remember when she'd started crying, and she couldn't remember how to stop either, so she just let the rain pour out, gazing into the lonely, wilting, amaryllis. It was a pretty flower, a deep reddish pink. It didn't belong in Mistral- it belonged on some tropical island. Somewhere warm, and safe, where it wouldn't have to suffer through the cold Mistrallian winters, or the harsh, unforgiving rocky soil, or the burning stings of fiery oblivion, white hot and as arbitrary as squashing a mosquito. Holly should have been in Mato Mato. It wasn't fair. She reached out for the flower pot, only to knock it over- her movements were sloppy and lacked her usual precision and grace. It also didn't help that she had a bottle in her hand. It was kinda hard to grab anything with that there. She laid there for longer than she likely should have, staring at the pot, as it spilled its soil onto the floor of the club room; its leaves, crumpling with gravity as it lay on its side. The pot itself was cracked. In an instant, she had ruined something beautiful, and all of a sudden, she felt nauseous. Whether it was her emotions coming to a peak, or the liquor terrorizing her digestive tract, she wasn't sure. She rolled onto her back, and stared up at the bottle in her hand. Burzanov Royal; her family's premium line of vodka. She snickered at the thought of her dad's reaction to how she was drinking it- slugging it from the bottle, laying in a pile of dirt and grass. And then she stopped laughing, and couldn't quite recall what was so funny a minute ago. She poured the remnants of the bottle's content into her mouth, sputtering a bit as she took in more than she could handle, before letting her hand, and the empty bottle, drop to her side, as she stared up at the ceiling. She missed Holly. Coming here was supposed to help her feel better. At least, she assumed as much; why else would she have stumbled all the way here, from wherever she was before? It made sense. Nothing made sense. In Rochdale, she thought she'd lost control of the situation then. And that thought had scared her, chilled her to her core. The idea that she wasn't in command, that she could do nothing but wait for someone else to rescue her, was terrifying. She hadn't realized until a few days ago what it meant to lose control of a situation. In Rochdale, she had a choice. Anyone who said there was no choice was delusional. She chose to kill dozens of innocent people to save her own life. The life of Argent. And Clover. And Holly. She could have easily made the decision to not kill anybody, and to just die there. She had a choice. She had no choice when it came to the Festival. Nothing she could have done that day would have saved Holly. She'd come to that conclusion eventually, after days of blaming herself. She still blamed herself, but for other reasons. Deeper reasons- things she had no way of realizing without the aid of hindsight. The way she'd made Holly. Just like the delicate little flower she had toppled over with careless selfishness, she had ultimately damned the poor girl to her fate, in so many ways. Her chest shook as she was wracked with sobs, rolling over onto her side, the empty bottle clattering against the floor. She should be dead. Not Holly. She tried to be angry- tried to get mad. Getting all pissed off and hitting things was easy. It came naturally to her. It dulled the pain better than any drink ever could. She wanted to hit things. She wanted them to hit back. Externalizing her pain meant she could finally be free from all the pain inside. Or at least, that's what she kept telling herself. Sweet lies to keep some semblance of hope that she might feel less broken soon. She missed Argent. But she was too mad at him to do anything about it. Too stubborn. Too angry. She was angry again. Tried to sit up, but it'd be hard to tell that she was trying to do any more than just thrash an arm and a leg up, before flopping back down and giving up on the idea. She gazed around the room at the vibrant greens. She hated them. Because they reminded her of everything that was wrong with the world. Holly wasn't some maniacal monster that needed to be put down. She wasn't evil. She was weird, and maybe a little crazy, and selfish (but who isn't?), but she wasn't evil. She wasn't Solomon Moon. Wasn't Ferric. Wasn't a bad person. Wasn't beyond saving. Did the egotist who killed her even stop to consider that she was doing a lot of good, that now nobody has the means to continue? That was why Kishka hated the plants gathered in this little space; they were no longer Holly's. No longer Holly. They were Clover's. And loathe as she was to admit that she appreciated the dumbass drummer taking up Holly's legacy at Haven, she was angry that she wasn't Holly. These plants were fake. Fraudulent. And low quality. With Holly gone, the enormous amounts of produce that had been feeding the school and the Ground District alike stopped pouring in. Carmim was keeping the appearance of Holly's club alive- not its mission. Giving a sharp grunt, she hurled her empty bottle towards a hanging flower pot overhead. She wanted to break shit. Wanted destruction. Needed violence to satisfy her anger. The bottle stopped in midair, inches from the pot. It wobbled, though, shaking in place- her Semblance, as she'd explained before in this very room, functioned as a result of her mental control over it. Its precision was tightly controlled by her mind, and she needed to be clear-headed and calm for any real useful results with it. She was not clear-headed or calm. But she did manage to stop herself from breaking the flowerpot. Holly would hate her for it. She couldn't do that. She couldn't bring herself to harm anything in that little room. She she sent the bottle whirling around, in circles, high overhead, and she stared up at it as it twirled around and around. It was funny- what if she and Holly had switched Semblances? Nevermind the implications behind swapping bits of their souls. If she'd been the one with an almighty plant manipulation Semblance like Holly's, she could have won the Vytal Tournament. It still wouldn't have been easy, but she'd have stood a chance- her Semblance would have matched strength with Bel's. And she'd have been fast enough, agile enough, and tough enough to make the most of it. She never lost control of her Semblance, not since Sanctum. And Holly would have had her Displacement- a glorified party trick. Kishka was only so effective with it because she used it to set traps mid-fight, and used it in creative ways to catch opponents off-guard. Realistically, Holly wouldn't have used it for that. She didn't know what Holly would have used it for, but she wouldn't have become a menace with it, at the Festival. At worst, she'd have picked up a person or a large object and started swinging them around until someone stepped up to smash her Aura. And if their roles had been reversed, she could have done so easily. It wasn't fair. Kishka slumped back, not bothering to do a damn thing to stop the tears that kept coming, as she gazed up at the bottle spinning wildly around the room. It was only managing to avoid hitting the plants out of luck, frankly. She didn't have nearly as much control as she normally did. The door opened. She turned to slump on her side and face away, and as she did, the bottle flew in the same direction, shattering harmlessly against the wall, on the other side of the room from the new arrival. "Go... way... You're not Holly..."

Aura// 99% | WC// 1432 | TWC// 1432

✬

[Bianca Sabbato]

Not in the forest, nor in the training room. Not in the showers, nor the cafeteria. Not even in her room.

As time passed and the options started to dwindle with any new place I visited. It was becoming more and more clear that I probably had a really good idea of where Kishka was hiding.

And I really hoped I was wrong about it. Since I didn’t even want to set foot in that place again, at least for a long season. But I was close to it anyway. So It wouldn’t hurt to take a peek inside, and see for myself if I was right.

Dreading the moment. I approached the door of the Gardenin’ Club and gently open it to reveal exactly what I was expecting.

-Fuckin hell...- I muttered quietly as a bottle of booze went crashing against the wall on the opposite side of the room.

Anyway. I was a woman with a mission. So I fished out the scroll from my pocket and got to work. I was tired, both mentally and emotionally, from the previous ordeal. But this was something that needed to be done.

I had taken Shadecloack’s words to heart. About not withholding information when one of my classmates was in trouble. So, as soon as I realized it was her. I sent a message to the professor, telling her I had found Kishka in the Gardenin’ clubroom. And that she was looking as bad as Raul had said.

Because let’s be real for a second, she was looking and smelling like shit. I could feel the stench of alcohol from where I stood. And it wasn’t only the one coming from the broken bottle over the wall, but one clearly emanating from Kishka herself.

I wasn’t even sure the girl had been bathing these past few days. Or even eating or sleeping well when not in a state of absolute inebriation.

This was sickening. This was not the capable, prideful girl that Burzanova was supposed to be. It was like contemplating the empty shell of a person, just a vague image resembling the real deal.

A lot of things were clear to me now about the situation of the trainee, but the most glaring of them all was that she needed help. Help that maybe I couldn’t provide. But I could at least try to offer a friendly hand, even in my own bizarre way.

So. Ignoring her petition to leave. I stood a little straighter and walked with an even step until I was only about a meter away from the purple-haired girl.

-You ain’t getting rid of me that easily. Kishka- I announced, hands clasped behind my back and a stern look on my face.

I knew firsthand what it was to feel absolutely crushed. And I knew very well that sometimes, the best remedy for that is solitude, being left alone so you can begin healing yourself, rebuilding yourself... It was this knowledge that let me guess with a measure of certainty that this was not one of those cases.

Because when your own healing process began turning self-destructive. Not having anyone around to get your head out of the gutter can be really fucking dangerous... Without letting myself time to second guess this. I continued.

-So this is how you spend your days lately... Drunk to the point of stupidity and wandering around the forest like a madwoman?- I asked as my eyes distractedly soared around the room. It was only my second time here, and I wholeheartedly hoped it wouldn’t be as bad as the first one.

What happened was still too fucking fresh. Me coming here, my encounter with Raul. Going to Shadecloack... And his expulsion... And his arrest...

And the fact someone had been arrested because I had snitched on them. Because I had been unable to help them... Just like with Holly.

Shaking my head. I caged in those feelings and thoughts for another time. Flaring them now would benefit nobody. It wouldn’t help Kishka, and it certainly wouldn’t help me.

If what Raul said was right. This had been happening for a couple days. So this was beyond just an initial reaction to the trauma. This was at risk of becoming a routine for her...

I didn’t pull any punches with the Burzanova girl. Fully aware that I wasn’t by any means a paragon of moral authority. But committed to disguise as whatever Kishka may need to get over this.

-Is it some kind of Burzanova training regime that I’m not picking up? Is this how you mean to become stronger?- I purposedly jabbed at her. Trying to at least make her react so we could talk properly after the fact. But also fully meaning the harshness in my words.

Did you talk about killing someone, but couldn’t even pull yourself from the ground? What merit was to those empty words then?

You can take a little time to blow off some steam, to recover physically and mentally for what was to come. But sooner or later you needed to stop that and focus again on your goals.

I knew I was being maybe unfairly harsh with her. But she had led me to believe she could take it. I wouldn’t disrespect her by treating her like a frail little flower about to freeze to death whenever a gust of wind shook her a bit.

Still. Deciding it was enough harshness, for now, I slowly sat on the ground. Never losing sight of the mourning girl in front of me. Even if she decided she didn’t want to see my face right now.

-Come on Kish. You are not helping anyone with this and you know it. I highly doubt that getting drunk enough to sleep on the floor is making you feel better-

I told her, still unwavering in my conviction, but with a tone a little warmer than before. To show her that I still cared, that I still recognized she was hurting, even if I was rash about it.

-You will have to suck it up if you don’t want me telling you this. But this is not healthy. Nor productive. You need another way of handling this... Because there is no way you can keep this up forever. So might as well stop now-

At this point, I would back off if she started to get violent or the like, but nonetheless stand my ground unless something like that happened.

-Hey... I won’t pretend I can even imagine how much you are suffering right now. But destroying yourself is not the way to go about it at all. It fixes jack-shit and only means we are missing another friend we cannot help. Not unless she let us-

Holly was dead. Raul was in prison. And now Kishka was self-destroying in front of us... But, even if it was clear at this point that I was really shitty at trying to help people. I could see that at least one of those three persons was still in a position when I could do... Dunno... At least something. Anything to make them better.

-And you can get all the mad you want at me, but you know this is the truth... You need to find another way to deal with this. Because I am no shrink. But I’m pretty damn sure this isn’t working- I finally said, my voice was now much softer than when I just entered the room. But still maintaining a faint aura of sternness to it.

-So... Do you wanna talk about it?- I asked, whether she wanted to do so or no was irrelevant. It would still give her a chance to express herself on the matter. Either to discuss how she felt about Holly’s death or to tell me how much she didn’t want to talk about that with me.

But before that. I needed to let her know about something. So It wouldn’t come off as a surprise later.

-By the way. Someone else came to see you. She shouldn’t take long-

---

1350 / 1350 Words

[Kishka Burzanova]

KISHKA BURZANOVA

Ah fuck. No, it wasn't Holly. Obviously. But it also wasn't Clover, or some other nobody who she didn't give a fuck about, come to bother her. It was Bianca. Arguably the only friend she had left at this point, and one she dearly wished wouldn't have ignored her request. She knew she would, and the frustrated whining noise she made as she dramatically waved a dismissive hand in the lizard girl's direction was only her way of acknowledging the inevitable. There weren't many with a stubborn streak as long and determined as hers. That was for damn sure. But Bianca was among the few who could match her, and at the moment, she had the advantage in terms of mobility. Kishka couldn't stand up, even if she'd wanted to, at that moment, and that meant she was stuck with Bianca, for better or worse. Which felt like worse to her. She hadn't wanted anyone to see her like this. She didn't want anyone to see her at all, and Bianca's first jab at her earned a wince which the Faunus couldn't see past the back of Kishka's head, from where she was standing. She swung her formerly waving arm around to rest on the ground, just in front of her, as she stared into it, glaring at the fingers that had hesitated when she'd passed by the podium that fateful day. "Yyyeah... Maybe it is. What? Y'got a problem with'at? Huh?" Despite the hostility in her words, her tone was unmistakably that of a girl who'd just been bawling her eyes out, and was trying to act tough to hide it. Poorly. The second verbal stab at her ego hit as expected- this time, she very visibly flinched, before rolling over onto her stomach, planting her left cheek firmly against the ground, still facing defiantly away from her classmate. Her voice was softer, and the hostility was replaced by a sullen bitterness. "Yeah. It is." It was the latest in a long line of Burzanova training methods, in fact- stay shitfaced, stay numb, try not to think too hard about any one thing, and try as hard as possible to make it to tomorrow. What the hell could be better training? She was testing the limits of her mental fortitude, and clearly she had found them. And now, it seemed like she was going to smash through them. Obviously, this was all going to make her stronger. Yeah. Right... She didn't care about getting stronger at the moment. Her talk with Bianca about killing the ash-haired woman may have gotten the Faunus fired up for their eventual revenge, but all it had done for Kishka was wear her thin and put things into perspective. It made her realize how small and insignificant she was- how little her accomplishments meant, even in the local scene. At Haven, she was a big fish in a small pond, but having seen for herself the ocean, she found that she was only a minnow. Not even an especially large or fast minnow. Why bother training? It hadn't gotten her any closer to reaching her twin's level of prowess. If over a year of daily intensive training couldn't even get her that far, then what the hell was she going to do to kill the goddamn walking inferno she'd set her sights on? What were they going to do, outlive her to death? Unlikely, given their career choice. No, there was nothing they could realistically do to cross that gap, and the past few days had been enough time for Kishka to spend planning, and thinking, and she had come to the conclusion that it was hopeless. She had failed Holly, and she was going to fail her again. And a third time, when she eventually put down the bottle one last time... She wasn't too worried about that, at the moment, though. Maybe even looking forward to it a little bit. There was still a part of her that had been fully at peace with the idea of taking the leap over the edge of the cliff, down to the training facilities below. It had been small enough that the parts with more self-preservation instincts had taken over in the end, but she figured maybe drinking herself to death might be slow and quiet enough to go unnoticed by the voice in her head reminding her that humans generally aren't supposed to endanger themselves this needlessly. Bianca sat on the ground next to her, but she still refused to look at her, even as she listened, lying corpse-like on the ground, her body too heavy for her muscles to move it. Was any of this making her feel better? It was a fair question, but one that didn't need to be asked when the answer was so plain to see. "S'not..." She didn't respond as Bianca went on to give her the suck it up speech. The irony is that this is exactly the sort of speech the old Kishka would have given someone in a similar position as this, in a heartbeat. Arguably with less empathy and compassion than Bianca's version. She was a cold, mean, bitch, and she was well aware of that. She built an identity around it. It was what worked, right? Back in Sanctum, when she was competing for attention with a literal walking light show. If she couldn't be the brilliantly shining golden girl, then she'd be the asshole. If nobody was going to think of her as a genius prodigy, they'd damn well remember her as the one who beat their ass and ripped them a new one after the fact. Sucking it up was easy back then. She'd never known how it felt to have something. So there was never anything to lose. And now, after everything that had happened, after everything she'd been through, with Argent, with Holly... Now she had lost everything. She didn't have any less than she'd had while she was at Sanctum. But it hurt infinitely more. She wished she'd never met the two of them. Never crossed paths with them, never let them in. She had remembered why she put up so many walls. She didn't want to be hurt. Couldn't bear it. Wasn't used to it, and didn't know what to do about it. Suck it up? Easier said than done. She rolled over, at long last, to look up at Bianca, and it was telling exactly how she'd spent her past few days. She was an awful fucking sight. Far worse than during her Vytal Tournament match with Aegle and Seiya. Her hair was unkempt, and full of Gardenin' Club dirt from laying on the floor, and god knows where else; bags under bloodshot eyes, normally radiating power and confidence, now listless and tearstricken and empty; her clothes were dirty, grass-stained, and exactly as Bianca had predicted, it was unlikely she'd touched a shower in days- made all the more clear by some questionable stains on her shirt and pants. Smelled like a dive bar, looked like she'd been tossed out of one. Looked better than she felt, at least. She eyed the Faunus, squinting lopsidedly at her, trying to figure out which one was the real one. Tried to push herself up to a sitting position, but found that her arm got distracted and just lolled over instead of bothering to force her body upwards. She just stared up at Bianca from the floor. "...No. Uhh... Yeah. Yeah, I-... No, I don' wanna... I, ugh... Fuckin'... Fuck off I don't wanna talk aboutit. Don't go... I just... I need..." What did she need? Did she even know anymore? Her train of thought was confusing, and incoherent, as she straddled the line between craving solitude, and companionship. She was so tired of being alone... Her words came a little slower, but no less blurred into a mash of drunken babbling. "I need... You. I mean, I need uhh... I want Holly. Fuckit. She's dead, I killed her, whoops... Ticking time bombs, haha... Fuck. I need... What... Do I need, Bianca? I need um... I need a drink. I need to... To wash my hands. Gimme uhh... bucket." She jabbed her finger towards the little watering pail by the door. "Bucket. Bucket now. Not clean... Not clean, not clean, not clean... How do I um..." She reached up, cupping her temples in her hands, and curling forward on the ground, seeming to struggle with this last thought. "How um... Do I..." "What's wrong with me? Why'm I...Like this? Whyy... am I so fucked up? Bianca...?" Wait... She? Who was she? She hadn't registered any of that last thing Bianca had mentioned to her up until then, but suddenly it dawned on her. Someone else was coming? Who? Oh god... The last thing she wanted was for anyone else to see her like this. A chill ran down her spine, even though the idea was ludicrous. "No, no, wait. You din't call my sister did you? Fuck her. Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her! Make her go 'way... Don't want her. Hate her. Want Holly... Where's... Oh. Right..." She reached towards her bag, lying halfway across the room from her. "Want a drink... I don't... I don't feel okay,"

Aura// 99% | WC// 1552 | TWC// 2984

✬

[Bianca Sabbato]

I ignored Kishka’s whines and dismissive gestures with unwavering calm. It was not my first time dealing with drunkards, and it probably wouldn’t be my last. And as long as they didn’t get violent, then they most likely never had the energy to properly tell you to fuck off.

-Not really, merely curious, but it greatly disturbs me that you don’t have a problem with it- I said in response to her initial quip. Wasting no time in turning the conversation back onto her. We were here to discuss her, after all, not me.

Still, I didn’t fail to notice how utterly destroyed the girl looked like. Absolutely miserable in every sense. Part of me wanted to break my stoic facade and go hug her, and tell her that everything would be alright.

That part of me was what got people killed. A better part of me knew that It couldn’t be helped. I needed to endure and stand firm. Even as she cringed from my second attack, now sounding much calmer than before, but... Much sadder nonetheless.

The girl remained silent for a good while. Almost motionless on the floor. Likely thinking, reflecting on something, even if it was only on how much she wanted me to piss off and let her sleep.

Besides that, I was at least grateful that Kishka had enough clearance of mind to admit this was clearly not making her feel any better. That was progress, at least. If she could see for herself that there was no reason for continuing this, then we would make leaps towards making her feel better.

And a part of me suspected the woman probably had some kind of internal reason to believe all the damage she was doing to herself was justified...

But whatever the reason was, it was clearly bullshit. I think we can all agree on that... But when the mind decides to take a nap and the hearth is put on the driver seat... Well... Bullshit tends to happen. It is as simple as that.

Convincing a mind is easy. Convincing a heart or an ego... That was the hard part, especially one that was likely hating itself right now. Some people are really obstinate about keeping grudges, even if it is against themselves.

I would know, I was the textbook example of a person to up her own ass in it to even be able to realize most of the time. Nowadays, I mostly spent my days hyper-focusing on the next task, even the most menial ones. As a way to pretend I had any semblance of a cohesive plan of action for my life.

So I wasn’t the most qualified to give Kishka advice on how to live hers. But even I could see this was unsustainable in the long term.

If she needed time, then she could get help. If she didn’t want help, that was fine as well, but only as long as she didn’t hurt herself in the process.

Whether she wanted to quit and dedicate her life to some other thing. Or to remain a huntress, she needed to make that choice eventually.

Some people worked better with clear, tangible motivators, such as me, who could draw strength from my current objective. But I knew this was not the case for everyone else. Maybe Kish wanted to stay here but had no conviction to avenge Holly. Which was also good, in and out on itself, let the dead rest in peace and all of that.

To be honest. I would have the girl doing any other thing that wasn’t... This.

-Tsk. Look at you, girl. It’s a damn tragedy to see one such as yourself in this state- I muttered, in part to myself, in part to her. It was really an ugly sight, considering Kishka was usually such a pretty girl. And so full of energy and conviction.

I didn’t want to sound overly dramatic. But it was like having a pretty painting in your room and someone coming in and smashing a bottle of sadness and Burzanova vodka all over it... Ok... Maybe a little too un the nose with my metaphor there... So, let us get back to the main topic.

I listened to Kishka’s next ramblings with a curious expression. Not wanting to show her my inner concerns. And it seemed like the girl wanted me to stay, but not to talk about it? That was nice, a perfectly valid approach.

-It is fine, I’ll stay here. You don’t need to talk to me if you don’t want to. Just let me know if you need something- I replied to Burzanova. Shifting a little closer now that she had me in her line of sight. Hoping that she noticed so she could give me her approval or not.

Dunno. I just felt like it. I didn’t like to think of myself as the nurturing kind and all of that shit. But it was hard for me to see her suffer like that, barely able to form coherent sentences... She did tell me some really troublesome shit, some really worrying red flags one after the other.

Still, I complied nonetheless, bringing her the watering pail and offering to hold it for her to help wash her hands... As much as she shouldn’t be feeling the need to...

It almost broke me to see her like this. Fuck you, Raul. How is it that you knew this and allowed it to fester as it did?

Anyway. These thoughts were interrupted when Kishka started panicking. Mentioning something about her sister and how she didn’t want her near.

To be frank. I didn’t even know about any sister. Or maybe I had heard about it before and dismissed it from my memory for considering it unimportant. But whatever the case, she seemed less than happy at the notion of meeting with her. So I figured out they weren’t exactly the closest of siblings.

-No. Don’t worry, it is not your sister. It is someone who comes to help. Someone who will make sure you get the help you need right now... So no need to fret- I told her in no uncertain terms, even being willing to repeat myself as many times as necessary to drive the point home.

She asked for something. Her bag. More alcohol... Yeah, like hell that was happening.

-Oh. Sure. Let me get that for you-

I said. Walking towards the backpack. Inside, another bottle of luxurious Burzanova booze laid in wait for someone to enjoy Its contents.

Briefly checking the entirety of the backpack. I took out each and every bottle I could find and went to empty it all on the sink. After I was done, I put all of the empty bottles back in the bag and handed them to Kishka. Except for a single one that I rinsed out a little and filled with tap water.

It was beyond evident that the girl should be able to see me throwing away her alcohol even from her precarious position. But I didn’t care one bit. It was not as if she could do anything to stop me right now.

-There you go. Dunno why do you want that. But it was a pleasure- I called out. Sitting beside her once again and handing her the water bottle. No matter how much she was hurting. To keep enabling her would only make things much worse. She could hate me later. I didn’t give a fuck.

Reassuming my spot sat beside her. I decided to give it a little go at addressing some of her concerns, not that I had any certification. But at least I could try with what was genuinely my feelings on the matter.

-Everyone is a little fucked up. Kishka. Especially in this line of work... There is no such thing as regular people. Everyone has their own fucked up problems...- I looked at her straight in the eyes, my expression softening furthermore to emphasize my intentions.

-It’s the way we go about them what matters... -

At this point, I would place my hand over Kishka’s shoulder, waiting for a reaction. I’d leave it there if she didn’t seem to mind, but swiftly leave her be if she looked uncomfortable. -And you didn’t kill her. You know that is a lie you are telling yourself. Because you are looking for a culprit where there isn’t a clear one...-

Oh yeah, I knew all about that fucking shit. I could even say that was my jam if I had been in the mood for stupid, self-deprecating jokes. Fully aware I was chastising the girl for the very same things I shamelessly did and meant to keep on doing.

...

Taking a deep breath, I continued.

-It was not your fault... And I’m not telling you this to make you feel better. It’s my honest opinion-

I raised my hand. Daring to inch a little closer to the trainee while giving her ample time to make any gesture of displeasure that indicated that she wanted me to retreat.

If she allowed me, however. I would place my other hand over her head and start gently stroking her hair.

No one gets anywhere with harsh treatment alone, after all. As much as being overly soft can create pompous, whiny, and immature pricks. Being too rough can also lead to emotionally disturbed individuals.

As with everything in life, a balance must be, if not achieved, then at least wholeheartedly sought.

I just hoped that if I wasn’t helping Kish, then at least I wasn’t hurting her.

---

1605 / 2955 Words

[Theloria Shadecloak]

[nospaces]

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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE’LL RECLAIM OUR DESTINY

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[attr="class","nikki102"]WE’LL SET OUR FUTURE FREE

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[attr="class","nikki109"]Raul Adalwulf did not go quietly. Sobbing turned to screaming, and screaming turned to ranting, and ranting turned to trying to break free and run. Howling and raving the entire time about how Shade’s life was over, at how he was going to make sure she rotted in prison for the rest of her life, and how the Council was going to strip her of her license. He ranted at everyone that came nearby, calling them cowards for supporting a broken and unjust system. He screamed down the hall that the Headmaster was a tyrant, Shadecloak was a tyrant, and every authority he could name was an out of control, psychotic dictator. As he was dragged in reinforced carbon steel restraints, he even tried to convince people to break the “completely innocent and framed” teenager free from police custody and howled in anger and frustration when people ignored him or looked at him like he was insane or even ran away. She could still hear the screaming in her head asking if everyone thought he was a monster, and that Shadecloak was the real monster. [break][break]

Every time he tried to activate his semblance; his aura took a massive hit due to the chains being stronger than his size increase. Every time he tried to run, Shadecloak threw one of her gravity dust marbles right at the back of his kneecap to force him into a kneeling position and a full and immediate stop. His aura didn’t last all the way to the station, and his last attempt at running he seemed convinced that he was unable to be hurt because he somehow thought that attacking someone without aura was against the rules. That marble broke his right kneecap, and he wasn’t running anymore. Then the howling about how Shade was going to go to prison for assault started, and she wished she had brought earplugs for the ten thousandth time that day. [break][break]

Haven had dramatically increased their mental health care after the attack, but the people who needed it the most actively avoided seeking help and often didn’t even show up when requested to. The solution was somewhere between having therapists run patrols around campus and jumping people with mandatory sessions and simply forcing everyone under threat of expulsion to go to weekly sessions at the least – and the second one might actually be a good idea after all of this. It would be easy to make the argument that it was necessary, even. It would be an easy argument to make tomorrow, especially given that there was no real warning that Raul was anywhere close to that psychotic due to him actively avoiding mental health help for so long. [break][break]

Thankfully, the nearby jail was equipped to handle those with semblances and was reinforced carbon steel… too strong for him to break apart even when his aura returned, and he tried. There was a small two cell one on campus, even, meant as a last resort sort of thing and made after the Haven Attack as well. Shade got the text from Bianca while she was walking back, and from there it was just a hop, skip, and jump to the Gardening Club. The lion faunus wasn’t anywhere close to as fast as she was in her prime due to massive injuries to her legs and knee ligaments, but even in her current state she was still able to push ninety kilometers an hour in dress shoes, which wasn’t bad. [break][break]

Moving quietly was done as something more second nature than anything at this point, and she slowed herself to a walk before entering the Gardening Club house expecting to see something bad… but not quite that bad. The stench was noticeable outside, but inside it was just rancid. Green eyes scanned the room wordlessly until she finally located Kishka, and her right eye twitched just a bit as she realized what kind of state the teenager was in. The fact that she was running around in this state and nobody did anything with the information was inexcusable, and if there was only one eyewitness to this before Bianca he could go straight to hell. [break][break]

“So.” she’d start, as Kishka wasn’t looking in her direction and the fact that she came in silently meant it was next to impossible for her to have noticed the lion faunus coming in. “Should I call an ambulance at this point? There’s enough alcohol in the air to kill someone three times over, and you need your stomach pumped if even half of that is in your system right now.” [break][break]

She walked slowly and deliberately until she was standing right in front of Kishka and kneeled down, still wearing her usual three-piece suit. She extended her hand to the girl and sighed: “Can you stand up? If you can’t and puke all over me it’ll be much harder for me to say this was all just apple juice in funny packaging, so please try to puke to the side if you feel the urge. Let me see what we’re dealing with here.”

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[attr="class","nikki103"]850 words

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[attr="class","nikki103"]850 TOTAL WORDS

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NOTES

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PHARAOH LEAP CREATES

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[Kishka Burzanova]

KISHKA BURZANOVA

Ugh... Why didn't she go away? Nobody ever listens to Kishka... Never. She didn't want Bianca to go away, though- no matter how much she might have insisted otherwise. Because for all the effort she had put into trying to be alone, she knew damn well it wouldn't help. She was lonely; being alone wasn't going to do a damn thing to help that. Though her comments weren't really helping much either- Kishka ignored most of them. She knew she was pitiful. She knew it was sad, and disgusting, and tragic, and painful to see. She wasn't exactly in a very good place, and generally, that ought to come with at least a little bit of leeway to wallow in misery in peace. But no, instead Bianca decided to come and criticize her complete inability to be a functioning human person. Great. At least she stopped nagging after a while; but by then, of course, Kishka was more concerned about Bel coming in and seeing her in such a sorry state to worry too much about Bianca. That was the last thing she wanted. Another victory for the golden girl, and another defeat for the silver medal. Always second-best. No, if Bel saw her lying on the ground, puke-stained and smelling like a still, she would finally be able to work up the nerve to just shoot herself in the face. Cannonball to the head- if it was good enough for Moon, it was good enough for her, right? That's how he'd wanted to go out anyways. And at the moment, she couldn't really see herself as someone who added any more value to the world than the One-Eyed Dragon. Much like him, she too was a joke without a funny punchline. Bianca shifted closer, and Kishka turned her head a little bit out of the way- just enough to avoid the lizard girl's gaze. She calmed down a lot more, though, as she explained that it wasn't Bel on the way. She didn't know who it was, but she nodded, accepting that someone was coming. Whoever it was, it couldn't be much worse than that. Boy, was she wrong. But before she realized that, Bianca had managed to step away and come back, without Kishka really noticing what had happened until she pieced the pictures in her head together again, now that she wasn't as stuck in her thoughts- she'd watched Bianca go dump the liquor down the sink, but it wasn't until she brought back the water that Kishka acknowledged it, squinting at the bottle of fake liquor being passed to her. "M'not stuuuupid, Bianca..." She took the bottle and with her Semblance, tossed it behind her, landing in a bin of recently picked squash, soft enough that the bottle didn't shatter, unlike the many before. And then Bianca started talking again, and she let her head rest fully on the floor, frowning as she listened to a bunch more words that she already knew. She didn't bother replying at first, because she was pretty sure she couldn't coherently explain what she'd meant to the other trainee at the moment, so there was no point in correcting her; she wasn't just fucked up because of emotional and sometimes physical trauma from being a Huntress. That was part of the package deal, she had planned for that. Anticipated it. She was fucked up by birth. And only now, with a cold, hard, view of reality, she had managed to at last accept that truth, and everything that came with it. Didn't mean it was fair. Or that she understood it, especially. Hence asking why. More specifically, why nobody else pointed it out sooner- it was glaringly obvious, after all. She was a horrible person, a terrible friend, and a mediocre Huntress trainee with a shit Semblance, and despite literal years of work, day in, day out, she still couldn't bridge the gap with the genetic lottery winners who ruled the world. "There are no such thing as regular people." Ha... Sure there are. Which ones are which was debatable- people like Bianca, Bel, Holly, Clover, Argent, Colton... They were born with greatness thrust upon them. Handed powerful Semblances, free of charge. Sure, they put in a hell of a lot of work to strengthen them, but that only worked because they were given a good opening hand. Then there were people like her. Like Aegle. Like few other trainees she could think of- for as much as she gave Aegle shit for not belonging at Haven, not deserving to be a Huntress, she often neglected to cast those same stones at the mirror, where they belonged just as much. The two of them were a lot alike. Both fighting way too hard for a Sisyphean effort that was always doomed to fail. So much training, all in vain when she couldn't even save one person. Then again, Bianca and Bel and Colton never had to worry about things like this. They could keep a level head and sleep easily at night, confident that they were on the top of the pile. She envied them, and it had taken a hell of a lot of vodka to come to that conclusion. On the contrary, she felt pretty goddamn crazy. She was put together like the half-assed thrown-together barricades at Rochdale. She reached for the pail again, as her hands had, once again, for the first time in weeks, maybe months, begun to feel grimy, sticky, disgusting. Not clean. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and immediately flinched, rolling over again. "Hands! Hands... No... Don't touch..." She caught what Bianca said immediately after, which stopped her mid-roll, causing her to flop back into the same position she'd been in before, her face wearing a pretty confusing expression. Like a mixture of everything she could be feeling- it was hard to pick out any one thing, but none of it was positive. Just a long stream of pain, anger, sadness, and all manner of similar emotions. She had killed Holly. And it was stupid of Bianca to think otherwise. At least, that was how she felt. Some part of her, on another level, however, believed the lizard faunus. She believed that she was just blaming herself because it was easy. Because beating herself up gave her something tangible to hurt- something she could physically vent her frustrations on. And it wasn't even a far stretch; she had plenty of reasons to drink herself angry, then beat herself stupid. And most of them didn't even have to do with Holly. She reached up to wipe more tears away, and managed instead to smack herself in the face, groaning a little, before glancing at Bianca. "Is my fault. It was me. Shoulda... Shoulda done something... Something else... Better..." She might have gone on in her rambling, but a familiar voice caused her to freeze up immediately. "Ohno." She had been worried about Bel somehow coming in, all the way from Vale, to see her in this pitiful state. But she hadn't even considered the horrifying possibility of Shadecloak coming in from a few buildings down. When Bianca had mentioned someone coming, this wasn't what she'd had in mind. She was mortified, not that she was in any state to properly express that. She scrambled to sit up, managing to roll over onto her stomach, before stubbornly trying to push herself up onto her knees, with very slow, limited, success, as her professor spoke to her. She was glad it wasn't Lynn, at least. Or anyone else, for that matter. Lynn would be fucking useless, like always. Talking about feelings and happy places was for people who weren't grounded enough in reality to discuss the way things were, as opposed to the way we want them to be, no matter how unrealistic. She offered comfort; Kishka needed action. Something she knew Shadecloak could provide. She just felt awful about the lioness seeing her like this. It was ironically the exact same respect that made her the best possible professor to try helping her which made her wish she could curl up into a little ball that just got tinier and tinier until she disappeared. She shook her head at the question. "No, didn't uh... drink it all. Spilled a bunch've it. And Bianca did too." Shadecloak's approach was far too quiet for Kishka to hear, even on her best of days, but especially right then, she was just a little startled by the professor walking over to kneel by her, so much so that she didn't immediately respond to the extended hand and comments about puking. She did feel a little queasy, but not enough to puke yet. At the very least, she felt like she could keep herself from puking all over anyone else. She shook her head, as she reached clumsily out to grab her hand. "No, s'not apple juice... Apple juice is brown, or, or yellow sometimes... S'vodka. I'm sorry..." She tried to pull herself up to her feet, with Shadecloak's hand as leverage, but in the attempt, only managed to get halfway up before she suddenly lurched to the side, away from Shadecloak and Bianca, and threw up into one of the many potted plants in the room. "S-sorry... Oh fuck... I'm sorry. I-I need uh. Jus' um. Gimme minute. I need water. Hands. Dirty. So bad... Fuck, I." She hadn't realized that a fresh downpour of tears had welled up, as she reached around with the hand that wasn't holding onto her professor's (assuming Shade still held her up while she puked her guts out into the petunias) for the water pail again. "She didn't have to die... If I was better, I could've... She didn't have to. My fault. I'm sorry... I'm so, so, sorry... Holly..."

Notes// here | Tagged// here | Aura// here% | WC// 1638 | TWC// 4622

✬

[Bianca Sabbato]

-Understood, no hands. Sorry- I told her as I quickly retreated my hands and placed them patiently on my lap.

Apparently, she didn’t want to be touched, which was to be expected from what I had heard, Kishka not really being a very touchy-feely person. But I believe I was right to doubt this was a normal reaction on her part whatsoever. So it was probably the booze or the sadness speaking for her now.

I wanted to click my tongue in frustration, but I refrained from doing so. Right now, the last thing Kishka needed was someone visibly anxious or irritated by her side. So I kept a neutral expression as I watched her try and wipe away her tears, only to clumsily hit herself in the face. Any semblance of coordination in the girl was absolutely dead and buried as of now.

-...I was there as well. So was Rose, and I don’t see you telling us it was our fault... You may feel it was your responsibility, but you know this isn’t so. It is just a matter of you accepting it- I calmly replied to her ramblings before a voice from behind us gave me pause.

Without moving my head, my eyes darted to the side for about a second, addressing the arrival of professor Shadecloack. Before quickly turning back to Kishka, giving her a last look before stepping back and letting the professor approach her.

Kishka’s reaction was immediate, and I could swear she sobered up at least for a second when she finally realized who had entered the room. Almost looking like a kid that has been caught with her hand inside the cookie jar.

It was quite comforting to see how much respect Shadecloack commanded in the young woman. In less than a second, she had managed to wake the girl in ways I couldn’t have in hours. I had been afraid she would just remain there, laying on the floor until we had to drag her ass to a doctor. I was glad to see I was wrong.

-Uhh... Yeah. That’s true, actually. I poured a lot of it into the sink, the entire content of that bag- I mentioned, motioning towards the handful of empty bottles inside the purple-haired trainee’s backpack. -So Kishka is just... Really drunk, but not on the verge of death... I assume-

She was still drunk enough to be pretty out of it, that was for sure. At least enough to completely miss Shadecloack’s sarcasm and focus all of her attention on emptying her stomach on a nearby potted plant... Better out than in, I could guess.

-Water on its way- I softly called out, handling the water pail to Kishka, or pouring the water over her hands myself if she needed so, and Shade was cool with it.

I was sure there must have been some seriously fucked up psychological implications behind it, feeling like your hands are dirty and all of that shit. It often looked pretty cliche, but it was actually a real thing as far as I knew. So it was probably something to consider... But I was no expert in the matter. So if the professor told me to drop it and deny her that, I would.

-If you need water to drink, just tell me, and I’ll fetch you some- I said again, picking up the previously discarded, water-filled vodka bottle for her to see.

-…This is water, by the way, I washed and refilled it- I mentioned to Shadecloack. So she wouldn’t believe I was about to offer Kishka a drink again... I was a little dumb, but not that dumb. And drinking a lot of water was supposed to help with alcohol poisoning. Something to dilute all that shit she had inside of her.

And then, she started to cry again, and to beat herself with all the stuff she could have done, or that she thinks she could have done, and how she thinks it would have made a difference in the end. As if those things mattered now.

Crossing my arms. I looked at my classmate without knowing all too well what could I do to help her. It was clear she wouldn’t listen to reason in her stat, but I still wanted to talk, to see if I could make her react at least a bit... I felt a little intimidated by Shadecloack’s presence and my general ignorance in the matter, but... Fuck it.

-That is also a lie, Kish. You have no proof that you being better would have prevented her from dying... And if you were so strong that it wasn’t even a possibility. You probably wouldn’t even have been there, but out there doing huntsman job. And Holly would have died anyway-

I calmly commented, fishing out my scroll from my pocket and pressing the button for the list of quick-dial numbers for the emergency services and the like. Without taking my eyes from the device, I kept talking as I searched for the pertinent numbers.

-We can spend all day talking about hypotheticals, but that won't take us anywhere. At least not in your current condition-

Trying to use logic on a drunk person was futile at best. Trying to do so on a hurting person wielded similar results... Trying to do it with a drunk, hurting person wasn’t likely a case where two factors canceled out each other.

After about five seconds, I found the numbers I was looking for. And Lifted up my head towards Shadecloack.

-What is the plan, boss? Do you want me to call a cab or an ambulance? Or do you think it will be enough to get her to the infirmary? At least until all that booze is out of her system-

---

967 / 3922 Words

[Theloria Shadecloak]

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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE’LL RECLAIM OUR DESTINY

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[attr="class","nikki102"]WE’LL SET OUR FUTURE FREE

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[attr="class","nikki109"]The reason why she asked about the ambulance was to gauge mental state and understanding of risk. Truth be told, there was no universe in which Kishka needed an ambulance as long as she didn’t have her aura off in the moment, because aura would protect her against organ failure. It wasn’t exactly information that was widely known, and most only really ever learned that particular limit from experience. Drug abuse of any form was a pretty common vice for huntsmen, largely because their aura didn’t negate the initial negative effects of internal injuries. It prevented you from overdosing and killing yourself for as long as your aura lasted, sure, but that was about the extent of it. [break][break]

Aura was fantastic at preventing external injuries, and for preventing fatal internal injuries. For everything else, it wasn’t the best. It was why so many rampant alcoholics, five pack a day smokers, and other drug abusers with aura tended to live longer than their normal counterparts. It prevented one bad day from ending it all, and it also slowed the deterioration of organs from repeated use and abuse… but it didn’t prevent it entirely. Alcoholics still had their livers give out, and the smokers eventually had their lungs unable to continue. Their habits still killed them if they lived long enough, just a bit later than others. A couple more years to dig themselves deeper and deeper into that hole rather than climbing out of it. [break][break]

Shade let Kishka use her hand and arm as leverage to get up, and green eyes just watched as she lurched over to the side and started puking. Bianca was doing her best to offer moral support, but she wasn’t hitting the mark. She didn’t know Kishka as well, and frankly didn’t seem to grasp the mental state she was in… and really, how could she? The constant replaying of a doomed scenario in your head, the constant what-ifs and second guessing going on the entire time about things that you could have done better – should have done better. The constant reminders of the people that you let down, the person that you cared about more than even yourself dying before your eyes due to your own inadequacy. [break][break]

”Kishka, I’m not going to insult you by lying to your face, but you’re not going to like what the truth is.” she started, still crouched down and supporting the purple haired woman’s weight with her hand. ”That feeling you’re feeling right now won’t get better. The chest pain, the exhaustion, the inability to sleep, the nightmares, the loss of appetite, the shortness of breath might. The physical symptoms will get better over time, but that feeling in your gut right now won’t. You’ll have that feeling on and off for the rest of your life, most likely.” Green eyes were focused entirely on Kishka, without any deviation whatsoever. Bianca was here but not the focus, and she didn’t need attention like the purple haired girl did right in the moment. [break][break]

”The second-guessing and blaming yourself won’t go away, either. Eventually you’ll have an entire list of things you could have done differently, a second-by-second review of your actions and how they could have been better and prevented this. You’ll have to live with that guilt for the rest of your life, too.” It would be insulting to lie to someone, even in this sort of state, and pretend like it got better. To pretend like that portion of your heart would ever become whole again, because it didn’t. There were a few people in any sane person’s life that were simply irreplaceable, and when one was lost in such a traumatic way there was severe emotional fallout. [break][break]

”At the other end of this, you won’t be the same person you were before – unless you’re a fucking psycho, anyway. You’ll rebuild yourself at some point, but it’ll be around the loss. If you rebuild yourself based on running from this feeling, you’ll never stop running. You had an encounter with that feeling and you lost this go around, and you’ll lose again. Maybe once more, maybe a dozen times, maybe a hundred, maybe a thousand more times. Anyone who doesn’t fail at least a dozen times to the feeling you’re feeling right now is a pathetic imitation of a person.” [break][break]

This wasn’t the talk that most people would have given to a woman in this condition and this mental state and this time, but it was the talk that Shade wished she was given at this stage of grief. People kept lying to her face saying it would get better, that she needed to avoid that awful feeling crashing into her like a tidal wave. To run from it in any way she could, to be functional and presentable to the outside world because that was her job, because it was expected. That it wasn’t even the worst, or the people who tried to one up her grief with their own like it was some sort of sick competition. [break][break]

Kishka was dealing with this surge of emotions the only way she knew how. It wasn’t an overreaction, and in many respects it was a very reasonable reaction. Just because it was a feeling that almost all Huntsmen who was capable of feeling any emotion at all felt at one point in their career or another didn’t mean that it wasn’t significant. Grief being common or uncommon didn’t make it any less painful or any less debilitating for the person experiencing it for the first time like this, and frankly any arguments to the contrary were made by people who shouldn’t be in positions of authority over anyone due to a complete and utter lack of empathy. Shade didn’t expect it to be quite this bad, but then again she likely underestimated how close Holly and Kishka really were. The fact that she was seen in this state and then ignored afterwards until today was the most heartless thing she had heard of anyone do in a good long while… but at least the information about her condition went out eventually, even if it was much, much later than was ideal. [break][break]

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[attr="class","nikki103"]1036 words

[attr="class","nikki103"]EVENT

[attr="class","nikki103"]1886 TOTAL WORDS

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NOTES

Notes here

PHARAOH LEAP CREATES

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[Kishka Burzanova]

KISHKA BURZANOVA

She'd wanted to argue at Bianca's mention of her and Rose sharing equal responsibility for Holly's death, the same as Kishka, but she didn't let herself get the words out. Which didn't mean that she agreed- the idea was ridiculous, in fact. Bianca and Rose weren't as close to Holly as she was. It was her responsibility, and she'd failed. She was the strongest student at Haven Academy, the most skilled, and she had failed to save a single person. Rose and Bianca couldn't have done any more than her. But unlike her, they shouldn't have been expected too. It was her burden to bear. Shadecloak got there before she could dwell on it much more, though. Which was a good thing; as heated as she could get about most things, Kishka was a logical person at her core, and some small part of her even felt inclined to believe Bianca's words. Except that in her current state, she would most likely have just turned her hatred and aggression from herself, onto her classmates. It was better for everyone that she lash out self-destructively, as opposed to the ordinary type of destruction. The cool water on her hands caught up to her, as Bianca did as she'd asked moments ago. It was a futile effort, though- she was doing it all wrong. Kishka wanted to snatch the pail from her and do it herself, but she was scared to let go of her professor's hand- just as much as she felt deeply, and utterly, ashamed at needing it, just to halfway stand on her own two feet. Instead, she simply grimaced and let Bianca attempt to clean her hands for her. But she wasn't cleaning them. She didn't need to look down to know that- she'd been trying to get them clean for weeks, months. And where before, it had been tolerable, if frustrating, there was no longer any avoiding them. She knew, on a rational level, that her hands weren't bloody. They couldn't be- realistically, there's no way they could have stayed bloody for what... Almost a year, now? It had been almost an entire year... And nobody else had noticed. Nobody could see it but her, which meant either everyone else was crazy, or she was crazy. And she felt pretty goddamn crazy. Felt nauseous, and not from the vodka in her veins either. She could feel it on her hands. Smell it in the air, even through the haze of ethanol and angst, taste the rusty copper tang on her every breath. She didn't want to, but she couldn't make it stop. She'd come close, a day or so ago, but that strange redhead girl had to come along and talk her out of it. Bianca's voice brought her attention back to reality, and she lulled her head around to stare at the lizard girl as she spoke. Her words were hitting home, just not in the right way. Her words rang true enough, but whether Bianca meant it or not, they scratched at the wrong issue, and flared up insecurities that ran deeper than she likely could have guessed. The idea that she simply wasn't strong enough to save Holly, and if she had been, wouldn't have been around to try, was an accurate assessment, but it only served to push her mind back towards inferiority complexes she'd held since childhood. Bel could have saved Holly. Maybe even would have, if she'd been there- it would have made her look great. She'd have been hailed a hero. Probably would have stolen Holly away from Kishka too, like she always did. This wasn't about Bel. Fuck Bel. She decided to deflect by cherrypicking Bianca's spiel for something she could attack, instead of confronting the harder reality. "Lie? You callin' me a liar? 'M'not, I don't..." She swiveled her head around again as Shadecloak spoke up, trailing off in what would have been a rambling stream of defensiveness and insults intended to push the topic away from her shortcomings again. She frowned. But she listened; even as out-of-her-mind as she was, she knew Shadecloak wasn't one to sugarcoat anything. She was always a straight-shooter, and there was no mincing words, no big grandiose gestures, no emotional blockages getting in the way. Just good sense. Which meant if she was being told she wouldn't like the truth, there was a good chance she wouldn't like it. And she didn't. Who would? She hadn't expected the pain to go away. But she'd thought maybe she could make it better, at least. And the idea of rebuilding herself didn't sound any more appealing. She didn't want to have to do that- she was fine with progressing like she'd planned it, like how it was always supposed to go. None of this made any fucking sense. She was supposed to get stronger, and Holly and Argent would get stronger too, and they'd find a fourth person who wouldn't get all pissy about Kishka prioritizing winning a fight over her cat-and-mouse combat fantasies, and they'd get stronger too, and then she'd go and challenge Bel and her team to a rematch, and she would kick her ass, and they would celebrate, and it would be the best day of her life, because it meant she would have finally amounted to something. That was all she ever wanted. "...All Holly ever wanted was to be happy and loved... Who the fuck chooses burnin' someone alive before I dunno... Breaking her Aura. Knockin' her out. Fuck'er..." She didn't realize she was rambling out loud, as she continued to mull over her thoughts, and what her professor had said to her. It wasn't fair. Holly was supposed to be alive. This wasn't how it was meant to be. Not how she wanted it to be. She didn't say anything for a few seconds, before she looked up at Shadecloak again, some hazy semblance of understanding peeking out from beneath the tears, and the liquor. "What'm'I s'posed t'do then... I can't make it stop. Can't run away. Can't fix it. What can I do? Wheere do I start? How d'you rebuild yourself?" She paused again for a moment before continuing, sniffling a bit. "How'd you do it...?" She almost regretted asking, immediately as the words left her mouth. Because she was aware, on some level, that what she was asking was probably a lot more personal than most people would prefer to answer. And if Shadecloak was being honest about how this feeling affected people, she was pretty sure asking the woman to open up about her own experiences with it would do little but drag things to the forefront of her mind that were better left in old memories. But she needed to know. She needed help. She knew that. And it sounded like Shadecloak understood what she was feeling pretty well. And she'd gone on to be a pretty functional person, somehow, despite the feeling that making it to the next morning was a Herculean labor. She couldn't even stand on her own. As much as it pained her, she needed to be humble and ask for, and accept, help. Because she couldn't go on living on her own. She wasn't going to be able to. She stared down into the flower pot of puke, then slowly over to the bottles by the sink. At her dirty clothes, and the fringes of unkempt hair drooping down from her bangs. And finally, down at her own hands. "Disgusting..." She was pathetic.

WC// 1268 | TWC// 5890

✬

[Bianca Sabbato]

Ignoring Kishka’s comments about calling her a liar. I was content to keep pouring water into her hands. However much that did help, I didn’t know. But at least it was a distraction from the other shit that troubled her mind.

As of her current state of drunkenness, there was a fair chance that she would have fuzzy memories about all of this once she was sober again. And I believed it was most important to address those things when she could at least stand by herself.

And by that, I mean that a certified professional should address this. Kishka’s attitude was clearly serious business now. And after losing her best friend like that, I couldn’t blame her. And I had the absolute certainty that I had none of the training necessary to provide the assistance she needed now.

At most, I could try and be there for her. To try and help Kishka get better herself. At least I could be a friend for her, to succeed now where I had also failed Holly.

Now, it was Shade’s turn to talk. And she went straight to the neck, as expected of her. Nevertheless, she wasn’t cruel nor uncaring in her words. She simply was unafraid of saying what she thought needed to be said, and I respected that.

Sometimes people just need to hear the truth. So they can start working on their way to get out of their hole. And living on a lie was the complete opposite of that.

I respected her. And in that vein, I kept silent as the woman offered her words to Kishka. At this point, I wanted nothing more than to hold Kishka’s head into my arms and cuddle her until morning came. But I knew I would only make things worse by doing that, so I bit my lips and watched carefully for the purple-haired girl’s reaction.

Shadecloack’s were nice words, in their own way. I thought for a second that she maybe was kinder than what people gave her credit for... Whatever the case, I would also commit her words to memory, even if they weren’t directed at me, as I found them to be useful ones.

The water ran out, so I went away for a second to try and get more. When I was coming back. I managed to hear Kishka’s last question towards the class green teacher.

I was left just standing there, looking between the two women and feeling a little uncomfortable myself. As the seconds stretched, I cringed a little and approached Shadecloack from the side opposite to Kishka.

-Huh... I can get out for a few if you’d want. Professor- I discretely told the faunus woman beside me, trying to be silent enough for Kishka not to hear me. But even if she did, It was not the end of the word.

I didn’t know if Shadecloack would be willing to share something so personal with Kish. But I understood that if that was the case. It was probably not my place to be hearing it. But Kishka’s alone.

So if she asked for a moment of privacy, I would comply and return later. If not, I would limit myself to simply stay there in case Kishka needed something else.

---

546 / 4468 Words

[Theloria Shadecloak]

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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE’LL RECLAIM OUR DESTINY

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[attr="class","nikki102"]WE’LL SET OUR FUTURE FREE

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[attr="class","nikki109"]When Kishka asked how Shade did it herself, the faunus gave an extremely forced smile. The ears on her head perked as Bianca whispered a question, to which the faunus would shift her gaze for a moment to Bianca and shake her head slightly before starting to talk. None of this was secret, and if they dug hard enough they could have found out this information on their own. Not in the Mistral intranet, given her lack of history here, but at the Vytal Festival or any future contact with Beacon Academy certainly. “Think about it for a second. Why would a faunus from the first and most famous team of the same move to become a faculty member at Haven Academy – across the world from her team leader who is a distinguished faculty member at our alma mater and teammate who is a senior huntress who still runs missions for the Headmaster of Beacon? We were the top team of our class, and it wasn’t even close. Headmaster Osgood knows me well enough that he went out of his way to arrange us to be in the announcer’s booth together at Vytal. Why am I somewhere that I have no ties to and nobody I was ever close to had any ties to?” [break][break]

The smile faded, then, as the woman adjusted her footing and she fell silent for about ten seconds. It was to force Kishka to focus on something that wasn’t her own feeling in the moment, which would help with the nausea and disorientation if she actually did it. Given that she had prompted the answer, it was likely that she would. If she was lucid enough to focus, she was lucid enough to retain information. [break][break]

“It’s because I lost way too many times to that feeling. Alcohol wasn’t my coping mechanism of choice, it was emotion dampeners. I don’t know if you noticed, back in Rochdale on the airship – but everyone’s personality shifted when we took those pills. Everyone who took them, anyway, except for me. By the time I got to Haven, I was permanently like this due to prolonged overuse permanently changing the chemical makeup of my brain. That wasn’t enough to make the feeling go away, either. If anything, it’s the only thing I’m able to feel most times.” [break][break]

That wasn’t even a lie, either. It was rare for an emotion to be sufficient for her to even notice at this point other than that vast emptiness threatening to drag her back into purgatory. It was horrifying, for a while, before it became so normal that she could barely remember how it felt to not be like this. It wasn’t a stretch to say that the person that she used to be had completely ceased to exist, and was replaced with someone else somewhere along the line. It was something that just kind of happened in an irreversible way, and by the time it was obvious it was far too late to change course and even attempt to reverse the changes that had already been made. [break][break]

“Some people are more successful in their rebuilds than others, and mine was never very stable. I hope, for your sake, that you’re better at it than I was. One thing that stuck with me, though, was a very clever bit of emotional manipulation that Osgood told me once. He asked me that if there was an afterlife and I ended up getting myself killed pointlessly, would I be able to face her again? I don’t think there’s a happy ending for any of us at the end, but there’s no way to tell for sure. I’d burn this entire world down without a second thought if it meant I could see that stupid smile one more time, and if there is an afterlife I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I caused that smile to disappear again. Your motivation to continue will likely be different, but people who survive long enough after the fact tend to find something to justify their existence.” [break][break]

It was vague, and in many ways, it was an evasive answer, but it was going to have to suffice. The act of playing one upmanship with trauma was disgusting, and not a practice she wanted to delve into. The details were unimportant in this instance, because she had shared to a level that answered the question and left old wounds alone as much as was possible. The reason she let Bianca stay was that if she wanted to pursue this line of work, she’d be in the same place soon enough. The only people who weren’t were the types so scared of forming meaningful connections that they let nobody in out of fear and the truly mentally deficient, and that was the unfortunate and ugly truth of this career. Things continued to get worse and people continued to die around you until you, too, died violently. It was the type of career where it was perfectly valid to be intensely distrustful of anyone who lived into old age, and everyone who took the licensing test knew it would shorten their lifespan dramatically. In Haven, though, that shortened lifespan came a hell of a lot earlier than it did at Beacon.

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[attr="class","nikki103"]882 words

[attr="class","nikki103"]FACULTY

[attr="class","nikki103"]2768 TOTAL WORDS

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NOTES

Notes here

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[Kishka Burzanova]

KISHKA BURZANOVA

It didn't take the bit of acting experience Kishka had, even in her drunken stupor, to recognize Shadecloak was not entirely comfortable with the question posed to her. But at least she could still fake a smile about it. Ironically, that was possibly the first thing so far, since Holly's death, that had given Kishka a little bit of hope. It felt a little selfish, actually, which she hadn't expected- the idea that there was hope for her to recover from this, and at least reach a point where it was behind her, and she could pretend it didn't haunt her every waking moment. Holly didn't get that option. Because she was dead. Because Kishka had failed. Shadecloak began to speak, and Kishka began to listen. Anyone with a couple of brain cells to bump together could piece together the puzzle the lioness presented to her- it was obvious. Still not something Kishka had taken the time to really think about. Realization dawned on her, just before the last question was posed. It made a lot of sense. She'd left behind everyone she knew and cared about, so that it couldn't happen again. It sounded like a promising idea to the purple-haired girl as well, honestly. She knew Shadecloak wasn't actually recommending that as her course of action, though- there was a point to this story, and the way the professor paused after speaking led her to think she was supposed to dwell on what that point was. Which was tricky, because her head was a whirling blur of emotions and intoxication. But she managed. Shadecloak adjusting her footing caught her offguard, and even though it was only a small shift, it still forced her to adjust her own stance, after a brief moment of frantic attempts to catch her balance. It was relatively successful- she was still relying on Shadecloak's hand to hold her steady, but a lot of that was more placebo than anything else. She didn't say anything, during the long stretch of silence, just stared at Shadecloak's face, thinking. And waiting. It was effective- she was caught up in listening to the answer to her question, to the point that she wasn't thinking about Holly, or how much she'd actually wanted to jump off that ledge, or the blood she was smearing on her professor's hand, which she knew wouldn't come off, no matter how much water was poured on it, no matter how hard she scrubbed. All there was, was her and Shadecloak. And finally, the faunus spoke up once more, confirming what Kishka had correctly assumed. Her eyes lit up through the haze at the mention of the emotion dampers. She nodded. She remembered them. They were oddly comforting. She wasn't sure she liked the way they felt, entirely, but she remembered that level-headedness that had come with taking them. Remembered not being angry. She'd cooperated with Nasrin Golbahar, of all people, and had done so willingly, because her usual hotheadedness and spite wasn't there to influence her decision-making. She also remembered what she and Nasrin had discovered. The negative effects of the dampers. The shambling zombified Rochdale citizens. She'd quit taking the dampers, then. But she suddenly wondered if maybe she shouldn't have- how would things have gone differently if she was thinking purely rationally? She wasn't too keen on thinking about that. She'd barely gotten Argent and Holly out of there alive, after all. Changing any other factors might have meant having this conversation with Shadecloak much sooner, when she was much less prepared for it. Shadecloak continued, though, and somehow, the emotion dampers lost their appeal. Something that could radically alter a person's brain chemistry couldn't fix the feelings of pain, and regret, and guilt, and anger, and grief. That said a lot about the road laid ahead of her. Before she could interject with anything else, the older woman offered up another bit of advice, secondhand from the Beacon headmaster. Kishka wasn't sure she believed in any kind of afterlife either. She'd never been very religious, honestly. Holidays with family, and a few times a year, if there was some reason to attend a church service, at best. And a lot of that was more tradition than sincerely held convictions. But it still made for a good thought experiment. And pretty good emotional manipulation, like Shadecloak had said, of course- Osgood always did strike her as a little too charming and charismatic, when she saw him on TV, or at Vytal. She was taken aback a bit at the readiness of her professor's answer to that question. It was a side of her that she hadn't seen before. Hell, it hadn't occurred to her that someone as calm and collected as Shadecloak could actually say those words at all- even if it was just a hypothetical expression of how deeply she felt about her lost teammate. Kishka had to agree with her. She'd do anything to bring Holly back. But there was nothing she could do that would do that, so the best she could settle for was living in a way that Holly would want her to. Which was still much, much, easier said than done. "Hm." It was a quiet, reflective, acknowledgment. She had a lot to think about. "Thanks... I'll... That helped." It had. Not enough, of course- and that didn't take a genius to see either, as the same doubt and hurt still lay across her face like an ugly masquerade mask. Shadecloak's words were taken to heart, and she was pretty sure she'd remember them when she woke up with the worst hangover of her life. But it hadn't immediately fixed the problem. Not that she, or anyone, had expected it to, of course. It took time. She had time.

WC// 968 | TWC// 6858

✬

[Bianca Sabbato]

I felt a sharp tinge of empathy when I saw Shadecloak’s... Best attempt at a smile. Having to avert my eyes as it took me completely by surprise.

Then her question came, and once again was something that I did not expect from the professor. Why was she here when her whole life was a continent away? How she framed the question made it quite clear what was the conclusion she was leading Kishka on.

She was running from something. Be it a person, a memory, or a feeling. There was something that had been so traumatic in her life that she didn’t even want to think about it, so she was avoiding any instance that could remind her of the matter. As she had told Kishka a couple moments before.

Did this mean that she was weak? No, of course not. If anything, the fact that she had so promptly ventured to share her own problems to lighten up Kishka was a sign of her resilience. I didn’t know anything about these emotion dampeners, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out the gist of it. And how most people would feel reticent, or even embarrassed to admit something like that.

I did felt a tad bit worried for Shadecloak herself if I’m being honest. Especially with her last confession of not being able to feel anything else than what she was avoiding most days... But that was a worry for another day, as cruel as it sounds. Right now it was Kishka the one most in need of help.

Speaking of the purple-haired girl. I saw Kishka’s eyes light up with attention as Shadecloak became more serious. And I knew she was at least hooked to the question. I didn’t entirely get the part about the afterlife if I’m being honest, but Kish seemed to do so. I breathed a little more relieved when she expressed her acknowledgment of the situation.

As the seconds stretched in silence, I got a little closer to the still wobbly Kishka. Putting the water canteen aside for now. She looked... Still like shit, but there was at least a spark in her eyes like there was a certain sense of reflection in them, and not only a deep pool of despair like before.

-As... Shadecloak said...- I began to utter in a small voice and with a great amount of trepidation. But still wanting to offer some words of encouragement now that she seemed more open to it - Everything feels awful right now. And you have a right to feel like that, anyone would, so there’s nothing to feel ashamed about it-

Of course, she was going to feel miserable. She lost her best friend, and as much shit as I gave her for her actions, I understood now that she probably had no other way to deal with the pain. But what really bothered me was that someone I genuinely liked thought that she needed to suffer through it alone.

Like she deserved all of this... Fuck that... No one deserved anything like this, to suffer alone. Least of all Kishka. While not being perfect, she was a good girl trying to do her best.

-Just... Seek someone, if you feel it’s too much for you to handle alone. Or if you simply want someone to be around. There are people in your life who want to see you well-

At the very least Shade and Argent... As much as that was probably a sore spot right now. Hell, even I, as shitty as that option was. Could try and be with her. It was the least I could do.

Giving a step back, I turned towards Shadecloack. Unsure of what was next to come. Nervously rubbing my hands together as I watched her held Kishka straight. There would be a time in the future to properly reflect on her words. But that time wasn’t now...

I just wanted my classmate to be okay, that was all that mattered to me right then.

---

674 / 5142 Words.

[Kishka Burzanova]

KISHKA BURZANOVA

Kishka's head swiveled away from Shadecloak at the sound of Bianca's voice. Still a bit like a marionette on puppets' strings- her fine motor control was about as present as the rest of Remnant's shattered moon, so it was more of a slump than a proper head turn. She didn't say anything at first, just listened. In part because she was still chewing on Shadecloak's words, trying to make as much sense of them as her muddled brain would allow. But partly because she'd calmed down some, and was able to focus on the lizard faunus without breaking down in hysterics again. She could at least agree with Bianca's assessment of the situation- everything did feel awful. Jerking her head around to meet her classmate's gaze brought up a renewed nausea, though she managed to hold back the urge to vomit again. It would probably just be bile at this point, anyways- she'd already puked up as much of the vodka as she could, along with what little she'd managed to eat that morning. Everything after those words hit her harder, now that Bianca had her attention. Her gaze hit the floor, as she thought to herself about what they really meant. It was hard sometimes, remembering that she had people who genuinely cared about her. She still wasn't used to that feeling. And as alone and desperate as she felt, she couldn't deny that she always had the option to reach out for someone else. She was upset with Argent, sure. Furious even. She needed him more than ever, and he refused to help her face Holly's killer. And that stung. It hurt. But she knew, deep down, that even if he was mad at her too after their fight, he'd still be there to support her, in anything short of her revenge. It wasn't his fault that he wasn't there for her, in the Gardenin Club, right then. It was hers. It was just so hard to see past her pain, to remember that other people were there for her. People like Bianca. And Shadecloak. Her voice was quiet when at last she could respond to Bianca's reminder. "I know." She wasn't sure what else happened after that. The last thing Kishka remembered before she blacked out was the thought that she may have lost one friend, but that didn't mean she could just forget about her other friends. Drinking herself to death wasn't a solution for anything. She'd just have to do better. A step at a time.

WC// 423 | TWC// 7281

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[Jay]

XP Distribution:

Theloria Shadecloak: 27
148 + 27 = 175 XP

Bianca Sabbato: 51
219 + 51 = 270 XP

Kishka Burzanova: 72
122 + 72 = 194 XP