cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/34486539
So I'm writing a fanfic. Big deal, whatever, yeah I lack imagination and need to rip off other people's works and shove my friend's OCs in there, so what?
Anyways I might as well put this community to good use and post my strange otherworldly and shoddy attempts at longer fiction on here in a piecemeal style because I have no where else to do it and no one else is going to read that shit. Which, is actually kind of sad honestly. I love to write, but it's lonely writing stuff no one will ever read. Like building a Minecraft world in singleplayer. No one's gonna look at it, or appreciate it. It's yours, and no one else's.
Anyways enough senseless rambling. Here's Hydrangeas in Bloom, a RWBY yuri fanfiction taking place in Haven Academy, featuring Haru Goro and Yusha Bestial, my two friend's characters from FFXIV. Don't ask. I got paid to write about them and they became my OCs now. Here's chapter 1, Grimm Meal.
Haru stood at the base of a sheer cliff, staring, awestruck, at the buildings on the top. This wasn't a scene she hadn't seen before. She saw it plenty, and every time she did, she couldn't help but stare. Haven Academy, perched at the very peak of the mountain Mistral was built on, had always been her dream. Now, it was finally coming true. It still felt like a dream; so much so, she almost missed the chaperone's call to get on the platform. She joined the rest of the some 70 odd people who would serve as her classmates for the next few years of training.
She didn't know how to feel. Nervous? Shy? Afraid? Perhaps all of those emotions tumbled in her like laundry in a machine. She clutched her purse and watched as the city carved into the forests and rocks fell away below her. Her hard work and dedication was finally paying off.
Briefly, she wondered who she could get along with. While looking out over the rail, she halfheartedly listened in to the chaperone, a professor named Haubergeon apparently, prattle on about the school or whatever. What she also heard were the muttered conversations about her.
"Wow look at that weirdo, what are those horns on the side of her head?"
"Freaky! Does she even have ears?"
"Oh man, you think she's deaf? That would be hilarious! She's not gonna make the cut here, I guarantee it."
She was used to the jibes and jeers. She's faced them all her life. She tried to put them out of her mind. Almost unconsciously, she held a hand to the horns that served as her ears.
"Hey horn girl! Are you deaf?"
She turned to see another student, a girl with blond hair and twin buns with a cruel smile splattered on her lips.
"Well, are you gonna say something?" she asked, waving her hand in front of her face.
Haru sighed and ignored her, instead staring out over the city again and waiting until the lift ride was over.
"Hey, I'm talking to you, horn girl! What are you, deaf and dumb?" The girl reached over and yanked on Haru's horn.
Haru cried out, and almost in reflex shoved the girl away.
"Bitch! Don't fucking touch me, you creep!" She went to slap Haru.
Haru watched the hand sail through the air almost in slow motion. She stepped back just enough for the slap to hit nothing but air, eyeing the girl the entire time.
When she hit nothing, the mean girl just stared at Haru for a brief moment. Then she clicked her teeth, flicked her off, and went back to her laughing clique.
Haru sighed. She was glad it hadn’t escalated. She eyed the chaperone, who was supposed to stop matters like this, but he was still preoccupied delivering speeches that hardly anyone was listening to. Briefly, Haru wondered if this was the kind of professor she would have to deal with for the next four years as she trained. She certainly hoped not. Most of the students were tuned out. They broke the tension of a new beginning with jokes and chatter all around the lift.
One piece of the crowd, though, turned quite a bit louder than the rest; it crescendoed into shouts and arguments. The commotion tore Haru’s attention away from the gorgeous forested mountainsides. It drew a lot of other students in too, though the professor was still enthralled in his own speeches.
The crowd quickly thickened around the argument, clearing a small space around the four involved. Three of them were human, two of which were standing back. Really, the argument was between the scrawny mohawk man with a mischievous grin plastered stupidly on his face, and… someone else. She could scarcely see through the crowd, but on her tippy toes she was able to see at least the back of the other person. Like Haru, she was a faunus. Unlike Haru, she had cat ears on the top of her head and red hair. That was about all she could make out, before the scrawny human said some witty remark she couldn’t hear. Apparently, it was impressive, because it drew oohs, aahs, and chuckles from the crowd. The faunus girl though, didn’t take it as well, and Haru knew what happened next before it happened. A fist flew, crashing into the boy’s face and sending him flying into the two lackeys behind him. That got the professor’s attention.
“Why, I say, what in the world is happening here? Roughhousing already, and we haven’t even gotten through orientation! Calm yourselves! There will be plenty of time for fighting later. Move aside students!” Professor Haubergeon shuffled and siddled his way through the crowd of students, all authority in his voice lost under the nasally accent. Still, he managed to cut deep enough, and break up the fight before it got any worse. Another wave of chittering ran through the crowd, and Haru caught rumors of what had been said.
“I can’t believe he called her a tuna sniffing stray! Can you believe that?!”
“Well it’s probably true…”
“Aw, come on, isn’t that a bit much?”
“Well it’s probably true…”
“I heard she called him a nepo baby who couldn’t hack it without daddy’s money, and so he called her flea ridden idiot and told her to go chase butterflies.”
“What’s a nepo baby?”
“Well it’s probably true…”
At this point, Haru wished someone would punch the student who kept repeating themself. Putting that aside, if what that scrawny boy said was even half as bad as the rumors, he deserved what was coming to him. Still though, despite her semblance giving her the heads up on what was about to happen, she hadn’t expected the boy’s aura to drop that quickly. His aura was supposed to protect him but even now it was flickering as the professor was helping him up. Either that boy was weak, or that faunus lady was incredibly strong…
She only had a few moments longer to wonder if the faunus girl would be ok, before the edge of the cliff cut past them and they got their first view of the Haven school grounds. Haru’s jaw dropped. Up here, the air was crisp and cool, tasting of dew drops and smelling of grass. Which made sense, considering the massive sprawling lawn before them, cut in half by a path leading forward. At the end of that path, was the collection of fancy wooden buildings that would serve as their home and study grounds for the next four years. Sprinkled on the lawns were trees offering shade and a smattering of current students, their seniors, waving in the new arrivals. Professor Haubergeon pushed his way to the front of the pack, and led the students down the sanctimonious path, through the dormitories, and towards the much larger building at the very end. That, he explained, was the academy’s grand hall, and was where they would spend the foreseeable future honing their skills and learning everything they would need to know as Huntsmen.
The next few hours were a blur to Haru. They went through orientation, where they were introduced to the school and its staff, were taken on a tour of the grounds and shown the big spacious area in front of the great hall that they called the quad, and then they broke for lunch. She sat by herself, a little separated from everyone else at the food hall, picking at her food and waiting for the next part of the day.
She wasn’t sure what she had expected when she came to Haven for the first time. Perhaps she thought the school would throw all the students into a forest full of Grimm with 0 preparation, or maybe she thought it’d be more like Sanctum academy, where they started with basic combat trials to get an idea of everyone’s abilities and form teams. So far, though… things have been mostly normal. Like any regular college, really. Mostly paperwork and meetings and speeches. And racism, but that’s just Mistral.
She also hadn’t expected anyone to sit down with her. A girl with bright red hair done up in drill-shaped pigtails approached her. In addition to the school uniform, she wore two long, black, thigh high socks. “Hey!” She yelled as she slammed both palms on the table.
Haru was mid-glass of water the moment that happened. She coughed and spluttered in surprise, the piece of food in her mouth jumping down her throat a bit too far. She coughed more, pounding the table with a fist while her face turned blue.
“Holy shit are you ok??” The strange girl asked.
Haru shook her head, one hand gripping the table firmly and the other trying to massage the food down her throat. It didn’t work.
Eventually the girl leapt over the table, grasped her stomach, and performed the Ozlich maneuver on her, getting her to spit a piece of chewed up meat out.
Haru choked and sputtered, struggling to compose herself as she grabbed the glass of water with a shaky hand.
“Whoa, I think I just saved your life!” the girl said.
Haru gulped down the rest of the water, and glared at the girl. “Yeah after you almost took it from me,” she replied.
The girl shrugged, picking up the piece of meat and popping it into her mouth.
Haru just stared, disgusted.
“Oh, by the way, my name is Kasane! Kasane Teto, but you can call me Teto. You’re welcome for saving your life!” Teto put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest with pride.
“Right. Thanks. Um, why are you here?” Haru asked. This strange creature was being… particularly odd.
“You looked lonely and I wanted to say hi!”
Haru blinked. “Oh, um… Thanks.” She didn’t know quite what to say, or quite where to look, so she just let her gaze drift back downwards to the food.
“What do you think of the orientation so far?” Teto asked.
“Well, it’s been kind of boring, in all honesty,” Haru replied.
“Yeah, I thought something more exciting would have happened. Like, doesn’t Beacon have-”
Just then, the windows shattered. Grimm poured in from the windows and through the doors, pouncing on the unexpecting students.
“What the fuck?!” Haru yelled out.
Yells and screams could be heard from around the cafeteria. No one was expecting a completely random Grimm attack to occur, much less on campus.
Even so, everyone present was a Huntsman in training, and huntsmen don’t go anywhere without their weapons.
The sudden shock quickly abided; the students who were caught in the initial assault were freed from the grasp of Grimm by those who were more quick to the fight than the others. Soon, the sound of weapons unsheathing and transforming mingled with the growls and snarls of the various Grimm. For Haru’s part, she jumped on to the table and unsheathed the twin blades on her hips, just in time to slice apart a wolf-like Grimm lunging at her; a Beowulf, Haru briefly noted, before hearing a snarl behind her. She turned, but she was too late.
Another Beowulf was charging at her. Mid lunge, though, two powerful drills jutted into it from underneath. The drills, rotating in different directions, tore apart the Grimm in a matter of seconds. Teto stood up, covered in the black slick of a dead Grimm, all smiles, a drill attached to each hand. Her pigtails were missing.
“Hah! Now that’s more like it!”
Haru sensed something coming from the side, and dodged just in time for another Grimm to appear. She ran backwards along the tables, firing back at the Grimm as Teto tore it apart. Then, her semblance kicked in again. She jerked herself to the left to avoid someone else doing the same as her. Another Faunus was running backwards on the tables too, firing a bow with hardlight arrows at the Grimm around the cafeteria. A Grimm crawling along the ceiling had several arrows sprout from its back and neck before it fell off, disappearing mid-air.
“Whoa!” they said, shocked to see Haru there. “Careful!”
“You too!” Haru shot back, and then literally shot back, firing the pistols attached to her swords at a Grimm pouncing towards the Faunus. She briefly noticed the cat ears on the other Faunus’s head before combining her two swords into a double-ended sword she called a twinblade. She twirled it in the air, slicing through two more Grimm that came flying through her and changing the ammunition on her guns at the same time, the cartridges popping out of the blades and being replaced.
“Name’s J'atoh! Pleasure!” The cat Faunus said.
Haru responded in kind, before firing one of the swords on her twinblade away and straight into a Grimm crawling over top of a crying student. Haru briefly noted it was the same blonde girl with twin buns from earlier. She sprinted in her direction, adding to her momentum by firing the extreme power bullets that she used for movement and thrusting her other blade into the same Grimm’s side. It fell over and died, disappearing within moments.
“Th-thank you!” the girl said, but Haru ignored her. She leapt away, sheathing her swords on either side of her and firing the guns to launch herself up and over, towards the far end of the cafeteria. Mid-air, she stabbed into a leaping Grimm. She planted her feet on the Grimm and used the momentum to surf along the table, turning around and firing more ammo backwards to support the other students. She lost balance just as her semblance rang again. She kicked off the Grimm as it snapped at her heels, just barely missing. She tried to flip around and land on her feet, but she couldn’t recover in time. She fell on the table and rolled for a bit, somehow managing to stumble to her feet. Just then her semblance triggered again; she was too slow and still trying to catch her footing just as another Grimm tackled her. Suddenly, a massive hole exploded in its side, in time with a huge ear splitting blast. Then, a massive axe went flying head over handle through the cafeteria, splitting two more Grimm in half before a red blur ran past her vision. She barely had time to register what just happened before a whistle rang throughout the hall. Rising to her feet and clutching her head, she checked the rest of the room to see it had been fully cleared.
The students were in various states; some were panting for breath, eyes darting around the room. Others were standing confidently, chit chatting amongst themselves. Some were crying and sobbing, or emerging from hiding spots. Some of them were bleeding, or unconscious, and she wondered if they would be ok. For her part, Haru checked her own aura levels on her scroll. She was mostly ok, though the surprise attack from the last two Grimm left her a bit unsteady.
The whistle blew again, and this time all the students in the cafeteria turned their focus towards the sound. Two people were walking into the cafeteria. An older gentleman with grey hair like a lion’s mane, and by his side, a bored looking human about Haru’s own age, a giant key behind their head and their arms hanging around it.
“Greetings, students, and congratulations on getting through the first part of your initiation!” The older gentleman said.
Immediately, someone complained. “Initiation?! Those were Grimm! Here, in the school!”
“Calm down, calm down. I’m sure you have many questions,” the gentleman said. “My name is Leonardo Lionheart, I’m the headmaster here at Haven academy. Those Grimm you just fought were ones we had captured and prepared specifically for this challenge. As hunstmen-”
Someone else interrupted. “Are you crazy?! We could have died! What are you doing holding Grimm at the academy? This is madness, there’s people in the city just below, what if the Grimm got out?”
“Now-” the headmaster began to say, but he was quickly interrupted again.
“Our initiation?! My best friend got hurt! He could have died!”
“We were fighting for our lives here! There wasn’t even a warning!”
“How could you-”
Then the younger person by the headmaster’s side strode forward and yelled, their voice booming throughout the cafeteria. “Shut up!” they yelled. “You’re huntsmen in training. You will be fighting Grimm. You will find yourself in do or die situations, and you won’t always know what’s coming. If you’ve got a problem with this, then quit now!” They pointed at the doors, their voice still booming throughout the room. “The doors are right over there, we won’t stop you if you can’t handle it. Hell, we won’t even blame you. Matter of fact, do it! I’d rather know that you can’t hack it now, than trust my life to you in the field and watch you fail me. This is the life you subscribed to, so get with the program or go do something else!”
They finished their speech, meeting everyone’s eyes in turn. They had managed to cow everyone here into a total silence that was only broken by the headmaster clearing their throat.
“Thank you very much, Sky. To the rest of you, I’m sure you’re upset, but what Sky said is correct. Rest assured, we had professionally licensed huntsmen on standby, ready to swoop in if they felt anyone was in real danger of death, as well as medics waiting just outside.” As he said that, more people walking in with stretchers and plus symbols marking their clothing. “At the end of the day, however, you are planning on being Huntsmen. The life you chose won’t be easy. It’ll be fraught with danger every minute of your lives, and it’s here at this academy that you’ll learn to hold your own and in teams. But, it starts with an understanding of how difficult things will be for you going forward. You’ll be given every opportunity to succeed, don’t worry, but the cadre of this academy decided on this… rather unconventional method of hammering that into you. For now, I ask that you accompany me to the landing strips. We’ll be taking Bullheads to the location of the next part of your initiation.”
Leonardo turned and strode towards the exit, Sky snarling at the students as they turned and walked with him. Haru spoke out the question on everyone’s mind.
“Wait, we don’t even get a break?”
Leonardo turned towards the students. “No.”
Aaand that's chapter 1. Bit rough around the edges, beginnings are always hard. Chapter 2, 3, and 4 are pretty much already done at time of posting this, but I'll pace out the releases so they don't flood all.
I'm just going to cross-post it for now, formatting be damned.