Raven Branwen was many things but helpless had never been one of them.
The instant her shadow blades passed harmlessly through the muscular man's transformed arm and Cinder's spear continued through his torso as though his body consisted of nothing more substantial than mist wearing human skin, Raven understood exactly what she was dealing with.
Conventional interaction was clearly meaningless.
So she stopped trying.
The shadow swords vanished immediately, dissolving back into liquid darkness that flowed away from her fingers and rejoined the ever-moving ocean of shadows surrounding her body.
The spear continued toward her.
Closer and closer. One inch from her throat. Then, six hands moved at once. Her two real arms and four Asura shadow limbs closed around the spear simultaneously.
Glass screamed against flesh and shadow alike but the result was that momentum vanished and the weapon was stopped.
One inch from skin.
For a brief moment Raven stared down the length of the molten spear toward the woman floating in the crimson-lit sky above the broken moon.
Then, Yang arrived. The air exploded behind her as Kinetic force hurled her body forward like a missile launched from artillery.
Cinder reacted instantly.
Molten glass surged upward around her body and condensed into a shield of black-red crystal directly in Yang's path.
The barrier held, for perhaps a tenth of a second when Yang's punch connected.
Kinetic force and flames detonated outward at the exact instant of impact and the glass barrier exploded into thousands of burning fragments as the stored energy discharged directly into the construct.
The resulting blast launched Cinder backwards across open lunar sky. Small floating chunks of moon rock drifted past behind her as she spun gracefully through the air.
Then, glass gathered around her fingers. Hundreds of blades that erupted outward in a storm. Flames ignited behind every blade.
Jets of fire to push them forwards into acceleration. The already deadly projectiles became blindingly fast as propulsion energy transformed them into missiles.
Yang however, was ready. Her palms slammed together and the clap echoed across the lunar battlefield like thunder. Kinetic force erupted outward in a visible wave that shattered the incoming barrage into molten fragments before the blades could reach her.
Unfortunately that had merely been a distraction. Cinder's feet ignited and flames exploded behind her as she accelerated with terrifying speed. The woman crossed the distance separating them in the blink of an eye.
The shockwave generated by her clap still expanded outward between them but Cinder ignored it. Black glass condensed into a sword within her hand and the blade descended, slicing through the vibrating wall of force itself.
Yang's eyes widened.
Cinder was too fast. Yang had barely enough time to register what she was seeing. The sword was cutting through kinetic energy.
Then, Cinder was in front of her. Yang crossed her arms instinctively and a weaker burst of stored force exploded outward and collided with the descending blade.
The strike halted.
Then, the sword changed. Molten glass erupted outward from the weapon in branching streams that spread across the air like rapidly growing coral.
The structure expanded in every direction and pushed against Yang's makeshift defensive shockwave and slowly began forcing their way through it.
The kinetic barrier was seemingly pierced through for just a moment, but a moment later, darkness arrived.
A wing larger than a building smashed through the battlefield and obliterated the expanding coral structure in a single motion.
Shadow exploded across the moon's surface and sent fragments of molten glass tumbling into the endless crater below.
Yang stumbled free in midair and Cinder halted her attack. Both women turned to see that Raven had changed.
The creature dominating the battlefield looked less like a bird and more like a living eclipse.
A titanic raven made entirely from shadow stretched across the lunar sky while enormous wings cast darkness over drifting moon fragments and floating islands of stone.
Its feathers resembled streams of liquid night and its eyes burned crimson. The monstrous construct dwarfed nearby Goliaths.
Apparently Raven had not escaped the man's grip. So she had instead become larger than the thing holding her.
The muscular man remained attached to the side of the shadow raven's neck, one hand still wrapped around the darkness composing the creature's body.
Then the shadows moved and the darkness beneath his fingers rose upward and swallowed him entirely.
One moment he existed and the next he disappeared into the raven's body. Yang wasn't sure how long that would be able to hold the man but it certainly wasn't a reassuring thing.
She landed atop one of the gigantic wings. The surface beneath her boots felt strangely solid despite consisting entirely of shadow.
Beside her the darkness rippled and Raven's real body stepped out of the wing itself as though emerging from water.
Her expression remained cold.
"Switch."
Yang didn't even bother deigning to answer. Her fist was already moving straight toward Raven's face.
Raven disappeared, vanished back into shadow wing. In her place, something else emerged. The muscular man stood where Raven had been moments earlier.
Yang's punch was already there, an inch from his face. The impact should have smashed into his skull, but instead, her fist passed through him.
His body had changed entirely. His body resembled a Stalker more than a person, consisting of living shadow given humanoid form.
Yang's eyes narrowed.
Clearly the man had some type of Absorption rune that could somehow or rather take in the property of another person's runic energy.
He, also had some type of rune that could allow him to directly phase through attacks. But that didn't mean he was invincible.
Flames erupted around her fist.
If kinetic force couldn't hurt him then perhaps fire could. The attack landed, or seemed to. Instead, his body distorted around the strike like water around a stone, almost exactly like what a Stalker could do.
His arm then transformed and shadow condensed into a blade. The weapon thrust toward Yang's neck.
The strike was fast, precise and lethal. However, Yang was a Peak Rank 2. She leaned backwards before conscious thought could catch up with instinct.
The blade missed her throat by millimeters.
But before she could celebrate, the world exploded. The entire shadow raven detonated outward.
The construct burst apart into a tidal wave of darkness that expanded across the moon's surface and sent both Yang and the Muscular man-turned shadow creature tumbling through open sky.
Gravity reclaimed them immediately and the broken moon spread endlessly below. Floating chunks of moon rock drifted around them and crimson runic currents connected distant fragments like veins stretching through the void.
From the explosion of shadow, emerged Raven. Shadow wings stretched from her back and beat once against empty space.
The remains of the gigantic raven answered her call. Darkness flowed toward her hand and liquid shadow condensed and compressed until a blade formed within her grasp.
Simple and elegant, yet blacker than the color black. A sword so dark that it seemed to devour surrounding light.
Across the battlefield Cinder moved as well.
Glass gathered around her hands and became twin swords of dark crystal glowing with molten heat.
Both women accelerated simultaneously and the sonic boom arrived moments later. Shadow met glass above the shattered moon.
The resulting shockwave rippled outward across the drifting lunar debris and air while below them Rank Twos and Rank Ones alike briefly looked upward toward the collision cowering and attempting to run away from the resulting battle.
Every single time Raven and Cinder's blades met, the same thing happened.
Cinder lost.
Not the fight, but the exchange.
The black sword in Raven's hand would collide against molten glass and the result was always identical. Cinder's weapon would split halfway through its structure as if something had suddenly reached into the construct and severed the flow of energy keeping it together.
Glass cracked and flames sputtered and runic structures collapsed. Cinder was forced to immediately regenerate and reconstruct portions of the blade before the next clash arrived.
Yang knew why.
Qrow had explained it to a while ago during a conversation that they had about runes, once.
Raven's Meta Rune.
End.
The name itself was simple but the implications were not. Anything born from runic energy that came into contact with the condensed manifestation of Raven's Meta Rune would have its existence forcibly terminated.
Phenomena of endings.
Runic manifestations simply... stopped functioning. Constructs collapsed, energy dissipated and effects ceased properly functioning.
The sword itself wasn't cutting through the attack, but ending it. Of course, like all Runes, it wasn't absolute.
Meta phenomena could resist one another to some degree and so could aura. However, in this case, Cinder's own Meta Rune clearly revolved around penetration, piercing, or some similar concept that allowed her attacks to bypass conventional durability and interfere with defenses that should have held.
Those competing concepts prevented Raven's ability from simply ending Cinder's runic constructs. However, if Raven's blade touched flesh rather than constructs, the effects changed.
A rune bearer struck directly by End would lose access to their runes for a brief period. Meta Runes would have their active phenomena terminated and would need to be recondensed and reestablished before functioning again.
The rune itself wasn't destroyed, just interrupted and ended.
Temporarily.
Raven's rune was powerful. Dangerously so even, but it was not invincible.
The battle continued and the two women seemed to clash a hundred times within the span of seconds.
Glass met shadow and fire met darkness. The air above the shattered moon became a blur of black and crimson streaks crossing impossible distances in the blink of an eye.
Yet despite all of Cinder's power and versatility... she was still losing. Not because she was weaker but because Raven Branwen was simply better in pure swordsmanship.
Superior in a way that went beyond the norm.
Cleaner, sharper and simply more efficient in a certain way. Every exchange pushed Cinder onto the defensive and every movement forced her to compensate.
Eventually Cinder adapted.
The woman exploded outward into a construct of molten flame and liquid glass that resembled lava given consciousness. The construct expanded around her body and transformed into a burning humanoid shell dozens of meters tall.
Raven cut into it and the construct split apart.
Then it split again, again and again. Yang couldn't even follow the strikes. One slash became ten and ten became a hundred.
A thousand black cuts appeared throughout the molten giant as though reality itself had suddenly decided to slice the construct apart from every possible direction simultaneously.
This was how Raven's phenomena of ending manifested. Yang had heard from Qrow that it appeared in such a way due to Raven's passion regarding swordsmanship. For another person who had acquired the same meta rune, it would have possibly manifested a different way.
The lava-like shell collapsed into fragments but Cinder was already gone.
Distance.
That had been the goal. Far above the battlefield she condensed a bow formed entirely from molten glass and fire.
Her arm blurred and a hundred flashes crossed the battlefield. A hundred arrows filled the lunar sky.
The rain of projectiles descended and Raven spun her sword. The blade became a wheel of darkness that shattered every arrow approaching her position.
Yang's eyes widened.
Not all of them, however.
The rest weren't aimed at Raven.
"Oh, come on."
Below them Rank Ones and Rank Zeros were still struggling amongst floating lunar debris and crimson-lit craters.
Not only did they have to worry about the fight in the sky ahead of them but they were also forced to defend themselves against the creatures Grimm overpopulating the moon.
These were practically impossible odds. Against enemies they couldn't actually survive fighting.
Against Rank Twos?
No chance.
The difference in rank wasn't linear. It never had been. Rank Two against Rank One wasn't an advantage but simply a natural disaster fighting a soldier.
Could people punch above their rank?
Yes.
Occasionally, under specific circumstances.
But those were generally considered miracles. Then again, Yang remembered that a certain blonde haired blue eyed teen had once performed himself such a miracle against a Rank 2.
She shook those thoughts out of her head and moved. Kinetic force exploded beneath her feet as she kicked against empty air and launched herself downward toward the lower battlefield.
Because Raven wasn't going to do it. Yang knew that with absolute certainty. Raven Branwen would not waste reserves protecting strangers.
Not if she could avoid it.
And Cinder knew that too. The arrows descended toward the weaker awakened. Toward people who couldn't stop them.
Toward people who probably couldn't even see them.
Yang punched outward and an Inferno exploded from her fist. Kinetic force amplified the attack into a wave of burning pressure that slammed into the incoming storm and deflected every arrow away from the battlefield below.
For a moment she thought she had succeeded but then, flames appeared. Tiny bursts of fire ignited behind every deflected projectile and the arrows changed direction.
Turning and accelerated upwards.
Toward Raven.
"...Shit."
Raven simply turned and the black blade moved. Every arrow ceased existing. Fragments of molten glass rained across floating moonstone and crimson-lit craters.
Then Yang felt movement and she ducked. The muscular man appeared where her head had been moments earlier.
His fist passed through empty space and their battle resumed instantly.
Hand to hand. Close quarters and violent.
However, his strikes lacked the overwhelming force of Yang's own attacks. That much became obvious almost immediately.
But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that Yang couldn't hit him. Kinetic enhanced punches passed through his body and her Inferno empowered strikes simply phased through him.
The man simply wasn't there whenever impact should have occurred. Meanwhile his attacks connected.
Fortunately for Yang...
They barely mattered.
Kinetic absorbed the impacts effortlessly. Momentum disappeared into her rune and energy became fuel for her own attacks. His punches weren't weak but Yang was simply built to fight people exactly like this.
The man adapted and his attacks changed.
Hands reached for grabs and throws.
Grappling.
Yang's eyes narrowed.
"Oh hell no. If you think for a moment you're touching any part of my body, you got another thing coming!"
Flames exploded outward from her body and her entire form ignited into an inferno. The man withdrew instantly.
Even if he could phase through attacks, he still needed to physically hold her to grapple. Nobody was grabbing a woman made of fire.
Then a voice echoed across the battlefield.
"Hazel! Stop playing around!"
Yang's eyes snapped upward.
The man clicked his tongue.
"Tch."
The shadows composing the portions of his body withdrew downwards towards his legs and his original appearance returned.
Human.
He raised his hand toward the sky and a spear descended. Glass and fire crossed the battlefield and impacted against his palm.
Unlike before...
The weapon stopped. The spear didn't phase through him. Instead it dissolved and the glass/fire flowed into him.
One arm transformed into burning fire and the other became crystalline glass, with shadow gathering around his legs.
Three elemental powers.
Yang's stomach dropped but it was then, that she heard a familiar voice.
"Duck."
Yang moved instantly. From her shadow, emerged Raven. One hand pressed against Yang's back. The movement vaulted Raven over her shoulder as though Yang herself had become a stepping stone.
The black sword descended toward Hazel and Hazel in response simply stomped his foot. The battlefield shook as an effect resembling an earthquake detonating directly outwards towards them.
Shockwaves exploded outward through lunar stone and floating debris. Yang and Raven were both launched backwards.
Some type of Vibration rune. Even while getting launched backwards, Yang absorbed the force of the attack to ensure it wouldn't damage Raven. The two women flipped through the air before landing upon shattered moonstone.
Then the ground exploded from under them. Spikes of shadow erupted from beneath them. The spears shot upward toward their bodies with enough force to impale Rank Ones outright.
Raven reacted instantly and a platform of darkness formed beneath them.
The spikes struck and stopped, failing to penetrate. The shadow construct held. Yang and Raven landed atop it moments later.
Silence followed.
The spikes withdrew. Retracted back into the shattered surface of the moon. Two figures landed opposite them.
Hazel stood on one side with Cinder on his side. Both of their Grimm masks glowed and Crimson light spread through the carved lines and symbols etched into the bone-white surfaces.
The glow reflected off floating moonstone, shattered craters and crimson runic currents stretching through the void.
For the first time since the battle had begun...
The four Rank Twos simply looked at one another.
Yang found herself wondering whether the Grimm surrounding them were truly the monsters on this battlefield.
Or whether the answer was standing directly in front of her.