Yang realised that her day hadn't gone very well when she broke the picture frame that sat on the cupboard. Sucking in her breath as she heard the glass connect with the floor, her face converted into one of cringing at the sound of it shattering against wood. Oh man, Uncle Haru was going to have her head for being so careless! Not a good thing for an aspiring Huntress.
Uncle Haru had drilled it into her thick and blonde skull, something they both shared, that knocking things over or causing noise whenever they were sneaking around meant that they were screwed. The enemy would know your position and would come running straight at you. Even worse than your death, you'd cause your team to die as well in crucial situations. She didn't know why, but Uncle Haru had said that in a sorrowful voice and a saddened face. Maybe he or someone he knew had done something similar and people he knew and loved paid the price for that mistake.
Shrugging, she decided to clean up the mess she made and hopefully get away scot-free.
Of course she could handle glass! She was a big girl now! Eleven was a giant number!
Carefully brushing away the shards of glass, she picked up the picture and was about to set it aside when she saw her father, Uncle Haru, mom and another woman with dark hair. She studied the picture carefully, taking in their smiling features, grins being shown by the girls while the boys had shut eyes and open mouths, clearly laughing.
Her thumb made its way across their faces, rubbing and feeling the smooth texture of the picture beneath her, going across the faces, one by one until she reached the woman with black hair.
Father had told her a very long time ago that Summer Rose wasn't her birth mom, and that Yang had inherited her long and wavy hair. Taking a closer look, she realised that the woman looked a lot like her, except with pale skin, black hair and a pair of fierce red eyes.
Was this her mother? She stood up instantly, wanting to tell Ruby, but realised that the girl was asleep. So, the next best thing was to take Ruby to meet her birth mother! Her eleven year old brain did not comprehend that the barn was just as it was, a barn. But she had thought that her mother was living there since they took the photo in front of it. Determined, she quickly set out, a sleeping Ruby stowed away in a wagon, going off to find the cabin.
Maybe Ms Eleanor knew where the cabin was?
Snow—
White.
Pure.
—was kicked away as he ran through the forest of dead trees. Said trees shattered as he kicked off them with one leg to gain the occasional boost of speed. He would have gone hopping from branch to branch but they were too—he kicked off another, turning it into firewood and splinters- fragile, breaking near instantly on contact.
Move.
He screamed at himself, gritting his teeth as he endured the agony. His cloak fluttering wildly behind him as he chased followed the markings on the fresh snow. Falling white flakes were destroyed in mid-air as he ploughed right through them, breaking up into millions of tiny pieces upon his body before turning into water.
Run.
Muscles aching after hours of non-stop speeding, running from home to this place in search of her. He held his giant scythe in his hands, twirling and cutting, removing the bristles and branches, preventing them from impeding his speed.
Faster.
He really regretted leaving her at home alone, especially since he had to teach at Signal. By the time he was through with his third class, he received a call from Eleanor telling him that Yang had asked her where a specific cabin was through a photo she had. In an instant, he teleported straight home and found the picture that was always sitting on the cupboard missing, the frame and glass that held it in shards, scattered on the floor.
As soon as he saw the picture, he knew, and he ran.
Move faster.
He told himself to. The burning reached his thighs, calves and arms.
Run faster.
He forced himself to. Will power was key, and being the previous Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi in a village that hated his guts really gave him the will to press on. Like an unquenchable fire, his spirit was indomitable.
He knew it, and should have gotten rid of that picture once she had run away. "Oh no, it's not like it's going to do anything," he told himself. Fuck! Now Yang had gone and broke the picture by accident, and assumed that she was there, and had taken Ruby along with her. Goddamn the day Tai decided to tell Yang that Summer wasn't her mother! Even though Yang had been with Haruto for 3 years at the time, Summer still visited and played with the girl before Ruby was born, baked her cookies and pretended to be her mother whenever Haruto wasn't at home, knowing the girl was heartbroken without a mommy.
She had been a superb mother and Yang wouldn't have had to worry, to find out that Summer wasn't her real mother and wouldn't be here, in this situation, if Tai had just shut his stupid fucking mouth. There was no need to tell her about her mother, she had abandoned Yang for whatever reasons, she wasn't fit to be her mother!
"WHY DID YANG CARE ABOUT THE WOMAN THAT LEFT HER WHEN HE WAS HERE?!" Was the thing he wanted to scream out loud, but did not. Jealousy was quite the vicious creature when unattended for long periods of time. Weeks of asking if he knew her mother had taken its toll on his jealousy meter, causing it to break when he found out that Yang had gone off in search of her.
Haruto didn't understand that she just wanted to meet her mother and ask why she left her. If she was a burden to her…
Then he saw it. Broken and destroyed; the abandoned barn that they had taken the group picture in front of almost 19 years ago as a celebration picture of their first mission together. They were 11, having finished their first mission outside of Signal, in record time too. It was a nice picture, they were smiling and laughing, happiness permeated the picture.
But those were times long forgotten, a distant memory in the past. Tai was still hunting for the beast, Summer was dead, Raven was missing and Haruto was, out of the blue, an uncle and a godfather.
And Yang, there she was, stood in front of the entrance watching as the red eyes grew larger and larger in the darkness, Ruby still sleeping in a wooden red wagon, apparently unknowingly kidnapped by her older sister. Frozen in fear, she stood still, legs bruised and cut from falling and cut by the bristles. Her vocal cords were still, too tired to even scream as the wolves shot out from the trees, heading straight for the pair, intent on feasting on their flesh.
"RAAAAGH!" Snarling, they flew towards her, claws extended and ready to kill. The roar still on their faces as they neared the little blonde who had turned into a statue, staring with wide lilac eyes as their claws almost touched her.
His mind replayed the day of the fridge, where she had somehow set it on fire. How close she was to getting killed, smothered by smoke, set alight by flames.
No.
No.
No.
He would never let them die. Not when he was still breathing, still fighting.
Still theirs.
He swung his orange trimmed scythe, Cataclysm, azure eyes unconsciously bled to a vicious red, glaring with hatred at the Beowolves who were going to reach-
"DON'T YOU FUCK ING TOUCH HER!" His voice, screaming normally before it went completely feral, trapped in a blood trance. Glowing a bloody red, his eyes were trained only on one thing, to protect the two girls.
His girls.
Snow.
Red.
Stained.
Safe.
"Don't cry, baby." He whispered after he enveloped the dry-heaving girl in a warm hug next to her still sleeping sister in the wagon. The Beowolves long evaporated into darkness, vanishing.
"You're safe now… You're safe…" She grabbed his shirt harder, pulling him close to her. Her head was buried into his very sturdy chest.
"Uncle H-Haru… I-I though-thought mom would…" Her voice hurt so much as she spoke, not from the physical pain, but guilt. Then she caught sight of her Uncle Haru… her Haruto's back bleeding profusely, three long lines going down from his right shoulder to his left hip ruining his clothes and back, soaking them and the snow beneath him with the red life fluid. He had blocked the slash directed at her and in an instant, turned around and decimated all three of the wolves in one mighty cleave.
"Yo-your back…" It was all her fault, Haruto was hurt because it was all her-
"Look at me, Yang." He coaxed her. But she shook her head, not wanting to see the disappointment for doing something so foolish, the hatred in his eyes for causing him pain. Since she didn't want to comply, he grabbed her shoulder with one hand and cupped her chin, forcing her widen and bloodshot lilac eyes to look into his blue ones. That damn grin that he gave her whenever she got into trouble was on his face, the day she set the fridge on fire popping into her mind. How he never scolded her fiercely and how he always gave that stupid—heart racing–grin of his. Always making her heart beat out of sync by saying that it wasn't entirely her fault that she had done something wrong, putting most of the blame on himself for not teaching her not to do it in the first place.
Kissing her possessively on the cheek, he told the blushing and sniffling girl, "Fret not, Yang. 'Tis only a flesh wound." He joked in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Besides…" He chuckled to comfort the girl's worries, scooping the sobbing girl into his arms and allowing her to bury her cold face into warm of his neck. Grabbing his scythe, he flicked it and folded it back up with a simple click, turning it back to its suitcase form. Turning around, Yang asleep in his arms from exhaustion, he groaned as he felt his adrenaline rush go away and the pain returned to full force. Huffing, he grabbed the handle of the wagon and slowly dragged the sleeping Ruby back to their house, too tired and dangerous to teleport to the safe place. Never knew where he might end up using only half the power of his Semblance, and with his new luck, it was probably in front of a speeding car or something.
"I'd…" He said hesitantly, as if not wanting to say them at all, "… I'd give the world to let you have your mommy back." He mumbled with sadness, not wanting to do so at all. But after seeing how badly she wanted to meet her mommy, Haruto would easily have given himself up to bring Raven back.
And so he stumbled, back down the snowy cliff dragging along a wagon filled with a, what Haruto suspected to be, drugged Ruby alongside a fatigued blonde girl in his arms. His back had stopped bleeding but he would definitely get a nasty infection if he didn't get help soon.
Just a typical day for Super Uncle Haruto. His heart had been beating irregularly when the girls had smiled at him, and it worried him as he had experienced this feeling before. It was like that day, where he met Summer and she changed his depressive and grouchy outlook into his original and normal self, the person he was before he came to Remnant.
This wasn't good, but he had no time to think about it now. Shoving his thoughts aside, he pressed forwards and—
GAH!
Pain ripped through him again.
Oh fuck. He hoped Eleanor could babysit again while he got his stitches done. It would do the girls some good to make friends with Ella's daughter, Nora, who was equally as spunky as her mother. He supposed Willow could spare him the use of her personal doctor, one who was rumoured to have magical hands. The memory of a blonde and busty woman in a green gambling jacket caving his head inwards popped into his mind and he smiled grimly. After so many years, their faces would come back every so often in his mind, reminding him of what he lost. But, he took a look at the sleeping Yang in his arm and the Ruby he was pulling along, also what he had gained from his loss.
"Safe and sound, my darlings."
Never again would he lose people that were precious to him, never.