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Pyrrha watched Blake, as Blake was watching her right back. Pyrrha feinted left, then committed to the motion, and the dance began.
Ruby was watching them spar from the bleachers above, with the rest of Professor Goodwitch’s combat class. Blake was the faster of the two, but the combination of power and precision Pyrrha could bring to bear was unmatched within the student body.
This led to the spectacle of Blake constantly dodging around Pyrrha, trying to bait her into an unfavourable position, while Pyrrha responded minimally to any threats, holding her ground and waiting for Blake to overextend.
It seemed that Pyrrha spotted an opportunity, (or, Ruby thought, she just became impatient) for she suddenly threw herself at Blake, forcing her to speed up her pace, and use her semblance for the first time in the match. The tempo of the fight changed, to Pyrrha attacking, and Blake desperately retreating. It was clear that Blake would tire faster, and needed to act quickly.
The end, when it came, was almost too fast to see. Pyrrha’s shield was high, and Blake’s leg caught her low, tripping her and allowing Blake to get in sufficient blows that Professor Goodwitch called the match.
The debrief afterwards, with the helpful inclusion of slow-motion footage of the crucial moment, was when it came clear what had happened.
“For the benefit of the class, Miss Nikos, can you please tell me what you did wrong?”
Pyrrha’s face was set in a frown. “I failed to watch her feet. Blake struck at my head, so I placed Akouo in a position which happened to block my view of her legs. That left me insufficient time to respond to her sweep.”
“Good. Miss Belladonna, anything to add?”
Blake was never comfortable speaking in front of the class, but she answered the question.
“If I can dictate the position of your shield, I can control your blind spot. That allows me to attack without warning.”
“And that is something for all of you to remember, whenever you either fight with a shield or against an opponent with one. While an excellent defensive tool, it is also a potential liability.”
Ruby by this point had stopped listening, and was sketching a diagram of circles and lines in her notebook.
“Pyrrha! I have a proposition for you!”
Pyrrha blinked twice. “What would your... proposition... be, Ruby?” she asked, with a certain amount of trepidation.
Ruby brandished the papers she was carrying. “I want to improve Akouo! In your fight with Blake a few days ago, you remember when he blocked your vision of her feet? And she beat you because of it? I can fix that!”
Well, that was certainly worth a second look.
“That would be wonderful. Though, I am not certain what it is you mean to fix. Unless you mean to make it transparent-”
“Exactly! Look at these plans. He’s made of nickel-manganese-dust hardened steel with a maximum thickness of 1.5cm, tapering to an edge, correct? Now, the forces he needs to endure are complex, but if you look at these calculations...”
Ruby riffled through the small stack of papers in front of her before finding some tables of numbers. “... you can see that we can get the same resilience by...”
She trailed off with a look of confusion. “Oh! Sorry, these are the wrong numbers.”
Ruby went back to riffling through the papers, before eventually finding what she was looking for. “You can see here the elastic limit for Akouo as he is now under different forms of stress, and if you compare those to what we should be able to do with hard light emitters, it looks good, right? It’ll fail completely instead of bending, but that’s why I’ve added the safety margin.”
Pyrrha took the sheet offered to her. She was no expert at engineering, but the numbers on the right were all bigger, so it looked like if Ruby was right then this should work.
“I am not capable of evaluating your work, but it definitely sounds worth trying. How will this affect the weight?”
“That’s up to you! The emitters themselves are lighter than the central mass they would replace, so we can add additional thickness to the rim, if you’d like. Or add a weight to the centre of the vambrace anchor, if you want a lower moment of inertia. Lots of options!”
Pyrrha thought for a moment, rotating her arm as though defending herself from various angles. “I am stronger now than when I first received Akouo. I believe the higher moment of inertia should be fine. Would it be sensible to create something quick and easy, so that we can test such things?”
"Good point! I'll make a quick prototype with a plastic centre and weights around the rim. Wanna test it tomorrow?”
Pyrrha smiled. “Ruby, you are doing me an enormous favour here. If tomorrow works best for you, then I would be delighted to test it tomorrow.”
Thus the next day Ruby, Yang and Pyrrha were in a training room. The shield was not a thing of beauty, it had to be said. It was held together with masking tape, with many lumps around the outside indicating the presence of the iron weights, and the plastic sheet forming the centre was square, meaning it was both too small and too large. But as long as Yang didn't hit it too hard, it should serve its purpose.
“So, slow motion to start with?” Yang asked, and both she and Pyrrha looked to Ruby. Ruby nodded.
“Yang, please avoid hitting the plastic with any force. I was not thinking about replacing it when I built this so I would have to take everything apart.”
Yang smiled at her. “No promises!”
She looked to Pyrrha. “Shall we begin?”
Pyrrha strode to the other side of the mat laid out and stood ready.
Yang came at her slowly, movements exaggerated to start with but quickly becoming more natural. Neither of them went for anything fancy to start with, Yang simply swinging at Pyrrha and Pyrrha interposing her shield, with Yang pulling the punch at the last moment to merely give it a tap. Ruby still winced.
They began to speed up, both getting closer to their normal speed, until the inevitable happened and with a crack the plastic shattered into a dozen pieces. After disentangling Yang’s arm from the remains, they both returned to where Ruby was waiting, vibrating with excitement.
“Sorry, Rubes. I forgot what you had said for a second. Is it fixable?”
Pyrrha defended her. “The fault was mine. I attempted to deflect the strike rather than block it, so I was moving towards you as much as you towards me.”
“Don't worry about that!” Ruby dismissed them both. “Pyrrha, how was it? Did it help? Did the moment slow you down? What about the change in centre of mass?”
Pyrrha considered this. “The transparency did help, though I will have to work to suppress my flinch response to seeing nothing in the way of an attack. As to the moment, it was slightly slower, but also easier to prevent Yang knocking it out of position. The centre of mass change is definitely an advantage, though a small one.”
Ruby’s grin widened. “It sounds like we got enough data without needing me to fix this thing. Final test, Pyrrha, can you try throwing it?”
Between a series of targets and Yang with her gauntlets, Pyrrha was able to get a feel for what the changes would mean.
“It will take a little time to get used to, but I believe it works as well as before. Actually, if possible, would you be able to make the final version slightly lighter?”
“How much lighter?”
“Maybe ten percent?”
“Cool! I’ll finalise the plans and show them to you for approval. The day after tomorrow, promise.”
Pyrrha looked a little awkward, suddenly. “Before that, Ruby, we should discuss what I am paying you for doing this.”
Yang smiled at this, in approval and amusement.
“Eh?” Ruby, on the other hand, was totally baffled.
“This is a significant project, and I don’t expect the materials are cheap. Also,” she looked even more awkward than before, “I am not short of money. To be blunt.”
Ruby now looked rather like a deer in the headlights.
Yang coughed meaningfully. “Ruby, would you like me to have this conversation?”
Ruby very obviously wanted to say yes. “No. Pyrrha, I’m doing this as a favour for a friend, and because I enjoy it. It’s not about money.”
Yang pressed the issue. “How long will it take you to build this, do you think?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“A hundred hours, maybe?”
Ruby considered this. “Slightly less, I hope.”
“And the costs of the materials would be...”
“Sorry, but I am absolutely not letting you pay for materials,” Pyrrha interjected.
The three-way argument continued for a while, until they settled on a price which Pyrrha thought uncomfortably low, Ruby thought much too high, and Yang was satisfied with.
Two days and change after that, early in the morning, team JNPR were disturbed during their morning routine by a knock at the door. Jaune answered it.
Ruby stood outside, looking more than a little bleary, eyes bloodshot and clothes lived-in. “Hi Jaune. Is Pyrrha here?”
Pyrrha went to the door.
“Hi Pyrrha. Sorry to bother you so late,” (Pyrrha and Jaune shared a confused glance) “but I finished the plans, as I promised.” She was swaying slightly as she stood there. “Do you want to look at them now, or wait ‘til tomorrow?”
“Ruby, forgive my asking, but how long have you been up?”
Ruby blinked at her.
“A normal amount of time? I woke up this morning, went to class, worked on the plans for Akouo II, and now here I am?”
“Ah, Ruby, it’s seven-thirty in the morning.”
This fact seemed to take a moment to percolate to Ruby’s conscious mind.
“What? No... really? I’d better get to my team; they’ll be worried. We’ll talk about this after classes, then, Pyrrha? And, that means I broke my promise, I guess.”
“I’m sorry. You should not have had to stay up all night on my behalf. But if you are not too tired, then yes, I can make myself available later.”
Ruby smiled. “Psh, that? I often lose track of time when working. I’ll have some coffee and sugar and be awake enough for class. No need to worry.”
With that she closed the door and headed back to RWBY’s dorm, where after a brief admonition and some coffee from Weiss she was indeed able to get herself in a state where it wouldn’t be too obvious how tired she was.
Several weeks later, Ruby, Yang and Pyrrha were again in a training room. This time, though, the shield Ruby was holding was beautiful. Akouo II, as Ruby had christened it temporarily, owed much to its predecessor, made of the same steel in a similar shape, with the same gentle convex curve, though it was now a full circle, lacking the indentations of the previous one. Combined with the slightly larger size (an amendment Pyrrha had suggested to Ruby’s plans), this would have significantly limited Pyrrha's vision, if not for the most important difference.
Four inches in from the rim, the golden metal ended, leaving a hole with only the forearm anchor in it. The emitters were inactive, a row of complicated circles inset around the inner rim. Ruby was explaining how to refuel it.
"This compartment can hold 20g of hard light dust. The emitters when active and not exerting force use 0.6g per hour. The average usage under combat conditions will take some testing to determine, but it should be roughly," she wiggled her hand to emphasise her uncertainty, "five or six times that. This switch here turns it on and off. It's made of steel, so should be easy for you to use."
"That was very thoughtful of you, thank you, Ruby."
Ruby reverentially handed it to Pyrrha, who looked at it in wonder. She touched the switch, then set the shield hovering in front of her. She started it spinning, around its axis then end-over-end. Finally, with a small frown of concentration, she activated the emitters, filling the centre with a pale blue, almost-transparent light. At last, she flew it to her arm and locked it in place. With a small smile, she tested the balance.
Ruby, meanwhile, was bouncing from foot to foot with a grin about as wide as it could possibly go. Her eyes kept moving between Akouo and Pyrrha's smile. Yang was warming herself up in anticipation of the spar to come.
Pyrrha finally nodded, and removed Akouo I from her back, placing it against the wall.
"Ruby, it's glorious. I honestly cannot ever possibly thank you sufficiently for this. You did not need to do nearly this much for me, and I shall be grateful to you whenever I use it.”
Ruby shifted uncomfortably. “So, er, today is about testing him in combat, to see if you want to make any adjustments.”
“Yang, I cannot wait to test this out, so would you like to spar now?"
"Would I ever!" Yang walked to the mat and stood ready.
"Just before you start," Ruby interjected, "please move slowly to begin with. I've done some testing and he should be good, but…"
"Testing can't cover everything. Sensible."
"Just cautious. It'll be fine!"
Pyrrha felt the need to reassure her. "I am sure it will be. Ready, Yang?"
Yang was, and they began. True to Ruby's instruction, they went slowly to start, then sped up each time she gave the word, until they were hammering at each other at full speed, though pulling any blow which got through their opponent's defences.
"And stop!" Ruby's shout echoed through the room, and both combatants backed away from the other, before turning and walking back to Ruby, breathing hard. Ruby gestured for Akouo II, and Pyrrha gave it to her. As she was checking for any signs of damage she began to interrogate Pyrrha on its performance.
“How does he compare? Was the additional size an advantage? Do you want the projection to be more transparent? I can do that if you’d like. Or more opaque? Or I can change the centre of mass or moment, though my easy options there are limited now.”
Pyrrha had picked up Akouo I and was wielding it as a comparison. “The additional size will be an advantage, I believe, though it will take me some time to get used to. I think that making him- it slightly lighter was the correct call, though we shall see when I try throwing it. The increased moment does make it slightly less wieldy, and I’ll take some time to adjust to that. I do like that Yang’s strikes rotate it less, though.”
“I definitely noticed there was less give when hitting the top or the bottom,” Yang confirmed.
“That all sounds good. Any issues?” Ruby asked.
“I still need to work on my flinch. That will take time, but I am confident I can do it.”
“Oh, yeah, I saw that. I just had to go for the centre and you’d back right off. Also, I don’t know whether you noticed this, but you were purposefully blocking with the metal rather than the projection.”
Pyrrha nodded thoughtfully. “I hadn’t spotted that, thank you. Another thing to work on.”
“But no issues with Akouo himself, then?” Ruby re-focused them on the priority.
Pyrrha debated with herself for a moment. “I think the centre of mass is now slightly too far back. Is that something you can change?”
“Oh, sure, I’ll just move the anchor slightly further out. Easy fix. How much?”
Ruby had finished looking over Akouo II, so gave it back to Pyrrha, who wielded it experimentally. “Maybe half a centimetre?”
Ruby jotted this down in her notebook. “Okay, next test. We’ll attach him securely to the floor, and then Yang, I want you to hit him as hard as possible, about half the radius from the centre.”
“As hard as possible? Are you sure?”
Ruby nodded vigorously. “I know how hard you can hit, and made sure he could hold against that. It’ll be fine, but I just want to be sure.”
“OK, Rubes, you’re the boss. But just in case, suppose it did fail. Why would that be?”
Ruby, to her credit, took this question seriously, and spent the time while Yang and Pyrrha were securing Akouo in checking all the potential failure points. Again.
“It won’t fail.”
“Alright then! Pyrrha, hit me!”
Pyrrha began to repeatedly punch Yang in the stomach, to charge up her semblance. None of the individual strikes were hard, so it took a good number before Yang gestured for her to back off, and stood in front of the shield. With one last look at Ruby, who nodded with tension obvious in her face, she hit it in the centre.
The restraints screamed, cracks appeared in the floor, and Yang’s fist bounced clean off the untouched projection. Which, a fraction of a second later, then disappeared.
“What? Why? How did that... oh. Ohhhh.” Ruby had her head in her hands, muffling her voice to nearly inaudible. “I really should have thought of that. The force affected the emitters asymmetrically, changing the angle and causing the projection itself to exert force on the emitters, which led to a positive feedback loop until it tore itself apart internally.”
She sat like that for several seconds, before picking herself up, taking her toolkit and heading to the shield. Some disassembly and evaluation later, she declared that it would only take a couple of days to fix the damage caused and prevent a similar issue recurring, as well as move the anchor as Pyrrha had requested.
Pyrrha apologised on general principles, and Ruby headed to the workshop to begin.
The damage turned out to be slightly more extensive than Ruby had realised, so it was a week later that Ruby was preparing to present Akouo II to Pyrrha. Weiss, Blake and Yang had come along for moral support, and Weiss had insisted that the shield be covered with a sheet, despite Ruby’s protests that Pyrrha had seen it before. The four were waiting for Pyrrha, which Weiss had insisted on as well.
(“You’ve put so much effort into this. We need to make sure the handover goes well.”
“Why? Pyrrha won’t care if it goes badly.”
“Do you want your work to impress her?”
“Well, yeah, I guess.”
“Well then. You’ve done all the hard work; let me handle this part. If I let you do this you’ll shove it at her then run away.”
“Can’t argue with that.”)
Pyrrha arrived at 17:00 exactly, and her eyes were immediately drawn to the neat bundle in Ruby's arms.
“Is that-” Pyrrha began to ask, until a polite cough from Weiss interrupted her, allowing Ruby to speak her line.
“Pyrrha, may I present to you... Akouo II!”
She removed the sheet with a flourish, and Pyrrha’s breath caught in her throat.
Ruby had, since Pyrrha had last seen it, added some final touches to the aesthetics, with black engraving similar to Akouo I, though slightly more elaborate, to make up for the reduced space. The metal had been polished to a mirror sheen, and the rim sharpened to a razor edge.
Ruby handed the shield to Pyrrha, bowing slightly as she did so. Pyrrha spent a moment admiring it, then slotted it into her vambrace, drawing Milo as she did so, and activated the projection.
“Just as I was beginning to think I might have a chance against her,” Weiss muttered.
“Oh no,” said Ruby, “I just realised I’m going to have to fight him.”