“I don’t want to hurt you,” Coco said.

“That’s my line,” Yatsuhashi grunted. He dropped his sword, grabbed her by the ankle, and pulled her onto her back.

He was above her in a moment, jabbing the business end of the sword toward her chest. But now he was moving a little more slowly, more carefully. Like he really didn’t want to hurt her. Like they were just sparring.

Exactly like when they were sparring. They had gone through those exact motions so many times, Coco didn’t even have to think about how to counter him. It was all muscle memory.

She rolled to one side as the blade came down, then looped her leg behind Yatsuhashi’s, and pulled. He fell backward again, so Coco pushed herself up quickly and smacked his sword away with a backhanded swipe of her purse. Now they were into it.

Even though Rumpole had been under the Crown’s influence during their training exercises with Professor Sunnybrook, she’d been right about one thing: They relied on their weapons far too often, Yatsuhashi especially. Coco had to admit he relied on power in battle and just didn’t move as fast as the rest of his team. That wasn’t a criticism, just an honest assessment from her as his leader and friend. It didn’t matter because they were a team, and their strengths complemented one another’s.

It was when they shared the same weaknesses that there was a problem. Coco also relied on Gianduja a lot, and her Semblance. Which was why she and Yatsuhashi had increased their hand-to-hand combat training so much since enrolling at Shade—something that wasn’t emphasized much at Beacon. They both wanted to break their bad habits.

They had practiced these moves and dozens of others before, to disarm each other to even the match. Now Yatsuhashi was going to disarm Coco.

He swung his legs around in the air and hopped back onto his feet. Coco rushed him, but he stood his ground, and this time, when she swung her purse at him, he grabbed it and twisted, pulling it and sending Coco flying. She lost hold of her purse strap and landed thirty feet away. Yatsuhashi spun her purse around in one hand with a smirk before tossing it beside his sword. He left the weapons there as they came together and began trading blows.

Something had changed in the middle of their battle, and Coco was fairly sure Yatsuhashi was back. She would test that hunch as they followed the choreography they had rehearsed over and over again, their fight almost like a dance.

“Need some help?” Sage called.

“No, I got this,” Coco said.

“We’ll see about that,” Yatsuhashi said.

In a lower voice, Coco asked again, “You in there, Yatsuhashi?”

His face didn’t change—he was good at hiding emotion—but he whispered, “I’m back in control. But I don’t want Jax to realize that.”

Coco glanced over at the last location she had on Jax. Now he was surrounded by a ring of soldiers.

“Good,” she said. “You’re going to need to get close to him.”

Yatsuhashi grunted in assent.

- RWBY: Before the Dawn, Chapter 20