“Give up now, boy,” she said. “And maybe I’ll go easy on you.”

“I think I can take you.”

“You don’t even have a weapon,” Carmine said. She tilted her head. “Here, you can have mine.”

Something knocked into Yatsuhashi’s left shoulder from behind. He grunted and dropped to his knees. He looked down and saw Carmine’s dual-sai hovering over him. The blade levitated in front of his face, and twirled dangerously with the tip pointed at his eyes.

So that was her Semblance. Telekinesis.

He lunged for the sword, but it darted out of the way and thwacked the top of his head.

“We’ve sparred with Telekinetics before. And I’m willing to bet you’re not as good as Goodwitch.”

Yatsuhashi moved fast, knocking her sai aside with his arm. It darted back toward him. He parried it again, thinking how odd it was to be having a fistfight with a flying sword. Then it zipped back to Carmine and she caught it. Now she had two weapons, and he had none.

Sand started swirling around her again, drifting slowly like a ring around a planet. Then she waved her hand, and the ring expanded quickly. Sand blasted into Yatsuhashi, pushing him backward, stinging his face, getting into his eyes, his mouth, his armor. He brought his hands up to shield himself from the worst of it, but he was itching and blinded for a moment.

“Look out! Above you!” Gus called.

Yatsuhashi rubbed sand out of his watering eyes and looked up to see sand gathering over his head, a growing ball of grit.

He tried to dodge to the side, but the ball dropped and he was buried under a ton of sand, just like that.

Yatsuhashi roared and burst out of the pile, and another large mass of sand punched him in the side. He went tumbling away.

I can’t do this on my own, Yatsuhashi thought.

Yatsuhashi dug himself out of a second sand pile and zeroed in on Carmine. She spun her sword rapidly, gathering sand toward it in a spiral column, and then she pushed her hand forward and fired the sand at Yatsuhashi. He ran toward it and vaulted over it, but the sand blast redirected upward and propelled him high into the air. More sand gathered, like she was turning up the force on a water hose. Pushing him higher and higher. Then the sand fell away and Yatsuhashi dropped after it. He landed hard on his back in the sand and the wind was knocked out of him.

“Hey! You started the party without me.”

“Bertilak!” Carmine shouted.

Yatsuhashi looked over and saw Bertilak Celadon standing ten feet away from him, holding his broken weapon—and Gus. Why had the kid come back to help Yatsuhashi?

“Well, I’m screwed,” Yatsuhashi sent.

- RWBY: After the Fall, Chapter 15