"Tsutsumi! Please! I really didn't mean to!!"
Yang's desperate voice echoed across one of Beacon's many gardens.
The only thing she got back was another shovelful of dirt dumped onto her head.
"Hey! You were the one who kissed my sister! Why are you even more upset than m-" Yang didn't even finish before another load of dirt smacked her right in the face. Tsutsumi didn't even look at her; he just kept shoving more dirt like his goal was to bury this blonde alive.
"Wait- is he seriously going to bury Yang alive!?" Weiss finally spotted the scene, Yang tied up in a hole, Tsutsumi furiously trying to turn her into a flower bed.
"We need to stop him fast!" Ruby yelled, and the rest of team RWBY along with team TNPR sprinted over. Pyrrha and Ren tackled Tsutsumi, pulling him back while Ruby grabbed the shovel right out of his hand. Nora and Blake jumped into the hole to start digging Yang out, while Weiss just watched, seeing how everyone had taken their role, and she definitely won't go digging up dirt with her bare hands.
It took all of them to keep Tsutsumi from immediately diving back in to finish the job.
"Honestly, I don't understand why you're even more angry about this than Ruby," Weiss said, staring down at Tsutsumi, who was now caught in a full bear hug from behind courtesy of Pyrrha.
Pyrrha looked delicate at a glance, but considering she was a four-time undefeated champion of the Mistral Regional Tournament, her strength wasn't something that many could easily brush off.
Although Tsutsumi could easily do so, he didn't want to harm others carelessly. Which led to him being held like an oversized plushie by her.
"None of your business," Tsutsumi muttered, still glaring daggers in Yang's direction, well, as much as he could while being squished.
"Let's calm down for a bit, Tsutsumi," Pyrrha reminded him gently, tightening her grip with her legs hooked around his waist and her arms locked around his chest, while pulling her entire body weight back, making absolutely sure he wasn't going anywhere.
"It's okay, Tsutsumi. I don't mind, and it isn't your fault that it happened!" Ruby said quickly, trying to defuse the situation.
She was still pretty horrified and confused about the accidental kiss, but not horrified enough to watch her sister get buried alive over it.
"Yeah, how about we all just calm down for a bit. And let's not try to kill Yang?" Nora added, trying her best to sound like the mature one for once, which was alarming all on its own.
Tsutsumi held the glare for another moment, then let out a long, frustrated breath. "Can you let go of me now?"
He glanced back at Pyrrha, who was still hugging him like he was a very dangerous teddy bear.
"You promise you won't try to kill Yang?" she asked, tightening her hold just a little.
He paused… clearly considering the loopholes.
"Fine. I won't try to kill Yang."
Pyrrha finally released him, letting them both stand back up. Everyone remained tense, though, mostly because Tsutsumi's behavior was so out of character that it didn't seem right.
Just then...
Form Ride: Weiss Schnee!
His body shifted instantly, turning into an exact copy of Weiss, hair, outfit, posture, and even Myrtenaster. The real Weiss blinked at her own duplicate, frozen in disbelief.
"But Weiss never said she couldn't!" Tsutsumi declared, using Weiss's voice perfectly.
Yang didn't even hesitate. She bolted at full speed, although she is confident that she can beat Weiss in a one vs one, the 'Weiss' who is going to fight her is actually Tsutsumi.
Someone who could easily overpower her in every way or form, so she wasn't stupid enough to take on a losing fight.
Tsutsumi (Weiss version) tried to take off after her, but Pyrrha, Ruby, and the real Weiss all lunged at once, piling onto him before he could get more than two steps.
After a short scuffle, they had him locked down again. Pyrrha with the bear hug 2.0, and Weiss and Ruby each holding an arm so he couldn't slip a card out and vanish to go chase Yang across campus like a vengeful snow fairy.
It took a while for things to calm down. Mostly because Yang had to get special approval to head into Vale, so Tsutsumi wouldn't just show up at the RWBY dorm and beat her up there.
"This is really strange. I don't remember you being the emotional type," Ren said. He sat at the edge of his bed, calm magenta eyes locked onto his leader's very, very annoyed purple ones.
Across the room, Pyrrha was still holding onto him tightly. Even after they'd stopped the whole "attempted burial" event, she decided it was better if someone physically kept him in place.
"Like I said, this is between me and that blonde," Tsutsumi replied, still held firmly in place.
"It was just an accident, and Ruby didn't even seem that upset about it, so what gives?" Nora asked, tilting her head.
She was just as confused as everyone else. Sure, Yang messed up, but trying to kill her over it didn't feel like the correct response.
"You can tell us if it's bothering you that much. We're a team, after all," Ren added, trying to reason with him.
Ever since the start of the year, Tsutsumi had been a capable, respected leader. Even if he vanished from class half the time, wandered off without notice, or just… appeared in places he shouldn't be.
Despite the chaos, he was a respected and capable leader, someone who helped his team improve with barely any trial-and-error, like he already knew them from the inside out.
He understood them perfectly.
But they didn't know much about him at all.
To Tsutsumi, they were open books. To the rest of TNPR, Tsutsumi was like reading a locked diary written in another language, sealed in a box, buried ten feet underground.
Which was exactly why this situation felt so much harder. They wanted to help, but had no idea where to even start.
"It's complicated," Tsutsumi finally said.
"Oh, c'mon! You know basically everything about us! Why not share some of your burden with us for once? You can't just keep bottling it up and expect it to work!" Nora blurted out, waving her hands around for emphasis.
"Nora has a point," Pyrrha agreed, tightening her hold a little, just in case he suddenly decided to break free and sprint to Vale.
"We're all worried about you, Tsutsumi. But if you aren't willing to reach out, then we won't know how to help you. We might even make it worse, thinking we're helping," Ren added. He didn't rush the words; he meant them.
They were a team. It shouldn't just be the leader's job to carry everyone else's burdens while stuffing away his own. They were supposed to face things together, not leave the leader to deal with everything alone.
Tsutsumi didn't answer. He just stared at the floor, jaw tight, like he was sorting through something in his head and didn't know how to word any of it.
Seeing that he was actually thinking, Ren gently clamped a hand over Nora's mouth before she could yell at him to hurry up. He knew this wasn't something they could rush, or force, or drag out of him.
It took them some time before Tsutsumi finally exhaled.
"You guys aren't going to let this matter go until I tell you why, correct?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
All three nodded, doing their best to look supportive… or at least less confused.
He let out another breath, slower this time, before giving them his answer. "Every girl who develops feelings for me… they all die."
That… was not what they were expecting.
"Uhh, I'm sure it's just bad luck," Nora said quickly, trying to kick the rising awkwardness out of the air.
"It already happened three times."
Nora's attempt at a nervous laugh died mid-giggle.
"Uhhh… well, I mean, at least you had three really pretty girls confess to you? No one does that for me," she said, trying to stay optimistic but failing pretty badly.
"Aki got her heart ripped out by her own brother… Monika's entire body was torn into particles… Jeanne was burned alive by the same idiotic people she was trying to protect!"
The more he listed, the sharper his voice got, and the room felt smaller by the second.
"And I was there. I watched all of them die, and I couldn't do anything to stop it."
He wasn't sure if the tightness in his chest was emotional or if Pyrrha's grip had unintentionally tightened too much.
Hard to tell at this point.
Even if those deaths shaped him into who he was now, he still looked back sometimes. If he had listened to Aki and run with her when she asked, she might've lived. If he'd noticed how lonely Monika really was, maybe things would've gone differently. If he'd just tried a little harder with Jeanne…
"So… you're blaming yourself for their deaths?" Ren asked, staying calm using his Semblance, though clearly lost on how to handle this. They wanted Tsutsumi to open up, but unlike him, they didn't have a perfect plan ready.
Pyrrha's life had been stable. Ren and Nora lost their home to Grimm, yes, but none of them had watched someone confess feelings to them only to die soon after. They didn't have a reference point for this kind of problem.
"You could say that. After all, they died because I wasn't able to do enough to save them," Tsutsumi replied, tone low but not dramatic, just matter-of-fact. "They cared for me… and I failed them when they needed me the most."
"I…" Ren paused, honestly unsure what words were even appropriate. "I'm sorry for your losses."
Tsutsumi didn't answer. He didn't expect a solution from talking, and Ren knew it.
"Nora and I need to head out for a bit," Ren said suddenly. He got up, grabbed Nora's hand, and the two left the room in a hurry.
Tsutsumi didn't move to stop them. He just stared at the closed door like he was waiting for it to say something helpful.
"Uh, Ren… did we… mess up?" Nora whispered as they walked away.
"I think we did…" Ren admitted through clenched teeth. He was pissed, not at Tsutsumi, but at himself. They'd asked him to share, but without any idea how to help, all they did was poke a very sensitive issue and leave it hanging.
Tsutsumi blamed himself for those deaths. Even if none of them were actually his fault, he carried it like it was. And Ren had no idea how to fix that, yet they all rushed to try and get him to talk without knowing how to truly help their leader.
As the two walked down the hall trying to come up with something, anything, they didn't notice a pair of red-and-white bangs sticking out from behind the half-open RWBY dorm door just across from their room.
"I… didn't know that…" Ruby murmured, holding an open bag of cookies. She took a small bite, already clearing half the bag.
"I really didn't expect someone like him to actually care that much about others…" Weiss added, looking just as surprised.
"He's afraid that if Ruby develops feelings for him, she might end up like the girls he mentioned," Blake said, summing everything up.
The three of them had been on their way to the TNPR dorm to talk things out and figure out why Tsutsumi went full gravekeeper on Yang. Ruby even brought homemade cookies as a peace offering.
They just didn't expect to accidentally overhear everything and find out a completely different problem instead.