Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was uncharacteristically, impossibly silent in the Team RWBY dorm room, as the sun vanished below the horizon on what should have been a relaxed and easy Friday.

After a full week of classes, the room should have been filled with the low hum of some of Yang’s music coming out of the small wireless speakers she kept duct taped to one of her bed posts. There should have been the quiet rustle of paper as Blake turned pages of a book, normally picking ones she was familiar with so she could half-focus on it and participate in soft conversation with the others.

Weiss would be looking over everyone’s homework at the small desk, spinning a pen in her fingers and tutting a little too loudly at every mistake she found. There wasn’t any heat in it anymore, and while she did shoot the others withering looks for their laziness she would still begrudgingly cross out their work and correct it for them.

And Ruby…well, that was always a variable.

Some Fridays she would be so mentally wiped from the week that she would climb up into her bed and play on her scroll until long past midnight, eventually falling asleep with it on her chest playing the menu music of whatever game she was invested in, over and over again until Blake’s sensitive ears couldn’t take it anymore and she’d reach up to turn it off, catlike agility and stealth making sure Ruby never even stirred.

Other Fridays, harder Fridays, Ruby would study, her bunk a fortress of textbooks and copies of everyone else’s notes, even getting copies of JNPR’s to look over and learn.

Learning, learning. Always learning. Even with the drapes pulled tight on those nights, the light of her small camping lantern came through, sometimes until close to dawn on Saturday.

For the first few months, Weiss had always assumed Ruby’s sleep-ins on Saturday were just childlike laziness. Up until she caught Ruby passed out on her books, snoring from the angle of her chest and throat.

But not this week. This time there was no relaxed hum in the air between the four of them as they trudged into their room, Yang numbly and distractedly flipping the lights on as she passed by, and Weiss closing the door with a barely restrained frustration that had every movement tight.

Blake undid the clasps of her arm wraps with nimble twists of her fingers as she approached her bed and sank down onto the edge of it, sparing the others a quick glance as they dispersed around the room.

None of the others were saying a word, Weiss and Yang only sparing the others a single look each before Weiss sank down at the desk and grabbed up a random textbook, while Yang sighed and shook her head as she pulled herself up into her bunk with a sore heave.

The only person who hadn’t moved since entering the room was Ruby, who instead remained frozen just inside of the doorway, her hands clenched into fists by her sides and her eyes downcast as she stared down at the freshly vacuumed carpet. Her bangs weren’t quite long enough to cover her expression, though she had been growing them out since school started, so Blake was easily able to see the glistening of tears in the corners of her silver eyes.

But there wasn’t anything Blake could think of to say, especially not when she was as frustrated as the rest of them. So instead she simply grabbed one of her books and shuffled back up her bed until she was comfortable, flipping the novel open to a random page with one hand while she reached up with the other to undo the bow hiding her ears.

When her secret had first gotten out and everyone had been fine with it, Blake had initially assumed things would just be able to continue as normal. But when it had been Weiss of all people who had made an off-hand remark about the bow now being a waste of time in their dorm, Blake had simply stared at her wide eyed before slowly acquiescing and pulling the ribbon from her head to fold onto the bedside table.

That had been six months ago, now. And every time they were in private, Blake had grown more and more comfortable being… herself.

As soon as her cat ears were free, she flicked them to stretch them out, sore from another full day spent restricting them in the tight fabric needed to deform the shape of them into something more nondescript. The sigh of relief that escaped her lips was suddenly the loudest sound in the room, enough for Weiss to look over her shoulder for a moment and meet Blake’s eye.

Realising what the sound had been, Weiss gave a simple nod of approval, and turned back to the textbook she was trying, and failing, to focus on.

And still Ruby stood, unmoving and silent, her chest barely shifting from her breathing as she swallowed a frustrated lump in her throat.

“...I’m sorry. It was a stupid idea.”

Three pairs of eyes shot to her in different levels of surprise, and Ruby wilted under the sudden onslaught of silent attention, crossing her arms over her chest shyly and shaking her head.

“I’ll figure it out. Promise…”

The muscles in Weiss’s jaw bulged as she clenched it, her sharp eyes narrowing slightly as she took in her partner’s defeated posture, but no remark came to mind that would have been reassuring while also truthful. If it had been only a few months earlier, she would have elected for truth regardless of if there was anything gentle to wrap it in.

But the second pair of ears on Blake’s head, the reveal of them still somewhat fresh and the weight behind them revealed in small tidbits, had taught Weiss a great deal about the lethality of some truths when revealed poorly.

Weiss was not kind. She knew it, the others knew it, and Ruby knew it perhaps the most of all. Had seen the worst parts of Weiss given voice and blade when trapped inside of her Nightmare all those months ago. And even if that infernal creature had been destroyed, the parts of Weiss it had drawn upon remained. So the best thing Weiss could do in the face of her partner’s single escaping tear, was remain silent, and blankly swallow down the shame from her ill-equipped stillness.

It was Yang who spoke up, because of course it was Yang, the girl swinging her legs off the side of her bunk and shaking her head gently.

“Hey, it’s not your fault. We were all a bit… off, today. Maybe it’s just one of those weeks. Nobody got hurt, sis. That’s the main thing.”

Weiss closed the textbook she’d been trying to lock her frustration behind, her lips tight as she drummed her fingers on the hard cover. “It isn’t just today. It isn’t just this week.”

When Yang shot her a warning glare, Weiss scoffed and spun the desk chair properly so she could face the others, folding one leg over the other and resting her hands on her lap.

“I’m right, and we all know it. When it comes to the three of you, your grades have been in freefall ever since we returned from break. And as for our combat classes…”

“You haven’t won a solo match that wasn’t against Jaune ever since school resumed. Not one.” Yang shot back with a slight snarl, raising an eyebrow when Weiss narrowed her eyes at the blunt callout. “At least the rest of us are still in the singles top ten.”

Weiss raised her own eyebrow in response to Yang’s angry eyes, and clicked her tongue like a gunshot after mulling over her words for a few moments. “And as for your and Blake’s record in the partner matches? I imagine Cardin and Russel are going to enjoy your company down with them very soon.”

“Oh piss off, princess! We both know the only reason you and Ruby are still up where you are is because she’s been carrying you like deadweight!” Yang snarled as her eyes briefly flashed red, and she slid off her bunk to land on the floor with a heavy, angry thump.

The sound had both Blake and Ruby jump, Blake watching the confrontation with an unaffected, quiet stare. There wasn’t anything Weiss could say that would damage her confidence or hurt her feelings, so Blake was secure to watch the showdown with concern but not offence.

Besides…Weiss was right.

Ever since returning from break, her and Yang’s doubles record had been atrocious. And that did have Blake concerned.

But it was all affecting Ruby the most. Dark bags were thick under their team leader’s normally youthful and optimistic eyes, lack of solid sleep due to studying for all-nighters had her lethargic, missing meals to study and work on developing fresh team techniques had her aura weak and her Semblance slowing down.

It led to mistakes.

And ever since they’d returned from the short break before the beginning of the Vytal Festival, they’d all been making a lot of those, and everyone was starting to notice. Because if their singles and doubles sparring records were bad, their team sparring record was by far the worst.

Blake had the quiet self-assurance to handle that. Weiss had her imperious arrogance. And Yang had her fiery confidence.

But Ruby didn’t seem like she had much left at all, standing in the middle of the room while her partner and her sister argued back and forth, gradually growing nastier as their frustration became more important than actually making solid points. Yang grew louder, Weiss’s tone dropped colder, and Blake simply watched Ruby silently as the young girl folded tighter and tighter into herself.

Once rose petals started drifting down out of the inside of her cloak, however, the scent of them in the room had both Weiss and Yang’s attention snap over to her in concern, their argument immediately forgotten as Ruby trembled in place and tears began to escape properly.

“I’ll…figure out how to fix it. How to get us back on track.” Ruby sniffled, running her sleeve across her face. The whites of her eyes were a bloodshot red, but Blake wasn’t sure if it was misery or her aura. “Promise. We’ll be back to our best before you all know it.”

Without another word, Ruby turned on her foot and opened the dorm room door, sniffling again quietly as she left and closed the door behind her with a miserable nudge from her foot.

Through her sensitive ears, Blake picked up the telltale sound of wind as Ruby vanished into rose petals and sped off somewhere, and she sighed sadly and looked to where Weiss and Yang were staring at the closed door.

Yang’s expression was a mixture of stunned and miserable, and she closed her eyes and let her head drop, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket and trying to force her shoulders to relax. After taking a few breaths to calm down, she opened her eyes again, revealing to the room that they were once again a gentle lilac, and went to follow her sister.

Only for Weiss’s hand on her arm to stop her, the much shorter girl only managing to stop Yang in her tracks from just how surprising it was for her to try and do it. Yang looked over at where Weiss was staring at the door with a quiet, thoughtful expression.

Yang frowned curiously, and didn’t move past even when Weiss’s hand dropped. “What??”

There was no reply in the time it took for Weiss to return to the desk and put the textbook back into its place on the proper pile, only answering once her back was turned and her expression was hidden.

“She doesn’t need you all the time, Yang.”

Yang blinked at the words, and immediately bristled once more. “What the hell does that-”

“You’re one of the people she thinks she’s failing. What’s your proximity going to do right now except chew at her while she tries to think?” Weiss stayed turned away, her hands resting on the surface of the desk and her chin up as she stared at the wall only a foot in front of her face. “You said so yourself at Mountain Glenn; we’re not kids anymore. Sometimes she is not just your sweet little sister. Sometimes, she’s our leader first, and she wants now to be one of those times. Let her. Comfort her once she’s back, but for now…let her think.”

The other two were stunned into absolute silence by Weiss’s words, Yang and Blake staring at her with the same wide-eyed bewilderment as they each processed and digested it.

While Yang simply gaped, Blake recovered first, closing her own book and putting it to the side so she could sit up. “That’s…remarkably supportive of you. And rather insightful.”

Weiss scoffed, waving a hand dismissively as she went to the chest of drawers and pulled open hers so she could grab out a change of civilian clothes now that the day’s training was over. Once she had a set, she walked towards the bathroom for a shower, already undoing the sash around her waist.

As she passed by, Yang finally recovered, and put aside most of Weiss’s words to mull over carefully later to instead raise an eyebrow at the passing heiress. “You think she’s sweet, huh?”

“Everyone thinks she’s sweet, Yang.” Weiss sighed with a roll of her eyes as she stepped into the bathroom, and closed the door behind her.

Now in private, Yang and Blake finally looked at each other properly for the first time since leaving the training gym where their team drills had been so abysmal it had left them all like… this.

The duo smiled at each other sadly, both of them frustrated and neither of them with any idea what to do about it. Yang spread her hands helplessly before letting them fall by her sides.

Blake hummed in quiet agreement. “Are you alright?”

“If it’s the bruising you’re asking about, then yeah, all gone. Not the first time I’ve been accidentally thrown into a wall.” Yang smirked, patting her ribs where she’d taken the brunt of the hit from their training accident, and relieved when Blake chuckled quietly. Then she sobered, and walked over to sit down on the edge of Blake’s bed next to her. “But if you’re asking about…everything else?”

“I am.”

“Then I really don’t know. Weiss is right, and that alone pisses me off; but something’s been weird ever since the break.” Yang sighed, resting her elbows on her thighs so she could bury her face in her hands in frustration. “Do you think she’s right? About Ruby, I mean.”

Blake hummed quietly once more, reaching over and patting Yang on the back comfortingly. A type of familiar affection that would have been unthinkable a few months ago, but was now so commonplace that Yang didn’t even jump in surprise like she had the first few times Blake had been the one to initiate contact.

Instead she leant into it, and Blake shuffled closer until their shoulders were brushing and sighed in her own thoughts. “I’m the only one without any siblings, so I’m not sure I can be much help from that perspective. But…Ruby’s more mature and talented than I think either of you give her credit for, at times. It’s been less than a year, yet she’s already twice the huntress she was when she arrived, and that’s saying a lot.”

Yang chuckled into her hands, the sound muffled by her palms, and she sat up with a sore grunt as the lingering tightness in her side pulled. She looked over at Blake with a soft smile. “You really believe in her, huh?”

“She’s given me no reason not to, and a thousand reasons to continue doing so. Until now, she’s never led us astray.” Blake nodded resolutely, and smiled when Yang’s expression glowed with approval. A laugh bubbled out of her chest, and she bumped shoulders with Yang. “Don’t look at me like that! I’m serious.”

The smile on Yang’s face only brightened further, her lilac eyes sparkling as she stared at her partner fondly. “Yep. I know you are.”

But the slightly darker shadow to Blake’s words lingered in the air between them, and Yang bit her lip and looked ahead, her eyes going to Ruby’s empty bunk and lingering on the books she could see scattered across the mattress. Homework, studying, and assessments had never been a strength of Ruby’s. She was too fast, too easily bored and distracted, but they all knew how much she was trying.

Yang was proud of her, and growing prouder every single day as Ruby came into her own, of course she was. When Ruby had been selected to be the leader of their team, Yang had meant it when she’d expressed her pride, and in those opening months of Ruby’s insecurity Yang had done everything she could to catch her little sister every time Ruby’s confidence truly wavered.

It had been months since that had last been needed, not since before the breach after they suffered their first set of true defeats on the train in Mountain Glenn. That fight in the town square had galvanised something in Ruby Rose, helping something inside of her go well on the way to becoming steel.

Their teamwork had become immaculate by that day, team techniques and synergy honed and perfected as far as any first year team could go, and perhaps even further than that.

That said nothing for their individual growth and confidence. Slot by slot they had each climbed up the rankings, Yang herself hot on Pyrrha’s tail even if she couldn’t yet beat the girl herself, and Weiss was just behind her and getting closer and closer with every new glyph she developed and each new dust combination she mastered.

Time dilation was only one of the brand new tricks that Weiss had developed since arriving at Beacon, it was just the only one she’d shown off so far. She was keeping the rest of them close to the chest, not wanting to reveal any of them even to her own team until she deemed the glyph variations ‘stable’, whatever that meant.

They were all growing. Ruby was faster every passing week, Blake’s range with her shadow clones was extending and the total maximum she could do before exhaustion had increased to bursts of six, and Yang’s damage absorption capacity was growing larger and even just her basic combat skills had exploded.

Each of them deserved the ranks that had been climbing up their year’s scoreboard.

And when they fought as partners, the four of them had known for a fact they were the best in their year.

Yang and Blake were in complete sync, everybody in the year saw it and Professor Goodwitch commented on it at least once a month in combat class when they worked together. Every time they trained together it honed the blade they were becoming to a sharper and sharper edge. 

It helped that they spent almost all their time outside of class together as well, when Blake wasn’t hanging out with Team SSSN or reading, and Yang wasn’t out clubbing with Team CFVY.

Meanwhile Yang knew that Ruby and Weiss were just as balanced. In their own quieter, stranger way.

While the duo did spend a large amount of time together outside of class, it wasn’t as much as Yang and Blake, and there was no open affection between them that Yang had ever glimpsed. No sitting next to each other on a bunk, or quick hugs and pats on the back. Instead their connection was one of trust, and hard-earned respect.

Which was what made whatever was happening now such a problem. If Weiss was losing trust in Ruby’s ability to lead, if she even suggested to Ruby that she was, then that would do more damage than could be compensated for in the middle of a fight.

So what the hell had changed over such a short break??

She and Ruby had gone back to Patch to spend those two weeks with their dad, which was as nice as it always was, but even then Ruby hadn’t stopped working, and had been able to grill their dad for any lessons or advice he could give now that she knew what specific questions to ask.

Meanwhile Blake and Weiss had stayed at Beacon, Blake with nowhere else to go, meanwhile Weiss had deemed that it ‘wasn’t enough time to be worth the trip’ back to Atlas.

Yang frowned in thought, and looked over at Blake curiously. “Did something happen here, over break?”

The question had Blake grimace and she sat back with a sigh, looking up at the bunk above her head and biting her lip in thought. Even to her, the break had felt strange. Beacon didn’t feel right when it was so quiet. And the absence of the sisters had made the dorm feel cavernous and cold.

“Not really. I spent most of it hanging out with Sun and his team, and Weiss spent it either in the training gym or off… somewhere. Honestly I barely saw her. She kept to herself.”

Yang raised her eyebrows, and snorted. “Training? Over break?”

“You’re surprised?” Blake shrugged as she kept her head rolled back. Even though Weiss was still in the bathroom, though the shower had just turned off, Blake lowered her voice slightly, murmuring hesitantly. “...her family called a few times…”

That subject was one of the great big question marks of Team RWBY, and there were quite a few other large ones that rotated through the dorm, all seeming to do with family;

Ruby’s inherited legacy of the renowned Summer Rose, Blake having a more recognisable last name than she thought she did, Yang’s unexplored connection to the Branwen bandit tribe. Yet somehow, conversations and questions about the Schnee family felt the most…dangerous.

Because there was another big question mark that none of them had dared broach;

The scar.

A line running over most of one side of Weiss’s face, miraculously not blinding her in one eye. Thick and deep enough it couldn’t be hidden with makeup, it was impossible to meet Weiss and not notice it straight away. And yet, none of them had asked the story of it.

After everything they had each seen inside of Weiss’s Nightmare World, navigating and fighting the visualisations and embodiments of so many of Weiss’s inner demons, they had each been very careful with the heiress from then on. Something inside of Weiss was beyond reasonably lethal, but its blade was aimed inward more than anywhere else, and it was a balancing act to make sure gentle words wouldn’t push it in a single inch.

None of them had missed that Weiss’s nightmare self hadn’t had the scar.

Once Weiss had revealed in casual passing that she’d been privately tutored at the Schnee Estate and not a junior academy, each of them had made their own dark assumptions, concocting stories in their own minds that they each hoped were inaccurate and out of proportion.

But Blake had been in the occasional fight to the death since she was fifteen, she knew the signature of a sharpened blade’s edge.

The conclusion Blake had come to resulted in the first time in over a year that she’d burned to spill blood, her vision turning red on behalf of the cold, callous heiress who had somehow become one of her only friends.

There had been a time a few years ago that Adam had conspired with Sienna, the leader of the White Fang, about possibly making the biggest strike in the faction’s history by going all the way to Atlas to take Jacques Schnee himself. The prospect had both revolutionaries bloodthirsty and ambitious, and the plan had gotten all the way to the logistics stage before Blake had finally been able to plead for them to be reasonable.

On the occasional rare morning that Blake saw Weiss trying desperately to hide her scar under makeup, all the while pretending it didn’t bother her, a part of Blake’s heart regretted talking Adam out of that particular act of going too far.

The bathroom door opened, and Weiss emerged in her civilian clothes, with her combat gear folded under one arm until she placed them down in the designated laundry hamper just for their equipment. At some point over the weekend, Yang would be tasked with going down into the city to one of the laundromats to get everyone’s combat uniforms cleaned, but Weiss was the first to the pile.

Once she straightened, Weiss finally registered how Yang and Blake were sitting next to each other, locked in private conversation, and she thinned her lips for a moment. The way Yang looked momentarily guilty, and Blake looked pensive, were all the signs Weiss needed to be able to guess what they’d been talking about.

She stared at her two teammates, silent and her expression icy and blank, before grabbing her scroll from the desk and her white coat from its hook, pulling it around her shoulders.

“I shan't be joining you for dinner. So, feel no need to allocate me a portion.” Weiss buttoned up her coat, and gave her teammates a single nod of farewell before making her way to the door to pull it open.

Just as her hand was on the handle, Weiss stopped when Yang called out. “Hey! Wait, wait a second.”

“Hmm?” Weiss looked over her shoulder, her hand lingering on the handle and keeping it half-turned. “Yes?”

Yang hesitated at the cold stare Weiss was giving her, completely sealed and blank, and her original intended question of concern immediately evaporated under the icy look.

So instead she scratched the back of her head nervously and forced a smile. “If you see Ruby, ask her what she wants for dinner?”

It was clear that Weiss wasn’t fooled, but Yang’s decision to respect her privacy had some of the tension leave her shoulders, and she nodded slowly, some of the frost leaving her eyes when Yang smiled in thanks.

Without a farewell, Weiss left, closing the door behind her and vanishing into the evening.

Blake and Yang sat in silence, and Blake listened to the sound of Weiss’s footsteps vanishing down the hall while Yang instead sat in thought and concern as she mulled over the current state of their team.

What had changed in just those two weeks apart? Was it because it was their first time away from each other since the day they’d all arrived at the school? 

The first time Ruby had been a leader without the presence of Weiss’s calm pragmatism to keep her level and focused on one thing at a time. The first time Weiss had trained alone since she left home, temporarily without Ruby’s energy keeping her out of her own head. 

They had all been Blake’s first friends since she’d left the White Fang, and then she’d gone just two weeks without them, alone at Beacon forced to keep her secret once more. And Yang had spent the entire two weeks just…wanting the break to be over so she could come back and be with her friends. Wanting the tournament to hurry up already.

Amity Arena, in all of its spectacle and glory, was already floating above the city in the lead-up to the start of the festival. Before the break, the four of them had been fully confident that they were so prepared that it was going to be a sweep.

Now, Yang wasn’t so sure. None of them were.

At least if they screwed it all up the stakes weren’t quite as high.

When Yang’s shoulders dropped in a heavy slump, Blake hummed in agreement, her lips slightly pursed in thought as she stared into nothing, her mind picking through everything. But no answers came, nothing poignant to say formed, so all Blake could do was pat Yang on the back one last time before shuffling away until her back was propped up against the headboard, and she grabbed up a fresh book.

She wasn’t bothered by Yang’s continued presence, but she did look over the rim of the book every few pages to check on her partner’s expression, and she watched as Yang began to look more and more tired.

But before Blake could speak up and check in, Yang stood and stretched her arms above her head, grunting at the series of joints in her back that popped satisfyingly as she did. Yang stood still for another few moments, almost sinking down into her thoughts again, before she shook her head to banish them and shot Blake a smile.

“Right, lemme shower, then we’ll start on dinner in a bit?”

Blake smiled and nodded, hiding most of her face behind her book when Yang unzipped her jacket and tossed it over to the laundry hamper, leaving her just in her usual tank top. Yang didn’t even notice Blake’s lingering attention as she grabbed out a set of her comfiest shorts and a clean band shirt, and tiredly slumped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Left alone in the dorm, Blake half-closed her book and tapped it on her forehead a few times in thought, an old habit she couldn’t shake, and she closed her eyes with a sigh.

There were still a few weeks until the tournament, and then they had three more years of schooling after that for all of them to sort out their issues, figure out the dynamics, and settle into as perfect a harmony as possible. No team was perfect their first year.

Ozpin had been right, before Mountain Glenn. And she herself had been right when they’d camped in the ruins;

Up until now, they’d just been lucky. Always in the right place at the right time, carried far by enthusiasm, teamwork, and gut intuition. They’d been an unstoppable force and had thought it made them experts.

But a victory, closure, and then two weeks apart, had been enough to reset all of their momentum and individualise all of their personal motivations now that the unifying mission was done. They’d gone from full force, to practically standing still. And where Blake was from, standing still was what turned hunters into prey.

Blake closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head to banish the dramatics of that line of thinking, and forced her book open once more, eventually succeeding in losing herself to the pages.

Weiss was probably the only person in the entire school who appreciated just how cold the training rooms were kept after sunset. Students had long suspected that the faculty deliberately lowered the temperature in harsh increments as the hour got later, as a method to nudge anyone who stayed late to instead go to bed. But Weiss had grown up in far colder, enough so that even with her coat folded and hanging over a balance beam she barely noticed the chill.

It meant she had the entirety of training hall seven to herself as she clicked open Myrtenaster and ejected the empty dust cartridges from the rotating barrel, silently and blankly grabbing fresh ones from the pouch on her belt and loading each one into place with practised efficiency.

When she’d been younger and had first designed her weapon, she had often dropped cartridges in the rush to load them, especially under pressure, and every time had been a mistake that her tutors had punished her for. But now she didn’t even need to look down as she slid each one into a chamber and then snapped it back into place with a flick of her wrist.

Instead her eyes were only on the cleared space in front of her, a large section of the reinforced training hall that was specifically designed for students training external Semblances. Every type of ability had a specialised type of arena and training zone somewhere in the massive multilevel complex, with even speedsters and the supernaturally agile such as Ruby getting a looped obstacle course on the top floor. The school took every possible kind of Semblance into account.

Frankly, Yang had made a game out of trying to do any level of damage to the building to thus far no avail, not even leaving scratch marks on the walls she punched. All she had so far achieved was a sparking aura, a sore hand, Goodwitch’s scorn, and Ozpin’s poorly hidden amusement.

But this specific training hall was one only a bare few of the current student body had any use for.

It was Weiss’s refuge, her private space to think, due to how late in the morning anyone else arrived and how early in the evening it emptied. So she wasn’t concerned about being disturbed as she glared in concentration and rotated Myrtenaster’s barrel with gentle clicks.

A flick of her eyes towards the large clock built into one of the walls saw that it was almost a fresh minute, and Weiss watched the final seconds pass with a blank focus, drumming her grip on her blade by her side.

The minute turned over, and Weiss brought her unique sword up, bringing her aura to the surface of her physical being and latching onto it with her mental one. Plucking the flow of her aura like a guitar string, tuning it in nearly instantaneous thoughts and impulses, pure mental reflexes, Weiss reached the proper frequency before her blade was even in the proper position.

A pale blue glyph bloomed at the tip of her blade, ringing in the air like a windchime, as the air around her dropped cold from the flow of ice dust vibrating along where her aura travelled the length of her blade. Spikes of ice crackled into existence, held carefully up until the moment she would pluck the string of the glyph properly and release them at high velocity. But she wasn’t done.

Before the first glyph had even reached its crescendo, Weiss clicked to the next chamber of dust and coaxed it into her aura alongside the first, weaving them together and willing into existence a glyph that was a purple so dark it seemed black in anything other than direct light.

One type of glyph at a time was barely a drain on her aura at all anymore, she barely noticed, but she could feel the hum from holding two. And yet, her body was relaxed, and her breathing controlled and calm. Because then she clicked to a third chamber, and white joined the other two shades.

The air around her picked up as it was pulled in by the white glyph, the air dust practically vibrating as it waited to be released, and Weiss held it steady along with the other two as she aimed at the training target she had programmed the room to form in the middle of the clear space.

But she waited, measuring the drain on her aura from holding three different dust glyphs together. Before she’d even arrived at Beacon, holding multiple of the same glyph type had been easy, a flashy trick, especially air and ice. Meanwhile combining two different ones was hard, but still consistently doable.

Three…hurt. It hurt to hold them. But she waited, her arm trembling and sweat beading on her forehead as she measured how the drain felt on her aura, and how that was bleeding through to affect her body.

The only way a person could grow their aura larger was to strain it, working it like any muscle, so Weiss held her focus right up until her scroll beeped as her levels reached the red. Then, with a flourishing slash through the air with her blade, she released.

Spikes of ice, held back like arrows from a longbow and with all the force of a white air glyph behind them, travelled with such a high velocity that they screamed in the air, smashing into the target. They didn’t penetrate all the way in, they weren’t supposed to, instead they shattered just as Weiss designed them to. Shards of ice went flying, scattered into the air, only for the purple mark the spears had sealed onto the target’s surface to flash and activate.

A gravity well opened up on the training target, and suddenly every razor sharp ice shard was pulled in at an even greater velocity than their initial volley. And this time, just as Weiss hoped, the target practically exploded as it was skewered on all sides, some of the larger shards sticking in one side and out the other.

The speaker above her head rang out to signal that the target’s set simulated aura and endurance had depleted, and it faded away into dust particles.

Weiss narrowed her eyes as she looked at the space where it had been, clicking Myrtenaster’s barrel like a metronome to help her think.

It had worked perfectly; the initial powerful volley was designed to shatter her target’s aura and render their body vulnerable, for the secondary assault to take advantage of. Even opponents with reasonably impressive auras shouldn’t be able to hold out. Especially not foes like the White Fang lieutenant on the train who had bested her.

But she still wasn’t satisfied. The combination was powerful, but the drain on her current aura capacity was so substantial that she only had three or four in her before she would have to withdraw a distance and rest. It was suicide to enter red aura levels by choice, in the middle of a fight.

Closing her eyes, Weiss ceased in her toying with Myrtenaster’s barrel, taking in steady breaths as she felt her aura regenerating, the pale blue light underneath her skin causing her appearance to shimmer like ice to anyone watching from the outside.

That particular combination had another weakness; it was slow. Conjuring the three glyphs needed took over a full second to do. And while the initial volley was fast, there was a delay between it and the second strike, when the gravity well had to activate.

Too slow. Too slow. Always too slow.

‘Combining it with time dilation, perhaps? To drastically shorten the initial conjuring time down from the full second to a fraction of one?’

‘No, no. Time dilation required gravity and lightning dust, which would turn the manoeuvre from a three glyph combination to a five. Not even Winter has ever managed five.’

Weiss scowled as she watched the remaining shards of ice melt and vanish, then checked her aura level on her scroll, satisfied that she was fully recovered.

After reloading the used chambers once more, she tapped into her scroll for the room to generate another test target, and tried the combination again. Then again. Three times. Four.

A wait for her aura to regenerate, eyes closed and face blank.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Still too slow, but she’d get it right.

Wait for aura, stare at the wall, reload.

Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

Empty dust cartridges littered the ground around her feet, the pouch on her belt slowly emptying. The sky was pitch black outside, the moon hidden by thick clouds from an approaching storm that was already rumbling with distant thunder which was easy to block out and ignore.

Sweat poured down Weiss’s skin, soaking the civilian clothes she was still wearing. It hadn’t been her intention to go so hard, otherwise she would have brought some fresh combat gear. The plan had been to sit and theorise about her combinations and glyph synergies until her head straightened out and she calmed down. But her notebook, with half the pages already filled with alchemical equations in a science unique to the Schnee family, had sat ignored and clasped shut from the moment she had retrieved it from her locker.

Instead, she cast again and again, until she could barely stand and her grip around her sword was weak enough she almost dropped it. Then she went further. Eventually she gave up the facade of blank focus she’d been holding over her face, and her expression twisted into frustration as she drew on the turmoil in her chest as fuel to keep going.

Then it happened;

As the shards of the third stage of the combination destroyed another target, Weiss quickly looked up at the clock to measure the time, and her eyes widened. Slowly, her expression turned from frustration to ecstatic satisfaction, and she hummed in victory and gave a flourish of her sword.

That entire combination had taken half the usual time.

Pride bloomed in her chest, strengthening her grip around her sword as she snapped the barrel open and let the final empty cartridges rattle to the floor, joining the thick pile, and she raised her chin and smirked as the destroyed target faded away.

Whatever had been different that time, she’d achieve again. It had proven to be doable. She still had a few weeks until Winter was due for her visit, there was enough time to master it. Winter was going to be impressed, proud, and if Weiss used such a technique during the tournament…

The loss streak was over. Weiss could feel it.

Suddenly, the skin on her swordhand burned, arcing up her arm to just below the elbow. Something increasingly familiar but she still wasn’t entirely used to, and she winced as she looked down at the thin, barbed scars criss-crossing the skin, starting on the back of her hand and then winding up under her sleeve.

It had been six months since she had been trapped inside of a Nightmare, and the fact she hadn’t noticed her own infection until it was too late still tasted like shameful oil on her tongue to the current day. No physical marks had appeared on the surface until she had finally succumbed to its influence, the barbed vines within her soul carving physical manifestations on her skin.

Nobody knew why she carried scars from its presence. Blake didn’t carry any, nor did Jaune, but thin marks lingered on Weiss’s dominant arm and a small spot on the back of her neck. The expert on such a rare Grimm, the fascinating enigma that had been Shion, had hypothesised that it was because while Blake’s and Jaune’s Nightmares had been essentially surgically removed, Weiss’s had instead somehow been lacerated while still inside of her.

Leaving pieces of a carcass under her skin, deeper than her aura could heal. Faint, almost invisible vines on her left hand and arm, and a smaller spiderweb on the back of her neck at the top of her spine.

Weiss resisted the urge to scratch, instead simply rubbing her wrist until the sting faded away, and clenched her fingers tighter around her sword. She was no stranger to scars, but that didn’t mean she was happy with two new ones to have nightmares about. Nightmares that always had her waking up in a cold sweat.

Every time she had one, more memories of that… hell returned to her upon waking. A world of cold, silent, cruel control. Where the worst parts of herself held dominion like that of a goddess, and yet still somehow had no autonomy or power of her own.

It hadn’t been so bad during the past two terms, when she was so busy studying during the days and being essentially a vigilante of an evening that she didn’t really have time to think about it. And if she woke up from a nightmare at night, she could hear the others in the dorm, all around her. Ruby’s lantern was sometimes even still on, a gentle warm glow above Weiss that reassured her that her partner was still there, and she wasn’t alone.

But then…everyone had gone home, except for Blake. And whenever she had woken up in the dorm in the middle of the night, it had been to silence.

Weiss scoffed and rolled her eyes at herself as she flourished Myrtenaster and rolled out her shoulders. It was childish, and ridiculous. Something she’d get over. If anything, she should take what happened as a learning experience, an opportunity for study. Not many people had experience being possessed by a Nightmare, they were an incredibly rare Grimm subspecies.

The grip on her sword tightened for a moment as Weiss drew in a slow breath, closing her eyes to centre herself and push thoughts of such irrelevant memories from her mind for now.

With glyph training having a satisfying result, and the hour growing late, it was time to end her training session with something a bit less physically taxing but far more important. The one thing she hadn’t made a single bit of progress on;

Summoning. The true power which separated a Schnee from, well, everyone else.

So, bringing up her sword and feeling her completely replenished and refreshed aura throughout her entire being, Weiss concentrated, taking her aura and calling out into the grand void.

On the ground in front of her, a new glyph spun and sang into being, one that required no dust. Pure white and completely unique, as unique as her fingerprint, the sigil spun in slow, elegant circles in front of her as she focused on it. Like a door, she reached through it with her aura and grasped for something, anything.

Despite being only freshly eighteen, Weiss had killed plenty of Grimm in her still short career, and each had helped shape her into who she was, each had left its mark on her soul, her personality, her growth as a person.

But as she used her aura to open a door inside of herself and call out into the void, nothing answered, even as she pushed her focus and the summoning glyph responded by growing larger and spinning faster.

Frustration and insecurity twisted around inside of her chest, pulsing behind her eyes and in her jaw, and she used it all like a bludgeon to slam into her aura like a sledgehammer to a stubborn door. But all it did was make her soul hurt.

This wasn’t fair. Even the Nightmare version of herself, who was meant to be the worst version of who she was now, had been able to summon, and she’d been able to summon multiple. That was a feat that Winter had only achieved at twenty-two and could still only do in bursts, and it was a feat their mother had allegedly never achieved.

The summoning glyph in front of her stuttered for a moment, wavering in its brightness, and Weiss angrily growled at it as if she could threaten it into obedience. But the expanse inside of her aura had nothing for her, nothing but faint whispers down a tunnel the length of an eternity, and as her aura began to give out she gave up with a stomp of her foot.

Weiss let her sword drop by her side as she tried to calm down, taking in deep breaths and letting them out slowly, and she didn’t move until her heart rate had slowed and her blood had somewhat cooled. As soon as she was calm and cold once more, her face returning to a blank mask, Weiss turned and walked over to the bench where her glyph journal and Myrtenaster’s case were waiting.

There hadn’t been any contact training, so she didn’t need to check her sword’s edge for any warps or nicks, instead able to eject the remaining dust cartridges and place the now dormant blade carefully back into the case. She closed the box and clicked the latch, clamping the padlock back on.

After pulling her coat back on, she tucked her journal under one arm and her sword case under the other, and left the training hall without looking behind her, indifferent to the empty cartridges she was leaving on the floor for the janitors to clean. She was in too bad of a mood to care.

The rest of the training complex was completely empty, most of the lights off, so the only sound was her own footsteps as Weiss made her way down to the ground floor and then out an automatic door leading to a small paved courtyard. Her locker was waiting for her right where it had landed, the courtyard explicitly for that purpose, and the absence of any others confirmed that she’d been the last person there.

Once she returned the journal, her ammo pouch, and her sword to their proper places and closed her locker, she pressed the button on its keypad for it to return to storage, and stepped back to watch as the locker lifted into the sky and flew off to return to its station.

Squaring her shoulders and keeping her hands by her sides in good posture, resisting the urge to shove them into her pockets like the teenager she was meant to be, Weiss left the training complex and began to cross over the campus back towards the dorms.

Through the small window of the training room she had left, Weiss was watched.

Having used its small, threadlike pale blue vines to pull itself up the wall and onto the windowsill, the creature’s single glowing white eye stared at its master from within the glistening flower petals as it watched her go.

But once she was too far away, the small creature disappeared into dust.

Weiss kept her chin up and her stride perfect as she made her way across the campus. The only students still milling about were all either returning from late missions, or coming back from town, but they were few in number. The rest of the activity on the campus so late at night were all professional huntsmen, coming and going from Beacon Tower in a constant, steady stream.

The tower wasn’t just the main building of the academy, it was the central hub for all Huntsman activity in the kingdom of Vale, the nexus point for every mission done for the central kingdom. Smaller hubs existed dotted throughout the outskirts and the rural towns, but Beacon Tower was where the true power was. So Weiss made sure to take notice of every professional she passed, making eye contact and giving deep, polite nods to as many as possible.

These were to be her colleagues in a few years, and networking was everything, so despite her foul mood she gave respectful smiles. Right up until she was passing through the main courtyard outside of the tower itself, and recognised two figures sitting together on the far side.

Weiss came to a momentary stop as she stared across at where Ruby and Penny were sitting together, both of them up on a low wall, their legs swinging as they talked in quiet voices.

In a stark difference to her usual demeanour, Penny’s face was entirely serious and attentive, her green eyes focused entirely on her friend as she listened to everything Ruby was saying. For her part, Ruby was staring down at a disposable coffee cup that she was cradling between her lap, the sort that Ozpin provided in his office for visiting students that needed cheering up.

So, that was where Ruby had gone to seek advice.

And then, after clearly speaking with Professor Ozpin for some time, she had gone to Penny for the gentle, reassuring company needed after.

Weiss clamped down on the sudden pressure in her chest, hard, and clenched her jaw in the strain to keep her face completely impassive as she watched a bit longer, grateful that neither of the girls had noticed her.

It was utterly childish, how her feet felt glued to the pavement as she watched, hidden in the shadows of the low footpath light like some sort of weirdo. It only made sense that Ruby had gone to Penny for some much needed objective, analytical kindness. And not to her partner. Her ‘bestie’. Her teammate.

Weiss, after all, was not kind.

The worst possible thing happened when Penny looked up and around, taking in the evening glow of the tower, and clearly saw Weiss even through the dark shadows across the entire width of the courtyard. Penny immediately smiled brightly and waved, the movement getting Ruby’s attention, who looked up from her coffee cup and over as well.

As soon as she made eye contact with Weiss across the shadows, Ruby smiled and waved as well, but the movements were sad and subdued, and while the smile was as friendly and fond as it always was it didn’t quite break through the resignation and burden still clouding her eyes.

When Penny and Ruby shared a quick word, checking with each other, and then Ruby waved Weiss over to join them, Weiss’s chest clamped tight as it went into civil war with her brain.

It didn’t look right when Ruby was sad. It was unnatural. While it did happen on occasion, the reasons were normally something either from her past, such as the passing of her mother’s birthday, or something from the wider world such as the fatalities at the Breach.

But this one was different. Because this time, Weiss was partially to blame, her incompetence was partially to blame. And that meant, as much as she wanted to take her usual place as Ruby’s right-hand, she knew she had no right to be there. Not right now.

So even as she tasted bile in the back of her throat, Weiss forced a smile and shook her own head, making a show of tapping her wrist to bring attention to the hour. Ruby immediately checked her scroll and her eyes widened at just how late it was, and nodded to Weiss in understanding, mouthing ‘Goodnight Weiss!’ with the same fondness always on her face when she said it.

Weiss nodded once with the same forced smile, and finally managed to keep walking, every step taking her further away from her team leader, her best friend, her saviour, and towards the dorm.

When she finally got there and opened the door, the room was completely dark, and both Blake and Yang were fast asleep, Yang snoring as loudly as usual while Blake instead slept like the dead apart from the occasional flicker of her cat ears as she dreamt.

But instead of being asleep in their bunks, they had both passed out on the team’s tattered couch, the television still on but back on the menu of whatever dvd they’d fallen asleep watching. Yang was still upright, her head falling back against the backrest, but Blake had slumped onto her side, her head resting on Yang’s thigh.

Weiss raised an eyebrow at the sight, and despite the ache still lingering in her chest and her foul mood from the entire day, she rolled her eyes as the corners of her lips ticked up for a brief instant.

Silently, Weiss grabbed up the dirty plates from the coffee table in front of her teammates and took them to the sink, then grabbed the bottle of juice that had been left out and returned it to the fridge. But as she opened the fridge door, she froze in surprise, her eyebrows shooting up.

On its own plate, wrapped in plastic wrap with a sticky note on it with ‘Ice Queen’ scrawled on it in Yang’s questionable handwriting, was some leftovers of the dinner. A full portion, even though she had told them they didn’t need to do it.

Warmth bloomed inside of her chest, cracking through the guilty, hurt ice from seeing Ruby and Penny, and she looked over at her two slumbering teammates with a tiny yet vulnerable smile.

At least that was breakfast for tomorrow sorted. She wasn’t going to eat it in the middle of the night and risk waking her friends, they looked rather comfortable. And also because she knew they would immediately get embarrassed and separate, but Weiss wanted to be there in the morning to watch with Ruby as they woke up in that position on their own and reacted to themselves.

So she closed the fridge again quietly, and tiptoed across the dorm, turning off the television as she went and sitting on the edge of her bed to remove her boots. Then it was just a quick matter of ducking to the bathroom to change into her nightgown, and crawl into her own bed, pulling the makeshift drapes tight for privacy.

But as she lay in the dark, eyes closed and in the comfiest position she could find, sleep evaded her. Her body was exhausted, but her mind churned even though it was sluggish, but the worst distraction was the ache in her chest.

Ruby still hadn’t returned by the time Weiss finally began to drift off to sleep, and she tried to pretend she didn’t notice that her arm burned from knowing that.

Hopefully, after a weekend of rest, the next week would be better. All she had to do was survive three nights of disturbed and dark sleep until then, and make sure the others still didn’t notice. The three of them were all clearly going through their own problems and shakiness, it was clear everyone was off-balance. Clear that everyone was… different.

None of the others needed to know.

After all…

They were just nightmares.

Chapter Text

Ruby groaned as she started to wake up, and immediately cringed at how the sound felt coming out of her throat which was far too dry. Her mouth felt like it was thick with cotton, and she whined in discomfort as she managed to blink her eyes open and look around as the blurriness receded.

The room she had fallen asleep in was not her own, she could tell because the couch she was sprawled out on was not as comfortable as the one her team made copious amounts of use of, and the blanket that had been laid out over her smelled like it had been kept in a linen cupboard for weeks without being moved.

Everything in the room around her screamed fresh, with no posters on the walls or books on the shelves, and it had Ruby frown in confusion as she sat up before she squeaked and had to scramble to catch the bowl of chips that had been resting on her chest that were sent tumbling to the carpet.

Memories clicked back into place as she looked around, spying her boots by the door and then recognizing the pile of dvd’s by the small television, and once she remembered her surroundings she felt safe enough to yawn and stretch her arms above her head.

“Good morning, Ruby!”

The voice, far too chipper for whatever time it was on a Saturday morning, had Ruby jump and spin around, craning over the back of the couch to where Penny was sitting at the room’s small desk. Most of her swords were unfolded and laid out on the surface, and a small box of tools was open from where she had evidently been doing some basic maintenance to quietly pass the time.

Unsurprisingly, the other girl looked wide awake, peppy, and far too put together for a teenager on a Saturday morning, but Ruby simply waved sleepily and pushed herself up to stand.

“G’morning, Penny…what time is it?”

“Oh! It is seven minutes past ten in the morning.” Penny beamed, drumming her hands on her thighs happily. ‘You had quite the sleep-in. Did you sleep well?”

Ruby waved indecisively as she stretched out her joints, hopping up and down a few times to loosen up. It was the first time that she’d been inside of the dorm that had been given to Penny’s team for the duration of the festival, having arrived late into the night for movies, so now with the benefit of daylight Ruby looked around properly.

None of Penny’s teammates were around, even though two of the three had been awake almost as long as Ruby herself, all of them watching terrible movies together with only Penny’s partner being absent due to some sort of private business that had her out in the city. But despite the group’s late night, all were gone for the day and their beds were made.

Which had Ruby immediately curious about something she hadn’t considered as she glanced at the bed that should have been Penny’s, and she tilted her head at her friend.

“Hey Penny?”

Penny smiled from where she’d been watching Ruby look around, and stood up as well. “Yes Ruby? What is it?”

“I dunno if this is rude to pry about, but…since you’re a, y’know,” Ruby made a few robot movements with her arms and grinned when Penny giggled. She took the laughter as permission. “Do you sleep? What do you do during the night?”

The question had Penny tilt her head and look up in thought, tapping her chin with a gloved finger as she pondered. She shrugged with an unbothered hum. “Oh! No, I don’t sleep. Not in the traditional sense. But I can put myself into standby, which…I suppose might be the same thing? I wouldn’t know.”

Ruby sighed in relief with a smile, and groggily swayed over to where her boots had been discarded by the door, dropping to sit and pull them on. “Oh good, I was worried you got bored while everyone else is zonked out. Being able to sleep and wake on command would be pretty darn useful.”

“Oh? From what people have said, sleep is very enjoyable, and is supposed to be rather refreshing. But I must say, Ruby, you do not seem to be particularly refreshed at all.” Penny hopped across the room to where Ruby was lacing up her second boot, and dropped to her knees so she was eye level with Ruby’s tired gaze. “Is this normal for you? What would help?”

The earnest expression on Penny’s face had Ruby giggle, and she reached up with a hand, grateful when Penny straightened up and reached down for Ruby to grasp and pull herself up.

But she was caught by surprise when Penny beamed at the act, looking at their clasped hands with a giddy light in her eyes. It had been the most casual and innocuous of friendly gestures, but every small thing in a friendship always had Penny light up vibrantly, excited and overjoyed.

So Ruby smiled while making a mental note to do more things like it in the future, before yawning again and pointing towards the door with her thumb. “Reckon we can go get me some food? The cafeteria does pretty darn good bacon on Saturdays. Always wakes me right up.”

Penny nodded with a smile and quickly extended an arm out to the side, commanding all of the blades currently on the desk to fold themselves up and return to their compartment on her back. And as always, Ruby watched in wide eyed fascination, unable to help the grin on her lips that had Penny giggle to see.

But seeing Penny’s weapons was a reminder that she was still in her own combat gear from the previous day, having not even changed after the awful training session before she’d left the dorm and hadn’t been back since. So Ruby looked down at her combat dress and skirt, where the only thing she’d changed was the laces of her cincher by loosening them during the night.

“Uhh, do you mind if I go by my dorm first, and get changed?” Ruby tightened the laces again with practiced pulls, scrunching up the corner of her mouth as she took in her own bedraggled state. “Feeling kinda…gross. Sweaty.”

Penny shrugged and nodded, folding her hands behind her back, and gestured with her head for Ruby to lead the way. “Of course. It would be nice to see your dorm for the first time, too. If you don’t mind my curiosity.”

It was only fair, since Ruby had crashed in Penny’s without prior planning, and she nodded with another yawn as she opened the door and stepped out into the hall, waiting for a moment as Penny closed and locked it behind them.

The halls were mostly empty, with the current dormitory building almost entirely allocated towards the teams visiting for the tournament, and most of those tourists spending almost all their free time exploring the city. But Ruby still gave shy smiles to anyone who met her eye as she walked by Penny’s side towards the exit.

Once they were outside once more, Ruby grimaced and whined at the weather, extending a hand out to where it was pouring rain. The clouds had started rolling in the previous night, blocking out the stars and the moon, but she’d hoped they would at least hold for most of the Saturday to give time to poke around the already open fairgrounds down in the city.

But alas, thunder rolled in the skies above, and wind sent the storming rain in twisting patterns that hammered against the academy’s windows and glass doors. It was clearly going to be a miserable morning.

Ruby closed her eyes and felt out her aura, wincing at how fragile it felt despite a proper sleep. It had been a while since the glow under her skin had been stable, only the first few days after returning from the break, but her reserves weren't so low that she couldn’t indulge a little bit.

So, bouncing up and down on her feet to warm her body up, shaking out her hands, she raised her eyebrows at Penny and gave her a questioning smile. Penny tilted her head confused, before the sight of light rose petals drifting down from inside of Ruby’s cloak had her understand, and she immediately grinned excitedly and opened her arms.

“Are you sure? I am… quite heavy.”

“Eh, I’ll call it a workout. Better than getting soaked, anyways.” Ruby shrugged with a grin of her own, before wrapping her arms around Penny to lift her off the ground, wheezing at the effort, and then speeding off across the two courtyards between the dormitory buildings.

What would have been a half-minute jog instead took only five seconds, before Ruby released her aura in time for the two of them to skid to a stop right before crashing into the dormitory doors, and Penny quickly opened it for them both to dash inside while Ruby caught her breath.

The trail of rose petals left behind to mark Ruby’s passing were already disintegrating, turning into glittering particles of pure aura and blowing away in the storming winds, and Ruby flicked her cloak to dry the rain that had still managed to get all over her. Penny brushed down her dress for the same reason, before giving Ruby a smile.

“That’s much more fun when there’s no stressful reason for it.”

“Heh, yeah. Feels pretty cool for me too. I’d do it everywhere if I could, honestly. I used to zoom around the house just to get from my bedroom to the bathroom, or fetch the mail.” Ruby grinned back, and shoved her hands into her pockets so she could lead the way to the staircase that went up to the second floor of dorms, where her team’s was along the second hallway.

But Penny was quiet, and Ruby looked over with a frown at where Penny’s head was tilted and the corner of her mouth was scrunched up slightly in thought. Ruby tilted her own head and hummed in question, and Penny jumped as if caught by surprise, blinking when she saw she had Ruby’s attention.

“Oh! Apologies. I was just thinking.”

“About…?”

“Your Semblance, actually. I’m just curious how it works. But it feels personal to ask, so I was trying to figure it out on my own.” Penny smiled, folding her hands behind her back as they walked and making sure to give a smiling nod to everyone they passed.

Ruby raised her eyebrows with a confused hum, and waited for Penny to elaborate. Except she didn’t, simply following Ruby down the hall and to the turn, and Ruby eventually lost her patience and gave in.

“What about it…?”

As Ruby grabbed out her dorm key and unlocked the door, Penny rocked back and forth on her heels with a smile, and shrugged behind Ruby’s back. “It’s just really interesting. Speed semblances are very rare. Not the rarest category of them all, but certainly a miniscule percentage of the population. Perhaps three percent.”

That had Ruby pause with the handle turned and the door slightly ajar, her eyebrows shooting up, and she looked over at Penny in surprise as her mouth dropped open slightly. But as she started to think about it, running through all the people she had ever met and their Semblances, her head tilted more and more as she realized that she genuinely hadn’t met anyone else with one based on speed like her own was.

Nora was capable of temporary bursts when she was charged up with electricity, but it was more like using her enhanced strength to kick off the ground than it was a true speed, and she burnt through it quickly. Blake got momentary velocity when she left behind one of her shadow clones, ejected from the illusion fast enough it could sometimes seem as if she teleported a few feet. But again, limited bursts and only a few feet at a time, though the distance she could fire herself had been gradually extending by increments of only a couple of inches.

As for true speed Semblances, Ruby’s memory came up empty, and she gave an open-mouthed hum of realization as she pushed the door open and stuck her head in to make sure it was okay for Penny to come in too.

While both Weiss and Yang were inside, with Weiss at the desk with a needle and thread as she repaired a slight rip in one of her combat dresses, and Yang was sprawled out on her bed reading a magazine, Blake was absent and her bed was made. Both looked up when Ruby stuck in her head, Yang smiling and waving, while Weiss studied Ruby for a long moment as her lips thinned.

Ruby gave a shy smile, sheepish and apologetic. “...hi. Back now. Mind if Penny comes in for a bit while I change? We’re gonna go get breakfast.”

The revelation that Ruby had spent the night with Penny had Yang’s eyebrows shoot up, a slightly mischievous smirk forming in the corner of her lips for a second as she shrugged.

“Oh by all means. It would be rude to make her wait outside after she had you over for the night.”

Yang chuckled as Ruby scowled at the insinuation, and looked over to share a conspiring, amused look with Weiss who was also looking at where Ruby and Penny had entered together, before she froze. 

The smirk immediately faded as she took in the slight frosting to Weiss’s expression, a cold edge that Ruby didn’t notice from how she was looking down at the carpet shyly. But before Ruby would even have the chance to see it, Weiss hid it from the room quickly, simply turning the chair back towards the desk to continue her work. She hummed quietly in the affirmative. 

“I don’t see why not. Clothes into the hamper as per usual, if you please. You’re the last.”

Letting out a breath of relief, Ruby opened the door properly for Penny to follow, and quickly made her way over to her set of drawers to grab some of her warmer civilian clothes, her eyes going to Blake’s empty bed.

Yang easily guessed what Ruby was curious about, and answered the question as she went back to flicking through her magazine. “She’s at the training center. Woke up stiff, wanted to stretch it out, hasn’t gotten back yet.”

But Ruby’s engrained memory of the dorm noticed how one of the sets of Blake’s combat gear was missing from where her friend always kept her clean set folded and close at hand, along with some of her standard workout gear. She frowned, but dismissed it for now, grabbing her clean clothes and ducking into the bathroom.

As she quickly got changed, grunting in relief to be out of her cincher, Ruby heard muffled voices through the door as Penny spoke cheerily to the other two while she looked around the dorm. Yang was doing the most replying, Weiss only speaking the occasional few words at a time, and her partner’s clear mood had Ruby wince guiltily as she pulled on her sneakers and did up the laces.

But even though she had switched to civilian clothes, Ruby still pulled on her cloak and did up the clasp so that it hung down properly, even though it was damp from the rain outside. Then it was just a matter of combing her hair a bit, mostly just to get it under some illusion of control, and she was able to emerge back into the main room with her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

Penny was over by the team’s dvd collection with Yang, both of them going through the different series that the sisters had been collecting over the years as Penny made mental notes of all of them to watch at a later date, and Yang happy to indulge her with a grin as they sorted. But Weiss wasn’t even looking up from her sewing, staring down at the skirt with an intense focus yet a completely blank expression.

While her friend and sister were both distracted, Ruby sucked in a breath to brace herself, and made her way over to Weiss quietly, folding her hands in front of herself guiltily and scuffing her shoe on the carpet.

“...I’m sorry. About yesterday. And if I worried you by not coming back.”

Weiss paused in her work, the needle piercing into the fabric, and she stared down at it with her expression hidden for a few moments. It was almost long enough that Ruby wilted, but Weiss let out a slow breath through her nose and placed the skirt to the side so she could turn in the chair and look up at Ruby properly.

Most of the frost had faded from Weiss’s eyes, but her lips were still tight and thin as she took in Ruby’s face and whatever shadows might still be in her eyes. But Ruby looked far more rested than she had the previous day, and Weiss couldn’t resent her for that, so she gave a single deep nod.

“Did you have a nice night?”

“Oh, uhh. Yeah. Just watched some movies.” Ruby smiled, scratching the back of her head. “What were you doing out so late, anyway?”

Weiss shrugged, folding her hands on her lap. It wouldn’t be a hard guess if Ruby thought about it, considering the direction Weiss had been coming from, so Weiss instead flicked her eyes over to Penny for a moment.

Unable to catch it and prevent it in time, her lips thinned tighter and her jaw bulged from clenching it before she forced herself to relax, her shoulders dropping slightly further. Weiss managed a small smile, the expression tight.

“Well, I hope it helped. You look a bit better. Just, let us know if you aren’t going to make it back, next time. So we don’t worry.”

“Aww, you worried about me?” Ruby grinned, raising her eyebrows in the way she always knew made Weiss scoff, and she wasn’t disappointed when Weiss did.

Weiss rolled her eyes and turned to grab up her skirt again, her work almost done but at the most delicate part. “Oh please. It was Yang.”

The teasing was the sign that all was forgiven, since Weiss always seemed incapable of saying the words themselves, so Ruby relaxed in a wave of relief. With the tension between them completely gone, Ruby felt comfortable taking in Weiss’s state properly, and she frowned in concern at what she saw.

While to the regular outsider Weiss seemed completely composed and put together, Ruby could see just beneath the surface of Weiss’s blue eyes that her aura was rippling like the surface of a pond disturbed by rain.

Unlike the other three members of her team, who all had auras close to the surface of their skin due to how intimately their Semblances were tied to the body, Weiss’s was… deeper. It made her incredibly hard for an outsider to read, unable to pick up the usual almost imperceptible clues that people with awakened auras knew to look for in each other.

But ever since the hours Ruby had spent inside of Weiss’s psyche itself, their auras tied together by Shion’s Semblance so Ruby could go in and try to save her, Ruby had known exactly where to look and how to see it.

There didn’t feel like there was much that Weiss could hide from her now. So the disturbance and conflict inside of Weiss that only Ruby would know how to see, had Ruby step forward as if to place her hand on her partner’s shoulder.

Seeming to sense the contact coming, Weiss didn’t pull away, instead allowing it to happen as her eyes closed, yet Ruby’s fingers didn’t quite make it to her shoulder before Penny’s voice from the other side of the room had Ruby jump and her hand retract.

“All dressed, Ruby? Shall we?” Penny hopped over, her hands folded behind her back again, and she gave Ruby and Weiss her usual bright smile.

Ruby glanced at Weiss again for a moment, but Weiss was looking down at her skirt, the moment lost and the privacy broken. So instead she nodded with a smile of her own, and stepped away to head towards the door.

“One moment, Ruby.”

The sound of Weiss’s voice, quiet and restrained, had Ruby spin around in surprise, and her eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened as Weiss reached across the desk and grabbed a small box of dust vials she kept nearby for her studies.

Weiss plucked out three vials; white dust, red dust, and one that was empty, and then opened the desk drawer and pulled out the smallest of her portable chemistry kits, flicking it open to grab the measuring instruments from inside.

It only took a few moments for Weiss to measure out the right amount of the two dusts and add them together in the empty vial, the ratio incredibly precise in a way that nobody else in the room understood but seemed to make perfect sense for Weiss herself. She closed the two used vials and slid them back into their box, and then turned to face Ruby properly.

Turning her other hand palm up, she carefully poured the dust onto her skin so it pooled together, and then placed the vial aside so she could wave that hand over her palm, her hands glistening as her aura shimmered out and brought the carefully measured dust into itself like dye into water.

A small glyph materialized above her palm, the inner ring and lines being pure white while the outer ring was a gently pulsing red, and Weiss let out a breath as the compound glyph stabilized. Once it was steady, she looked up and gave Ruby a nod, before turning her hand so the glyph was aimed at her partner and releasing it.

A long, steady gust of warm air washed over Ruby for a few seconds, wrapping her in a gentle, relaxing heat, and making her cloak flutter behind her in the controlled breeze. It only lasted a few seconds before it vanished, and Ruby shook her head to get her suddenly completely dry hair back into place, before blinking at Weiss in confusion.

Weiss rolled her eyes and pointedly flicked her eyes to Ruby’s cloak, and Ruby immediately reached back and grabbed it in her hands, smiling brightly when she felt that the material was completely warm and dry.

“Nice Weiss strikes again! Thanks!” Ruby flourished her cloak playfully and beamed, but her eyes also flicked between Weiss and the vials of dust.

Because that was definitely a new trick. A compound glyph, especially without using Myrtenaster as a foci.

But before Ruby could ask about it, Weiss chuckled and turned back to her work. “You’re no good to us if you catch a cold. Now, the two of you should get some food. The cafeteria is due to start the lunch service soon.”

Ruby saluted with a bright grin and stepped away, waving to her teammates and opening the door to vanish back into the hall, with Penny giving a wide smile and a wave as well before following Ruby back out.

The door clicked closed behind them, and the room fell into silence as Weiss stared down at her work, even as she could feel Yang’s eyes on her. When Yang didn’t stop staring after more than ten seconds, Weiss huffed and spun in her chair to glare over at where Yang was sitting on the edge of Blake’s bed.

“Yes?”

Yang had her bottom lip between her teeth in concern as she looked over, her eyes sad, and her voice was gentle as she answered. “I tease a bit. But they’re just friends, y’know.”

The only sound in the dorm was the humming of the fridge as Weiss stared back at Yang silently, her entire expression sealed and blank apart from the warning sharpness in her slightly narrowed eyes.

“It’s of no particular relevance to me what Ruby does in her spare time.”

Completely undeterred by Weiss’s glare, Yang sighed and sat forward, resting her elbows on her thighs as she gave a gentle, reassuring smile. “You’re her partner, Weiss. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Weiss’s glare intensified, but her tone didn’t change, still perfectly calm and controlled. “Thank you for stating the obvious, Yang. I’d have forgotten without you.”

“You’re her best friend. She adores you.” Yang emphasized the words, before chuckling and running a hand through her wild, unbrushed hair. “Honestly, sometimes it feels like she trusts you more than she trusts me, these days.”

“I doubt that. And again; Ruby is free to spend her free time how she wishes.” Weiss’s posture finally shifted, just in the barest tightening of her grip on the back of her desk chair, her knuckles whitening.

“Weiss, can you please just…” Yang’s voice temporarily dropped into a frustrated growl, before she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath to hold. It wasn’t something worth a fight, especially one she could feel she wasn’t going to make any ground on. Not today. So she let the breath out as a sigh, and stood to scramble up into her bunk again, grabbing up her magazine. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

There was no reply as Weiss turned back to the desk and put her chemistry kit away, and pulled her skirt back onto her lap to finish up repairing it. But once it was in her grip, she didn’t otherwise move, instead simply staring down at it with a sealed expression and a deliberately loose grip.

But Weiss could act detached all she wanted. Yang still had to force herself to ignore the glyph that briefly flickered in and out of existence beneath Weiss’s feet as her aura slipped from her control.

Instead she turned the page of her magazine, and hid her face behind it so that Weiss had no way of seeing her close her eyes sadly.

Unlike on a Friday night when it was usually practically abandoned, the massive training complex on the campus was always busy with activity on the weekend as teams squeezed in whatever training they’d had to miss during the week due to classes or missions. But it was a far more social air than during weekdays, with plenty of people simply milling around and chatting between sets and spars, most people taking it easy and dragging out their workouts over a few hours instead of needing to cram it.

While most people would find it rather pleasant, instead it just meant extra background noise for Blake to try and block out and ignore as she leapt and sprung her way through the elaborate obstacle course on the top floor. Luckily most people drifted downstairs to socialize, to where the vending machines and sitting areas were, so it wasn’t too busy for Blake to go her hardest as she smashed herself against the higher difficulty runs.

Not many people in the school ever attempted any of the course obstacles and hazards that were ranked at difficulty seven or beyond, barely any of the students had any need to do so, which meant Blake had a solid quarter of the massive room to herself as she went over and over again.

Sweat poured down her body, sticking her workout gear to her skin as she adjusted her climbing gloves and clenched a fist, eyeing up the tall salmon ladder that led up to the devil steps that stretched almost the entire width of the room to lead back to the beginning.

Still only difficulty seven, and that knowledge had her narrow her eyes in determination, bouncing on her feet and then leaping up to grab the ladder bar. It was a steady process to climb her way up, timing the swings of her torso to give her the momentum needed to hop the bar up slot by slot, but her breaths were perfectly controlled and her grip was steady as she went.

It wasn’t easy, but it was straightforward, gradually growing more and more agonizing, and the psychological element of knowing it was only going to get worse was as much a danger to her persistence as the physical strain itself was. But she grit her teeth and kept going, past the difficulty five stopping platform without even stopping to catch her breath.

It was a punishment of a workout, but she didn’t care, simply closing her eyes to focus as she reached the top with a final slam of the bar up into the final slots.

Now for the hard part, as she began to swing back and forth, gaining the momentum needed to traverse from one hazard to the next, taking in proper breaths with every swing as she prepared.

Once she felt the exact moment the weight and power were perfect, she let go and flipped through the air, twisting backward to try and flip twice in the space between the two hazards, and just barely managing it before she needed to grab onto the first devil step platform from beneath and steady herself.

Before she lost all of her momentum, she immediately began the climb, grunting as a tightness in her right shoulder stretched as she slowly and carefully ascended the dozens of platforms using just her hands, dangling in otherwise empty space with the ground far below.

Blake could tell she was being watched, it was itching on the back of her subconscious, but she locked it away for now as she reached the halfway point, and let herself hang in free space to do a few pull-ups before the descent. Just to make things harder on herself.

After a full lifetime of every form of gymnastics, acrobatics, and martial arts that she’d managed to get a handle on and attempt to master, she knew that she relied too much on her powerful legs. She had easily the most powerful lower body strength in the team, but even Ruby could beat her in an arm wrestle.

That had to change.

So, doing a steady set of twelve pull-ups before proceeding, Blake forced herself through it even as her body began to scream at her to stop. Sweat had her long hair stuck to her face, where strands had escaped the tight ponytail she tied it in during her workouts, and she sucked in a final breath before starting the shaky climb down the other side of the devil steps.

By the time she reached the bottom rung, she was done, her grip failing and her entire body trembling from the strain. But the only way off and down was the fireman’s pole just far enough away that she couldn’t just reach out to transfer easily to it.

Instead she would normally have to leap, but with her entire body feeling how it was she knew that there was too much of a chance she’d miss and fall quite a long way down to the mats below.

So, sometimes you needed to cheat a bit, and she brought her aura to the surface of her body and swung into empty space, and left behind a shadow.

Just as always, a burst of her own aura ejected her from the illusion, giving her the burst of velocity she needed to reach the pole and wrap herself around it to slide down to the ground.

The moment she was back on solid ground, she collapsed, dropping onto her back to catch her breath and pant up at the roof far above, before lifting her head tiredly and looking over at the sound of applause.

Ruby grinned at her from where she was clapping quietly, before she put her hands on her hips cheekily. “You cheated at the end.”

The only response that came to mind wasn’t a mature one, as Blake stuck her tongue out slightly and pushed herself to sit up. It was only with Ruby that she was silly, it was only with Ruby that she was… young. But she still reached up when Ruby offered her hand, and let her leader pull her up to her feet.

“How long were you watching?”

“Eh, only got here when you were halfway up the ladder. Great work, by the way. I still can’t get past the level five platform. You did awesome!” Ruby passed Blake her towel from where it had been left, and Blake took it gratefully to wipe herself down.

Blake shrugged modestly, turning to look up at the course she’d taken, and thinning her lips as she studied it. One day, she’d manage the difficulty ten, but it wasn’t going to be today. There were less than a dozen students in the entire academy who could currently achieve that, even including the fourth years.

To try it before she was ready was just a recipe for injury, especially not after a few hours of exercise already. On that thought, she turned back to Ruby and raised an eyebrow. “What’s up? Am I late for something?”

“Uhh, life? It’s after two. Yang said you came here at like…nine.” Ruby giggled when Blake’s eyes widened, and she handed Blake’s scroll over when it was immediately looked for.

Checking the time, Blake swore under her breath, and she rubbed her eyes. “Shit. I’m sorry. I got really into it.”

Ruby waved it off with a smile, bumping her shoulder against Blake’s, and she looked up at the obstacle course again with a thoughtful expression on her face, and Blake simply watched as her leader’s brain started clicking an idea into place.

Slowly, a smile ticked up in the corners of Ruby’s lips, and she turned to Blake with a hum. “Yang and Weiss have eaten, but I was waiting until after my own training. I’m guessing you haven’t had lunch?”

The thought of food had Blake’s stomach gurgling, and it was clearly loud enough for Ruby to hear, the girl giggling even as Blake looked momentarily mortified. But soon Blake was laughing too, and she pulled off her gloves with a nod and grabbed her bag.

“I could definitely go for some food. Cafeteria?”

But Ruby simply shook her head with a grin as she led the way back downstairs to the ground floor, and then out into the freezing air. The rain had thankfully stopped, but the clouds above were still dark and the wind still biting and violent, enough so that Blake shivered as it scratched ice into the skin left exposed by her gym gear.

“So if not the cafeteria, what?”

“Depends. I’m the only person who hasn’t done any training today, since I slept in…and there are all those cool food stands down by the docks for the festival, at the moment. Ones that might close at the end of lunch, soon…” Ruby hummed innocently as she grabbed out her scroll, and led Blake around the side of the training complex into the small courtyard, pressing the button to summon her locker.

Blake raised her eyebrows at the suggestion Ruby was creeping towards, and she couldn’t help the grin as she noticed that Ruby was in a clean set of her combat gear, having clearly been coming to the complex for her own training. Inside her gym bag, Blake felt the lump of her own gear folded up.

The locker landed in front of them, and Ruby raised her eyebrows at Blake with a grin as she entered her code and opened it, before grabbing out Crescent Rose from inside and tucking it behind her back to attach to its magnetic clamp on her belt.

Blake spun her own scroll around in her own hand as she matched Ruby’s teasing grin with one of her own, and she raised an eyebrow. “Are you seriously challenging me to a race? Across the city?”

As Ruby’s locker lifted back off and shot away, Ruby shrugged even as she entered the code on her phone to summon Blake’s for her, smiling at Blake challengingly the entire short time it took for it to arrive.

Even though she was tired, sore, and more than worked out for the day, Blake had only been getting worse and worse at backing down from the random challenges Ruby always threw at them. And this time was no different, as she typed in her code and opened her locker to retrieve Gambol Shroud, closing it again and rolling her eyes with a laugh.

“Let me get changed out of this and into my gear, then we’ll see what you can do, little red.”

It was very quick for Blake to duck into one of the many changing rooms inside and switch from her workout gear to her combat clothes, having a quick shower just to rinse off the sweat. But by the time she emerged, Ruby was already deeply engrossed in conversation with a few of the visiting Vacuo students, with one of them indulging Ruby with a smile by placing her weapon down for Ruby to look at.

Rolling her eyes with a small smile that she quickly locked away, Blake joined them, putting her gym bag into her locker to send back for now, and stashing Gambol Shroud over her shoulder where it belonged.

The moment she saw that Blake was ready, Ruby waved goodbye to the people she probably didn’t even know the names of, and hopped over to join Blake with a grin.

“Feeling better? Feeling ready?”

“You do know I just worked out for five hours, right?” Blake scoffed as she followed Ruby out of the small courtyard and down one of the paths leading to the main street out towards the city. “Making new friends?”

“Uhh, I dunno! They started it. Said they recognize me from the breach, and I had no idea what to say.” Ruby flushed shyly and shrugged, tucking her hands into her belt and looking down at the cobblestones.

Blake chuckled and nodded, looking over at her friend and raising an eyebrow even though Ruby was still looking straight down. “Well, you tend to pick the right topic to default to.”

The comment succeeded in making Ruby grin and look back up, shrugging shyly as they reached the main gates out of the academy grounds and facing the direction of the docks. Ruby glanced over at Blake and grinned wider, and Blake narrowed her eyes back in answer to the challenge.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Blake hummed, already planning out her path in her mind.

It was a decent distance to cross the city from the academy to the docks, taking the main streets at a walking pace would have been an hour and a half walk for a civilian. But it was also practically a straight line due to the two locations being two of the most important, the two main streets of the city leading right from one to the other.

However, streets and corners weren’t exactly a factor for the two fastest members of the team, they were more for Weiss and Yang. Instead, Blake mapped out the rooftops, and she knew Ruby was doing the same. It was just a matter of who shot off first.

The fact that before she’d even finished that thought, Ruby was simply a few fluttering rose petals, had Blake growl and take off after her team leader, flinging up her blade to wrap around an upper fire escape and pull herself up by the long ribbon.

But they couldn’t use their weapons too much, not with so many civilians around and in the middle of the day, so instead Blake relied on her honed agility to leap from building to building, vaulting over air conditioning units and sometimes clearing entire alleys in a single bound.

And yet, Ruby remained in front of her, even though Blake could tell she was gaining ground. Even despite the circumstances, Ruby never engaged her Semblance for very long, instead doing it in bursts to clear gaps and navigate pipes and railings that would otherwise be a hassle for anyone who wasn’t Blake.

Even though Ruby was by far the fastest person Blake had ever met, and that was a high bar, Ruby never used it for long, and Blake had always wondered why. Ruby’s aura levels were incredibly, almost bafflingly, high for someone her age and experience level. And yet the longest Blake had ever seen her use her Semblance was about ten seconds at a time.

Ruby’s speed had grown, but Blake knew she trained that deliberately and was working on it every single training day. Yet she never pushed her stamina at all.

Not that Blake was complaining right now, as she gradually made ground on her until eventually they were neck and neck as they reached the central intersection of the city and had by far the largest gap to clear of the entire race.

Gaining up the right momentum, Blake spun her weapon around by the ribbon to get it ready, and leapt out into empty space. With a controlled throw of her blade, she hooked it onto a traffic light and swung across, ignoring the beeping of horns as she pulled it back into her hand and left behind a clone to propel herself the final distance.

But she didn’t waste the precious second it would take to check Ruby’s progress, instead speeding up, the docks in sight only a few more streets away. She could smell the sea and hear the bustle of the crowd at the smaller fairground right by the water, it was so close.

And then, rose petals, and Blake cursed as Ruby seemingly blipped into existence a rooftop ahead, grinning over her shoulder at Blake as she leapt off the final ledge and landed elegantly on the sidewalk across the street from the fairgrounds.

Blake was less than a fraction of a second behind, but it was enough for a clear victory, and Blake rolled her eyes with a grin when Ruby whooped and jumped in place. Indulging her friend when Ruby raised a hand for a high-five, Blake brushed her hair back off her face and smiled.

They were both grievously out of breath, especially Blake due to it being after her own workout, but they recovered quickly and crossed the road into the maze of stalls and booths.

The larger fairgrounds were due to be set up next to the academy itself, close to where the shuttles back and forth from the arena would be stationed. But plenty of vendors were taking advantage of the early arrivals. And both girls reveled in it as they browsed for whatever appealed, eventually settling on noodles.

But instead of sitting in the fairgrounds themselves while they ate, the girls didn’t even need to say it to each other before they climbed up onto the rooftops once more, and crossed to an abandoned warehouse overlooking the waterfront.

It was quiet, and with clouds thick in the sky there was no glare off the water, so both girls were content to sit with their legs hanging off the edge and their cartons of food held up to their faces for warmth.

Neither of them spoke as they ate, content to be in their own thoughts and each other’s company. But with the distraction gone and now in the quiet, Ruby’s mood gradually fell, and Blake waited patiently for her to word whatever was on her mind just as Ruby had done for her a few times in the past.

Eventually, once the food was finished and the empty cartons back in the plastic bag, Ruby spoke up while chewing her bottom lip in thought. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

Blake looked over, having been waiting for it, and tilted her head with a soft hum. “Of course. What’s on your mind?”

But Ruby didn’t look over at her, not straight away, instead staring off into the water as she summed up courage. She took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, letting the risky words come out on it.

“You don’t gotta answer. It’s about…your White Fang days.”

A shock of ice went through Blake’s entire body, and her eyes widened, stunned and surprised. But there’d been no accusation in Ruby’s tone, nothing hostile, and Ruby had done everything in her power to reassure Blake that there wasn’t anything hostile about it.

So, forcefully in every muscle, Blake relaxed, swallowing a lump and nodding shakily. “...I see. I suppose it won’t hurt.”

Ruby gave a strained smile, finally looking over at her and tilting her head in thought, the same frown still on her brow. “Well, you guys had leaders, right? Commanders, a leader or general or something, I dunno. A command structure, basically. Yeah?”

That was something Blake had no way of preparing for, and she blinked in renewed surprise as her eyebrows shot up. Curiosity overpowered her paranoia, and she nodded slowly as she frowned as well.

“Yes, of a sort. Local commanders are given a degree of autonomy, but the High Leader’s word is law.”

Ruby nodded and digested, shuffling in her posture so she was facing Blake properly. “Were they good leaders?”

And what a question that was, as it sent Blake back into silence and had her look away. A shadow crept over her face, starting in the dulling amber of her eyes and curling her lips down into a barely suppressed snarl. Blake closed her eyes and let out a sigh, heavy and burdened.

“Why are you asking?”

“I don’t know. I’m just…not doing great at it.” Ruby shuffled again, wilting when Blake’s eyes opened again and she fixed Ruby with a concerned look. “And you’re the only one of us who’s had ‘leaders’ before, so I’m wondering if you can tell me what I should be doing that I’m not.”

Blake frowned in concern, and tilted her head in thought. “Oh. That’s…not a simple question. Things are different.”

“Worse?”

“No, not worse. Just different.” Blake shook her head slowly, and sighed once more as she looked away, out over the water and into her thoughts. “Every faction in the Fang operates pretty independently. I spent my first years working in Mistral, under the previous High Leader since the Mistral brotherhood is considered the main group. And they were far more peaceful and diplomatic.”

At Ruby’s curious and confused hum, Blake shrugged as she then elaborated a bit. “In contact with local settlements to let them know we were passing through. A line of communication with Haven. That sort of thing.”

Ruby raised her eyebrows and sat up, crossing her legs and resting her hands in her lap as she grew fascinated. “Really? That sounds pretty different to what we’ve been dealing with here.”

“It was. But then the new High Leader took his place, and suddenly all of that changed. But even then, nothing like what’s been happening here.” Blake scowled, her expression dropping even darker, and her fingers dug into the concrete of the rooftop. “The Vale branch has been different for a while. Because it’s a very different sort of person leading it.”

The darkness growing on Blake’s face had Ruby willing to connect a few dots, but she didn’t pry, instead nodding and giving a low chuckle. “Whoever they are, I don’t think I like them, considering what’s been happening here.”

Just as she hoped to achieve, Blake laughed, but the sound was choked and sad more than anything else. It succeeded in bringing Blake out of the pit, and she looked over at Ruby in concern, her ears flicking even as they were restrained in the bow on her head.

“It’s one of the reasons I’m still worried, I guess.” Blake smiled stressfully when Ruby nodded in agreement, the thought a mutual one. But that wasn’t the issue, and Blake tilted her head as she guided them back. “What is it you’re concerned about, exactly?”

Ruby sighed, forcing a shrug that ended with her shoulders dropping into a slump, and she ran a hand through her hair. “I’m trying to figure out how to lead. How to be better, do better, get us all…together.”

The look on Ruby’s face, and the resignation and weight in her posture, had Blake’s heart crack as she watched it reveal itself. But she didn’t need to lie in the slightest in order to be reassuring, as she reached over and gently put her hand on Ruby’s shoulder.

“You’re a better leader than you think, you know. The White Fang tend to have effective leadership because their subordinates are loyal to the cause, and the commanders are the voice of that cause. There’s very little personal loyalty there, not anymore, not like what used to be. But we follow you because we trust you, and not just the common goal.”

Ruby stared at her with wide eyes, her mouth dropping open at the sincerity in Blake’s voice and eyes, and Blake rubbed her arm for another moment before resting back again and smiling as she continued.

“We’re all huntresses, and our job is to fight darkness, and we’ll all do that job loyally. But it’s also you that we’re loyal to. Because you respect us, you know us, and you’d never put us in any danger you weren’t sure we could handle.” Blake reached out and nudged Ruby’s leg with her foot to emphasize her words, her smile warming when Ruby chuckled shyly. “You’re a good leader because you’ve given us every reason to believe that we’re at our best under your judgement. And so far, we have been. I don’t think that’s going to change.”

The words took a long time for Ruby to digest, Blake watched it slowly happen until she eventually looked away to give Ruby privacy, swinging her legs over the edge again and staring out at the ocean with her weight resting on her hands behind her.

A sudden breeze of wind had her shiver, and the cold definitely served to bring her out of any memories of her tropical home.

A few minutes later, ones Ruby had spent chewing over the words, Ruby swung her legs over again as well and joined Blake in looking out at the churning horizon. Her voice was thick, and grateful. “...thanks Blake. I trust you guys too. I just hope the others feel the same way.”

Blake hummed in the affirmative, looking over at her leader without properly turning her head, and giving her a small and reassuring smile. “The fight’s not over yet, Ruby. I think we all know that. I think we can all feel it. And when the time comes, we’ll all prove what we are to each other.”

“And we’ll win.”

The words were said with such certainty that Blake laughed, and she immediately nodded, bumping Ruby’s shoulder with her own. “Absolutely. We’ll win.”

But that could come later. For today at least, the ocean always looked best after a storm, and right before the next one.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Chapter Text

Life was full of so many simple pleasures. There was junk food, good music, sunshine on the best summer days, the breeze on a road trip, the pulsing vibrations in the floor of a club while talking to a pretty girl by the bar. And perhaps best of all were quiet evenings spent with the people you love most in the world, after a full day of saving the world.

Yep, life had plenty of joys in it, and Yang was more than happy to search for them all and grab them in both hands with a cackle and a sparkle in her eye.

But perhaps her favourite of all of her joys, was anything but simple and easy, as she kept her fists up and grinned over at where Pyrrha was circling with the caution of a wary predator.

Both of their auras were still in the green even though they’d been at this for a while, the lights of the rest of the auditorium were low so their classmates wouldn’t be a distraction, and both of Ember Celica’s chambers were fully loaded and at the ready. What more could she ask for?

Yang grinned and rolled her neck to stretch it out, before tossing patience aside and deciding to be the one to close the distance that had briefly kept her and Pyrrha apart, a lull in the fight. Pyrrha was ready for her, shield already up and moving to brush aside Yang’s first punch, and her spear blocking across her body as a barrier for Yang’s leg to crash into if she tried a kick.

It wasn’t going to be that easy, though. Even as her fist smashed into Pyrrha’s shield with enough force the sound sent out enough of a shockwave to rumble the windows, Yang redirected her kick at the last moment and planted her foot on the tiles. With all of her built-up momentum, and Pyrrha’s shield temporarily occupied on the other side of her body to block Yang’s punch, Yang pivoted on her heel to slither around Pyrrha’s guard and barge her shoulder directly into Pyrrha’s center of mass.

Pyrrha grunted at the sheer force as she was driven back in a slide for a solid fifteen feet, only stopping once she stabbed her spear into the ground, and she narrowed her eyes at Yang with a small, focused smile of her own.

The blow hadn’t done much damage, Pyrrha’s aura had blipped on the monitor but it hadn’t visibly sparked, but it was more to prove a point than actually cause harm.

In the act of getting close enough and past someone’s guard so powerfully that she could impact straight into her opponent’s torso, it was simply a pure flex of power and tenacity on Yang’s part. Pyrrha was faster than Yang, plenty of opponents were. But Yang had sheer mass, and enough power in her body to lift the back wheels of cars off the ground if she was in a bad mood.

So, shooting Pyrrha a smirk as her message was received, Yang chased across the few feet of distance, instincts and training adapting her entire stance to adjust to Pyrrha shifting her spear back into its sword form for the extra speed and maneuverability during Yang’s particular kind of close-combat.

Metal crashed against metal as Yang did everything she could to break through Pyrrha’s defense, but Pyrrha was faster than her, and had fought Yang enough times to be well-aware of Yang’s weaknesses and blind spots.

The sting of a blade edge scraping along her thigh had Yang hiss, her aura keeping most of the damage at bay but the pain still coming through, and she brought up her knee to force Pyrrha’s sword arm out of position before Pyrrha could follow through with a second slice. It worked, but barely, and it wasn’t worth the cost as Pyrrha went with the knock and used the momentum to sweep Yang’s remaining leg out from underneath her.

Landing in a handspring and flipping back was pure muscle memory, but Yang had barely settled back onto her feet before Pyrrha was suddenly the one on the offensive. Every slash from Pyrrha’s deceptively light blade was a fast blur, and had Yang retreating enough that Pyrrha felt comfortable returning her shield to her back so she had both hands free.

Just as Yang was starting to fall into the rhythm and block Pyrrha’s slashes, catching the blade on the thick armour plating of her gauntlets, Pyrrha knocked her off balance again when her sword extended back into a spear, and the entire clash shifted speed and distance.

The blunt end of Pyrrha’s spear smashed directly into Yang’s chest with all the power of Pyrrha’s body behind it, and she cried out in pain when her aura rippled across her body as she flew through the air and crashed to the ground.

Pyrra leapt into the air to stab down and drive Yang’s aura into the red, the tip of her spear growing larger in Yang’s vision, and Yang narrowed her eyes with a growl as her aura rushed to the surface of her skin and then out.

At a speed that would almost put Ruby to shame, Yang kicked up to her feet to swing her fist up to where Pyrrha’s head was coming down. Lilac eyes turned red as her hair began to give off the slightest wisps of smoke, but nothing burned, not yet. She could feel that her battery wasn’t quite filled yet.

She was pretty beaten up, they’d been at this for five full minutes, but she could take plenty more before it would be the end.

But just as her fist was about to make contact with Pyrrha’s face, Yang’s eyes widened as she felt her own balance shift, and her gauntlet shifted to the side just enough that it grazed along Pyrrha’s cheek without a solid impact. With her counter brushed aside, Yang could only squeeze her eyes shut and brace for the pain of Pyrrha’s spear sending her flying back once more.

The razor tip of the weapon stabbed perfectly into the center of her torso, and her entire body rippled a blindingly bright gold as her aura barely managed to keep it at bay. But the pain was still close to paralyzing, and Yang felt blood dripping down the inside of her jacket and top.

Instead of crashing down a second time, Yang controlled the roll so she could bounce up to her feet, and she looked down at her gauntlets with a scowl. That wasn’t fair of Pyrrha, she knew her aim had been dead on, but at the last second…

Yang bristled in frustration as she glared, her anger turning from her weapons to her opponent, who had slid her shield back to her arm in perfect prediction for the flurry of blasts Yang fired her way. Each was either blocked or deflected with ease, Pyrrha spinning between the final two as they flew through the air, and she released her shield in a perfect throw.

It sped towards Yang like a missile, the razor sharp edge shooting straight for her chest, but she simply growled in her continued glare. Red eyes pulsed as smoking golden hair rippled with its own light, and Yang didn’t even need to shift her feet in order to simply catch Pyrrha’s shield by the rim dead-on.

The power behind the throw, the sheer force of the impact, made Yang’s arm ripple with her aura. But it didn’t even budge her, much to Pyrrha’s obvious surprise. However Pyrrha didn’t let herself be stunned for long enough that Yang could take advantage of it, instead immediately spinning her spear into its rifle form and firing.

Yang used Pyrrha’s own shield to knock the bullet out of the air, then tossed it to the side with a snarl, enough power behind her own angry throw that the shield spun across the arena and bit deeply into the wall.

Firing her gauntlets behind herself, Yang closed the distance just as Pyrrha switched back to her spear, and she brought her arm back for one more attempt to break through Pyrrha’s defenses and end this.

But just as she began her swing, with Pyrrha sweeping with her spear at the same instant, they never made contact with each other before Yang’s aura rippled across her body like a rush of lightning, and she crashed to the floor as she spasmed.

A sound like that of cracks spreading through glass filled the air of the sparring arena as Yang’s aura solidified again, but she still twitched at the sensation as something inside of her rippled then stabilized. It was absolutely nauseating.

The lights of the auditorium turned back on as Yang groaned and looked up at the ceiling, and Pyrrha was immediately by her side, her spear retracted and sheathed on her back so she could drop to her knees and check Yang over with a concerned frown and worried eyes.

Tall heels clipped on the floor, and Yang waved Pyrrha off with a reassuring smile as she raised her head to where Professor Goodwitch was approaching from where she’d been watching the fight by her own monitors so she could keep an eye on their vitals. Data rushed by the tablet in Glynda’s hands as she studied it, and an immaculate eyebrow ticked up, with her lips then thinning.

“And that, rather prematurely it seems, is the match.” Glynda came to a stop right in front of where Yang was letting Pyrrha help pull her up to her feet. She looked between the two students with narrow eyes, flicking between them in thought, before giving Pyrrha a single nod. “Exemplary as always, Miss Nikos. You’re dismissed.”

Pyrrha straightened up and gave Glynda a deep, respectful nod. “Thank you, professor. Though I think that was rather close.”

Instead of a verbal reply, Glynda thinned her lips tighter and looked down at her tablet again, letting out a short hum. Yang shook her head to clear the dizziness still making her vision spin, and she gave Pyrrha a thumbs up when Pyrrha shot her another concerned look, waving her friend off.

“I’m good, I’m good. That was…yeah, good fight. I’ll get you next time.”

“You absolutely will. I’m looking forward to it.” Pyrrha nodded eagerly, a fond smile on her lips, before looking to the professor again and straightening up when Glynda gestured for her to leave. Pyrrha nodded, and placed her hand on Yang’s back. “I hope you’re alright. I’ll see you at lunch, Yang.”

Pyrrha departed with another quick nod and smile to them both, going over to pull her shield from the wall with a strained tug.

But the throw from Yang had been with enough frustrated force that the shield bit deep into the concrete, so Pyrrha frowned with a grunt as she dipped slightly into her own Semblance to pull the metal disk free. Looking down at her shield for a few moments, Pyrrha's frown deepened in thought as she stowed it on her back in its normal place.

The sight of Yang simply catching her shield dead on, not even shifting under the sort of throw that Pyrrha had sliced through trees with before, had been…certainly a shock. And yet, Yang had only needed one hand to do it, and it had only gotten a momentary spark from her aura.

Everyone knew that Yang was strong and durable, and from how often they fought Pyrrha knew that better than most. But…that wasn’t a feat Yang could have achieved a few months ago. So Pyrrha frowned in thought as her eyes lingered on the deep gash in the wall from Yang’s throw, and looked over her shoulder to where Yang was leaning back against the half-wall of the sparring zone until her dizziness faded.

Pyrrha tilted her head to herself and hummed as she studied her friend who was slowly but consistently closing the gap as perhaps her one true rival. But, no answers or fresh depths appeared from a simple glance, so Pyrrha dismissed it for now and left the analysis in the professor’s far more experienced hands.

With a final smile in Yang’s direction, unseen by anyone but sincere in its cause, Pyrrha turned to leave, and joined where the rest of her team were waiting by the hall to the changing rooms.

The rest of the class had entirely left, heading out into the sun to enjoy the hour of lunch they got, leaving just Yang and her team waiting as Glynda beckoned them all over to stand in front. The remaining three looked between each other from where they’d been waiting for Yang by the door, each of them sharing looks of different levels of concern, before unanimously coming back down the steps and into the arena.

Obediently, the four of them lined up in front of the professor, all of them except for Yang folding their hands behind their backs politely, while Yang instead rubbed her hands over her face with a nauseous groan. Everyone’s heads whipped in her direction when her aura crackled again, reasserting itself over her body and settling back in, and Yang shivered at the sensation.

Professor Goodwitch hummed yet again, somehow always the exact same sound, and stepped over in front of Yang with a scrutinising stare.

“Eyes please, Miss Xiao-Long.”

Obediently, Yang opened her eyes and looked up so that the professor could study the colour of them, and after a few seconds Glynda saw what she’d been looking for and gave a single nod.

“I see. That’s a…development. Miss Xiao-Long, just how long has your aura been unstable during periods where your Semblance is fueled?”

The question had Yang blink, and her mouth dropped open in surprise at it. She looked down at her hands, and clenched them, studying how her aura felt as it rushed into her swelling and hot muscles. Then it sat there, waiting for her, waiting for the thin glass containing it to be smashed so it could soak into every cell of her body and push it to its limit and then further.

Yet, after taking so many impacts and so much damage during her fight, her reserves didn’t feel close to full. Frankly, while she knew there was plenty of energy humming inside of herself, she could barely feel the charge at all. It was like a ghostly touch. She’d been hit by cars and received more charge, in the past.

So she frowned and shook her head.

“It…isn’t? I dunno, it’s only done that a few times. Just since the breach. I’m doing fine, seriously. Just a weird thing.”

That was a small lie. The first time her aura had stung her own body like an electric shock, it had been a few minutes after she’d reawakened on the train, and caught a single glimpse of a red tear in reality closing as a masked figure vanished into it. Before she’d even caught up to the others, her aura had rebelled against stabilizing, and the surprise of it had almost driven her to her knees.

Professor Goodwitch raised an eyebrow at her, and tapped a few buttons on her tablet, the giant screen on the wall above the arena flickering on again as she connected it. While the screen booted up once again, she hummed and held Yang’s stare.

“I see. And how would you describe your performance during the round with Miss Nikos?”

“I think I did okay! Sure I took a few nasty hits, but that’s not exactly rare for anyone fighting her. I could have taken her if… that… hadn’t happened.” Yang shrugged, her growing anxiety at the questioning having her defensive and her voice rising, and she looked over when Weiss tutted.

Weiss raised an eyebrow as her eyes flicked down pointedly to where Yang’s shirt had a dark mark of blood from the spear wound, the injury itself already gone without even a scar. “A little more than a few nasty hits, Yang.”

“C’mon, I’m totally fine!” Yang’s voice raised slightly louder, and she spread her arms helplessly, before her attention went up to when the wall screen beeped as it connected to Glynda’s tablet.

Glynda tapped a button, and raised her own eyebrow. “A few nasty hits is an understatement. Ordinarily, the damage received would almost warrant a visit to the medical bay for a post-fight check. And yet…take a look, and then tell me you’re ‘doing fine’.”

All four girls looked up at the screen, and Ruby gasped while Weiss’s eyebrows shot all the way up, Blake’s eyes widened, and Yang’s mouth gaped open uselessly as the data from the final thirty seconds of the fight came up.

During training spars, a series of incredibly complex cameras aimed at the arena studied all manner of data and information, tracking everything from aura, to body temperature, to heart rate.

And above them, captured and processed perfectly, all four of them watched as Yang’s aura and body temperature showed something… peculiar. It was standard for Yang’s body heat to go up the more energy her Semblance absorbed into her aura, the energy unable to escape as kinetic until she let it so instead bleeding out as heat, so none of them were surprised by how Yang’s temperature climbed higher after every hit she took from Pyrrha.

But then, just as she was firing herself across the room for that final blow, something happened that none of them had seen before, not having access to the sensors during one of Yang’s blips until now.

For a moment, brief yet long enough to matter, Yang’s body heat plummeted, and her aura levels went from in the orange to almost full. It wasn’t the normal gradual recharge of an aura, it was practically instantaneous, and clearly her aura’s stability couldn’t handle the charging pulse.

Less than a split second after it happened, they watched on the replay as Yang’s aura rippled over her body and sent her crashing to the ground, sprawling out in her strange spasms.

Yang stared up at the data completely baffled as it played over and over again, thinking back to how each moment of the fight had felt inside of herself. The sensation of her Semblance charging had always been strange, like her soul was filling up with liquid gold, her aura itself drinking in the damage.

It was why the lower her aura was, the less damage she could absorb, the storage battery getting smaller. She had to pick her moment carefully when it came to triggering her burn, since it had her aura push the energy into her muscles like a plunger, using itself up in the process.

But the monitors showed something different, something she had never seen before, and all she could do was stare at it dumbfounded and shake her head.

“I…I don’t understand.”

Glynda nodded a single time in agreement, watching the data on her tablet instead of needing to look up at the screen. There was a thoughtful weight in her eyes, a consideration she was making that she wasn’t pleased by, and she thinned her lips.

“Nor do I. But if you’ve been having multiple of these fluctuations, that’s an incredible risk to your life, especially in the middle of a fight. Miss Nikos is capable of halting her blows instantaneously, your average opponent is not, and a Grimm will not feel any compulsion to do so.” Glynda tapped her tablet to turn off the screen, and tucked it underneath her arm as she considered Yang carefully for a long moment, unblinking and intense as thoughts ticked by in her eyes. She took in a breath as she considered. “Miss Xiao-Long, if you cannot stabilize your aura, there is no way we can medically clear you for the tournament.”

“What?! That’s not fair! It’s just a random blip, and it doesn’t happen that often. It’s like…once a week during training, tops. This is the first time during a proper fight!” Yang spread her arms with a frustrated huff, her frustration growing even hotter when Glynda didn’t budge. She scowled and crossed her arms. “So what do I do? How do I fix it?”

Glynda’s eyes flickered narrow as the conflict continued behind her eyes, concern for her student warring with hesitation in regards to something else, and she thinned her lips as she came to a partial decision.

“There are some tests we can run to understand what’s happening, but they would require the assistance of Atlas. Their capability to analyze aura vastly outmatches our own. It would, however, require them having access to your medical information and history.”

The thought had Blake stiffen next to Yang, her eyes narrowing suspiciously, while Ruby and Weiss shared the same look between each other. Neither of them looked happy about it, Ruby’s concern for her sister connecting with Weiss’s support for Yang’s privacy. But it wasn’t their choice to make. And considering if Yang wasn’t cleared to compete, then the entire team wouldn’t be able to do so, they all looked to Yang in patient concern.

Paranoia and hesitation had Yang’s entire body tense and her eyes narrowed as she considered it, clenching her jaw and her fists by her sides, forcing them to unclench every few seconds only for them to do so again.

The very idea of handing her medical history over to a bunch of Atlesian scientists and letting them run tests on her, tests on her aura, her soul, had nausea churning inside of her stomach. But at the same time, she wanted to compete in the tournament, she wanted it with all of her heart, and having an unstable aura could potentially get her benched even in regular classes.

Be a lab rat with her privacy shared with another kingdom, one who didn’t have the best reputation in Vale currently, or be potentially taken out of active service until her aura sorted itself out on her own…

What a fun choice.

When it was clear that Yang wasn’t going to make the decision quickly, Glynda nodded with what almost looked like approval due to how seriously Yang was taking it, and she looked between the entire team.

“Talk it over and give myself or Professor Ozpin an answer either way, I’ll inform him of the situation. But the qualification deadline for the tournament is approaching quickly. And even outside of this particular obstruction, the four of you are close to falling below the certification as is…” Glynda’s stare hardened scoldingly as she looked between them all, not moving on from each until her eyes were met and each girl either wilted or nodded.

They all knew it was the truth, and Glynda had already made her disappointment and disapproval well known. For one of the top teams in the year to suddenly start to suffer and their compatibility to splinter so drastically and quickly, was something the professor took incredibly seriously.

It wasn’t just a matter of sparring scores, it was a matter of life or death. And this was just another problem for them all to deal with before it actively got in their way and weakened them further.

Once it was clear that the entire team in front of her were digesting the reality of the situation and taking it seriously, Glynda nodded at them to dismiss them, her eyes going to Yang for a final extended scrutiny to make sure it properly drove in.

Yang nodded again, looking away in frustration but no longer arguing with it, and Glynda hummed in approval.

“Good. Discuss it. I understand how personal such a thing can be, in fact I encourage a mindset that holds your auras special to yourselves. But if the cost is your life…” Glynda left the thought unfinished, and gestured to the door in dismissal, already stepping away and turning to collect her papers. “Go on, now.”

The four of them nodded obediently and headed for the door, grouping up into a cluster so they could whisper between each other, already beginning what they could all feel was going to be one hell of a discussion.

Once the doors to the classroom were closed and it was entirely empty, Glynda put her satchel over her shoulder, and picked up her tablet again so she could re-watch the final moments of the fight once more.

Yang Xiao-Long’s particular Semblance was incredibly dangerous. It was unpredictable, its power levels inconsistent at the best of times even as Glynda studied the effects of it over and over again, and had for half a year. And according to Yang’s transcripts from Signal Academy, it had been that way since it had awakened in her early teens.

While the other three members of Team RWBY had Semblances that developed at a consistent acceleration, only growing stronger even if in different ways and speeds, Yang’s fluctuated. It was more like an ebbing tide than a rising flood.

Who knew what its upper limit would be as she continued to train and strengthen. What would be at her mercy if she lost control as she approached those levels? The girl could already bend metal after only taking a few hits, and catching Pyrrha’s shield at a full Semblance-Enhanced throw was no easy feat either. How long until a slipped up Yang could bring down a small building?

Glynda watched the moment that Yang’s body heat plummeted as all the energy she had absorbed went somewhere, then her aura seemed to instantly refill close to its maximum. She thinned her lips.

Out of all of that team, Ruby Rose’s growth had been the most obvious from the outside, but Yang Xiao-Long's potential was toeing a league practically of her own. It would only be a matter of time until Pyrrha Nikos’s streak was over, Glynda was sure of it.

But power came at a cost. Always.

With a sigh, Glynda powered down her tablet and slid it into her satchel before leaving her classroom and turning off the lights from a distance with a flick of her wrist, and turned in the direction of the tower so she could go and speak to Ozpin.

After all their classes for the day had finished, the four girls sat together in a private corner of the library, in a small alcove where four cushioned chairs flanked a small table, one of only a few of its kind in the library and one of Weiss’s favourites. It was a quiet spot, out of the way of most passersby and out of sight of the librarian, and one of their normal meeting spots when they didn’t want to talk in the dorm.

What made this particular table one of Weiss’s favourites, was the chess board built into the surface of it, the pieces kept in an underside drawer, and miraculously none were ever missing or broken. It gave her something to do with whatever parts of her mind weren’t involved in the conversation, either playing against her own skill or, usually, against Yang.

But with Yang deep in thought and being the central topic of conversation, Weiss instead dueled herself in slow turns and movements, following established techniques and deliberately not trying anything that would require more brainpower. It meant she could listen attentively as Blake and Yang fired the pros and cons back and forth, with Ruby sitting quietly in her own thoughts.

Blake scowled as she drummed her fingers on the table, looking down at the surface of it and shaking her head. “I don’t like it. The idea of letting Atlas stick a bunch of nodes on you and reduce your aura to a series of numbers feels wrong. And I don’t just mean morally, I mean like it shouldn’t even be possible.”

As she moved a white rook, Weiss looked up at Blake with a thoughtful expression of her own. “It’s not as if quantifying an aura is anything new, it’s the same principle our aura level monitoring comes from, don’t you think?”

“I think there’s a difference between measuring it, and dehumanizing it and experimenting with it like a form of chemistry.” Blake shook her head again as she looked at Weiss.

Mulling over Blake’s words, Weiss tilted her head to the side to concede the point, because even to her it felt different. But that didn’t make it wrong. She was also self-aware enough to consider that it was maybe just a cultural difference as well. Atlesian culture and science had always viewed aura as more scientific than anything spiritual, even in how they talked about it, and how they taught it in junior academies and Atlas Academy itself.

They looked over when Ruby spoke up, having been mostly quiet for the discussion.

“I don’t like it either. But if Yang’s in danger, I think that’s more important. Far more important.” Ruby looked at her sister with worried eyes, her bottom lip between her teeth. “Professor Goodwitch was right; if it happens at the wrong moment, you could die.”

Yang sighed and let her head fall back, staring up at the roof, but she did reach over to wrap her arm around Ruby’s shoulders and pull her into a reassuring side hug, rubbing her arm.

“I’m not gonna die, Rubes. She was just putting the worst case scenario out there. It’s her job. For all we know, it’ll go away and stop happening before our next training mission anyway. I’m not dying. Just…I dunno.” Yang sighed again, the sound heavier, and she took her arm back from around Ruby so she could rest her elbows on the table and bury her face in her hands, letting out a groan far too loud for a library.

As she took a break from playing so she could instead focus on the conversation entirely, Weiss folded her hands together on the surface of the table as a thought occurred, and she tilted her head curiously.

“Did it happen much over the break? I’m just assuming you trained daily. Or even when you weren’t?”

Yang nodded and shrugged at the same time, her face still in her hands, and she spoke through her palms. “A handful of times. Like, three times the entire two weeks. But only after training for a big session. The first two were about the same as today, the third…sucked.”

The others looked between each other again at the news, Weiss thinning her lips as her suspicion was confirmed. 

Meanwhile Blake scowled and glared across at her partner. “Were you planning on telling us this, at any point?”

“It didn’t feel like a big deal! Auras go funky sometimes, just ask any experienced huntsman.” Yang finally looked up from her hands, and winced at the sharp glares Weiss and Blake were both giving her. “What??”

Weiss scowled deeper, and clicked her tongue a few times. “You’re too often rather infuriating, that’s what. Were you seriously going to go into the tournament with a compromised aura?”

The mention of the tournament had everyone go quiet, with Ruby looking crestfallen while Yang looked back down at the table and crossed her arms over her chest. There really wasn’t much time left until it was time for the qualifiers, and then they’d be in it until the end, win or lose.

They could go around in circles about the moral dilemma in it all day, it didn’t change the fact that unless Yang’s aura and Semblance stabilized and stopped doing whatever it was doing, she’d be benched as an active fighter and that would stop the entire team from qualifying.

The tournament was what was meant to get them all back on the same wavelength. A unifying objective and motivation, just like stopping Torchwick and the White Fang had been. It was meant to be the fix.

So Yang slumped back in her chair and closed her eyes, and eventually nodded. “I’ll go talk to Ozpin. Not to say yes right away, but…he might have some ideas of his own.”

Blake and Weiss both nodded in approval of the plan, Weiss going back to playing her game as Yang stood with a groan from muscles that were still slightly sore from her fight, with Ruby getting up with her.

“I want to come too. Team Leader job. Also, y’know. Sister duties.” Ruby grinned, but her eyes were pleading, and Yang immediately relented with a laugh.

Rolling her eyes, Yang grinned back at Ruby, before giving Weiss and Blake a slightly anxious smile and nod each. “I’ll fill you in later. You guys gonna be good for a bit?”

Blake raised an eyebrow as she stood as well, grabbing her backpack and swinging it over her shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll struggle on without you. Besides, I’ve apparently been invited out to dinner with Sun and a few Haven teams. We all have, actually. I’ll text you the address. Come meet up once you’re out?”

The thought of a night on the town after such a stressful and bizarre day immediately had Yang brighten up, and she flashed Blake a thumbs up and a grin, before looking over at Ruby with raised eyebrows. “Sound good to you?”

In contrast to her sister, Ruby hesitated, before shaking her head and giving a small, stressed smile of her own. “Uhh, I think I’ll sit this one out. Not really in the mood for rowdy. I’ll probably go to the range instead, get some target practice in.”

Yang was clearly disappointed, but she didn’t argue, instead giving a nod and a hum before looking over at Weiss with the same question in her expression. But it evaporated immediately at the dry look Weiss gave her, and she laughed in amusement. “Still not super keen on him, huh?”

“Jury’s still out, and until a verdict is reached I think I’ll pass on him and alcohol being in each other’s vicinity.” Weiss deadpanned, going back to her game once Yang laughed again, and ignoring Blake’s eyeroll.

But Blake didn’t otherwise comment on the judgement, instead letting out an acknowledging hum to Weiss and Ruby, and shooting Yang a pleased smile as she stepped past to head to the doors. “Then I guess you and I will see each other later.”

“Music to my ears, Blakey. Tell ‘em I’ll be there as soon as I’m out.” Yang beamed back and gave a wink that had Blake scoff, and watched her partner go as Blake sauntered to the library doors and out into the late afternoon light.

Yang didn’t notice the amused, knowing looks that Ruby and Weiss gave each other, instead too busy watching where Blake had vanished, and she jumped when Ruby nudged her with her shoulder to bring her back to earth.

“Right! Okay. Let’s…gah, this is gonna suck. He’s going to do that thing where he pushes his glasses up and gets all-knowing, and ask questions it’s impossible to lie to, and I’m gonna feel like a dumbass.” Yang whined as she stepped back, grabbing her own bag, and then scooping up Ruby’s to pass to her. “Alright, Weiss-y. You got plans of your own?”

Weiss shook her head with an unbothered hum, instead sitting forward so she could start dedicating all of her attention to her game, and gave the sisters a small smile as she waved a dismissive hand.

“I’m sure I’ll find something. Now go on, you don’t want to try and see him too late and keep him in his office after dark.”

It was a good enough point that Yang immediately winced and nodded, shooting Weiss a playful salute before spinning on her heel with a flourish of her bag, and heading towards the exit.

Ruby lingered behind, thoughts warring even on the surface of her expression, and she gave Weiss a nervous yet optimistic look. “Once we’re done with Professor Ozpin and Yang’s headed off, want to train for a bit? Or study, or something?”

Pausing halfway through moving a piece, Weiss looked up at Ruby in surprise, and her surprise only grew at the sincere smile Ruby was giving her. In the face of it, she couldn’t help but smile back, and she gave a single nod as she placed the piece down.

“Yes. Yes, I’d like that.” Weiss’s chest twisted for a moment when Ruby immediately beamed at her, and she forced herself to look down at the board. “Now hurry along. Message me when you’re on your way to the training complex, and I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay! Sounds great. Thanks Weiss! Oh, wait, hang on.” Just before she dashed away, Ruby quickly leaned over the table and grabbed up one of the white knights, moving it to exactly the right place to grind Weiss’s comfortable strategy to a stumped halt. “There. Have fun!”

Before Weiss could even react to the hijacking, Ruby was gone, catching up to Yang in seconds and falling in by her side as they left the library together, leaving Weiss stupefied as she stared after them.

Blinking, Weiss looked down at the board and what Ruby had done and seen, what could possibly have occurred to her to try, and Weiss smiled warmly to herself as she saw it. With a roll of her eyes, she played the next few moves with the best interpretation of what Ruby had seen that she herself could predict from her partner, and settled back in her chair.

Ruby didn’t play chess very often, from what Weiss had seen and known of her. In fact, until her time inside of Weiss’s Nightmare, she’d never actively played at all. Instead she was seemingly always content to watch Weiss either practice against herself, or watch her matches against Yang or some of their other friends.

It had seemingly just been a hobby that didn’t interest her. But that had changed since…since then. Their games were still few and far between, since Weiss herself didn’t play as much as she did back in Atlas, but they were always private. Always something theirs.

Matches against Yang were spectacles more than anything else. Social events, with lots of trash talking and teasing. It helped that Yang was absolutely terrible at the game, not even knowing the names of most of the pieces at first. But Yang absolutely loved the chaos that came from playing, and Weiss would never admit that she enjoyed it in their games too.

Blake didn’t play, though she did understand the rules, instead usually reading and watching out of the corner of her eye when Weiss and Yang squared off. It was just not something that interested her, no games were to Blake’s interest. The times the sisters had managed to convince her to play video games could be counted on one hand.

But those few chess games against Ruby had always been quiet. The two of them curled up at this exact table in the early evening with neither of the others present, talking quietly in low voices about everything and nothing as pieces moved.

So, familiar with Ruby’s playstyle by now, Weiss played out the rest of the game after Ruby’s interference, and eventually knocked over the white king with a satisfied hum. Maybe if she’d actually been present, Ruby would have been able to think her way out of Weiss’s counterattack and how it had ended.

But, they’d never know.

As Weiss began to reset the pieces, feeling done for the day, she looked over in alarm at the quiet clapping from the end of the closest aisle, where a trio of students were standing and watching her.

While two of the three didn’t seem to be particularly interested, the girl in front was eyeing up the board in a sharp curiosity, and once she saw that she had Weiss’s attention she emerged out of the shadow between the shelves and came over to the table properly.

“Not bad. But then again, games against ourselves are always hard fought yet won spectacularly. Strange how that’s always the case, isn’t it?”

Weiss raised an eyebrow as she looked up into the older girl’s golden eyes, and quickly took in her uniform and the appearances of her two companions, briefly locking eyes with the other girl’s strange red eyes, before turning her attention back to their leader.

“I see that you’re visiting from Haven. Here for the tournament, I assume?”

“You assume correctly. It’s just a matter of wiling away the days until then, with whatever distractions can be found to pass the time.” The girl nodded a single time, raising an eyebrow and tapping a fingernail on the edge of the board. “So speaking of, I don’t suppose you have time for a game against someone you can't read the mind of?”

Weiss paused as she finished resetting the board, and narrowed her eyes at the playful challenge in the girl’s gaze. There was an edge to it, something dangerous and predatory, like she was preparing to play with a meal instead of simply killing and eating it.

It was a look that Weiss had seen before far too often, back home in the ice among those of her family’s station, and just like she always did she took the challenge. So, sitting back, she gestured to the other chair, and waited as the other girl gracefully lowered down into the chair on the side of the black pieces.

Without a word, Weiss moved the queen’s pawn forward two spaces in one of the most common openings in all of chess, and waved for her opponent to make her own move, raising an eyebrow as the king’s knight moved out. Either the girl was a complete beginner, or she was incredibly advanced, there was no middle-ground. So Weiss folded her hands on the table as she thought, and then gave a single nod, responding.

Neither of them spoke a single word as they played, pieces moving with the near silent scraping along wood, with the other girl spending most of her time staring across at Weiss and barely looking down at all. The stare was intense. A sharp glint, a glow in the gold, but it was anything but a warm light.

It was a stare that Weiss had attempted to return at first, but as the game had continued she’d been forced to spend most of her time looking down at the board and studying the moves ahead, the muscles in her shoulders gradually tensing tighter and tighter as she was pushed.

The assault from her opponent was ruthless, skilled, and so willing to sacrifice material that it was hard to predict, when the average player was willing to give up ground if it meant preserving pieces. But not this girl, and as they entered the midgame the benefits of her strategy began to bear fruit as move by move she stripped Weiss’s own side.

Piece by piece, Weiss felt herself growing more desperate and frustrated, her jaw clenched as she narrowed her eyes as she finally took out a rook that had been trying its best to cut through her pawn line. Then a bishop knocked out one of her own knights, and Weiss blinked in confusion as she immediately took the bishop with one of her recently saved pawns.

What was this girl’s plan, exactly? To sacrifice a bishop just to take a knight and draw a pawn out of its file…

The other girl seemed completely unbothered by the loss of her bishop, and slid her remaining rook to occupy the space that the pawn had been threatening until the bishop capture. And, with a ball of hot lead suddenly lodging in her gut, Weiss saw it.

Oh. There it is.

Weiss stared down at the state of the board after her opponent’s fingers left the rook, and she clenched her jaw as the next moves played out in front of her, the board shifting in her mind’s eye.

Knight takes rook, black moves a pawn to threaten the knight, so knight retreats. Then it would happen;

Bishop crosses board, discover-checking with the black queen, and mate would be in two turns no matter what Weiss did after that. She’d simply lost too much material, the board a cascade of black pieces.

The conclusion was inevitable, and they could both see it. Weiss could tell from the satisfied glimmer in the other girl’s eyes that they both knew there was no escape for her. So, gritting her teeth and swallowing her pride, Weiss tipped her king with a scowl, and closed her eyes in humiliated defeat.

Chess was one of the few hobbies that the entire Schnee family partook in, with her grandfather having been an excellent teacher, and even her father was a talented player despite coming from outside the family. And yet despite a lifetime of playing, a lifetime of being consistently beaten by her father and thrashed by her sister Winter, this particular defeat felt doubly humiliating.

It was one thing when it was a person Weiss knew and understood, but it was different when it was a stranger.

The sound of the chair across from her moving backwards had her open her eyes again, and she looked up at where her opponent had stood, and was looking down at her with a curious sharpness to her golden stare.

Before Weiss could bristle at being scrutinized so closely, the woman spoke with a low hum, an amused light to her tone. “I’m not normally the complimentary type, but you’re actually very good. You have a solid grasp on the technical theory, but it’s your execution that’s the problem. It’s empty. Hollow.”

This time Weiss did bristle, a scowl crossing her features as her hands tightened on her lap, and her eyes narrowing defensively. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

But her anger didn’t deter the older girl at all, who chuckled and gestured down to the board with a few fingers, her lips curving into a smile that wasn’t warm or cold. A smile that was nothing at all.

“You don’t allow yourself to find any actual joy in the game. Chess is a game of cold strategy, yes, but the players are only people. And all people find pleasure and satisfaction in proving superiority over others.”

Weiss narrowed her eyes further at the jab, before the second part of the woman’s words wormed into her mind and made her curious. So instead of firing back with a snark of her own, she tilted her head.

Satisfied when Weiss calmed, the woman was content to be scrutinized. In fact, she seemed to revel in having an active audience as she reached down and plucked up the black queen to spin between her fingers with that same dead smile.

“I find satisfaction in every trap I set, every piece I take, every endgame I construct. Chess is a game of a thousand victories before a king is even in danger, and you should enjoy every single one.” There was a new edge to the woman’s voice as she dragged out the word. Something satisfied, smug, and indulgent.

It had Weiss want to shuffle back in her chair to retreat, her offended frustration instead turning to something defensive and wary. Either unaware of Weiss’s sudden nerves, or ignoring it, the woman handed Weiss the queen.

“If you ever decide to allow yourself the same satisfaction, if you learn to find pleasure in the game for the game itself, do find me. This was an enjoyable, if brief, diversion from my day.”

With her impromptu lesson complete, the girl waited until Weiss reached up to take the queen from her palm, and she smiled down at her when Weiss hesitantly did so. As Weiss held the queen in front of herself to stare at it, her victorious opponent chuckled in satisfaction as she saw Weiss thinking over her words, and she spoke as she fixed up her long, black hair and then straightened her Haven blazer. 

“There’s nothing wrong with embracing being better than those who oppose you, and enjoying the fruits of it. There’s nothing shameful about the satisfaction of being extraordinary. Less substantial people condemn their betters for enjoying feeling that way because it’s not something they can feel. It’s envy, nothing more.”

Those words clearly struck something that had cracks in it, as Weiss immediately looked up from where she’d been looking down at the board, her eyebrows up and her eyes wide as she stared. But before Weiss could question or object to the softly delivered advice, the other girl stepped away and turned to return to her two companions who had been watching and waiting silently.

Just as she reached them and was about to lead them away, off to whatever business had been interrupted, she paused and looked over her shoulder. “Weiss Schnee, yes?”

Weiss nodded hesitantly, her stare suspicious and her body rigid as she met the woman’s eye. She thinned her lips as she placed the queen down on the board without looking. “Yes. And you are?”

“Cinder. I’m sure we’ll see each other around.” Cinder gave a small smile that even just in the curve of it looked like it was hiding fangs, and she chuckled low as she began to walk away with her companions. “Challenge me again sometime, but only if you’re actually going to enjoy it. Otherwise it will just end the same way. Keep practicing.”

As Cinder walked away without another word and headed to the other side of the library to a specific aisle, clearly the leader of her trio as she led the other two with purpose and a clear certainty she wouldn’t be challenged, Weiss watched her go. Her eyes narrowed as she did, and her fingers lingered on the queen she’d been handed.

There was something…wrong, about everything that had just happened. From the moment the other girl, Cinder, had sat down, it was like the air was ten degrees colder and had a foul scent to it that went beyond the physical.

Weiss slowly began to put the pieces back into a reset position, her thoughts churning as she did so, lingering on her opponent and the way the girl had played. Despite playing as black, she’d denied a beginner’s stereotype and instead played ruthlessly offensively. Every move of Weiss’s had been punished, and Cinder had willingly sacrificed some of her own pieces as long as it meant removing Weiss’s material as well.

It was a playstyle that only someone with complete and utter confidence in their own abilities would commit to. Something her father might try if he felt like bullying an opponent instead of winning. A playstyle that Weiss herself would never even consider attempting.

But Cinder hadn’t done it to bully her, it hadn’t been cruel or condescending. Instead Cinder meant what she’d said; she had done it to revel in the act of doing it. She’d done it because she found joy in taking pieces, making worthwhile sacrifices, and doing it to win.

The moves had been cold and calculated, but the act of playing them had been an act of pleasure for Cinder, something indulgent, just like she had said. She enjoyed making sacrifices as long as it meant being unrelenting and having her opponents on the run.

Meanwhile in contrast, Weiss knew she was a particularly careful player, with a well developed defensive style that fought slow wars of patience and attrition. An impenetrable barrier that ate up whatever was thrown at it, until it was her turn to strike a freshly vulnerable opponent.

That was how her mind had always worked, ever since she was a little girl. That was what made her the Ice Queen, as much as she loathed the nickname.

Weiss hissed as her arm stung, and she looked down at where she’d been scratching at the scars without realizing, quickly jerking her hand away and going back to putting all the pieces back properly.

Once the board was completely reset, Weiss stared down at it with the frown that had been growing the entire time she’d been mulling, and she thinned her lips as paranoia and discomfort broiled in her chest.

Even though the board was reset, she suddenly didn’t feel like playing anymore, the pieces looking borderline hostile as they sat there.

It felt like a headache was coming on, and she sighed as she stood and grabbed up her white satchel to put over her shoulder, giving the board and its pieces one last lingering look as she did.

Something about all of that felt wrong. Cinder’s presence felt wrong. Playing against such an opponent felt wrong. The way Cinder felt about the game felt wrong. And her ‘encouraging’ words tasted like oil in Weiss’s mind as she mixed them around and picked them apart.

Weiss huffed as she left the library to head back to the dorm, rubbing her eyes as she went and adjusting where her satchel was sitting.

The game itself had been humiliating, but somehow what had happened afterwards felt even worse. Yet as the embarrassment and discomfort left, she found that paranoia and suspicion remained.

Chess could reveal a lot about a person. And she did not like what she had seen in Cinder.

By the time she got back to the dorm and her satchel was by her bed, her blossoming headache had instead turned to nausea and a lingering jittering discomfort and restlessness.

Nobody was back yet, with the sisters likely still talking to Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch, and Blake off in the city for the night with Sun and his rather large group of friends.

So, with time to kill and the anxious energy making her shuffle and twitch in place, Weiss huffed as she grabbed up her combat clothes to change, and left the dorm to head to the training complex for what she could tell was going to be a long, long night.

The moon was high in the sky, no sign of clouds to obstruct the stars above, as Cinder stood at the window of the dorm she shared with her disciples. With her hands folded behind her back, she wasn’t listening in the slightest as Emerald and Mercury bickered behind her.

Bickering was how the two of them passed the time with each other. Emerald was determined to despise Mercury, still seeing him as an intruder, meanwhile Mercury was just stunted from neglect in all the ways where he wasn’t useful. It had stopped being amusing months ago, so Cinder ignored it as she stared out the window in thought, rubbing her thumb on her palm behind her back in thought. She chuckled quietly to herself and shook her head in fascination.

“Weiss Schnee…”

The sound of Cinder’s voice, being the first words the woman had said in hours, had Emerald look over. At the intense look in her mistress’s eyes even with the cold smile on her lips, Emerald frowned and tilted her head.

“Everything alright, ma’am? You’ve been…distracted, ever since that game.”

Cinder hummed and waved a dismissive hand, but her continued stare out the window betrayed her deeper curiosity. “Nothing else we’ve done today has been particularly noteworthy or important, and I enjoy interesting opponents.”

The two others looked at each other with the same confused expressions, Emerald shrugging helplessly, so Mercury snorted from where he was sitting on the edge of his bed. “Well, interesting or not, you clearly didn’t have any trouble beating her.”

“Of course not. But it was still fun. That’s the point she has to learn too, after all.” Cinder chuckled to herself again, finally turning away from the window and leaning back against the windowsill, crossing her arms in complete relaxation as she pondered. She hummed, her eyes going up to the roof in thought. “All the same…there’s something intriguing about that girl.”

Mercury raised a baffled eyebrow, sitting back and resting his weight on his hands on the mattress behind him, scoffing in confusion as he shared a look with Emerald again.

“Uhh. Intriguing how, exactly? The girl’s probably never been on more than one or two missions, and she’s been spoiled her whole life. She’s also only like, what, eighteen? What's intriguing?”

There was no immediate response, Cinder still looking up towards the ceiling as she mulled, re-watching her encounter with the young heiress. It had been an interesting game, if a short one. The entire time, it had been as if Weiss was at war with her own playstyle, resisting attacks she wanted to make, and retreating from territory part of her wanted to sink teeth into.

Frankly, it had been as if Cinder was playing against two opponents who had argued with each other the entire game, with one voice consistently louder than the other. It had made for a fascinating experience.

Shaking her head slowly, Cinder gestured to where her tablet was on her bed, humming in approval when Emerald immediately grabbed it to be ready. “I’m not quite sure yet. But something in her wanted to enjoy the game like I do. A part of herself she rejects and holds at bay, but not with ease. I’m sure our dear Emerald felt it.”

Emerald looked up from where she’d opened up their secure files on the tablet, and frowned as she thought back. Even though she hadn’t used her Semblance on the girl, she’d still been able to feel her consciousness. To run her hands along it like she was studying something precious, looking for the right vulnerabilities.

And Cinder was right. Even from a distance, Emerald had felt something strange.

So, she nodded tentatively. “I…guess so, yeah, thinking about it. She’s got a strong mind. Like, really strong. But it’s a weird strength. Like it's layered.”

Cinder chuckled and nodded, approving of Emerald for finding it with her own unique method, an aspect to her Semblance that she had been working on. Meanwhile Cinder knew it because she’d seen it. Seen it in the girl’s eyes.

“A wound of some kind, that became sturdier. Strengthened like a healed broken bone.” Cinder took in a slow breath and let it out as a contemplative hum, before giving a single nod to the entire room, a cold, cruel smile blossoming on her lips. “Add her to the list, and…let’s keep a closer eye on her.”

Without any argument, Emerald scrolled through Beacon’s stolen records until she found Weiss’s file, and added it to the growing folder of people of interest. People who might be given a larger part to play in the downfall of…everything.

But what part Weiss Schnee might be given to play in it, was for only Cinder to know until the time was right. And that cold, cruel smile on her lips was one that Emerald and Mercury knew all too well.

It was the same smile that had broken a Maiden. So Weiss Schnee didn't have a chance.