A/n: Had to write something to vent after episode 11. SPOILER WARNING.
Blake spent the week after the Attack in Beacon's hospital wing. First so that the doctors could treat the long slice along her abdomen that had nearly ruptured her stomach cavity and then because of Yang.
It had been… bad. Her partner had been so quiet. It just wasn't right. No jokes, no stupid puns, nothing. It hurt Blake physically to see someone so strong, so beautitul, so vibrantly alive just stare up at the ceiling like she hoped to vanish.
She left the moment she was well enough to do so. Ruby and Weiss were there for Yang and they would care for her better than Blake ever could, but they couldn't do what she was about to do. What she was trained to do.
Her stomach hurt whenever she moved at anything quicker than a brisk walk, but she didn't care. She deserved this. If she'd been quicker, or if she'd just kept her stupid mouth shut and borne the pain, none of this would have happened.
She stalked through the corridors of Beacon and out across the courtyard. The grass was pockmarked with craters, large and small. It would be a while before she'd be able to have a picnic with Ruby again…
The Bullheads to central Vale still flew regularly and she slipped onto one of them with the soldiers and construction workings still present. Once in Vale proper, she moved into the shadows of an alleyway and disappeared.
She had worked with Adam for years - before and after the White Fang became a terrorist organisation - and she knew how he thought, how he operated.
The warehouse was in the shady part of town, but away from any of the many gangs squabbling for territory in those parts. It was the kind of neighbourhood where people could come and go without people calling the authorities. The kind of neighbourhood where people looked the other way when they heard a noise in the middle of the night.
She entered through the roof, which he'd left unguarded. It wasn't because he was sloppy. He simply didn't trust anyone to safeguard his sleep. He preferred relying on himself. Slipping soundlessly into the building, Blake stalked along the solid steel beams holding the structure together until she sat perched fifteen feet above the door.
It was cold, damp and smelled of mildew. The pain in her stomach was getting worse but Blake persevered as the minutes turned into hours, keeping her breathing and her heartbeat slow.
The footsteps on the gravel outside were a dead give-away. Quick, but not hurried. Decisive, long. Adam.
The doorhandle turned and Blake's body tensed. She'd only get one shot. Even at the peak of her strength, she knew she couldn't take Adam. If she failed, if she wasn't perfect, she would die. Or end up wishing she had.
She jumped off the ledge when he closed the door and ended up right behind him. Her ribbon snaked around his throat and with a tug, she tightened it viciously. He had a powerful aura but against her weapon of choice it was of absolutely no use.
Adam panicked.
He tried to slam his elbow into her side but she'd already wrapped both legs around his waist and took the blows on the arms. Adam snarled in incoherent, animalistic rage and switched tactics, slamming the both of them back into the door. Stiches tore and hot blood began to soak through the bandages, but Blake held on and watched her old partner's face turn blue.
He gasped and desperately scrabbled for purchase with his hand, but she'd tied her hair back in preparation, just the way he'd taught her.
Blake didn't let go when he collapsed into a heap onto the floor but rode him down into the floor, legs braced on top of his twitching arms.
"How does this feel, my love?" she hissed into his ear, pulling on the ribbon that much tighter.
There was a vast difference between murder and assassination. Any punk with a knife or a gun could kill. Assassination was about planning, preparation, and assuring that you'd covered all the angles, dotted all the i's and crossed the t's.
It was intimate to find out that much about your supposed target, but never personal. Nine times out of ten, you did not know your target. When it came to the exceptions, when you had to kill someone you knew well, it was often a question of turncoats and those jobs were left to the veterans in the field.
That was the life Adam had carefully, painstakingly, groomed her for. She could remember his voice, calm and smooth, as he explained everything in the same tone of voice he'd used to teach her to read when she'd been much younger and their cause had been radically different.
'Killing for personal reasons, killing in anger was for rank amateurs and fools.'
He had probably been correct, because her arms shook. Not with exertion, fear or excitement, but with anger. Rage. Rage like she'd never felt before in her life, the kind she'd thought herself above, incapable of. The same sort of rage that had no doubt provoked Yang's reckless charge to rescue her.
She kept her grip on her ribbon in her left hand and drew Gambol shroud's blade free from its sheath.
"You hurt her!" She screamed and slammed the blade down onto his back. "You broke her!"
Again and again, her blade fell on his defenseless back, until his aura shattered and blood spattared across her lap and her hands. He must've been alive - still, somehow - because he made a noise when she stabbed him.
He struggled feebly, helplessly, just like Yang had, as she struck him again, and again, and again, until he stopped moving once more and her close-fitting black shirt and pants clinged to her with sweat and blood.
Blake rolled away from him and only made it a few paces out into the darkness before she threw up.
This was the reason she had left the White Fang. It wasn't just because she'd realized they were turning into monsters. It was because she'd always known, deep down, that she'd been capable of becoming one too.
And now she had.
Looking back, Blake had no memory of how she'd gotten out of the warehouse and back to Beacon, past soldiers and sentries, scared civilians and worried teachers, all the way up to the infirmary.
Yang was awake when Blake arrived but she didn't seem to notice her until she dropped Adam's cracked mask onto the bedside table.
"Blake…" Her voice came out in a dry croak, but her eyes were alert and worried as they scanned over her. "You're hurt. I'll-"
She reached for the little white box of plastic by her bedside, with its red button, but Blake caught her hand half-way.
"No. It's not mine. Mosty. It's mostly not mine."
Yang's fingers were warm underneath hers and Blake squeezed them almost desperately.
"What happened?" The blonde asked, slipping off her cot.
There was something wary in her stance. Not frightened, as much as trying not to scare off a nervous fawn that had walked into the garden.
"I… I found him." She swallowed, grimacing at the taste of bile on her tongue. "Took care of him."
Yang wasn't stupid. She didn't need any elaboration, which was good, because Blake's throat simply wouldn't produce any more words.
"Oh Blake," she whispered. It felt strange when her crushing hug was delivered with just one arm but it still felt right, and Blake melted into the comfort of her warmth. "It'll be okay. I promise. It'll be okay."
For her, for them, she would gladly be a monster.