It was not a particularly pleasant day at Beacon. The clouds were slowly gathering on the horizon, and Cardin Winchester was walking to his dorm room, muttering angrily about being given extra readings by Professor Oobleck. He hadn't seen Velvet recently, and the lack of punching bag only made his day worse. He attempted to amuse himself with the memory of watching Jaune helplessly struggle as he ate his lunch in front of his eyes.

THUD.

Something tackled Cardin Winchester from behind, sending him falling face-first onto the pavement. It hurt. He tried to get up, but was kicked forcefully in the ribs, causing several to break. Cardin turned round to see Crescent Rose unfolding into its seven foot tall scythe form; the Grim Reaper had arrived, disguised as a five and a half foot tall girl in a black and red combat outfit, with a fear-inducing grin on its face. Cardin grabbed his mace, and barely managed to block the gleaming blade whistling toward his skull. Cardin pushed the blade away with all his might, and swung at his aggressor furiously to no avail - the girl nimbly dodged his best efforts, even getting a few shots at him while doing so.

It was clear that Cardin was not going to win this fight, but he was still going to try and draw blood from her.

Cardin switched to defensive, and attempted to block and dodge as much as was humanly possible - a sniper-scythe was not a particularly agile weapon, but when it hit, it hit hard. Rolling back to dodge some bullets, Cardin made a split second decision and ran as fast as he could, jumping over school benches and dodging between trees. He had to get away from that walking manifestation of Hell itself with a demonic grin on its face.

Tired from his burst of adrenaline, Cardin ducked behind one of the school buildings, panting furiously. A distinct snickering came from behind him, and Cardin turned around to feel the blunt end of Crescent Rose breaking his skull.

Lying in a steadily increasing pool of blood, the last thing Cardin Winchester ever saw was Ruby Rose barely able to contain herself.

After she had recovered from her hysteria, she severed Cardin's head (which had a terrified expression on its face), and cut off his arms at the elbows. She carefully sliced at both head and arms so that all that was left was bones, shreds of muscle and skin. She took the bones and arranged them so that it looked like Cardin was holding his skull in his hands.

She folded up Crescent Rose while admiring her "art".

Ruby Rose had had a very sleepless night. Memories of her mother had filled her dreams again, and she woke up shaking somewhat, and burst into tears on her pillow, squeezing it tightly for comfort. She'd been having these "moments" as Yang had called them a lot more often recently. Ruby wondered what had been causing them.

THUD.

"Ruby Rose, you are under arrest for the murder Cardin Winchester," came a loud, official-sounding voice, as the door to Team RWBY's dorm room fell off its hinges.

Team RWBY awoke with a start, and Ruby stared at the source of the voice, a VPD constable with immense disbelief.

"Look at her face, guilty as charged." muttered a police officer holding a gun at Ruby.

Ruby got out of bed, still stunned as to why she was being charged with murder, and lay down face first on the dorm room floor with her hands outstretched as the police officers had directed her to do. A police officer took one hand off his gun, and used it to cuff Ruby's arms together, then ordered her to come with him.

As Ruby walked out, she looked around to her teammates: Blake had a look of pure disgust on her face, Yang was looking at Ruby with bewilderment, as if she didn't think her sister could ever do such a thing, and Weiss seemed like she couldn't make sense of it all.

Ozpin walked into the room: "I'm sorry to wake you up at 3 in the morning, but when we looked at the footage, we knew we had to act quickly. See me in my office at 5pm, and I will go into more detail."

Nobody in the room got any further sleep, minds buzzing with questions such as "How could Ruby be a murderer?" or "How could I sleep with a murderer in my room?".

5pm arrived. It hadn't arrived particularly quickly - Beacon's dull classes would not allow that - but it had arrived nonetheless.

Yang stepped out of the lift to Ozpin's office, filled with dread. She still could not comprehend that her adorable little sister could kill someone, and return to the dorm and still be happy and cheery with no visible change of character. Was her sister really that heartless?

Weiss was next out the lift, mind buzzing. Ever since the Emerald Forest, Weiss hadn't quite trusted Ruby. Being "the best person you can" at no point stated you had to trust your team leader. With Ruby out the way, Weiss could finally become team leader and earn the respect of her family in Atlas, who were disappointed when Weiss had to break the news that she was just a team member.

Blake was last to leave the lift, plastering a polite smile on her face. The fury that had built up in her for accepting a murderer as a team leader was coming to a boil. Ruby evidently wasn't a very good murderer, for Blake had not even heard about the murder before the police came and arrested her. The look from Ruby that she had gotten as Ruby was moved out the room unsettled her somewhat.

"I would like to apologise for the interruption this morning. I'm sure you understand we could not take any chances with regards to Miss Rose," said Ozpin.
"It's fine," Yang smiled, "No need to apologise. What, if you don't mind me asking, happened to Cardin?"

Ozpin motioned the trio over to his desk, turned his monitor to face them, and hit play on the video.

The CCTV footage was hard to see, but it was unmistakably Ruby Rose, with her high velocity sniper-scythe. By the time the video had finished playing, Yang's smile had faded into a look of pure horror. Blake was struggling to contain her inner rage and excused herself to go punch some things in the gym. Weiss stood there, stuck between whether to smile at Ozpin, proving he had been wrong after all, or cry at how brutal Ruby's execution of Cardin had been.

"Has Ruby been acting strangely, recently?" Ozpin inquired. Weiss shook her head.
"No, she's been her usual boisterous self. I genuinely didn't think Ruby had it in her to kill, but the evidence is there in front of my very eyes." Yang sighed.

"If that is so, I have nothing further to ask you." Ozpin replied, and Yang and Weiss made their way back to the dorm room.

Note from Author

This section was originally 3 separate chapters, but at Meyri's suggestion, I've condensed it into a single chapter. It's my first fic, so I had no real idea how to format the chapters. In future sections, I should hopefully have gotten the length right.

Shoutout to The Jacxter for his tips on description - "If in doubt, vomit description".

-D