Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or Fate/Stay Night

…

Weiss drummed her fingers along her desk, only half paying attention to the class at hand. Their fight against that monstrosity had only been a couple of days ago but it still felt as if she was in the heat of battle. She had been watching everybody's reactions after the fight and she was somewhat relieved to see that she wasn't that nearly everybody else had been shaken up something fierce.

Except perhaps for Blake but she hadn't known the black haired huntress in training long enough to read her facial expressions cleanly as of yet.

The one that had suffered the most in her opinion had been Ruby. The usually bubbly and charismatic leader of their group had barely said anything since the fight. Actually taking a moment to think about it, Weiss wasn't sure Ruby had even spoken at all since the battle.

The member of the Schnee dynasty turned her head slightly to look at the leader of their team, her partner. Even though she was looking from a side on angle, some of the brightness had seemingly been sapped from Ruby's features. None of them had talked about what had happened after the bout, as if it were some kind of taboo but she knew that Ruby had still been fighting when she had been 'killed,' a thought which sent shivers down her spine. Berserker had picked up the pace after his 'death' and actually then seemed to be taking the fight seriously. The mere thought that that hulking beast had actually been holding back on them for the majority of the fight was terrifying.

Then there had been Ilya herself.

During the heat of the battle while trying to draw breath the petite girl's singsong voice continued to taunt them, telling them all the while how fruitless their chances of success were and how they were foolish to think they ever had a hope of winning. It had been infuriating, not so because of the timing of it all but the sheer fact that it was true. It's not like they squandered their chances, they never had a chance to begin with.

Was she so weak?

She felt liquid running in her palm and looked at the inside of her hand to see that she had formed a fist so tight her nails had cut into her skin. Grumbling something incoherent, Weiss applied pressure to her newfound injury and tried to focus once more on the task at hand. As a member of the Schnee family, she would be able to overcome such troublesome thoughts, overcome these fears, overcome…overcome…

No.

Correction.

As Weiss Schnee, a first year huntress in training, it was well within her right to make mistakes and learn from them. Which was why she was going to make another stupid mistake later today.

…

Jaune heard the knocking at his door and looked up from his desk, his homework half completed. Unlike the rest of his team he had wanted to get it over and done with as soon as possible. No point in rushing it all at the last minute after all. "Who is it?" he asked.

"It's me."

"Weiss?" he said in shock as he got up from his seat. Walking over to the door, he opened it to find the white haired warrior standing opposite him. "Hey, uhh, what's up?"

"You still have that key from Professor Ozpin right?" she asked of him.

"Hmm, oh, you mean the one to that room," surmised Jaune. "Professor Ozpin said he had a couple spare and to hold onto it as long as I felt was necessary. Why?"

"I need to borrow it," Weiss declared.

"For you or for Ruby?" asked Jaune, Weiss visibly wincing at the mention of her team leader. "Don't pretend you're not the only one to have noticed. While you have Ruby as your happy go lucky girl, we have Nora who had to cuddle up with Ren the first night after our fight. It helped a bit but well, you know."

"Don't pretend you know anything," scolded Weiss.

"I have seven sisters Weiss, I've been there helping them through fights, break ups and stuff that I wasn't allowed to know," said Jaune with a small smile before he walked over to his desk, opened up a drawer and pulled out an all too familiar key. "Each of my sisters needed something different to return to themselves and I can't tell you if this will work for Ruby, just know that if she stays the same that it just means you're going to have to try something else."

Weiss bit at the inside of her lips as she looked at the key that Jaune held out in front of him. She lifted her hand and noticed that it was trembling slightly. She gripped at her wrist with her other hand but it was clear as day that she was scared. Of course she was scared! She was going to take an object that unlocked a room where she would be killed. In the back of her mind, Ilya's voice was calling her an idiot for wanting to die but she pushed the thought back as far as she could.

Grinding her teeth, she snagged the key in one swift motion from Jaune's grasp and mumbled something reminiscent of thanks before turning around and marching straight into her room, slamming the door behind her. Her other hand lifted up to her chest where she could feel her accelerated heartbeat thumping in her chest. Even now, the key she held felt as if it was radiating a powerful aura, demanding her to let go.

Shoving the key into the pocket of her skirt, Weiss marched to where the weapons in their room were currently stored. While they should be locked away, Ruby had taken it upon herself to clean them this morning without informing them beforehand, something which, while grateful was mildly irritating at the same time. Weiss grabbed hold of both Crescent Rose and Myrtenaster before storming out, leaving a very confused Blake and Yang looking at the door to their bedroom.

"You think everything's okay?" Blake asked of her partner.

"They're probably getting some training done," said Yang.

"Will Ruby be alright?" asked Blake.

"She'll bounce back, Weiss probably just needs to knock some sense into her first," said Yang as she put her hands behind her head. "When Weiss starts attacking her, Ruby will switch on."

Blake momentarily thought of mentioning the key that Weiss had been holding on to but knew that alerting Yang of the dangerous situation that Weiss wished to put Ruby in would only drag the older sibling plus herself into the mix. Not really feeling like dying again so soon, Blake made no more comments as she lifted up the novel she had been reading.

…

It wasn't hard to track Ruby down, the silver eyed girl having spent much of her spare time by the statue located in the middle of the school square. The construct of a brave hunter was meant to be an inspiration to those taking their first steps into Beacon Academy. Weiss had thought little of it at the time but she could see why Ruby would be trying to take any sort of mental reinforcement that she could. Any little bit of extra morale was all she needed.

Weiss was going to give it to her one way or another.

"Here," she said, startling her team leader as she threw Crescent Rose at her. Ruby gasped in shock at her precious weapon being treated in such a way but was thankfully able to grab hold of it before it hit the ground and potentially got a scratch. Before she could yell at Weiss for handling her things with such disrespect, her hand was grasped tightly and Weiss started leading her away, the sun starting to set in the distance.

"What…" she started, the first word she had seemingly said in what felt like forever.

"You've spent this much time quiet, you can spend another couple minutes in silence," said Weiss as she continued to drag Ruby through the halls of the academy. Unsure of everything that was happening at the moment, Ruby simply complied as she was forcibly taken through several corridors, ever getting closer to what she feared their destionation was. As they stopped down the familiar corridor with the all too terrifying statues however she knew what was going to happen.

"Weiss…"

"No Ruby," said Weiss, stopping Ruby's thought process before she believed it had even been formed. "The times where I have seen you at your best are when you fight unspeakable odds. In the forest during the test, you took out a Grimm which would make the most experienced Hunters quiver in their boots. When I got dragged out to the front of the class, you shouted out the weakness of the Grimm I was facing and told me how to defeat it, despite the fact I had the matter completely under control. Even against Berserker, you were the only one to have some manner of idea on how to kill him. If a fight put you into the funk you in now then I believe all that you need is the right situation and you'll be back to normal, or at least as normal as you are."

"I can't go back Weiss," said Ruby, almost in a terrified tone.

"Why not? Is it because of what Berserker did to you?" demanded Weiss, determined to get Ruby to see the reality of the situation. "If you don't recall, I got cleaved in two."

"It wasn't Berserker…"

"It wasn't Berserker what? Face it Ruby, we were outclassed when we thought we stood a chance. If we go in already knowing that we don't have a chance, what harm can it do? We can go in and fight a far tougher opponent to our hearts content. Isn't this something you want to do?"

"It wasn't Berserker…"

"What? What about Berserker?" asked Weiss, somewhat sick of Ruby starting the same question over again.

"It wasn't Berserker that killed me!" screamed Ruby, her emotions getting the better of her at that moment. Weiss, who had had all of the retorts in her arsenal about how she needed to get over the fact she had been killed by a beast of a man, was rendered momentarily speechless. "When you, and Blake, and Yang, and all of JNPR were dead all that was left was me. I'd just watched all of my team get killed, each of you dying doing your best. What was my best? Being a hacksaw! I made myself a tool for the betterment of the team and it didn't even do anything!"

Weiss thought for a moment to stop Ruby in her train of thought but chose not to solely to see where this was going. "Everyone was dead and then it was me against him," continued Ruby, tears starting to swell in her eyes. "I didn't even get the chance to avenge you; despite knowing that there was no point and that I was going to die regardless of whether or not I could even scratch him, Ilyasval called him off."

Again, Weiss wanted to stop Ruby's thought process and inform her that Illyaviel's name wasn't pronounced that way but chose against it for the sole purpose of seeing where this was going. "That little girl, the one we practically dismissed at the start of the whole thing told me, told Berserker to stand down," said Ruby, tears openly streaming down her face now. She moved to wipe away the streaks but Weiss beat her to it, pulling out a small white handkerchief and dabbing the cloth just underneath Ruby's eyes. "Thank you," said Ruby softly.

"Your welcome," replied Weiss, a genuine smile on her face before she resumed her quest for answers. "Now, what did Ilya do?" she asked, using a shortened version of Illyasviel's which Ruby was more likely to say correctly.

"She called him off," said Ruby slowly. "He was right there, ready to kill me and then she just chimes in for Berserker to stop. He backed away and then she stepped forward and spoke to me. She said that if she were to die, Berserker would fade from existence. If I were to kill her, I would be be able to avenge all of you. She even gave me an open shot, told me to put a bullet right between her eyes."

"You couldn't do it," said Weiss compassionately.

"I tried to kill her."

Those few words shocked Weiss, the mere thought that Ruby had tried to kill a small child morally wounding her. "I wasn't thinking straight, I'd just watched you all die and even though I knew it was all a big training thing it still hurt and I thought if I killed her it would stop hurting," continued Ruby. "I was angry, I wanted to hurt her for having commanded him to kill us. So I shot her, and even that did nothing!"

"What do you mean?" asked Weiss.

"She had these wire dove things that floated around her and stopped the bullet in it's path. At first there were two but each one I killed Ilya only made more and then one transformed into a sword that looked really cool, right before it speared me through the chest! It was just, arrggghhh!"

"There, there," said Weiss happy that Ruby was finally showing some manner of emotion. The idea though that she had knowingly attacked a young girl was somewhat unexpected but she couldn't really blame her. Perhaps this was why Ozpin had made Ruby the leader of their team in the first place, because she was willing to do the tasks that nobody else on their team would. Well at least she hoped the other members of RWBY wouldn't willingly attack a young girl but she'd leave that thought process for another time. "Now, what say you and I go get ourselves beat to hell?"

"What do you mean?"

"One of the quickest ways to get stronger is by facing stronger enemies, you can't get better if all you're doing is picking on the weak," said Weiss. "Now, you and I are going to march down this corridor, go through that door and get our behinds handed to us. We are not going to go down easy. We will fight whoever it is with all of our strength, with all of our technique and we will die in a blaze of glory!" Weiss took a moment to think of the words she had just said wondering where that speech had come from.

"Alright," said Ruby as she gripped onto Crescent Rose a touch tighter. Weiss wanted to fight and die alongside her, as team leader it was her responsibility to help her teammates see things through, even if it accumulated in a simulated death. Her eyes rose up to stare directly at her partner, the tears having dried up. "Let's do this."

…

Dusk. A golden glow encased them as they shielded their eyes from the sun's rays. "Where are we this time?" asked Ruby as she and Weiss looked around their surroundings. Thankfully they weren't in cemetery like last time but it was almost as unnerving.

"A church, really?" said Weiss as she looked at the nearby building, two hedges connecting the corners of the building to the iron gate behind them. Several seconds passed before Weiss allowed herself to exhale a sigh of relief. "For a moment there I thought we'd be killed without even knowing our opponent."

"Oh, I wouldn't do something like that, not my style you see," said a man's voice, causing both Weiss and Ruby to point their weapons towards the rooftop where they saw their opponent looking down at them with a predatory smile. "So a couple cute girls have decided to pay me a visit, I do hope you show me a good time."

…

Hope you enjoyed.

Thank you all for the suggestions you sent me and the positive reception for this story. I hope you enjoy this latest outing. Cyber cookies for all who guess the opponent of the day. Have a good one.