At least this time they brought their weapons to class, Azrael thought as he paced back and forth in front of his classroom, making sure his words reached every set of ears in the room. "Every last one of you has trained for the entirety of your young lives to fight. As you all saw last week, most of you have not trained hard enough." The class all glanced towards Pyrrha before Azrael continued, recapturing their attention. "Yes, Miss Nikos struck me. I commend her for it, but a single strike is usually not enough. If it had been, I would have died." The students were shocked at this revelation, especially Pyrrha. She raised her hand. Something had been bothering her all week about their spar, and she suddenly realized what it was. My strike drew blood. That shouldn't have happened. "Yes, Miss Nikos?"

"Sir, why did my strike draw blood? Shouldn't your aura have blocked it?" Several of the quicker-thinking students stiffened, all reaching the same impossible conclusion.

"That happened because I have no Aura." An audible gasp echoed throughout the room.

"But sir, perhaps it simply hasn't been unlocked?"

"Some have tried to do exactly that. All of them, including one of Beacon's own professors, have failed. I came to terms with this long ago." Long ago? He is barely older than us, thought Pyrrha.

Steeling herself for the potentially disastrous consequences of her next question, Pyrrha forged ahead. "Sir, does that mean that you don't have a soul?" The silence that followed was so complete and oppressive it was almost physical. After several seconds that felt like hours to the young gladiator, her instructor finally spoke.

"No, I do not believe so. It may be a defect or a disease, but I know who I am." Azrael took the opportunity to speak with the entire class. "And I hope that none of you are foolish enough to think otherwise. The only creatures of this world without souls are the Grimm." The collective breath of the students let out in relief.

"Back to the matter at hand, I will be instructing you all to fight without your Aura. One day you may be forced to do it, and I would prefer you learn now as opposed to on the battlefield. Now, everybody line up in front." Azrael's pupils rushed to the front, most of them eager to learn whatever fighting techniques he had planned.

Nora shoved several students out of her way, determined to be first. Once everyone had lined up behind her, Azrael nodded approvingly. "You have a strong Aura, even I can tell." Placing his left hand on her shoulder, Azrael grasped the orange-haired girl firmly and delivered a savage punch to her gut. As Nora fell to the floor, everybody saw her Aura crack, signifying that it had been depleted. Ignoring their shocked faces, Azrael commanded, "Stand up, Miss Valkyrie." To the class's shock, Nora got up immediately, confusion painted across her face.

"I don't understand. You went right through my Aura in a single punch…How am I not hurt?"

"I hit you exactly hard enough to disable your Aura, and not a single bit harder. For the next four hours, you and I are on equal footing. Welcome to 'Combat Without Aura'." Azrael looked around and saw that several students had gone pale. "Trust in your teacher. None of you will be injured, but the first several weeks of this class will not be pleasant. Every one of you depends upon your Aura for the strength to wield your various weapons effectively. I intend to make every one of you just as deadly without Aura as you are with it."

Yang couldn't believe it. She thought they would be suppressing their Aura for this class, but eliminating it entirely? People could get seriously injured! She had to speak up. "How are you going to deal with injuries? If we don't have our Aura, we could get seriously hurt!"

"Miss Xiao Long, no one will die in this class, I will make sure of it. As for injuries, I will need a volunteer to explain. Nora, if you would?"

With more curiosity than common sense, Nora nodded. Azrael immediately grabbed her leg and snapped it at the thigh. Nora's screams echoed would have echoed throughout the entire school if Azrael had not gagged her with his hand. He quickly grabbed a strap on leather he had placed on a nearby desk and balled it up, stuffing it in the girl's mouth. "Bite down on this. I know how much it hurts, trust me." The class recoiled but could not bring themselves to look away as Azrael snapped the leg back into place, setting it back where it belonged. His left hand suddenly became wreathed in flames, before the effect changed to a soft yellow orb of light and he began running it along the fracture. Nora's eyes went wide and her muffled screams immediately ended as she looked down at her leg, already completely healed. She spat out the leather and looked at Azrael.

"H-h-how?" The teacher cracked a rare smile.

"Trade secret, I'm afraid." He turned to the class as Nora rose to her feet, already back to her usual bubbly self. "If I decide that any of you have to ability, I will teach this to you. Do not approach me about it, your enthusiasm has nothing to do with it. This is a talent you must possess at birth."

Several of the students looked hopeful, others looked pessimistic.

"Alright, who's next?"

Team RWBY barely crawled back to their dorm before they all collapsed to the floor of their room.

"Weiss, I thought you said he trained you. Aren't you used to this?" Yang asked.

"He trained me, but not like this. I think he wanted me to focus on learning to use my semblance at a younger age, so we never did Aura-less training," the heiress responded. "Either way, I am not looking forward to waking up tomorrow."

Blake spoke up. "I've been meaning to ask you about that. How did he train you? He's barely five years older than we are."

"Well, he's actually much older than he looks. He would tell Winter and me stories about his adventures when we were growing up. His face hasn't changed at all since we first met eleven years ago."

All three of Weiss's teammates sat up at this. Blake spoke again. "But that's not possible. Azrael doesn't seem like he would be obsessed with his appearance, so plastic surgery is out. How is…"

"I don't know what to tell you, Blake. A lot of strange things seem to happen to Azrael. I'll ask him tomorrow if I can tell you guys some of his stories."

Ruby perked up at this. "Maybe he can tell them! I bet he would do great scary voices too!"

Weiss shook her head mirthfully. "They're not those kinds of stories Ruby. Some of them are actually really sad." She thought back to the time Azrael had finished telling her the story of Siegmeyer and his daughter Siegliende—she and Winter had cried themselves to sleep for days afterward. "Anyway, he might not be willing to even let me tell you guys, and I'm sure he's very busy anyway."

To say that Azrael had gone hard on the class was an understatement. After deactivating everybody's Aura, almost nobody could use their weapons as they normally would—Nora and Ruby could barely even lift Magnhild and Crescent Rose. But Azrael didn't even give them time to get used to the added weight. For the next two hours, he made them practice with their now extremely heavy weapons, only allowing the class a single five-minute break hallway through. After that, he marched them outside, where he forced them to run laps around the outside of Beacon Tower for another hour. Seeing the angry looks on several students' faces, Azrael decided to show them up—with a very special set of armor he barely used. The class didn't even recognize their instructor under the mountain of stone he wore—head to toe, he was encased in four-inch-thick granite, with a massive stone greatshield strapped across his back.

"If I can run weighed down by a half-ton of stone, you can all run in your usual combat gear! Now get going!" Azrael shouted before taking off at a relaxed pace. As soon as Blake or Velvet—by far the two fastest runners in the class—came near him, Azrael just kept increasing his pace, until he was practically galloping along, with no indications of tiring anytime soon. After it was finally over, Azrael brought the class back inside. Several students—Jaune and Ren included—had to be carried or dragged by their partners, and everybody was dead on their feet. "Good job, students. I hope to see all of you again on Wednesday."

Every student groaned, remembering that this class met three times a week.

"Oh, and one more thing. The three students whom I decide have performed the best to my expectations at the end of the semester each get to take a weapon from the wall." That should be enough to motivate them.

Jaune turned to Pyrrha, the knight barely able to turn his head towards his partner. "Pyrrha, please just let me die next time." The girl—one of only three students (the other two being Blake and Velvet) who was not currently either panting like a drowning person or guzzling water like they had been trapped in a desert for three days—chuckled. "Jaune, how do you expect to improve? I bet Azrael was once in the same position you are now."

"I seriously doubt that."

"I'm serious, partner. How do you think he became so strong? If he could train himself to that point, so can we. You and I will start training on our own." Pyrrha was determined to make Jaune see himself as she saw him, whether he wanted to or not.

"Oh dear Dust please no." Pyrrha just giggled again.

"Come on Jaune, let's go to the cafeteria, it's almost time for supper. Then we can all go sleep it off."

Pyrrha collected Nora and Ren, and took Team JNPR to go get some well-deserved R&R.

Through the waterfall of sweat cascading down his brow, Mercury grinned. The idiot is handing me the tools to beat him and he doesn't even know it. Like everybody else, Mercury was beyond exhausted, but he was also confident that he could deal with whatever Azrael threw at him. It would be worth it for one of those weapons.

Mercury couldn't believe somebody as young as Azrael could have amassed so many weapons—and all of them were clearly of incredible quality. Cinder would definitely want to get her hands on some, but stealing from Azrael ranked right next to "try to stab Salem" at the top of Mercury's list of painful ways to commit suicide. For now, it appeared he would have to actually put in some effort and win one of those weapons legitimately.

Cinder would want to hear about this competition as soon as possible. But first, Mercury decided that he had earned some extra sleep.

Azrael never liked waiting.

Several weeks had passed, and Azrael had watched his students improve. After two months, every student was now at least able to wield their weapons effectively—although only Pyrrha and Ren were anything close to their normal fighting aptitude. Several of the students had come forward and thanked Azrael, reporting that their training matches outside of class (when they actually had Aura at their disposal) had improved more in two months than in the previous two years. Even Velvet—who he had only allowed into the class at Coco's minigun-aided insistence—was showing remarkable improvement in her hand-to-hand skills. Azrael decided that he would have to see this strange weapon of hers one day; if it was anything like what Coco described, it would be an interesting experience, to say the least.

So far, none of the students were failing to improve, but two of his pupils did appear to be lagging behind everyone else: Jaune Arc (although the boy had spirit and determination in spades, Azrael noticed that he had clearly started off from a point far behind any of the other students), and more surprisingly, Blake Belladonna. Although she was intelligent and fast on her feet, the Faunus had trouble maneuvering the sheath of her katana—the Gambol Shroud—and she also seemed unable or unwilling to dodge attacks. According to Yang (whom Azrael had attempted to turn down for private lessons no less than eight times by the third week of class), Blake's Semblance—the ability to teleport short distances, leaving behind a semi-physical copy in her wake—was integral to her fighting style, and the lack of Aura in Azrael's class prevented her from using it. The teacher understood, but he didn't care. These children could fight fine with their Aura; Azrael was concerned with making sure they were not killed when it ran out.

At any rate, Azrael was happy with his class's progress so far. The more pressing issue was Team RWBY's apparent late-night sojourns. The four of them had been sneaking off school property in recent nights, and their performance had declined in the last week. Which was why the Undead was waiting in an alley outside a "nightclub", as it was apparently called. Azrael was still astounded by the wealth of information instantly available on the CCT network. Since he had taken up residence at Beacon, he had made a concerted effort to improve his reading skills, but it was much harder than the warrior had expected. Azrael decided that he hated English sometime around the fourth exception to this "I before E" rule.

Hearing a motorcycle approach, Azrael ducked further into the shadows. He felt Yang's soul approach the front of the club, along with an unfamiliar and weaker (but not insignificant) energy. Apparently, the brawler had brought a friend along. Azrael waited for thirty seconds, then left his hiding spot and waited next to a bright yellow motorcycle parked nearby.

"Alright, it looks like this was a dead end…" Yang trailed off as she saw the enormous man wearing a strange upturned steel helmet, a padded leather vest covered in medallions and wreathed in tattered yellow robes, and steel plates on his arms and legs. It could only be one person. After several seconds of tense silence, Yang relaxed, while her blue-haired companion didn't move a muscle. "Hey there, teach. So I guess you figured us out, huh?"

"Not really. I'm most just curious as to who you're gonna be fighting."

Yang wouldn't have believed a teacher could be so relaxed, but then she remembered that her uncle was a teacher. "Murderers, terrorists, thieves, a redhead. You know, the usual." It was at that moment that Yang's scroll rang, and Azrael could hear the panicked voice coming through the speaker. "Sure thing. We'll be there in a minute…and we're bringing some cavalry." Yang hung up and turned to Azrael. "Yup, definitely a redhead."

Azrael's amusement was obvious to Yang, even underneath the headgear. "A redhead? Sounds incredibly dangerous. I wouldn't be doing my duty as a teacher if I didn't ensure the safety of my students, now would I?" Yang smiled and dragged her friend towards her bike. Azrael locked his gaze onto the overly tanned young man. "And who is this?"

"This is Neptune. Don't worry, he's cool. By the way, I don't think you'll fit on the bike, it's really only meant for two. And by two, I mean two normal-sized people."

"I wouldn't dream of piggybacking on you. I'll run alongside." Neptune's jaw dropped, and even Yang was taken aback.

"You do realize how fast this thing goes, right?"

"Do you realize that I'm not wearing the armor I wear during our running exercises?"

"Fair point. Just don't fall behind." Taking the visibly shaken Neptune with her, Yang jumped onto her bike and began speeding off after a half dozen giant mechs that came galloping down the street, chasing Blake and a strange blonde boy with a prehensile tail.

The chase eventually lead to the highway, with Blake and the monkey boy jumping from car to car with the robots in hot pursuit, Yang and Neptune next, and Azrael bringing up the rear. Neptune couldn't believe his eyes as he watched the armored giant gallop along, easily keeping pace with them. We're going at least 60 miles per hour and he's not even using Aura, how is this possible? Neptune remained confused when Azrael bypassed them, tackling one of the 14 foot robots with his bare hands. Before the pair of them fell back out of sight of Yang and Neptune, Azrael pulled the enormous black spear from his back and stabbed it into the Paladin's cockpit, instantly killing the pilot. He quickly began sprinting again, and eventually caught up with his students. Soon he had methodically tackled two more of the mechs and murdered their pilots, while Yang, Blake, Neptune, and the monkey Faunus had managed to knock the others off of the highway they were on.

But one of the mech pilots apparently grew a brain, smashing the robot's fist into the highway, ending the chase, knocking Neptune and his friend unconscious, and bringing everyone down to a massive abandoned lot, just as Ruby and Weiss arrived on the scene. Azrael called out to the two members of Team RWBY.

"Weiss, Ruby, go with your teammates and deal with this mech. I'll handle the other two. Now!"

The pair, nodded, running over to Blake and Yang, attacking Torchwick's mech as they went. As Weiss and Yang created a shroud of fog using ice dust and Yang's incendiary shells, RWBY launched a series of devastating attacks on the robot, ultimately crippling it. Just as they were about to capture the orange-haired crime lord, a small woman with pink and brown hair appeared in front of him, redirecting Yang's punch into the ground. She then put up a strange illusion that left an after-image of herself and Roman, allowing the two of them to escape.

Team RWBY turned around to see Azrael slowly pulling his "halberd" (which Blake had pointed out to him a month earlier was not actually a halberd, to the teacher's annoyance) from the cockpit of the last mech, having already destroyed the other one. All four students recoiled when they saw that Azrael's armor had become slick with blood, and Blake took the opportunity to vomit behind the nearby debris. Once she had recovered, the cat Faunus walked over to Azrael and jabbed her finger accusingly into his abdomen (his chest was too high for her to reach).

"How could you do that? Those men deserved a trial!"

Azrael slowly took off his helmet and placed it on the ground. "I agree. And I gave them a trial by combat. I found them all wanting." He took a deep breath and continued, ignoring their horrified faces. "Do you honestly believe I should have spared the murderous terrorists who would never, not in a thousand centuries, have given you the same opportunity?" Blake dropped her hand back to her side, tears welling up.

"They deserved the chance to change. And you took that from them." Suddenly everything clicked into place for Azrael.

"You used to be one of them." Blake nodded, tears now openly streaming down her face. "I apologize for angering you, but this is the way it has to be. If I had not killed them, they would have killed one of you. Understand this about me, Miss Belladonna. I don't take chances with killers. Not anymore." Azrael joined Blake in misery, a single tear meandering down his scarred face. "Return to school before you are caught out of bed after hours. I will take responsibility for this. And I want all four of you to come to my classroom tomorrow. There is something I must explain to three of you, and a story all four of you deserve to hear.".