Note: We are back again! We know we said that we were going to update when Volume 6 came out, but honestly, life is going to get kind of hectic over the next two months, so we figured we would just release a new chapter now and try to update on an infrequent schedule whenever we can. We're starting a new arc today, one not directly related to anything from the show, so that's going to be something to look forward to. This chapter, in particular, is a little bit of a change of pace, so we hope you all like it. As always, let us know what you think-feedback is appreciated. Enjoy.

Ruby's Journal: Entry 1

Okay, first time ever doing this. So, Professor Goodwitch instructed us that a good method of maintaining Aura is by steadying our thoughts, and she said that one of the best ways to do that was to keep a journal so we can keep track of our daily activities. I always wanted to have a diary, but I never did since I knew Yang would try to steal it. She could still try to steal it now, but I think she's grown up since then. Anyway, this is the first in what will presumably be a long list of entries, and Goodwitch said to keep it as honest as possible, so I'll do that. The date is September 18th, and it is a Monday.

It's been two weeks since RWBY defeated CRDL. Things have become a lot less hectic since that fight, and classes have finally started up for the semester. It involves a lot less fighting than I expected, especially since we did so much fighting beforehand. We're taking five classes this semester, and only one of them is primarily focused on weaponry. That's my favorite. It's taught by Professor Port, and he's the best. He knows almost everything there is to know about weapons, and he's pretty much a master at every fighting style under the sun. I want to sit down with him and talk about it for hours. I think that's an abuse of his office hours though, so maybe not. The other classes are a lot less fun, but it's still much better than anything I was taking at Southtown High.

I'm at Beacon Academy training to become a Huntress. It still hasn't fully hit me yet. I don't know how to physically write out the sound of squealing, but I'm doing it.

I'm also the leader of my own team, something I never would have expected at Southtown. Sort of the leader, anyway. It's complicated. We still don't really have leaders, not officially. I try not to boss the others around too much. I mostly focus on developing in-field strategies and making sure everyone stays on the same page. The good news is they all like me. Weiss, in particular, has been surprising me recently. Should I explain who Weiss is for the journal? No, I know who Weiss is. No one is reading this. Weiss has been extremely polite to me ever since she apologized to me. At the very least, I can count on her to say what she means. I don't think I've hit friend status with her yet, though. More like mild acquaintances. Still, infinitely better than what came before. I won't pretend to understand what made her change her mind. It probably had a lot to do with beating CRDL together, but Atlasian culture altogether is weird to me. I hope it's more of a mutual respect thing and not some sort of burden-ridden life debt like she has to be my servant or something creepy like that. The truth is, though, and I'm only admitting this to you, Journal, but I do respect the heck out of her though. She was originally one of the top-ranked students in the class, and for her to be that adept at combat would be impressive in its own right. The fact that she can do what she does without any Aura is nothing short of incredible. I know she won't tell me about the details of her enhancements, but they can only compensate for so much, and she has to have an unbelievable amount of talent to not just keep up, but surpass the rest of us. If we ever move up from mild acquaintances to decently accepting of each other, I'll have to inquire about her training regimen. Also, Myrtenaster is super cool.

Blake is still her Blakey self. She still won't talk much, and still likes to disappear in the middle of the night. The curfew has been lifted since the Emerald Forest incident, so at least we can't get in trouble for it, but it doesn't exactly help build teamwork. I'm also still bothered by what Weiss said about her. Someone who keeps secrets and is willing to violently strike out against orders can be extremely problematic down the line. It's just hard to keep an eye on her when she literally won't stay in sight.

And Yang is better. I think the resentment is mostly gone. Mostly. That fight was way too much for me to handle. I don't want to process it. I already said I was sorry, and she told me that it was water under the bridge, so if she's being honest, then I shouldn't have anything to worry about. But she isn't being honest, right? I mean, Yang was never one to let things get to her, but once they did, she never let them go. I haven't brought it up with her since that night, and she's been all smiles since then. Who knows what goes on in that head of hers? The last thing I need is to reopen an old wound, so I think the best course of action is to wait to see if any warning signs pop up, and then go from there.

That should probably be enough for one journal. I'll update maybe once, twice a day if I have to. If I remember to. Please remember to.

Weiss's Diary: Entry 3

The most peculiar part of having Ruby as a leader is trying to take her seriously when that little voice is barking out orders. It's always so peppy and bright, and yet somehow it also sounds as if she's about to burst into tears at any moment. At first, it was grating, but now I mostly find it laughable. I would be a lot more annoyed by her constant yelping if it wasn't for the fact that a lot of what she says happens to be good.

And is good, frustratingly so. I finally understand why they let somebody so young enter Beacon Academy. The girl is tactically brilliant. Her mind works so fast I'm amazed she can even keep up. The amount of details she picks up in a matter of moments is something extraordinary, and in the past two weeks, the minor corrections she's made to my form and tactics have done more for my training than in the past two years. Father always said that battle was like a dance and that a good fighter would treat their opponent like their partner, and follow the ebb and flow of the art of battle to achieve victory. For Ruby, instead of studying her partner, it's as if she studies the music instead, and uses it to trace every step of the dance before it's even begun. If only Atlas could take her in and put her in an actual leadership program. Ozpin better not be wasting such an opportunity.

That's not to say she's perfect. She isn't remotely close. She could definitely lay off the cutesy nicknames for our attack patterns, even if it does help me remember them. She also has this habit of butting her head in a bit too often, such as waking us all up earlier than our alarms are set because she wants us to be very early for classes, or peering over my shoulder because she doesn't like the notes I'm taking, or asking to be part of more "bonding opportunities." As a strategist, she's manageable. As a person, she needs to zip it. Maybe in a few decades, she'll get there.

There's another problem with Ruby as a person, and that is the fact she won't stop trying to make me eat new food. When I came to Vale, the one thing I hadn't realized was that my diet would have to be completely altered from what I'm used to eating. The food options on campus are quite limited, and going into town doesn't produce many high-end results. Pan-seared duck breast? Non-existent. Semifreddo? Unheard of. When Ruby found out that I was unfamiliar with most of the items they had on offer, she suddenly decided that it was her mission to force feed me her favorite snacks at every given opportunity. Over the past few weeks, I have eaten three-topping pizzas and salads mixed with artificial dressings, and just yesterday, my dinner consisted of something called a Double Max Bacon Cheeseburger Deluxe, which almost dislocated my jaw when I tried to get it into my mouth. Valian food is a lot like Valian people: greasy, oversized trash that offends the eyes just to look at it.

But it was delicious. That Double Max Bacon Cheeseburger Deluxe might be the greatest thing I have ever eaten in my life. It was absolute trash, and I had no idea what was actually put into creating it, and the entire time I was eating I hated myself, but it was fantastic. I ate it all without stopping, and as annoying as Ruby was about it, I know I have to go back and get another one. I could eat that every day for the rest of my life if I didn't know that it would likely kill me. And on top of all that, it was only ten Lien! Is this how Vale manages to keep its populace in line despite its terrible leadership? By force-feeding them enough meat and cheese to keep them complacent? If so, it's brilliant. Ruby actually had a point for once. She better not read this.

Blake's Notes: Entry 22

Agenda: Maintain current course of action.

Updates on Progress: Team involvement has increased drastically. Time spent by myself has been so minimalized I have to take every opportunity I can to get away. Average time is around an hour per day—a quarter of the time as before. Ruby's been working around the clock to stop me from going out at night. With the scheduling, night trips would almost be impossible anyway. By the time we finish training and homework to the start of class, I only have six hours. Even I need sleep, and five hours isn't enough for how much work I'm doing every day. One bit of good news: the curfew reduction means fewer guard patrols.

Update 2: Weiss has been staring at me. She's not very good at hiding her suspicions. So far, she hasn't done any unnecessary prodding, but I'm concerned telling her off will just make her more determined. For now, I'm ignoring her and hoping she gets bored with me and finds a poor person to get offended at instead.

Update 3: No new prime locations discovered. Current six seem suitable enough, but ten seems to be optimization.

Update 4: Not so much an update, but a weird thing that happened in class. We were learning about Valian Huntsman history, and Oobleck calls on me to explain George Heiser IV's Huntsman expedition into the Valian wilds during the first expansion period. The first thing that comes to mind is the slaughter of the indigenous people of Aazru, and so I say that in front of the class. He looks at me like a crazy person. I don't know why I was so surprised. We used to joke all the time that Vale's history was so flexible you could tie knots with it, but seeing someone lie so blatantly in front of everyone, and not even have them notice, is rather discomforting. I'm not sure if the other students were just too afraid to say anything, or really just didn't know better, and I'm not sure which is worse.

Also, Yang is trying to get me to tutor her in history and literature. She literally jumped on my bed and pleaded with me to help her. I told her to ask Ruby, and she said that Ruby was a "science and math nerd, and I need a different kind of nerd." She also repeatedly said that I owed her because I was her best friend, and best friends help each other. I turned her down. I can't afford any more time sinks. Ruby will find a way to deal with her eventually.

Entry concluded.

Yang's Stuff: Entry 7

One of the things that Ruby's been attempting to drill into us is a consistent team schedule. Every day after dinner, we head to the battle arena to work on team exercises and practice with each other. Apparently, Ruby got permission from Ozpin to use it directly, so we don't have to worry about any other teams bothering us. It's pretty nice except for the shit lighting. We manage.

Today's practice didn't go smoothly. Ruby's big on team attacks, and we spend usually half an hour just going over the different combinations of moves she comes up for us. It's a good workout—way better than the gym, even if there are no cute people to stare at. But here's the hard part: Ruby has a bazillion different attacks that she expects us to memorize, and I love her, but they're all starting to bleed together. In the last few days, she's come up with:

Crimson Typhoon

Endless Hour

Dark Saboteur

Wolf's Suffering

Hellfire Rush

Midnight Eclipse (okay that one's pretty cool)

Sniper's Wild

I don't even know where she comes up with half this stuff. I took a peek inside her journal, and she didn't write any of them down, so she must just keep this stored somewhere in that big brain of hers. The problem is that she expects me to remember that, and I don't know why she thought that was a good idea, because today when we were practicing, I fucked up the wrong move and ended up running straight into Blake and pretty much headbutted her directly in her boobs. And no, that's not as fun as it sounds, because you know what's directly underneath boobs? Ribs. And are boobs a good cushion when you're flying at thirty miles per hour into another human being's ribs? Nope. I think she was okay because she stood up afterward and called me an asshole, but Ruby scolded me big time. It was the first time I messed one of those moves up, so it's not like it's a big deal or anything, but I'm lucky I didn't do that against another team, or worse, a Grimm.

We're getting better though, despite my fuck-up. It feels good knowing people have my back. I'm even starting to hit the point where I don't even need to hear Ruby's callouts anymore. I can just see Weiss switching to a certain type of Dust, and I know what to do instinctually. Instinctively? Are one of those right? Whatever, the point is we're rock solid. Except when we aren't. Peace.

Ruby's Journal: Entry 15

Okay, time to rethink everything.

Today in Professor Goodwitch's class, she said something that really got to me. She said that while we practice, or study, or really try anything new, we have a habit of falling back into the familiar. We, as people, are naturally afraid of new ideas, and when trying to fix our weaknesses, we'll usually abandon the cause to remind ourselves of our strengths in order to save our minds the embarrassment of ignorance. It's like when you study for a test and go over vocabulary, how you tend to spend a lot more time reminding yourselves of the terms you already know rather than focusing on studying what you don't understand. That spoke to me, partially because I love studying vocabulary, but I think it means something on a much bigger scale.

So, I've been thinking about how I can apply that knowledge to our team training. I've been mulling over what we've been doing these past few weeks, and really, it's mostly been the same thing over and over again. We practice and memorize the same techniques, and focus primarily on making sure we focus all of our energy on strengthening what we do best. But, I've been so obsessed with making sure our attacks our perfect that I haven't actually been fixing any of the underlying problems with our team. I'm pretty much useless outside of certain situations with my scythe. Weiss can't last long in one-on-one fights. Blake keeps going off on her own, and Yang's too temperamental and falling behind in her classes. Instead of trying to hide our weaknesses with our fight strategies, I realized I should be trying to eliminate these problems altogether, so we don't have to worry about them anymore. And yeah, I know that sounds super obvious, like, "Ruby, a five-year-old could tell you that you try to fix bad things instead of trying to ignore them," but it's a lot harder to put that into practice, okay? I'm under a lot of pressure!

Here's the breakdown. I'm clearing out a few hours in our practice schedule to focus on weakening our weaknesses. And more importantly, I'm going to kill three birds in one stone. Blake has been refusing to cooperate as well as she should, and I'm pretty sure that if she just got a little more emotionally invested in the team, the effort she puts into fighting with us will increase dramatically. So, a few days a week, in the hour after our practice regimen, Blake is going to give Yang some tutoring in the classes she's falling behind is, and then on alternate days, Blake and Weiss will have a private combat sparring session for another hour. I call it the Blake Behavioral Strategy (BBS). Yang likes hanging out with Blake, so she might calm down a little during fights—not to mention she might pass the semester. Weiss gets to learn directly from someone much more experienced than her in direct combat. And best of all, since she has to spend more time with them, maybe Blake will actually get to know them a little better, and just maybe she won't feel the need to be alone all the time. Also, since it's more daily work for her, she might forego those nightly wandering sprees and decide to get more rest to compensate for the longer hours.

As for me, this girl is planning on hitting the school gym. I've always been built like a twig, so it's time for Ruby Rose to put on a little muscle mass. Soon, Yang'll have nothing on me. At least, I hope. Really, I'll just take getting to a point where I'm not out of breath walking up all those flights of steps to get to class every morning. All in all, I think the BBS is going to go swimmingly.

Blake's Notes: Entry 24

Ruby Rose can go choke on a thousand dicks.

Yang's Stuff: Entry 10

Hey, asshole who wrote in my journal! Can you not, please? I'm trying to take this thing somewhat seriously, and here you are just spamming messages in it for no goddamn reason. Is there really any logical reason to do this? At all? To me?

And if you are going to break into my room and write in my journal, can you at least come up with something more original to say. YANG IS A SAD GIRL WHO NEEDS TO LOSE CONTROL is already a pretty boring sentence, but when you write nothing but that one sentence thirty times across two who pages, it kind of wears thin. At least come up with something salacious, you know? Make it fun for me to read.

This is ridiculous. I don't think anyone on my team did it. When I asked them about it, none of them seemed like they were lying. I don't think any of them would do something like that either. Weiss and Blake seem far more like the people who would just insult me to my face than go out of their way to do something weird like this. But then who else? Cardin, maybe? But then how did Cardin find a way to break into our room when none of us were around, bust open the combination lock on it, and why would he take his anger out like this? You'd think he'd at least sign his name or something egotistical, but there's nothing there. I'm considering taking this to Ozpin, but I don't really want him looking at my journal in the first place, and I also doubt he'd believe me. He might just think I'm doing this for attention, which I'm not. Seriously, I'm pissed off about this. I swear someone's getting hurt when I find out who they are.

Weiss's Diary: 16

I spoke with Pyrrha today for the first time since we were on a team together.

I bumped into her after lunch on the way back to my room. It was strange. We only talked for about a minute, but it gave me a lot to think about. She was very polite and kind the entire time, like always. She wasn't mad at me for anything that happened. I don't know why she would be, but when placed in unfamiliar circumstances, people can throw blame around at a lot of those who don't deserve it. She asked me how I was doing since joining RWBY, and I lied to her that I was doing great. I asked about how her new partner was, but she was rather vague about it. I know that Jaune Arc is on her team now—a worthless moron who stumbled his way onto the second best team in the class by absolute chance. You would think that might make Pyrrha irritated, having to put up with him, having to watch hi drag down all of her hard work. But she seemed fine with it. If she was angry or frustrated, she didn't show it. Maybe that's her secret. Maybe she just hides it. She could have been annoyed that she was speaking to me right then and there, but she knew how to hide it. Maybe that perfect smile is just a façade. I know a few people who would approve of that.

Come to think of it, I really never spent any time speaking to Pyrrha beforehand. The only times I had ever had a direct conversation with her were those few minutes at the inauguration party, and the few hours I spent between being placed on her team and being whisked away into the Emerald Forest. All the familiarity I think I have with her is just through osmosis, stories told by other students and faculty. Even then, I only ever knew her public image, the face she sold to magazines and television cameras. That's all she ever puts out. I remember clearly that when I was talking to her in our dorm for those brief few hours, Nora and Ren joining us, she would always talk in these grand, empty gestures. She would always smile and talk about how we were going to be a great team together, and she would constantly express gratitude for allowing her to work with us. It was almost artificial like every syllable had been carefully thought out beforehand so that she could ensure every word she said was absolutely perfect.

There's an old scar on my forearm that I liked to cover-up whenever I can because I don't want people looking at it. It's pointless to complain about it now, all things, considered. Pyrrha's skin is as perfect as the rest of her, but something tells me she understands the concept well. The need to hide the parts of you that are ugly are overwhelming, even when others may find them mundane and uninteresting. During the last of our tests, when each of us had to fight off the golems in front of the class, I remember that Pyrrha went last. She looked to be completely in her element walking down the steps to the bottom of the arena, smiling confidently to herself as she readied herself to fight. When the battle started, she dispatched the first golem with ease, and the students immediately began cheering her on. They became enraptured with her, and to be honest, how could they not be? Watching her fight was like art, the way she elegantly dismantled her foes one at a time, dodging every blow, dashing across the battlefield without effort. Everyone was watching her sword, her shield, her footwork, but I was the only one who seemed to be looking elsewhere. I was watching her eyes. Father once told me you could learn a lot about a person by watching their eyes. In the hallway, in our dorm, walking down the stairs, her eyes spoke of false sincerity and careful empathy. But when I saw her eyes in combat, I saw them true and alive. They were vicious, focused, manipulative, and—in a way—they were almost evil. That's the Pyrrha Nikos that exists somewhere, under the cover-up, past the bright smile and perfect skin. And for a moment when I was speaking to her today, I wondered if that Pyrrha was staring back at me.

I didn't say any of this to her or anyone. I told her that I was sad that we couldn't be on a team together, and she wished me well in my future classes, saying that she hoped we would talk again soon. She was very polite when she said goodbye to me as one would expect of her. Maybe I'm overthinking all of this. I might be paranoid, and this probably doesn't matter. But this is Vale we're talking about, where things are never quite as they seem, and everyone always seems like they have something to hide. I don't dislike Pyrrha. I don't think she's a bad person. Not even remotely. But I already have one person on my list of suspicions; adding another couldn't possibly hurt.