The sun somehow manages to shine right into Yang's face the next morning. She clamps a pillow over her head, not even moving it when Blake sits down on the edge of her bed, puts a hand on her shoulder and says, "Yang."
Yang makes a noise. She rolls over.
"I'm going to Signal. I want to try and see if they have any records of the fight you had with that girl."
"You don't believe me?" Blake thinks she hears Yang say from underneath the pillow.
"No, I do." Blake says hastily. "You didn't give me a lot of detail though. You made it sound like it was all your fault, and that doesn't seem like you."
"That's not what everyone else thinks." Yang mutters to herself. She can hear the CRUNCH! of Mercury's leg again.
Blake rubs Yang's shoulder slowly. "I'm also going to look for Coco and the others. They didn't come back last night. I want to be sure they- That they're okay."
Yang makes another noise.
"I'll be back this afternoon. I promise. Your dad's taking me with him on his way to work." Blake had not been thrilled per se when Taiyang suggested it a little while ago. But she didn't remember how to get to Signal, and she also wanted to probe him about the way he treated his daughter.
"You promise?" Yang says.
"Yes I do. I promise." Blake says again. There's a lump in her throat. "You want a kiss before I go?"
Yang makes yet another noise.
"Okay. I'll let you sleep." Blake's hand brushes against the stub of Yang's right arm for a moment. "I love you."
Yang mumbles "I love you too" as Blake leaves the room. She's not sure if Blake hears it.
Yang somehow manages to haul herself out of bed a few hours later. She puts her prosthetic arm on with a wince, and Weiss's voice comes through loud and clear. "You took your time again." it observes. There's a moment of pain behind Yang's eyes while the AI adjusts to the new memories. "You've been getting busy too." it says primly.
Yang groans. "I do not want to hear this out of you right now. Or ever." She drags herself to the bathroom and tries to sort out her hair.
"Well the real Weiss supported you, so I guess I have to as well." Weiss Junior says. "I can't help but find these memories of you wanting to take things slow somewhat ironic..."
Yang makes a face at herself in the mirror. "Find that ironic." she says.
In the kitchen, Yang pours herself a glass of orange juice and begins toasting some waffles. As she waits, she wonders, "Why's it so quiet?" Then she remembers. Coco, Fox, Velvet and Yatsuhashi went into town after walking in on Blake and Yang in the same bed together. A little fire starts burning beneath Yang's belly as she remembers the way Blake had looked and felt last night.
"So dad's gone to work, Blake went with him..." She takes a sip of juice. "Guess that leaves just you and me and Neo." Zwei thumps his tail against the ground. She smiles.
He'd been curled up in his bed when she came downstairs, whining as if he was having a bad dream. When she'd scratched between his ears, he'd looked up almost immediately. He'd been wide awake. "What is it boy?" she'd asked him. Unsurprisingly, he'd failed to answer.
Now she sits with him in the kitchen. He has a bowl of dog food off to the side, but he keeps looking up at her. "You want a waffle?" Yang asks. She dangles one in the air above him. He doesn't try to jump up and get it. He just sits there whining.
Suddenly the lights go out. As Yang looks up, she realizes it's more than that. The sun has gone out.
She hurries to a window and looks outside. She can't see anything. She tries the one above the sink, then the one above the oven. She takes a step back in shock.
Neo's standing outside. She's the only thing visible. Everything else is total darkness. Neo is looking at her.
"Footage got corrupted a little." Taiyang says. "See what I mean though? It's like I told you. She just lost control."
Blake shakes her head. "I don't think that's her Semblance."
"She got hit pretty hard-" Taiyang begins.
"Not that hard." Blake says. "She might've been out of shape, but that still shouldn't have been anything to her."
"You weren't here." Taiyang says. "You don't know what she was like."
"Don't I?"
Taiyang doesn't rise to the bait. "She got winded just from walking to that rock in the clearing. Some days it was all she could do to get out of bed once. I taught her how to fight. I don't know what else it could be besides her Semblance."
"You just said she was out of shape. But even during the Battle of Beacon, she didn't-" Blake frowns. "She couldn't-" There's something there. She knows it.
"Mr Xiao Long?" someone says.
"What is it?" Taiyang says.
Blake clenches her fists and growls. I was this close!
"We've found some..." The person coughs. "Er, people in the courtyard. They're very drunk. One of them keeps saying it's time to go home. They keep mentioning your cottage."
Taiyang sighs. "I'll be right there." He turns back to Blake. "I don't know what you're expecting to find, but you've got a couple more minutes at least."
"I was right." Neo 'says' flatly.
Yang approaches her cautiously. "Neo...?"
"They're going to leave you. Just like I said they would." Her 'voice' lacks inflection, expression, even a discernible gender.
"That... That wasn't a promise. They were just warning me-"
Neo shakes her head. "If they loved you they'd stay."
Her words are like a knife to the chest. "You don't- You don't know them..." Yang tries to say.
"And your dad?" Neo continues. "He leaves you all the time. Left with something important last time. He doesn't love you. Not like you deserve."
"He loves me. He just-"
"Not like you deserve." Neo 'says' again.
Yang looks away, rubbing her eyes on the back of her hand.
Neo comes closer, her expression seeming to soften. "But I love you."
Yang looks up. "You-"
Neo nods. "You really do have a thick head don't you?" She laughs without sound. "But you don't love me. You hardly even notice me."
"I've been trying to get better," Yang says feebly.
"That doesn't mean you can't spend time with me." Neo 'says'. Her expression is angry, but her 'voice' is still blank.
Yang doesn't know what to say.
Zwei growls.
Neo glares at him. "Go fetch yourself." she 'says'. She doesn't say fetch, however.
She looks back at Yang. "If they loved you they'd stay," she 'says' again. "And kitty left you."
"She went to Signal-"
Neo shakes her head again. "She left you in the winter. Alone with tail boy. That's not racist. He has a tail. Not everyone does."
Yang is at a loss for words again.
Neo seems to sigh. She pulls a piece of paper out of nowhere. "Your sister says she's going to Haven."
"Is that from Ruby?" Yang reaches for it, but her fingers pass right through it. "Give it to me!"
Neo shatters. From behind Yang, she 'says', "We could go. Just the two of us. Help her get there, find out about the thing she doesn't want to write about."
"You mean her-" Yang barely stops herself.
"Fair is fair. Kitty left you, you leave kitty."
"That's horrible!" Yang turns around.
"It's fair though." Neo 'says'.
Yang hesitates, but only for a moment. "No," she says. "You don't know her either. You don't know what he did to her."
"What does it matter?" Neo 'says'. "She did what she did."
"It matters, because..." Yang's eyes become red. Her hair starts to smolder. "It just matters, okay?!"
Neo stares at her for a long time. Her mismatched eyes harden. "I can see I'm not going to change your mind." she 'says'. She folds the piece of paper into an airplane and shoots it into the forest.
"Hey!" Yang says. She sprints after it, but stops when she hears what Neo 'says' next.
"You could've helped her. You could've helped me. But instead you hurt me. And now I'm going to hurt her. Remember that the next time you see us."
"Neo!" Yang shouts. She turns around. Neo is gone. "Wait! NEO!"
"Well, at least they're all wearing clothes..." Taiyang grumbles.
Coco is attempting to climb one of the statues. Yatsuhashi is trying to help. "He looks just like I did!" she says.
"That was a long time ago." Fox mumbles.
"You were blinder then than you are now." Velvet says from the base of the statue.
Coco cackles so hard she falls off the statue. She rolls giddily over to Taiyang and looks up. "Hey papa Long." she says. "I'm gonna throw up."
"You do that." he says, pulling her to her feet. "Just...somewhere else, okay?"
Velvet looks up as well. "Oh hey Blake." she says. "You've kinda got six ears now, did you know?"
Blake nods hurriedly. "Velvet. When was the last time you emptied your camera's memory? Or... whatever it's called."
Velvet tries to think. "Uhmmmm..." she says. "It must've been before the tournament. Or after? I haven't had much time to take snaps." She cocks her head to the side, wobbling so drastically Blake's almost worried it's going to fall off her neck. "Why? Do you want me to take photos of you? Like, lewd ones? Cause I don't do that. People say I do but I don't."
Blake shakes her head. "No." she says. "Your camera. Can I see it?"
"You mean see it, or..." Blake holds out her hands. "Okay." Velvet fumbles in her bag. "Just a second... just a second..." Her ears prick up. "There!" She passes it to Blake. "Two seconds!"
"Thanks." Blake looks at the box. "Uh, how do I-"
"You want a sp- Speci- Spacific one?" It almost sounds like 'specific', but not quite.
"Yeah. I want to know if you took any during Yang and Weiss's fight in the doubles round."
"Ooh! Those're doooooozies!" Velvet tries to stand up. Blake helps her, pulling on her arm a little too hard in her impatience. "Ow!"
"Sorry." Blake says. "I'm not sure why I'm so anxious..." She hands the box back to Velvet, who fumbles with it for a moment before she produces her camera.
"'ere we are!" she crows.
Blake takes a look. "This is of Coco getting plastered." she says.
"I know!" Velvet says. "I got it turned on!" She nudges Blake. "Geddit? Like you and Y-"
"I got it." Blake says hastily. She looks at Taiyang to see if he'd heard. Luckily, he's trying to pull Coco off the statue again.
Velvet clumsily thumbs through screen after screen. "It's not on here." she says abruptly.
"What?" Blake's heart falls through the ground.
"Yeah." Velvet looks at her. Even in her thoroughly inebriated state she can tell that Blake is upset. "'m sorry." Then her expression brightens. "It might be on one of the backups!" She hurries back to her bag.
Blake watches her, not daring to get her hopes up.
"Blake..." Fox almost hisses.
She jumps. "What?" she snaps.
"We should go home." he says.
She glares at him.
"Something is happening." he says.
She keeps glaring at him.
"Not our home." he says at last. "Yours." He frowns. "No." he says. "Theirs. Hers."
"Hers?" she says. "You mean Yang?"
He nods.
"Found it!" Velvet cries.
Blake whirls around. "Where?" she asks.
"Here!" she says, holding up a black cartridge. "I need something to show it on."
"You can use my Scroll." Taiyang offers. No sooner have the words left his mouth than Blake snatches it away from him and attaches the cartridge to it.
He and Velvet gather around as Blake looks through the photos. Suddenly she sees it. "There!" she says, pointing to a blurry orange smear that's beginning to form a crater on the field.
Even Taiyang sees it. "...Ember Celica?" he asks half-heartedly.
Blake flips to the next picture. "THAT'S Ember Celica." she says. Ember Celica's blast is a tiny red spark in comparison.
Velvet is leaning a little heavily on Blake's shoulder. She's starting to snore.
"So what is it?" Taiyang asks.
Blake smiles, finally at ease. "Vindication." she says.
CFVY is too drunk to travel, so Taiyang tries sending them to the infirmary. It doesn't go well.
Coco climbs the statue yet again, hollering at the top of her lungs, "You'll never take me alive coppers!" It takes four guards to get her down and subdue her, and all the while she tries to flirt with them.
Fox at least deigns to cooperate, but he's either unable or unwilling to assist the guards in dealing with Coco.
Velvet just vanishes. The last Blake hears, the faculty is close to turning the entire campus upside down looking for her. Blake can't really blame Velvet. Most Faunus have a tendency to run and hide in the face of persecution. Velvet's probably too drunk to realize these guards at least mean well.
Yatsuhashi tries vanishing too as a gesture of solidarity. His stature makes him much easier to find than Velvet.
Everything seems quiet when Blake and Taiyang return to the house. Zwei bounds up to them, looking anxious. "Hey boy!" Taiyang says. "Have the girls been behaving?"
Zwei whines.
Blake finds herself reaching for Gambol Shroud. "Something's not right." she murmurs.
Music can suddenly be heard from somewhere inside. Only Blake can make out the words. "Ain't she sweet? See her comin' down the street. Now I ask you very confidentially: ain't she sweet?"
Taiyang seems to agree. "I'll check the outside of the house. You look for Yang."
"Ain't she nice? Look her over once or twice. Now I ask you very confidentially: ain't she nice?"
"Why me?" Blake asks.
He looks at her.
"Just cast an eye in her direction. Oh me oh my, ain't that perfection?"
"...oh." Blake's ears flatten. "Is it really that obvious?"
"Is what obvious?" he says.
"Oh. I thought-" Blake blushes as Taiyang frowns a little at her. "Never mind." she says.
With that, they go their separate ways. Zwei waddles off with Tai, which Blake finds herself somewhat grateful for.
Before she can even make it across the threshold, she notices something. "Power's out." she calls.
"Yeah. The generator's been unplugged." Taiyang shouts back.
She takes a step inside the house, wincing at the noise. There's a Scroll on the living room table. Upon picking it up, she discovers it's been set to repeat a single song with ten seconds between plays: Ain't She Sweet. She turns it off. The sudden silence is oppressive, and with the sun behind thick dark clouds, it would be hard for a human to see anything in here. "I guess Tai made the right call in sending me in." she says to no one in particular.
Her first stop is the kitchen. She checks each of the corners carefully, first with her eyes, then with her hand.
Her Scroll buzzes. She jumps. "Kitchen is clear." she says once she pulls it out and sets it to video.
"So's Yang's workout station." Taiyang says. His voice is growing hard with tension. "You check upstairs?"
"On my way." She uses a shadow clone to help put her Scroll behind Gambol Shroud's pistol component while she aims it, then heads up the stairs. "Guest room empty. Looks like Neo cleared out of here in a hurry."
"I'm calling Signal." Taiyang says. "Soon as you're done meet me out here. We'll sweep the woods again."
Again? Blake thinks. "Hold on. The door to Yang and Ruby's room is closed." She tries the handle. "Where's the key?"
"My room, on top of the doorframe."
Blake remembers the look in Neo's eyes when she had signed mine the day before yesterday. "We might not have time!" she says. "I'll pay for the repair bill."
"Blake-" Taiyang says. She stops as she's about to raise her foot. "Be careful." he says after a long moment. Too long for Blake's tastes.
She kicks the door down and looks inside, checking to her left to make sure Neo isn't lying in wait. She double-checks with her arm to be sure.
Then she notices who is waiting for her.
Adam.
His sword drips with blood. Drip. Drip. Drip.
"Welcome back, my darling." he says.
There's a lump on Yang's bed.
It isn't moving.
Blake's heart stops moving too.
"No," she says. "No. You can't- You were in Mistral."
"You should have known it was too convenient," Adam says. "The spy sent to watch you happens to be carrying a Scroll with incriminating details in an outdated cipher? And happens to let go of it without so much as a proper fight?" He shakes his head. "Your parents will never know what happened to you. An accident? A rogue Grimm?" He advances toward her.
She shrinks back against the wall, too frightened even to reach for Gambol Shroud.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Suddenly something catches her eye. The lump on Yang's bed seems to move.
"Yang!" Blake says. She sprints past Adam in the blink of an eye. "Yang," she whispers through the tears flooding down her face. "Are you okay?"
Beneath the covers the lump moves.
"Go away Blake." it says in Yang's voice. "You're not even here."
Blake's heart lurches. Adam let her go. He wanted her right where she is, next to Yang.
She whirls. His sword is raised. It's pointed right at her.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Her mind races. She wonders if she has time to knock him off balance before he impales them both.
But something doesn't add up. The door... The dog...
His sword is in motion. There isn't time. She throws herself over Yang. "I'm sorry." she whispers.
She waits.
Nothing happens.
She waits some more.
Still, nothing happens.
She opens her eyes and looks over her shoulder. His sword seems as if it should be inside her, but it isn't.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
"Sorry isn't good enough." 'Adam' says in Yang's voice.
Blake's legs give way beneath her. She falls to the floor, where Taiyang finds her several minutes later.
She opens her eyes again.
"Blake!" Taiyang says. He's crouching in front of her. "What happened?"
"I'm fine." she tells him.
"You didn't answer my question. I heard you talking to someone over the Scroll, you- You said they were in Mistral."
"I don't want to talk about it."
Taiyang frowns. "That makes two of you." He stands up. "I think that's Yang under the blankets. She won't talk to me either."
"Let me try." Blake staggers to her feet and approaches the bed. "Yang? I'm here. I'm real."
"No you're not." Yang says from beneath the covers. "Go away Blake."
Blake gently puts a hand on the lump. "I'm real." she says again. "I promise."
Like dad promised he was done drinking? Yang thinks to herself. She hates her bitterness as soon as it comes, and says nothing.
There's a commotion downstairs. Blake turns her head.
"That's the folks from Signal." Taiyang says. "I forgot to call them off." He makes his way to where the door should be. "Seems like you've got things under control." he adds, not without a touch of his own bitterness. And he leaves.
Blake doesn't see him go. She rubs her hand back and forth against the lump that is Yang. "What happened?" she asks. "Where's Neo?"
The lump moves a little. "I don't want to talk about it." she mutters.
"Okay." Blake says. She continues rubbing what she thinks to be Yang's shoulder. "I-" She starts to tremble. "When I came in here, I saw- I saw Adam. I thought you were dead. I thought he killed you-" She starts to cry.
Gradually the lump uncurls. Purple eyes, streaked with blood from crying, peer out. A hesitant hand reaches for Blake's. Blake sobs all the more when she feels Yang's touch against hers.
Yang fumbles with the covers, finally managing to throw them back as she sits up and pulls Blake close into a hug.
Neither of them have anything to say.