Hello everybody, and welcome back to another chapter of RWBY BA!

There's not much to say aside from the fact that there's a retrospective today. With that out of the way, let's just get right into the chapter! Thanks again to my beta for all of their help!

Beta Reader: Ruby's Knight

"Ruby, wait up!" My partner let out a long wheeze, taking several gulps of air as she trailed behind me. The only thing I could hear in the otherwise empty stadium concourse were our footsteps. Everyone, and I mean everyone, had left the place. They're most likely up in the stadium bleachers, eager to watch the next fight. Weiss let out a gasp. "Why are we running? … It's not like… we bought last minute snacks… before the match started."

I glanced back at the girl. The distance between me and Weiss grew bigger by the second. I slowed myself down just a bit, enough to not outpace my partner. A grin formed on my face. "We're trying to get seats! Why else would we be rushing over?"

That got Weiss to raise her eyebrows. "Seats? Are you… serious? Ruby, we don't need… to rush for… seats, we already have… a section… for the students! We don't need… to run… so hard!"

"There is! I need to get into the perfect position to watch over everything!" I staggered the moment I felt my stomach churn. Ooh boy… I slowed down to a limping pace, pressing my hand against my stomach at the same time. I pushed myself too hard. My gods, it was a bad idea to run so hard on a full stomach. Still, I kept onwards, limping my way forwards. "We might have a guaranteed area we can sit at, but I also have to spread my rose petals throughout the stadium without drawing attention. Any seat that takes me through a long, winding path will help with that. And don't you think walking around when everyone's seated looks suspicious?"

Weiss let out a gasp of confusion. "Doesn't it work… the opposite? You wander around… because there's no seat— Why do I bother arguing with you?" She finally caught up to me, wheezing as she grabbed my shoulder. "Just… just give me a moment. Running on a full stomach isn't good for you."

A groan escaped my mouth. "I know… You don't need to tell me twice. But look, Weiss." I pointed at the entrance to the stands. "We're right there. We can make it. All we have to do is push just a little harder. Just a little further, and we're at our goal."

My partner didn't say a word for the longest time. I turned my head to see Weiss pressing her lips tightly into a line. A curious hum escaped my mouth. "Weiss?"

"Hmm?" The girl locked eyes with me. "Oh, of course. Sorry about that. My mind blanked out for a moment. It's not fun to go through all of this pain." My partner let out a groan, rubbing her stomach. "But I think I'm better now. Let's get up there."

One thing that came to mind as I entered the stands was just how different it felt compared to being on stage. The situation definitely flipped around for me. Down in the arena, it felt like the world towered around us during our match, millions and millions of people watching our every single move like a hawk. I shivered. It felt like we were carrying everyone on our backs while we were fighting, and, granted, we were to an extent. So much pressure fighting down there…

But here in the stands, it's completely different. Instead of being the main attraction, we're just another part of the crowd. There weren't any eyes on us this time around; instead, the crowd just chatted amongst each other, waiting for the match between JNPR and BRNZ to start. I let out a comfortable sigh, sinking a bit into my boots. It feels nice to not have the pressure to succeed that comes with competing. There isn't any worry about messing up in front of millions of people around the world. That's a nice change of pace, at least. But now there's a different kind of weight on our shoulders. The fate of Remnant very well rests on what happens here.

We started towards the student section of the bleachers. I can feel parts of my feet and torso breaking down into rose petals before slipping down and collecting within my boots. Every step I made shook a couple of petals out before they slipped under the seats. Already they drifted through the stadium at a leisurely pace, spreading themselves out for the task at hand.

My breath hitched for a moment. Let's see if this works. I closed my eyes, bringing me to a grayscale world. Yup, I could sense a lot more of the colosseum now. Like… wow. I can sense everything and everyone moving in the stadium all at once. The breathing of thousands of people, the tiny movements they would make in their seats, the scurrying of the insects within the actual structure— I winced. Whew… I opened my eyes again. That's a lot of things to pay attention to. I can feel the strain that had on my mind. It's going to take a while getting used to all of this information. I wonder if Fox has a method to deal with this. A hum escaped my mouth. Maybe I should ask him if I run into him again.

I glanced at the waves of people already seated. It doesn't seem like anyone noticed the rose petals traveling around their feet for no apparent reason. There was a tiny infant we passed by that cooed at me, but they didn't draw too much attention to us. From the looks of it, nobody's noticed anything. I think we're in the clear for now.

The two of us slowed down as we crossed into the student seating area. Okay… I rested my chin on my hand. Where should we sit now? On one hand, it makes a bit of sense that I should sit higher up. That way, I can see more of the stadium. But at the same time, if something happens in the arena instead of the stands, we can just leap over the barrier and start fighting. But what's going to be the more likely choice? The results of 「HOCUS POCUS」appeared in my mind. That user went for the crowd itself, but at the same time, there's more than one way to draw negativity. Something happening in the arena would also create a ton of negativity. My eyebrows wrinkled. Just what can I do—

"Oh hey, isn't that Ruby and Weiss over there?" That snapped me out of my thoughts. Huh? Who was that? I looked around for the voice. Where did it come from? "Over here." I turned to see Emerald waving at us with a half-smile on her face. Mercury sat to the right of her, while Cinder sat to her left. Cinder's attention wasn't focused on us, but instead on something in her lap. She still gave us a quick nod, never looking up from her task. The mint-haired girl gestured to us. "Hey guys! Do you guys need somewhere to sit?"

"Yeah," I answered, waving back. "Do you guys have any space?"

She nodded in response. "Well, we still have a couple of empty seats next to our team, so if you want, you can sit with us."

"Really?" I grinned as the last petal got itself into place. "Thanks, Emerald! You're the best!" I rushed over to her and gave her a hug before plopping down next to Cinder. Weiss followed close behind, sitting to the left of me before taking out her scroll and opening something. A sigh escaped my mouth. "Whew, man am I tired!"

"That doesn't surprise me." Cinder turned her head and gave me a nod before returning to her own thing. "After all, going through that fight must've taken a lot out of you and your team."

"Yup." I glanced down at Cinder's lap before raising an eyebrow. Rested there was a notebook. Within the notebook was a rough sketch of what looked to be a series of circles around an oval. The black-haired girl worked quickly, adding lines and strokes with a flick of a pencil. Bit by bit, the drawing was fleshed out. Circles became heads of hair. The arena grew out of the oval with every flick the girl made. Small birds emerged from the paper with a few strokes.

After maybe five or so minutes after I sat down, Cinder placed her dulled pencil within the loop rings before marveling at the pencil drawing of the Amity from our point of view. My jaw dropped. Wow… there's so much detail. She perfectly captured every single feature, and it didn't look like she was even trying!

"Oh my gods…" I breathed out in awe. "Cinder, you can draw?"

"Hmm?" Her head shot towards me. "Oh, right. I do pencil sketches on occasion. You can say it's more of a hobby than anything else. It was an easy way to keep my mind off of things when I was younger."

"You can do all that… and this is just a hobby for you?" My jaw dropped even farther. "But you're so good at it! Like, you can sell these pictures to people kind of good! I can only wish I could be that good at drawing! Well, I'm okay with weapon design, but that's completely different from people, animals, buildings, and so on. But you can do all that without any effort! How do you do that?"

That got Cinder to smirk, just a little. "It's nothing special. I've been doing it since childhood. You just keep doing it. Look at reality, look at the details, and replicate it and improve upon it. Once you reach a certain point, it's just practice."

"Practice?" I pouted. "Oh man, that's going to take forever, though…"

Weiss sat up at that moment. "Wait… Cinder, you said that you drew since childhood, right?" The black-haired girl nodded. "We never saw you draw during your time here."

"Oh, I pushed that off to the side when I started my journey," Cinder shrugged. "With all of the work needed to make it to Vale and to the Vytal Festival, I never really got the chance to come back to it. But I guess now when we're so close to the end, it's nice to return to a childhood pastime. A chance to enjoy simple pleasures before moving towards an unknown future. After all, who knows how much life might change?"

"But enough about my drawings. There's another match coming up soon. Speaking of which, the results of your match was definitely a surprise." Her eyes narrowed as a smile grew on her face. "I did not expect your team to lose, especially after the early advantage you guys managed to gain on team ABRN."

"Heheh, yeah… We didn't expect it either." I chuckled while rubbing the back of my neck.

Cinder nodded, letting out a hum. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened back there in the arena? Losing control of the situation like that seems so… out of place."

"Wha— I guess we just weren't expecting Arslan to put up that hard of a fight!" Another laugh escaped my mouth as a bead of sweat ran down my face. "I can't really say for the others, but I started hesitating the moment Blake went down. And well… I couldn't really react fast enough to Arslan pulling off a stunt like that. Shooting a Dust crystal and blowing us up, that's a plan just desperate enough to work on us. We did our best, but Arslan managed to get us by surprise."

"Really? Something as simple as that, huh?" The girl in the sarashi smirked. "My team had this crazy theory that somebody tampered with the tournament. That the odds were rigged to make your team lose when you had every right to win." Cinder shrugged her shoulders. "But good thing it was just a bad theory. After all, this is a festival promoting the unity of all of the Kingdoms. A place where people can share a common purpose. It would be a shame if such a festival was disrupted."

At that moment, Professor Port's booming voice echoed through the arena. "Welcome back to the Vytal Festival! It's now time—"

"Well, looks like the next match is going to start." The leader of CMEN turned back towards the arena. "I wonder who will be performing next— Oh wait, it was your sister team, right Ruby?"

I nodded. "The fight's between JNPR and… I think it was BRNZ. I think this fight is going to be really interesting. JNPR has a lot of strong people, especially with Nora and Pyrrha. Those guys alone can probably take on any team that gets thrown at them. But at the same time…" I glanced at Nolan's team walking onto the stage with a round of applause. "Team BRNZ is pretty good as well. Their sniper is a pretty good shot, and with the rest of her team defending her on the ground and distracting the enemies, she can deal a lot of damage."

"It seems like a good plan on paper." Cinder leaned her head against her uncovered hands. "A solid defense strategy. Also practical. There's a defensive line that can potentially protect non-combatants, and the dedicated damage dealer can whittle down anything trying to break through the line. Given enough ammo and time, the formation can hold as long as the line doesn't break. It's the perfect use of team cohesion for a solid goal." She sighed. "There's just one problem with it."

"Huh?" I turned to look at her. "What do you mean—"

Professor Oobleck interrupted me. "And now, let me introduce you to Beacon's team JNPR!" The crowd went wild, drowning out my voice and diverting my attention back onto the stage. I cheered with the rest of the crowd at the sight of my friends. Nora bounced forwards, waving towards everyone with a bounce in her step. Then out came Ren in a refined yet rushed manner as he chased after his childhood friend, barely giving a glance at the crowd. Pyrrha stepped out into the ring, taking long, regal strides. Several members of the crowd let out wild whoops and whistles at the sight of the Mistralian champion back in the arena. Then finally came out Jaune, scratching the back of his neck while giving the crowd a timid wave.

Port cleared his throat as JNPR took their spots. "Well then! This is going to be an exciting match! The only thing left to do is spin to determine where these combatants are fighting!" Everyone went silent once the symbols went up. Oh yeah! I should check on the stands now for anything happening. I closed my eyes, bringing me back to the sensation of 'seeing' the entire arena at once. My forehead wrinkled. Anybody doing anything suspicious?

Most of the movement I can make out is either the fidget of an individual or the bugs— ugh, crawling through the cracks. I shivered. Who knew that being able to sense that much movement would be so unnerving? But anyways, nobody's doing anything suspicious. And to be honest, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

I opened my eyes again to see a steep mountain and a dense forest surrounding the center stage. The two teams stood at the ready, bodies tensing for the event to come. I heard a hum escape from the Grimm Studies professor. "Let's not wait any longer! Begin!" Both teams sprung forwards, weapons out and already swinging.

Cinder turned to look at me again. "Right, so what were you going to say to me?"

My eyebrows sank in confusion. "Huh— Oh!" I nodded my head. "Yeah, that's right. What do you mean? By the problem with team BRNZ's strategy."

"I did say there was something wrong, huh… Well, think of it like this." Cinder gestured with her hand. "Taking on a defensive strategy is a good idea… when dealing with a creature that doesn't value strategy."

"You mean Grimm."

"It could be regular animals too, I don't discriminate. The point is that such a formation falls apart when facing a team of Huntsmen who are trained to go against other Huntsmen. Unintelligent creatures will just slam into the wall and die. But all a Huntsmen team has to do is find or create a chink in the wall for one person to slip through and go for the sniper. Now normally, a good defensive team would not let this chink form. But at your— our year, we don't always realize that. Look."

She pointed at the arena. Team JNPR was currently behind a giant boulder, hunkering down as several sniper rounds chipped away at the stone structure. Team BRNZ ran towards their opponents, breaking the line. Wait a minute… I narrowed my eyes. Now they're splitting up and fighting all of the members one-on-one? "Why in the world are they breaking the formation?"

"Exactly my point." Cinder crossed her arms. "The team is leaving the formation, their safest option to take down the enemy as soon as possible. Now the sniper's left open for attack, since going into one-vs-one combat means that one opponent will be free to attack the sniper. And even if one person can get into a two-vs-one fight, how long would it take until somebody realizes that they should take out the sniper? Then it returns back to the broken formation. Which brings up the question: why have a formation like that if all you're going to do with it is break it apart?"

"Well… maybe they need a way to flush out anyone hiding," I countered. "A sniper can only shoot what she sees."

"Possibly… but then why have all three members rush out? Why not leave one lone person to guard the sniper?" The girl snapped her fingers, creating a spark of flames. "There's no team cohesion; they're just doing whatever comes naturally to them without considering the bigger picture. They are failing at the goal set upon them."

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow. "And what would that be?"

"Eliminating the other team from combat." A smirk grew on her face. "This really is backwards, huh. All of this. Using a defensive strategy to fight an offensive battle. This kind of thinking hinders the potential of Huntsmen and their ability to protect others. And then these fights destroy the entire point of having this festival—"

"What are you saying, Cinder?" The girl looked surprised, amber eyes locking into mine. I continued: "You're not making much sense… the Vytal Tournament isn't the thing destroying the Festival, it's the highlight of the event! How does the tournament go against what the festival stands for?"

Cinder's smile dropped. "Right… This is difficult to explain… I guess the best way to go about it is to ask you a question." The girl adjusted her vest. "Tell me, what's the goal of the Vytal Festival?"

"Huh?" I narrowed my eyes. "Well… to create unity amongst Kingdoms."

She nodded her head. "Now what's the goal of a match between two teams in the tournament? what are they trying to do to each other?"

"They're trying to win and beat the other side."

"Right again. Now, we have teams from Vale, Atlas, Mistral, and Vacuo fighting against each other, trying to eliminate each other in the name of 'unity'. And what do the champions of the tournament win? Bragging rights for their respective Kingdom. Now how in the world is that supposed to unite the people of Remnant?"

I let out a hum as I considered her words. "Well, it's friendly competition. We fight in a friendly environment to show that Remnans have moved past warring amongst each other. It shows that we can have conflict yet still be friends at the end of the day." Now that got Cinder's attention. Her mouth opened just a little in shock of what I just said. I scratched the side of my head. "Maybe it's not obvious since you didn't fight yet, but when my team fought, we weren't doing it to win. We were doing it to make our Kingdom proud. We fought in acknowledgment of Mistral's strength. It's like pups play fighting. It looks vicious, but they go back to being friends once it's over. We're just like that."

That shook her out of her funk. "I don't think so. We're not just individuals who can rough and tumble then move past it the next day. Huntsmen teams are bigger than that. They represent the might of the Kingdoms. Whether we like it or not, Remnans are influenced by a group mentality, showing loyalty to their Kingdom's respective Huntsmen team. And they get attached to their team to the point that they take any event personally. Maybe the Huntsmen feel just like what you think, Ruby, but the average civilian won't. They'll see loss, they'll see weakness, and they'll feel weak. They'll feel like losers, they'll feel anger for losing to another team, and that attracts Grimm. That's not unity."

I tried opening my mouth, only for Cinder to hold her hand up, hardening her stare. "I'm not done. Think about it this way. Competition is by its nature conflict. What these people do is put two groups together, give them opposing tasks, and ask them to put another group down in order to achieve said goal. That is not how you achieve unity. It's just deliberate infighting that people pay to watch. What is that supposed to teach us? That in order to be united, we should fight each other and promote a sense of tribalism? You might as well just throw out the Great Peace and just fight each other again on the battlefields! At least then, we wouldn't be lying to ourselves about what we're doing!"

She slammed her hands into the side handles and gripped them hard. Weiss and I reeled back in surprise as we watched the normally calm girl tense up. Cinder's breathing grew more rapid and shallow. Oh my gods… where did that come from? The black-haired girl let out a long sigh, slipping back into her seat. "Sorry. That was too far." She shook her head and grabbed the base of her nose. "Still, I just can't understand how big hypocrites we are for fighting each other in the name of peace."

A silence lingered between the two of us as we turned back to the match at hand. JNPR started to take the lead, pushing the line back while Nora started to scale the mountain. Cinder coughed into her hand. "Ruby, do you remember what I said way back? About me wanting to bring justice to Remnant? How I wanted to create a new world without suffering, struggling, or fighting?" Hmm… oh yeah, she did say something like that. I nodded my head.

Cinder continued: "This is what I mean. Our society is imbalanced. We say something, but then do another thing. All of us say we're doing this for peace and unity, but we fight each other and risk an attack from the Grimm. The Faunus were promised to be equal, but they still struggle with no end in sight. We promise to bring prosperity, but poor people struggle through life without any hope." She formed a fist with her hand. "And why is our society imbalanced? It's because there are tiny cracks in it. Cracks that we made with every tiny mistake we've made."

The girl relaxed. "It's like a ceramic pot. When it's first created, it's whole and unified. But over time, cracks start to form. A small bump here, a jostle there. It builds up, it fragments everyone, but it stays intact for now. And in the pot, some pieces are just bigger than other pieces. That is society. We say that we're together, but these cracks in society split it, creating conflicting interest. And some groups just have it better than other groups. They have more." She wrapped her hand around a fist.

"We might be holding up, still together, but we're not whole. And worst of all, no one wants to be whole. We insist on remaining cracked, remaining broken when what we need is to remake the pot, make it stronger, make sure it won't shatter again. We all need to be strong, we all need to go back and become a single thing. Then we'll be balanced. Then there will be justice."

I blinked once, then twice before letting out a squeak. Wow. Just… wow. What do Emerald and Mercury think about that? Before I could ask, four buzzers rang out soon after. "And the match is finally over!" Port yelled over the sounds of cheering. "Give a round of applause to team JNPR for their victory!" Wha— I turned to face the arena. Most of JNPR was panting, exhausted as can be. But they're all still standing compared to all of team BRNZ, who were all lying next to each other outside the arena.

One blink later, I found myself pushing myself up to a standing position, hands around my mouth. "YEAH TEAM JPNR!" I let out a laugh as I waved at my victorious friends. All of them waved back. My heart surged with pride. I should've expected this to happen. Of course they were going to win. Team JNPR has a ton of strong people, and Jaune is pretty smart with his Stand. It would be more of a surprise if they didn't win. But even then, it still made me happy that they're progressing into the next round. Jaune's now free to help out with the search for the White Fang, and we can continue our plan in earnest.

My knuckle rapped on the side handle next to my partner. Weiss yawned a moment later, standing up. "That was a good match. By the way, call me when you're ready to leave for the day."

Emerald stuck her head out. "Really? Where are you going?"

"Wandering around. Honestly, watching people fight isn't really my thing." The heiress brushed herself off. "I'm thinking I'll just explore the Amity Colosseum, enjoy the architecture, talk to people, broaden my horizons, all that."

The mint-haired girl cocked her eyebrow up. "So basically… heiress stuff?" Weiss shrugged her shoulders. Emerald nodded. "Hmm… okay, I guess." The mint-haired girl shrugged. "I mean I don't really understand why you wouldn't want to watch people fight when it's the one thing the Amity Colosseum has to offer, but that's your thing, I guess."

"Well, I watched this one to know how well my friends perform," Weiss countered. "There isn't anybody else that I feel like watching."

That caused Emerald to raise an eyebrow. "Oh? Nobody? There isn't anyone that you want to watch?" My partner shook her head. "No classmates, no potential rivals?" A grin formed on the darker-skinned girl's face. "Not even a certain blue-haired stud?"

Weiss's eyes widened. "How do you know—"

"About that guy on team SSSN? I mean come on, it was obvious right from the dance." Emerald leaned back in her seat, placing her hands behind her head. "Anybody on that dance floor could see those googly eyes you'd been giving him. Who wouldn't? He doesn't look that half bad for a guy who goes all Casanova with the hearts of several foreign girls. I think his match is coming up next, you know."

"Well— I mean—" Weiss turned beet red. "It didn't go anywhere! I'm over him, I swear!"

"Yeah… sure." Right now the mint-haired girl looked like she hit the jackpot with that grin on her face. "But go ahead and leave if you really feel that way. Sounds great that you've moved past your crush with him."

"I will." My partner nodded. "It's good to see you guys again." And with that, she started wading her way out of the stands.

Laughter broke out next to me as soon as Weiss was out of sight. I turned to see Emerald in a fit of laughter. "Oh, that face was priceless! She really does have a crush on the boy! Gotten over it, hah! She probably has a picture of him as her background image on her scroll."

Cinder stood up as well. "I'll leave as well. I'm going to need a bit of a break after what just happened. Watching these fights get me riled up way too easily. I'm thinking about just going back to Beacon to rest up. Maybe tomorrow I can find a bit more enjoyment in the fighting without worrying about all of the implications of it." She turned to look at her teammates. "Emerald, Mercury. You two enjoy yourselves. I don't want to spoil your fun."

"Alright then, Cinder." Mercury waved at his leader as she walked away. "So…" He turned towards me. "I guess it's just you, me, and Emerald then."

"Yup," I answered, scooting to fill in the space left behind by Cinder. My rose petals still don't show any signs of any major movement.

"Great!" Mercury grinned. "We'll have a grand old time together! By the way, how caught up are you with comics in general? Because the recent issue of X-Ray and Vav just came out, and there's a ton of great moments in there…"

All was quiet on the Beacon front as Yang and I walked through the streets of our school. There weren't a lot of people around our area, just a couple of students and staff walking around in the orange glow of the early evening. It was a nice change of pace from earlier today. I shuddered at the memories of way too many tourists storming Beacon, letting out oohs and ahhs as they made their way towards the fairgrounds. The suffocation of being in that crowd… Good thing most of them are watching the fights now. We don't need to deal with any more people like that.

My partner let out a groan, giving the area one more glance before turning towards me. "Still nothing… Blake, can we just move on? We've searched this one street to pieces, and there's still no sign of the Cupid. There's no point wasting any more time here." My eyes flitted towards Yang. It's true. We didn't see the Cupid in the area. But still, there could be something that could give us an idea of where it could be, like a nest, droppings or claw marks. All the usual signs of Grimm presence. But nothing. I knew that the Cupid was intelligent to a certain degree, but to be able to hide all of its tracks this well? We might need to change how we approach this.

"Right," I sighed. "I know this wasn't going to be easy, but this Cupid makes everything so much harder. There's no way to track the thing at all."

Yang let out another long groan as she walked towards a nearby bench and plopped herself down on it. "You'd think it would at least leave some kind of clue to where it could be. But without any way of tracking it down, what's the point? All we know is that it's somehow centralized around Beacon." My partner let out a hum. "Wait a minute…"

"What, Yang?"

"You know what? We might be thinking about this wrong." The blonde-haired girl wagged her finger. "We've been looking for the Cupid around public areas without any luck, right?" I nodded my head. "Originally we did this because we thought the Cupid would be more likely to pick out random people to hit with the Arrow."

I nodded. "That's true. But then Jaune told us how the enemy most likely picked its target, which is why we're looking for it now—" I stopped. Wait a minute… why are we looking for it in an open area? I said it myself, the Cupid most likely has no need to reveal itself. So why would it be in a public area? Anybody can see it, not just Stand users. So why cause a scene now? If anything, shouldn't it be in hiding until the attack?

My eyes widened. We're wasting our time. We could've just cut out searching the public areas of Beacon and focused on the private areas. Sewers, worker areas, dorms. That's where we need to search to find the Cupid. That's where it would do all of its business. And that means that we could potentially find out who is controlling the Cupid in the first place!

"Oh my gods Yang," I whispered, finally breaking the silence between us. "You're right. We're focusing on the wrong locations. We're not trying to look for where the Cupid could ambush any passerby. We need to know where it's hiding out." My faunus ears twitched at the thought of a lead. "The Cupid has to be working with somebody else. We need to check all of the private areas." I pulled out my scroll and started scrolling through several images of our school. "The Headmaster should have the staff areas under some form of surveillance, which means that we can just narrow our search to the dormitories. Now I should have this somewhere— Here!"

I stopped at a general floor schematic of our dorm building before showing it to Yang. "Three floors, twenty or so rooms each. This is a map of the building every student has been staying. It shouldn't be that hard to get a list from the Headmaster of who is roomed up with which room and check every team for any signs."

"Yeah… yeah! And we can take down whichever team has the Cupid, and save the day!" A grin grew on my partner's face. "Of course! The majority of the teams should be at the Amity Colosseum all day. Plenty of time to sneak into other people's homes and search them! Although…" The blonde girl let out a sigh. "How are we going to get in,? It's going to be suspicious if we just smash our way in. Maybe if the Headmaster gives us a master key—"

"No need. I have my Stand, remember?" I started summoning 「SANDE MOUNTAINS」before looking at Yang. Oh wait. She can't see my Stand. I shrugged my shoulders as I called it back. "But I can crawl under the door and get in that way. Then I can just let you in— Actually…" I held my hand up. "No, actually you're better off if you kept watch for any signs of the teams coming back."

"Huh? But—"

"Let me explain. The last thing we need is for somebody to walk into us searching somebody's room. No matter whose room we get caught in, that's going to alert the enemy that we're on to them." I let out a sigh. "We'll lose the only advantage we have against the White Fang and the Cupid. No matter how much easier and faster it would be if we both searched the rooms, we can't afford to get caught. That's why we have to do it like this."

Yang opened her mouth as if to argue, only to sigh in defeat. "Yeah, I guess. We did say we couldn't afford to mess this up. So, I guess we should go back and ask the Headmaster for the housing list?" She looked into the evening sky, whistling at the sight of drifting airbuses. "I think everybody's starting to come back right now, so we can't actually search today. But once we get the list, we can start our search first thing tomorrow."

I nodded. "Mmhm." We turned around and started towards home.

We were both silent during the trip back. "Blake," Yang asked after what felt like forever. "About being a Stand user… what is it like? I mean I know you haven't been doing it for as long as Ruby or Jaune, but you still must know enough to have some thoughts on it." I blinked. Being a Stand user… Gods, it hasn't even been a month since I've been hit by the Arrow. And within three weeks I wreck a cafe, fight through the streets of Beacon, watch a fellow faunus blow his brains out—

"Uh, Blake?"

"Huh?" I snapped back to Yang. She gave me a look of concern.

"You know, if you don't want to say what it's like I completely understand. It's just— I don't know, it never felt right to ask that in front of everyone when we're worrying about the end of the world and everything." Yang ran her hand down her hair. "But if the question's uncomfortable for you to answer, I can just stop—"

"No, it's fine. I was just thinking about how to answer the question. It's not that easy." I brushed my hair back. "I guess the best way to describe this is… overwhelming? It's a heavy burden to carry. Our Stand abilities strain our understanding of the world around us. We get into mind-bending fights that force us to think on our feet or risk dying. We often push ourselves to the limit just to win. And on top of that, the majority of the world can't understand what we can see." I glanced at Yang. "Well, you're one of the exceptions, and even then that's because of a coincidence."

I sighed. "It's very lonely. And that's saying a lot, I like to be on my own. At least with me going off on my own, I know I have somebody to come back to when I want company. But I can't go off talking about the Stands to anyone. I can't reach out to people and talk about the constant conflict we're expected to go through simply because we have Stands. We're lucky that we happen to have such a dense concentration of Stand users here."

My eyes flickered to the floating colosseum in the distance. "Once the tournament is over, it'll just be you, me, Ruby, Weiss, Jaune, and the Headmaster who knows about the Stands. Once we graduate, we might not even have each other, depending on how cruel fate is to us." I grimaced. "And we have to take this secret to our graves. No one will remember us for what we do right now."

Yang let out a long sigh. "My gods, Blake—"

"You don't need to say anything. We all accepted that this was bound to happen. At least to a certain degree." I brought my eyes back to the street in front of me. "Now that I think about it, every Stand user here received their Stands against their will. They didn't have any say on whether they wanted this life or not. In a sense, we're all cursed to fight for the sake of the world. And so we fight. To make sure that nobody else suffers. It's not the happiest life to live, but it's the one that is necessary to live through."

The blonde girl nodded her head. "I guess I understand… if only things were different. If none of team RWBY were hit by the Arrow—"

"Then we wouldn't know about the White Fang attack and then things would fall apart. As terrible as it is, at least we have a chance to do something and stop this terrorist attack from happening. Vale would be guaranteed to fall if we didn't know. At least now we have a chance to stop the damage."

We rounded the corner into the street our dorms are on. My partner continued: "Right, but still. It doesn't feel right— Wait a minute." Yang pointed a finger towards the building. Striding out from our dorm building were a pair of Atlesian soldiers, both chatting away with their rifles straddled in their hands. One of them had red highlights, the other in blue. Their tense, stiff posture got me to narrow my eyes. What in the world are they doing, and why were they in our dorm building?

"What are soldiers doing inside of our dorms?" Yang whispered. "Don't they have their own places to sleep in?"

"They do." I narrowed my eyes, boring holes in their helmets. Are they searching for something? Most likely. Unless these guys are voyeurs or something, which makes it even weirder. There's no way we can let them do whatever they want. We need to know why.

"Excuse me!" Yang waved as she started towards them. They stopped and tilted their heads to the side.

"Yang!" I hissed. "What are you doing?"

"Getting their attention, what else?"

"I mean you didn't have to do it like that!" My mouth curled into a frown as I followed Yang closely behind. "We could've just tailed them or something and that would be that!"

"And look even more suspicious for stalking a bunch of soldiers? I mean you said it yourself, the last thing we need is to alert the person with the Cupid. As crazy as it sounds, we also have to consider that the Atlesians could be the ones who have the creature. We can't catch their attention as well. And how do most people approach soldiers? In a friendly way." I let out a sigh. She's right on this one. Yang continued: "Hey! Can we have a talk for just a second?"

The two soldiers stopped, shrugging at each other as we approached. Yang gave her most pleasant smile, absolutely beaming with energy. "Hi, you two! How's your day been?"

"Uh… just the usual, I guess," the soldier in blue responded. "We're just doing typical soldier tasks."

"Oh, really?" My partner placed her finger on her lower lip. "I didn't know that typical soldier stuff included walking into the student dorms and doing whatever inside. I thought you would be standing around, guarding stuff and whatnot."

A confused hum escaped from the red Atlesian soldier. "Oh, we do that too. We're on patrol duty right now."

"It still doesn't explain why you're looking through the dormitories," I responded, crossing my arms. "I know my rights. All Remnans have the right to privacy from any military personnel. That includes living areas such as this building."

"Yup." Yang shrugged. "I mean it doesn't really look too good if people learn that the Atlesian military was looking through our stuff without a permit."

That got them shaken up. The blue soldier held his hands up. "Look, you're misunderstanding the situation—"

"Is that true?" My partner took a step closer towards the man in blue. "Then I don't think you'll mind me asking about what you're doing in there." Yang leaned forwards. "I don't have anything against you or the Atlesian military or anything. I'm just trying to satisfy my curiosity. I hope you're not doing anything bad to the future generation of Huntsmen, right?"

"Of course not!" The red soldier ruffled through his pockets. "We've been trying to explain to you that we do have a permit, right here!" He pulled out his scroll and opened it, revealing a digital document jointly signed by Ironwood and the Headmaster. "It's a standard search and sweep for any audio bugs and removing them. And it only covers the public areas of the dormitory. We didn't bother searching any of the student rooms."

"Oh." I gave the document a quick glance. From the looks of it, nothing seemed forged. The stamp on the bottom is the official seal of the Headmaster of Beacon. I looked back at the two men. "So that's it? No bigger search than that?"

"No, ma'am," the red soldier sighed. "We're not looking to get court-martialed for breaking Vale's rules. We were given a task, and we fulfilled it. Nothing past that!"

"Okay. Whew." Yang wiped her brow. "Glad to hear that Atlas' finest are just doing their job. We're really sorry for keeping you guys from your task. But yeah, that's really all we wanted to ask. Have a nice day!"

The two men nodded, the blue soldier speaking. "Okay. Good evening to you two women as well."

I focused on their talk after they walked away from us. The blue soldier started: "Hey, that was really weird."

"Yeah, right? Huntsmen are so paranoid these days. You do your job, and they think you're trying to sabotage them or something."

"Well granted, this wouldn't be a problem if we just had the permit in some obvious place. Then we wouldn't have these kids going off on us for doing our jobs."

"Hey! I'm not going to be the dumb-looking idiot who has a scroll attached to their chest or something!"

"And now we're the idiots who risked the wrath of two Huntresses over a search for some stupid audio bugs, which I might add, we found none of!"

"Okay, okay! I'm sorry! Geez. I mean at least we don't have to worry about the specialist getting spied on while they're visiting the campus. Gods know how much trouble this would be for everyone if that was the case." Now that got my attention. Somebody was coming to campus?

"I know, right?" The blue soldier rubbed the back of his neck. "I'd rather not have my head served on a plate. I hope to gods we didn't mess up our job. But seriously, though. This is all on such short notice. I didn't think upper command scheduled a meeting for the specialist to come right now."

"Well, upper command does what upper command does. We're just the mooks making sure everything runs to plan."

A sigh escaped my mouth as I turned to Yang, who raised an eyebrow. "So? Anything interesting?"

"Apparently somebody's coming to visit the school soon. Some kind of specialist, from the sounds of it." I rubbed the back of my neck. "While I want to believe that the specialist is just going to be another member of the Atlesian military, it's kinda making me nervous. What if this specialist happened to be a Stand user?"

"Huh? But I thought that only a handful of people know about this!" Yang turned to look at the departing soldiers. "What are the odds that Atlas is aware of this as well?"

"It should be almost impossible. The Headmaster himself noted that this is a secret that he kept for the longest time." I bit my lip. "Coincidences happen all the time, but when you know that Stand users will always find other Stand users… We can't take the risk."

Yang let out a hum. "Well, following them won't be too useful. And well… maybe it actually is nothing. Think about it. The fact that they're doing this search must mean that the specialist coming here is going to be big news. People will talk about it. That's like, the opposite thing any Stand user should do, right?" I hummed. That's true… The girl continued: "And even if a Stand user was that arrogant, we won't have a problem observing them, simply because they are putting themselves out there."

Could it actually be that easy? I mean, Stand users have to be wily. It's the best way to use our powers efficiently. Yang is right in saying that being in the open is a pretty dumb move. But what if the show of power is a bluff— I shook my head. No, I'll go with Yang on this one. This specialist is likely not a Stand user.

I nodded my head. "Okay then. Should we go back inside and stop for the day? Just wait for Ruby and Weiss and discuss whatever happened with them?" My partner tilted her head to the side before nodding.

"Yup."

We were most of the way into the building when from the outside I heard the same Atlesian soldiers speed walk towards the landing pads. The blue soldier had his scroll up to his helmet. "Yes, ma'am, we checked the dorm building already, there are no bugs in sight… Mm-hmm, we're on our way right now. No, our tardiness is just us being thorough with the search— Wait, ma'am? Are you okay?" Hmm? What's this? I held a hand in front of Yang, forcing the both of us to stop.

"Blake, what—"

"Shh." I focused my ears towards the Atlesian soldiers.

"Oh, just an annoying crow, huh? It's pretty late for breeding season, though. Do you need assistance in getting it out of your hair?" The man nodded. "Okay then. We'll be there as soon as possible." They trotted away. There's only one thing that was on my mind at that moment: huh?

"Find anything, Weiss?"

I shook my head at Ruby, letting out a sigh as we traveled back to Beacon. The hums of the Bullhead engines rumbled throughout the vehicle. "No. Nothing. Couldn't find anyone wandering around the arena. You would think one of the White Fang members would try to attack me, considering my heritage, but nothing. They're being awfully patient." I shook my head. "Something's wrong with this. This shouldn't be the case, especially with Blake saying how long they planned this operation. There have to be a number of undercover White Fang members in the audience. But I can't find any signs of tampering or anything. It's like they're not planning on attacking the arena at all."

"And I couldn't find any suspicious movement, either. Nothing weird from JNPR's battle all the way to SSSN's fight. Whatever they're doing, they're really good at hiding their tracks. But what could they be planning?" My partner sighed, throwing her head onto the headrest. "Could we be wrong? Did that one White Fang dude give us false information? … No, they must be doing something. This is the best possible date for something bad to happen. And why would they plan something for months if they won't take advantage of the Vytal Festival?"

Why could that be? I sighed at the same time as Ruby. Are we not doing a good job of finding anything suspicious? I did only check the public areas for any explosives that could wipe out a ton of the crowd. Are they not trying to do that? Maybe they're trying to damage the infrastructure itself. I hummed. It does make a bit of sense. If the White Fang were able to attack the central core, they could sink the colosseum and kill a lot of people in the process. Seeing the floating symbol of peace on Remnant fall will catch the attention of everybody in the world and cause a ton of panic. I nodded my head. That's probably where I'm going to check next.

A soft bing rang through the speakers. "Good evening, Huntsmen," the PTA spoke. The two of us glanced at each other before looking at the speaker above us. Our pilot Cammy let out a soft snort before clearing her throat. "This is your captain speaking," she started with a snicker, before sighing. "I regret to inform you that our landing will be delayed for some safety concerns or something like that. The guys on the ground floor won't let me land, so you guys are kinda stuck here until we get the clearance. Until then, we're just going to fly around campus until I get something. You guys cool with that?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Ruby said. I sat up at the same time. What? This shouldn't be a thing during the Vytal Festival. Shouldn't they have checked the airships and the landing pads for any defects before the event starts in the first place? My lips curled into a frown. What in the world is happening? I turned to my partner. "That's odd. Ruby, can you look outside? What's going on down there?"

She nodded. "Sure thing." The black-haired girl turned to face the glass. I'm not really sure what the situation is, but I bet Cammy had a good reason for us to— Oh my gods!" She slammed her mouth shut.

"What?" My eyes widened. "What's going on?"

Ruby said nothing, instead gesturing to me as she scooted into her seat. I peered through the window and gasped. What the— are those shockwaves flying through the air? The crowd of people formed sort of a circle around the flying arcs. I narrowed my eyes. While I can't make out exactly who's down there, there was definitely two people fighting. Fighting during the Vytal Festival— oh my gods!

My partner must've had the same idea, grabbing me by the shoulders. "We need to get down there now. We can't let this keep going on."

I nodded. "But what are we going to do? Our weapons are still in our lockers, and we both know we suck at hand to hand combat. With so many witnesses, one of them is bound to be a Stand user and notice us."

She shrugged. "We'll just call our weapons during freefall." Ruby knocked against the side of the Bullhead. "Cammy, can you open the side door for us? Looks like there's a fight going on, and we're going to try and stop it before it gets worse."

"I know my instructor would yell my ear off for letting a passenger do that, but he's not here anymore. And you guys are big girls, you two can take care of this." The side opened up, letting in a rush of the cool autumn air. I shivered. It's so cold… Cammy let out a chuckle. "You're clear for the drop!"

My team leader grinned. "Thanks!" I pulled out my scroll at the same time as Ruby as she turned to look at me. "Ready, Weiss?"

"As much as I could be."

"On a count to three." I held my breath. "One, two… three! Banzai!"

"Banzai!" I yelled as we flung ourselves out of the Bullhead, letting gravity grab hold of us. My stomach knotted itself, wind whipped my face, the chill swallowed us whole. I gritted my teeth and narrowed my eyes. Anytime now… The hand of gravity yanked at my body, jerking me down towards the concrete surface below us. I felt my heart skip a beat. Oh gods!

No, now's not the time to panic. My body spread out wide. Weiss, keep your cool. I thumbed the emergency launch button. Remember the landing strategy. My scroll isn't ideal for focusing my glyphs at all, but I just need one well-placed glyph to stop all of this momentum. And Ruby… I glanced at my partner, her Stand trying to overlap itself with her body. No one would think about it too hard if she splattered on the ground as rose petals. Who am I kidding, she's going to be fine. I don't have that luxury. I need to focus on my survival.

I narrowed my eyes at the two clashing figures. Hmm… they stopped all of a sudden. That shouldn't be a thing. Are they not Stand users like we thought they were? Maybe it's two drunk tourists brawling it out? But that doesn't explain the shockwaves. No civilian is able to punch that hard. So it has to be two people fighting with weapons— wait, that means Huntsmen are fighting each other right now! I had to suppress a groan. Why? It makes no sense at all! Why have an incident like this during a celebration of peace? That doesn't matter. All we need to do is stop the fight from escalating. Which means landing between them.

Ruby must've had the same idea. From the corner of my eye, I could make out her bending her body towards the empty space between the two of them. I, on the other hand, readjusted my course to overshoot them. Landing in front of them will send a lot of shock to my legs, even with a glyph. I twisted the arm with the hand to aim at a particular pillar. But a bounce-off…

A black glyph formed on the marble structure. Moments later I twisted myself, landing feet-first. Gasps escaped from the crowd behind me followed by the sound of a bag of flowers slamming into the ground. With a zip I shot off from the pillar, landing within the cloud of rose petals before raising my hands up to the two combatants. "Stop this right now!" I yelled as Ruby rebuilt herself next to me. "This is a disturbance of peace!"

"Weiss?" My eyes widened at the sound of a familiar voice. Isn't that— I turned to look at my older sister in the eyes. She had a shocked look on her face, saber drawn and pointed in my direction.

"Winter?" I lowered my hand.

"Ruby?" My head spun around to look at my sister's combatant, a gray-suited man with a patchy beard. That guy knows Ruby? What in the—

At that moment my partner's head finished rebuilding itself to face the man. "Huh— oh my gods Uncle Qrow!" She instantly charged him, jumping on him with glee. "I can't believe you're here!"

"I could say the same, considering you fell from the sky." The man named Qrow narrowed his eyebrows. "Although I have to say, you really worked on your landing technique. Being able to land without Crescent Rose really shows how much you've improved. By the way, where is it right now?"

My partner let out a long 'oh' sound before chucking her scroll off into empty space. "Right… Weiss, toss your scroll in the open right now."

What? Why— And why can I hear whistling? My eyes widened. Oh gods, the rocket lockers! I slid my scroll away from me. One second later, my rocket locker slammed into the ground, sending concrete and dust up into the air. I waved it away, letting out a few coughs. Oh gods, that's foul! I took a couple of steps away. Okay… ugh…

"Alright, everybody step away!" Several Atlesian soldiers butted their way into the circle before turning around towards the crowd. "The incident is going to be resolved in an orderly manner, there's nothing to see here." After a few murmurs, the crowd started dissipating.

Once the dust cleared up, I let out a groan, turning to look at the two adults putting away their weapons. So… That happened. For some reason, our families are here, they were fighting each other and causing a commotion, and from the looks of it, they're not on the best of terms. I glanced at Ruby, who shot me a look of concern. This search just got weirder.

⇐TO BE CONTINUED= 5/11/2018

Arslan's Bizarre Adventure - Act 1

"Hey, Arslan! Think fast!"

My hand moved before my mind even registered her words, snatching what felt like an apple out of the air. My eyes flicked up. The rest of team ABRN sat around a round table, enjoying the various Valean cuisine. Bolin and Nadir were enjoying fried bass and pasta respectively, both alternating between taking a bite and looking through their scroll. On the other hand, the skater girl in the hoodie had a foxy grin on her face, as if she was waiting for something. She twirled a spoon in what looked to be clam chowder.

"Reese…" I sighed as I placed the fruit on the wooden tabletop. "Please stop throwing food around the table. I thought we already established this."

That got her smile to morph into a small pout. "Aww… but why not, Ars?"

"Don't call me Ars," I muttered.

She ignored my request. "I mean, the Vale students did it too back at the beginning of the semester, so I don't see what's the problem. Why can't I throw food to get my best friend's attention?"

Nadir put down his scroll. "Well, duh. Of course you can't. And remember: it was the Vale students who turned the cafeteria into a war zone of sticky, disgusting slop. Like, ugh." He shivered. "It took way too many showers to get rid of all the soda that I got soaked in. That sticky feeling never quite leaves you… I feel like I need another shower just thinking about it."

"You know Nadir is correct, Reese," I said, nodding towards the boy. "The Vale students are weird, and it's not in our place to stoop down to their level. Just leave it at that."

The girl nodded, a smile returning to her face. "Aw, come on, Ars. I was playing around, girl. No need to be so uptight about it." Her face turned stone-cold in an instant. "But in all seriousness, are you okay?" Hmm? The green-eyed girl glanced side-to-side. "Like, you've been spending a lot of time on your own, and well, I still remember what happened during the beginning of the year." Sweat started slipping down her face. "Is… everything with your family okay?"

With that, she managed to get everyone's attention. Reese threw her hands up. "I mean, you don't have to tell us if you don't want to. That's completely fine, and we totally get that you want to keep your family life secret. But… at the same time… come on. You're still our team leader. You're still my teammate and partner." She rubbed the back of her neck. "And we still need you to lead us and be at your best." She let out a chuckle. "Heh… I can't believe I'm saying this. I'm the one who gave you the most trouble before we sorted our issues out—"

"You're right, in a sense." I took a bite out of a dinner roll before resting my chin on my hand. "You could say that I learned something recently that changed my outlook on things."

"That's pretty obvious," Bolin nodded, going back to his meal.

I ignored him. "I'm sure you guys are aware of how… awful my family situation is, and how we've been looking forever for the thing to stop all of it. Well, I can say that I managed to stumble upon my first real lead on the matter." I sat up. "Just think: I'm closer than any other Altan to finishing our generational saga once and for all. The lives my family lost, they're finally going to have some more meaning. We can finally go back to our normal way of life. I guess I got excited because of that, and I had to chase after it."

My eyes closed as I let out a hum. "I didn't want you guys to worry, but clearly that didn't work out. That is all on me. I, out of everyone here don't want a repeat of our initial days. So I'll be honest. This revelation will probably occupy a lot of my thoughts, and I won't always be at my best going forward. But at the same time, I trust that team ABRN can still stand proud even if I'm focused on this. I'll still be there for everyone. On my family name, I promise that."

Everyone nodded, satisfied with the answer I gave them. I looked up. The sky looked beautiful, with its nice, orange glow. It was so relaxing, so soothing, so inviting. It almost made me forget about all of the problems looming over us. Almost.

But we can't afford to ignore the problems coming up. All of the research I've done has made that quite clear. Incidents with the fantasma velos have been going on for the past two months. Ruby Rose getting turned into a Stand user. Her incident with one of the ancient Grimm. The sudden attack in the recreation room on campus. The cafe being attacked. The anger incident on campus. My mind went back to that day. Being locked in my room with my teammates trying to break down the door was quite the experience, that's for sure.

And to top it all off, team RWBY and their other friends are expecting an attack to happen anytime now. I glanced back at the rest of my teammates. It's scary, knowing something horrible is going to happen and I can't really do much about it. I rubbed the base of my eyes. All of these events, all somehow slipping under my eye until the simulation… how could've I been so blind to all of this? When Stand users should easily be drawn to other users, how did I manage to avoid all of this chaos until now?

I balled my fists up on the table. That doesn't matter now. I'm in it now, and I'll make sure I do my part to keep all of Remnant safe. A sigh escaped my mouth. I know my deal with Ruby was to help her in finding the Arrow, and with what we know, we might actually obtain it soon. But if the rumors of a White Fang attack are true… then I need to make sure that nothing goes wrong in the process.

I pulled out my scroll and started typing up a message. Hello Ruby, it started. I want to meet with you to talk about the Arrow and the potential attack on the Amity Colosseum. Do you have time today?

With a press of a button, I pocketed the scroll and listened to Nadir's conversation with Reese. "So there's this weird Huntsmen team I ran into around, yesterday I think? Their name was…" He snapped his fingers a couple of times. "What was their name? It was something real dirty, and apparently, they went to our school… Stuck-up mint-haired girl, snarky kick fighter, mysterious femme fatale-esque leader—"

"Oh, you mean CMEN?"

The boy snapped his fingers. "Right! Them! I thought it was something like that! So you know the weird thing I've learned is that they're permanently down a team member. I don't exactly remember the reason, something about having to go back home for some emergency treatment or something like that. But I ran into them while they were meeting with one of the referees early this morning. Turns out that because they don't have the required amount of people, they had to be pulled from the match. And Reese, you won't believe it. Team CMEN got so pissed at the referee! It was an absolute mess!"

He let out a chuckle. "Like seriously, what happened after that freaked me out. The femme fatale girl, her name was… Cinder, I think? She tried to argue with the referee on it, insisting that the three of them were strong enough to take on their opponents, but the guy would have none of that. And holy— she looked so peeved! When that girl gets angry, she gets angry. I could feel the sheer hatred just wafting from her. Like, I didn't want to touch that with Bolin's quarterstaff expanded all the way."

"But I have to admit, she can recover pretty quickly from something like that. Maybe a couple of minutes after the referee shut her down, she had this apology for him and acted all respectful. But right after they were out of earshot of the guy, team CMEN just went ham on insulting the guy. Like, they were absolutely disrespectful towards the dude. Well, Mercury and Emerald in particular. They were like guard dogs, just all uppity and raring to get back at the referee. Cinder for some reason had to be the person to talk them down from trying anything. I mean, I don't think they're going to try anything. But I just had this weird image in my head that team CMEN were like mafioso or something."

I let out a sigh, resting my chin on my hand. "And what was the point of talking bad about CMEN? They can't participate in the tournament at all, and with how security is recently, any incident will bring a lot of attention to them."

He shrugged. "It was an interesting story to tell, so I told it. Do I need any other excuse?"

At that moment, my scroll buzzed. Oh? I took it out. A text from Ruby. Hi Arslan, the message started. Can't do 2day. Hve ppl 2 wtch. Meet Amity tmrw. Have time then. Well then. That's a shame. Still, knowing that she's available is a good sign.

I stood up, letting out a yawn while I rolled my shoulders. "That was a good meal," I declared. "I'll be taking a walk now. No fights for us tomorrow, so enjoy the rest of your night."

「THROUGH FIRE AND FLAMES」appeared behind me. I'll do whatever it takes to prevent this attack from happening. I promise that on the Altan name.

=TBC=

Retrospective: The Stand Hocus Pocus has a long history of changes. That's not a bad thing, granted. A lot of ideas morph and change as they get thought through more and as they are implemented. At its core, Hocus Pocus was always about sounds trapping people into dreams that rot their brains. But man, the path to today's Hocus Pocus was a weird one.

It first started out with the name. Hocus Pocus used to be just M.N. Monster, aka what the instruments were called. I originally wanted a person to be the user, but I didn't think any of the characters fit, so I had the instruments themselves be the user. It made a bit of sense. We have inanimate Stands such as Anubis and Superfly. With a set of musical instruments, it wouldn't be that far gone. And I wrote the Hocus Pocus arc around that idea.

Then cut to January or so, and Trifa was introduced. From the moment she tied Blake up, I was like: "This is it. That's the person I wanted." Like a spider, her Stand ensnares victims in a web (of dreams) before injecting them with a neurotoxin (the monsters). ... Okay, so I might be a bit weird for thinking that, but Trifa made the most sense right then and there, so I went back and rewritten everything to accommodate her. M.N. Monster became the brand name of the instruments, and the Stand became Hocus Pocus.

But let's actually discuss the inspiration for Hocus Pocus. I was in an amusement park, waiting in line to get on a ride I loved. In this park were screens showing off music videos. They were supposed to be distractions while everyone was waiting in line. As I was waiting, this one song came on: "Down" by Marian Hill. The song itself was boring and uninteresting in my opinion. But what caught my attention was the cinematography of the video. The music video was set in an elevator lobby, and they do a lot of quick cuts, giving the illusion of the songwriters glitching through the lobby while the wide-cut stayed smooth. It is impressive cinematography, and it was absolutely unnerving to watch back then.

That video stuck in my head long after I've ridden the ride, and when I came back home, I went on a video watching spree of weird music videos. The music videos for Bad Romance, Espada, Down, Total Eclipse of the Heart, and Turn Down For What all played a part in crafting the world of Hocus Pocus. Turn Down For What especially stuck in my mind, with how it inspired the sexual movements the monsters had.

The truth of Hocus Pocus was how it has a strong basis in one of my personal fears. If I had to list my three greatest fears in no particular order, it is failing my family, suffocation, and losing control of my mind. Hocus Pocus plays into that last fear through the power of weird music videos. Because of all that, I would say Hocus Pocus is my favorite fight of this arc.

Quickly touching bases on the entire third arc, it's an enjoyable romp through and through. Aside from Feel Good Inc, it's been smooth sailing writing this particular section. It feels way better paced than Arc 2. And in hindsight, Arc 2 could've had a bit of fat trimmed away. It's unusually long for an arc that has roughly the same amount of meaningful content as Arc 3. Honestly, I'm glad for that. Shows that I'm getting more efficient in what I want to say.

Let's get right to the reviews!

rabidhandsquirrl: Thank you, rabidhandsquirrl!

Guest: I was as well! Believe it or not, I actually had trouble with this fight. I guess it's because it's a more traditional Huntsmen fight, which I neglected with all of the Stand fighting. Trying to get back into that mindset took some time.

tuskenpaw: Yeah, it is a calmer chapter to open up with. I can't wait to show you how this arc goes!

doa5700047: I generally feel that way with fights like the previous chapter's. Winning because you have a new power is kinda boring. Choosing to lose for a greater goal is a lot more interesting to play with.

Ooh, survival. The question of who is going to bite the dust. It's an interesting concept to think about. Choosing to kill off a character is a very hard decision, and it can't be done lightly. I'd love to talk more about this point, but I'd rather keep my ideas of killing characters to myself. It's something I might save until the end.

Oh man, I'm just imagining Roman and Neo just casually listening to an art critic just go ham on their art, and then getting them to "accidentally" enter Cornerstone. It's still nice seeing what happens to characters after they disappear from the main story, though. It's something I feel the JoJo anime does well, especially with Part 4.

darkmist111: Oh, you'll find out soon enough, darkmist. Glad to see you still reading!

Anyways, that's all for today! I'll see you guys in the next chapter!

Next Chapter Update: May 11, 2018