Mistral Swamplands – Ruins of Mistral Trade Route City – Week 19, The Vytal Festival begins in 14 days

My steps echoed off the brick-and-mortar walls around me, despite the fact that I was trying to quiet my movements. I could hear my breathing, slow and measured, as well.

There were no other sounds but mine. No other presence but my own.

This place – a sewer, if the smell was anything to go by – was abandoned and forgotten by both the Grimm and the denizens of Liar's Landing alike. And perhaps because of that, there was no lighting system in place nor torches on the walls.

But that was alright, I had my Aura.

Where man once might have feared the dark, I took to it like I had Blake's night vision.

The energy emanating from me lit up the short, arched hallways in a pale, blue light. It provided me just enough of a dim glow to see my next step, no more, no less. It was by the light of my Aura that I was able to keep moving, to keep exploring.

I needed to return to my team, after all. I needed to find them and the airship. And with that airship I could finally, finally return to Vale.

To Phoebe. To mom.

To home.

A sigh left me, more weary than anything, even as another one of my footsteps echoed loudly throughout the sewers.

A right turn led me to a collapsed tunnel, a dead end. I turned around and went the opposite direction, where I found a heavy grate that required the use of my Aura to break. It yielded with a shriek of steel on steel, like grinding nails on a chalkboard. The sound was shockingly loud in the sewers of Mistral Trade Route City.

But still, no one came. Nothing disturbed me.

So I crept on.

I might have walked for hours, or perhaps only minutes, time was lost to me down here either way. I could only count the sounds of my steps to estimate the passage of it. When I lost track of those, I tried my heartbeat.

That was much, much easier to track; for the longer I remained in the dismal tunnels, the louder it seemed to become in the all-encompassing silence.

It was only after eight-hundred and ninety-two heart beats that my trek was disturbed.

My foot caught on an upturned stone and my hand darted out to catch myself upon the wall next to me. My fingers made contact with it and very, very quickly, I noticed something different.

The texture of the wall underneath my fingertips was not that of stone. It smudged and shifted, like it was malleable. Like it was…

Like it was a powder.

My eyes narrowed, my heartbeat forgotten, and I leaned closer to the stone, so that the glow of my Aura could illuminate what I was feeling.

Chalk.

It was chalk. Dark and powdery, drawn upon the crumbling bricks with a purpose. There were straight lines and curved ones, fitted together to form a larger picture. One too large for me to see by the dim lighting my Aura provided all at once.

I removed my hand from the wall, intending to step back and observe the drawing, and a flash of purple immediately caught my attention as I did so.

My blood Aura. My Semblance.

There, upon my fingertips, the powdery substance from the wall was slowly, but surely, evaporating into the air.

And where it disappeared, ethereal purple energy floated in deceptively whimsical tendrils of power.

Suddenly, it was not a blue glow that offered me my sight in the sewer, but purple.

'Not chalk,' I realized as a grimace pulled my lips apart. My discomfort only grew worse when the smell of rotten blood reached my nose. 'This is dried blood.'

I stilled for a split second then, paranoia urging me to stay cautious, like my discovery was some kind of trigger for an ambush. My ears – so, so, so inferior to Blake's – strained themselves.

But in the silence of the sewers, only my heart answered me.

-thump thump-

-thump thump-

-thump thump-

Satisfied and slightly embarrassed with myself, I returned to the… drawing on the wall.

With one faintly glowing hand raised – my fingertips still burning with the purple Aura – I managed to see in every haunting detail what this blood depicted.

A sun, a bare tree, a snowflake and a leaf. They were arranged in the pattern of a diamond, with the sun at the top of the shape. The image was runny, like the blood dribbled down the wall before it dried.

And then, with a glance to my side, I saw another drawing farther down the wall. This one was just as blackened as the first and its lines ran down the wall too, like raindrops on glass, frozen and dried that way by time.

It too unsettled me.

It took a certain kind of demented insanity to draw anything in blood, after all.

But all the same, I raised my hand and studied, ignoring the eerie shadows my Aura produced in the uneven wall.

This picture depicted a woman, a sun at her heart. At her feet, crudely-drawn figures prostrated themselves.

I swallowed heavily when I saw that sun. This went beyond some nut-job proclaiming his or her love for the seasons in an incredibly odd place. This was drawn in blood – even now, I could see the way the liquid ran after the sun within the woman was drawn and it put me off in a way words could not describe.

It was wrong, plain and simple. Not on a physical level, but a mental one.

Gooseflesh ran rampant up and down my arms and the hair on my nape stood on end. The air was stale and still and I felt like I was being watched but-

-thump thump-

-thump thump-

-thump thump-

There was no one there. Just me and this drawing of a woman-

No! No… This was not just a woman. She was one of Qrow's maidens. She had to be. The four seasons in the previous drawing and the sun at her core suggested that she was the 'Summer Maiden'.

A scoff escaped me. Perhaps this was a lair for those damnable cultists? Those sun-loving idiots…

But still, the drawings intrigued me.

And so, I pressed on.

The next drawing was more foreboding than the last.

Two women stood facing one another. A sun at the core of the first. In the second, the one drawn with sharp talons for hands and a mouthful of pointed teeth, lay a leaf.

Over the leaf-woman was Remnant's shattered moon.

I stepped farther along the wall-

Crash!

My heart immediately began pounding and I clenched my jaw, kicking irritably at the rubble under my boot. It used to be a small pile of stones before I stepped on it and sent the material noisily clattering across the sewers.

-thump thump-

-thump thump-

-thump thump-

I pulled in a deep breath and focused upon keeping the purple Aura present at the tips of my fingers. Aura control exercises had always helped me center myself, ever since I began experimenting with the energy as a child. Pushing, pulling, resisting. The versatility of my energy never ceased to amaze me and the focus that manipulating it so finely required never failed to put me at ease.

Just as it did now, even in this horrible sewer.

The calm returned and my heartbeat, at long last, quieted.

'The next drawing,' I urged myself, my eyes narrowing and my jaw held rigid.

So I observed.

The next one featured a wall. Atop its spires were multitudes of tiny figures, each with equally tiny suns drawn atop their heads. And on the ground, facing them, were darker, more animalistic forms with leaves over their own heads.

What's more, each dark figure had painstakingly thin lines scratched away from them, like-

-glowing lines of power snaked their way up and down the Grimm's body, pulsating and shining like some perverted mockery of veins and I heard Yang-

'Veins. The glowing Grimm. The leaf over their heads…'

They were hers', those beasts. Those soulless monsters that somehow, someway possessed an energy like Aura-

Wrech.

It could only be wrech. The Spring Maiden's wrech, no less.

A shiver ran up my spine and my eyes suddenly felt incredibly dry.

If this wrech could infuse Grimm with such power… the possibilities were endless. It behaved in a way that Aura could not. Would not! Aura was only present in creatures that possessed a soul and the Grimm were entirely soulless! That this power could be gifted to them… It was in a league all its own, capable of giving power to something that was completely and utterly unable to use it.

My eyes narrowed.

Was unable to use it. This wrech, this magic… the rules by which Remnant worked would be rewritten. The Spring Maiden was able to imbue the Grimm with it, with that damnable energy, and with that single piece of knowledge, my understanding of Aura and Remnant as a whole was brought into question.

How were the Grimm able to use the wrech? Was it a conscious decision they made? Did they even have a consciousness? What if they were not mindless beasts, after all? Could they be trained and made to obey?

Could I train them? Could I make them obey me?

Oddly enough, I found myself excited by the possibilities. I found myself wanting to experiment with the energy. I wanted to examine it and study it, poke and prod it until I understood it entirely. Until I subverted it. Until it was mine to use. Until it served to protect those I cared about.

Suddenly, I felt inordinately displeased that Ruby managed to convince me to release the wrech I took from Emerald's forehead. The things I could have learned, if I only had time to study it!

But that displeasure was put aside when I remembered that Yang had a sliver of the very same energy within herself.

Eager now, my heart beating just a little faster, I moved farther down the hallway. My hand was held above my head like some kind of poor imitation for a lantern and my other one lightly braced myself against the wall.

The next drawing I found showed two women once more, one with a sun and the other with a leaf at their cores.

But in this one, the sun was impaled upon the leaf's claws.

And behind the clawed, sharp-toothed spring maiden, a crumbled wall lay destroyed.

And just like that, in this dank sewer, I learned that the Spring Maiden tore down Mistral Trade Route City and slaughtered its people.

Just as swiftly, I put that information from my mind. It was a mere footnote to what I learned of wrech today. Lives were lost, yes, but the dead could do nothing for the living. It was pointless to lament the fate the people of this city met.

My eyes focused upon the next drawing, this one showing the woman with the sun at her core kneeling. Around her, a mountain was drawn, complete with jagged edges made less jagged by the running of the blood used to depict them.

I moved on, my eyes narrowed in the darkness. But still, the blue-tinted purple glow of my Aura was enough.

This drawing, the final drawing, was elaborate.

Not in scope, no. It only depicted a forest and a city. Over the first was drawn a leaf and over the city, a sun.

It was not made elaborate by its contents, rather, it was made elaborate by the detail put into the city.

Lines were painstakingly and methodically drawn, intersecting and flowing in some kind of pattern. It was a circular city that contained more circles and half-circles and triangles and squares within it, all of which I knew could not be buildings or plazas. The lines within its borders moved in ways that streets did not, at angles that would make turning vehicles impossible.

It looked… it almost looked like one of Weiss' glyphs.

It was not as pretty – a thought that made me smile because I was certain my white haired teammate would only turn up her nose at the thought of a drawing made of blood being prettier than her Semblance – but the same circular shape of her glyphs was present. But where the former heiress' Semblance almost always featured a snowflake of some kind at its center, this one featured shapes that appeared to fit together somehow… like a puzzle.

Almost idly, I traced one of the interlocking circles with my finger.

And my Aura… clung to the wall after my finger left it.

I blinked, once, and rubbed at my eyes with my free hand. But still, even after I moved the limb away and squinted once more, my purple Aura remained on the wall.

And that was it.

It just… stayed there, clinging to part of one of the drawing's many circles.

A low, confused grunt escaped me. That my blood Aura would behave so strangely indicated that this drawing was more than just a drawing made of blood. Normal drawings did not, could not, serve as an anchor to my energy.

This one did. This one was different.

Slowly, I brought my free hand up and summoned some of my normal, blue Aura to my fingertips. It was a gesture that I scarcely needed to focus upon, so familiar was my normal energy, so fine-tuned was my control.

My fingertips touched the lines of the drawing again, but this time there was no glowing energy left behind. The ethereal blue glow left the wall with my fingers even as the purple Aura continuously clung to its surface.

'Only my blood Aura…'

Slowly, I exhaled through my nose, returning the hand with my purple Aura to the wall.

Carefully and slowly, almost painstakingly so, I finished tracing the outline of the circle with my fingertip, leaving behind a trail of volatile purple energy as I did so.

When I finished, I did so with bated breath. My finger remained steady thanks only to hours spent in the workshop with Ruby pouring over the forms of Crescent Rose, Aegis and, later, Ultimatum. The instant I felt my purple Aura against my finger – this time an outside force, rather than one within – I pulled my limb away from the wall.

And waited.

But nothing happened. There was no explosion or flash of light or even a pulse of energy, like some of Weiss' glyphs could emit.

There was only a glowing, purple circle on the wall.

A huff escaped me and I crossed my arms, scratching idly at the bared skin of my torso. I needed to get a new shirt sometime soon, ideally before Remnant's coming winter froze me solid. It was beginning to get rather cold at night and I did not like the idea of going on without some kind of clothing.

With another frustrated grunt, I forced the thoughts from my mind. Without taking my eyes off the complex drawing, I reached out to one of the earlier ones and scratched away more blood. My purple energy was replenished with the gesture and my mind returned fully to the odd drawing.

But it was not a drawing.

The other shapes on the walls, the depictions of the battle between the Maidens of Summer and Spring, those were drawings. They did not react when my purple Aura touched them and none of them were even remotely as complicated as the last one. Someone – or something – drew the circle in front of me with a steady, meticulously careful, hand.

'There aren't even-' My eyes narrowed and I leaned closer. 'Yes! There aren't even any blood streaks in this one. Whatever this is… it did not run when it was painted on the walls.'

So it was not a drawing, but it had a purpose. This overly complicated circle was on this wall for a reason, drawn so carefully for a reason.

It did not react to normal Aura, to the variety that everyone on Remnant possessed. It reacted to my blood Aura but given the fact that I was the only one who could use such an energy, I very much doubted that the original artist intended for that to be the… glyph's purpose. More likely than not, they wanted for this symbol to interact with another kind of ener-

'No…'

I knew of only two kinds of energy on Remnant: there was Aura and there was… well, there was wrech. Two sources of power, the latter of which very, very, very few people knew about. The person that drew this overly complicated symbol likely intended, therefore, that it react to wrech.

To magic.

But that would directly imply that my purple energy was wrech too.

Or at least similar enough to fool this symbol.

A breath forced itself from my nose again – I was not entirely happy at having wrech in myself… Or, rather, the potential to create wrech. All the same, I could not deny that it made an odd kind of sense.

My purple Aura could contain the energy trapped in Emerald's forehead.

It could draw the same kind of energy out of Yang.

But wrech was only ever meant to be wielded by Maidens.

Maidens were, unless I was horribly mistaken, female as a rule.

And I was, unless I was horribly mistaken, not a female.

So what, then, was my blood Aura? It could not be wrech, magic could only be wielded by The Four Maidens. Yet this symbol on the wall reacted to it like it was that damnable energy all the same.

An uneasy growl escaped me.

I could only assume my blood Aura was something similar to wrech. Not necessarily the same, but close enough that it fooled this… whatever this thing on the wall was.

And that was another conundrum, this symbol. But at least that could be solved, right here and now. I might not have all the answers with regard to my blood Aura but I was willing to bet that if I traced the rest of these lines in front of me, I would soon have my answer as to what this thing did.

Without any further thought on wrech, I got to work.


Several minutes later

It only took a few short minutes of carefully, slowly tracing the glyph-symbol-rune thing in front of me for something to happen.

I had been moving my finger at a measured pace, my entire body coiled and ready to move at a moment's notice in case the odd drawing did… something. And, just as I finished tracing one of the three inner circles present within the larger one and all the shapes within its smaller circumference, something did happen.

The entirety of what I traced flashed, once, and…

Nothing.

My blood Aura vanished and the inner circle dimmed once more with nary a sound raised in the process. A full five seconds passed in complete and utter silence, only the occasional plop of water hitting stone elsewhere in the sewer broke it.

I even held my breath.

But still, nothing.

My shoulders drooped and I released a frustrated grunt even as my hand, fingertips alight with ethereal purple energy, reached out-

And hit something solid.

Not the wall, no. My hand was stopped several inches before I reached the symbol by what could only be an invisible wall.

An invisible wall that was not there only ten seconds prior.

A surprised, muted gasp escaped me before I could stop it and I pressed harder against the barrier. My hand met resistance and progressed no closer to the wall and if I were not seeing it happen with my own eyes, I would have thought it impossible.

My hand was being held back by… by…

'By wrech.'

No! Not by wrech. Not by magic. That energy belonged solely to The Maidens and their fairy tales.

But this…

I finally exerted enough force and, with a startled gasp, my hand broke through the barrier and came to land on the wall with a soft thump.

This was my blood Aura. This was all my own.

This was my Semblance.

I could feel it in my bones.


Ten minutes later

I retraced the original, inner circle and tried my damnedest to sear the image into my mind all the while cursing myself for draining my Scroll's charge so thoroughly. I left that inner circle almost entirely complete – the tiniest bit of it left untouched so that it would lay dormant still - and turned to trace the rest of the drawing after that, taking more blood from the previous depictions to fuel my Semblance as I did so.

Lines and loops were filled in and the sewer grew brighter for every touch of my finger. I worked tirelessly, my eyes likely wider than normal in my excitement. My body remained coiled tightly just in case I accidentally trigger another rune within the larger one but my caution proved unnecessary. The other inner circles were filled without a single quiver of light and the triangles and squares and loops in between them were traced the same way. The outer circle followed after that and, soon, I only needed to complete the original inner circle that made that odd barrier.

An invisible wall… I would have thought it impossible had it not happened to me just a short time ago. Never before had my eyes failed me in such a way.

Carefully, after banishing the thoughts of invisible walls and sorcery and reining in my wandering mind, I brought my fingertip up to the rune one last time. The purple Aura clung to wall in the same way it did earlier as I drug the digit over the last bit of the drawing that I needed to fill in.

And then, the symbol was complete.

I released a short, gasping breath and leaned away from the wall just in time to see the drawing flash before it dimmed completely shortly thereafter.

'Just like the inner circle,' I noted, taking another step away from the wall and almost sending myself crashing to the ground when the back of my boot hit something hard. I caught myself, though, and-

The wall moved.

Before my widening eyes – which were rendered nearly blind by the abrupt lack of light – I saw the wall in front of me shift and move and... It made no sound whatsoever but… but it looked as though it… melted into the wall-

Was there an opening in front of me now? Was this some kind of door?

"The fuck?!" I whispered under my breath, my eyes wide and my pupils searching the darkness in front of me erratically.

Finally, when I could discern nothing but all-encompassing darkness, I blindly thrusted my hand out toward the wall, fully expecting it to impact a solid barrier. When it did not, when it continued through the space where bricks rested not seconds before, I staggered forward in surprise.

There was nothing but empty air in front of me. Nothing but darkness. There was no wall. No bricks. No mortar. No rune. No… no anything! It was gone. Vanished.

'Walls do not disappear!' My mind raged.

But still, I could not deny the fact that there was nothing in front of me.

Nothing but darkness.

I swallowed, once, trying in vain to reconcile myself with the fact that there was no longer a wall in front of me and only partly succeeding.

'Invisible barriers,' I thought numbly, inching myself forward on cautious yet sure feet – my training would not tolerate doubt or hesitation. 'Disappearing walls. Just what kind of twilight zone did I stumble into?'

Despite my unease, I moved forward steadily, my hands held out in front of me. When I reached what used to be the surface of the wall, my mind wavered uncertainly, certain that I was about to run into a hard surface and knock myself on my ass.

Because my eyes told me that there was a wall there and I knew walls were solid-

But nothing ever arrested my movement. I crept forward - into where the wall once was - and it only just then occurred to me then to summon my Aura back to my hand.

'Calm down, fool,' I chided myself even as the dim glow of my life-giving energy flooded the space around me. My sight returning to me, limited as it was, provided me a much needed sense of normalcy. 'It was… it was as secret passageway. With a door guarded by a… a drawing that somehow, someway managed to make a wall just… disappear. And it went… Well, it went… somewhere, I guess?'

Yeah, that sounded about right.

"Ruby's never gonna believe this," I murmured, a short laugh of disbelief escaping my lips. The girl was obsessed with fairy tales and magic and wondrous stories filled with impossible things and here I was, managing to stumble upon one such impossible occurrence by chance.

Well, not entirely by chance. Blake's efforts to down the Nevermore certainly helped the building-

"Shit," I muttered, the exclamation quickly swallowed up by the darkness around me.

The girls needed me. They were likely still fighting off the Grimm on the surface and here I was getting distracted by pretty drawings and other… oddities in some forgotten sewer.

My feet quickened, moving me further down the path behind the disappearing wall. This new tunnel possessed walls that were uneven and rocky, not shaped of brick and mortar but, rather, the natural terrain of what looked to be a cave. The ground upon which I walked was equally rough and it made walking in the ethereal glow of my Aura more difficult than it needed to be.

But rocky path be damned, I needed to move fast. The rest of my team was probably fighting for their lives still and the sooner I returned to them, the better.

I spent perhaps another two minutes tripping, stumbling and swearing my way down the uneven tunnel. It was small and confining, for the most part, and it made me more than a little claustrophobic, but eventually it opened up into a larger area. One that was made of-

Light suddenly burst into existence behind me and I whirled around, my arms up and fists clenched, to find-

A torch.

A torch, on a wall made out of solid stone blocks.

And, even as I turned to cast my eyes about my surroundings, another two torches lit themselves of their own accord, revealing the fact that I had literally stumbled into a room to me.

It was a small space, no larger than team RWEBY's first dorm at Beacon Academy. Perfectly square blocks made up its walls, stacked such that not even a single stone was a centimeter out of place. There was a small bed, its sheets unmade and unbothered and still fresh. Next to the bed was a small end table, a book on its surface. Finally, in the corner, there was a wardrobe and a chest of drawers.

It was a dwelling.

Another glance about the room revealed it had a low ceiling, that I was alone within it and there was a door I missed with my first inspection placed along the far wall.

I hummed, nodding to myself as I came to my decision, and moved to the wardrobe and chest of drawers first.

There was no reason to let any possible resources go to waste, after all. If there was one thing my time in Liar's Landing taught me, it was that anything could be used to survive. From the smallest scrap of cloth to the sharpest knife – it was all useful.

There was a small sack propped up against the chest of drawers, looking for all the world like it'd been thrown there and forgotten for a time.

A very long time, if the dust on it was any indication.

I picked it up and went about inspecting the drawers themselves, finding only clothes there. A woman's clothing, if the cut of the pants and make of the shirts were any indication. She looked to be Yang's size, maybe Blake's.

'We don't need clothes,' I noted, a scowl on my face. Still, I stuffed some of them into the sack before I moved to the wardrobe.

There was only one article of clothing in there, hanging oddly on a hanger clearly not meant to hold its bulk.

A white cloak, stitched a soft red on the inside.

It hung lop-sided from a lone hanger in the otherwise empty wardrobe, its hood falling awkwardly to one side and causing the entire thing to tip precariously toward me, like it was threatening to fall off at any given moment.

The sight brought a smile to my face.

It brought to me memories of happier times. Simpler times. When Ruby would put all three of her cloaks into the tiny, cramped closet of our dorm room and lament to Weiss, Blake, myself, Yang and anyone else who would listen about how the 'stupid, crummy hangers' would not hold her cloaks right. About how she wanted the stand she had in her room because it never dropped her cloaks. About how annoying it was, having to rehang the articles of clothing every time someone opened the closet door.

I took the white cloak with a smile, rather than a scowl.

Ruby did not have her signature red cloak with her, after all. She did not bring it to the Schnee Gala and maybe, just maybe, this white one would do in the meantime.

That done, I cast one last glance about the room and made to leave-

But my eye caught on something atop the bedside table - the book.

It was plain and maroon, perched precariously on the edge of the nightstand. Next to it, there was a pen, broken in half with a dried puddle of ink underneath it.

Or, rather, I thought it was ink.

Until my fingers brushed against it.

The flash of purple that announced the presence of my blood Aura was meant with eyes widened in surprise and a brow raised by the same emotion.

'She was writing in blood? But-'

The runes! The glyphs!

I all but dove toward the book and flipped it open. The first page was nothing but writing, as was the second and the third. The fourth- the same.

Scowling and growling under my breath, I opened the text to its middle and-

Runes!

There were dozens of them. All circular and drawn with a meticulously careful hand. Not a single line appeared out of place and the ink – 'Blood,' I reminded myself – was so thin and intricate in some places that I had to squint in the torchlight to make it out.

Then, the ground quivered weakly under my feet and a bestial roar echoed throughout the chambers, emanating from somewhere far, far away.

My eyes narrowed and a growl escaped my throat. Scowling once more, I thrust the book into the sack and threw the bag over my shoulder, vaulting over the bed in the next second and shouldering open the door on the far side of the room in the second thereafter.

A hallway stretched out immediately to my left and I sprinted down it without hesitation. It, like the hallway before the room, appeared to be a natural cave. Uneven walls, dotted by lit torches, blurred by as my feet found purchase on the rough ground and before I knew it, the hallway came to an end.

A large cavern opened up before me, also illuminated by torchlight. The ground of it was cracked and blackened and burned and scalded and patches of the walls were melted completely away. It was fairly tall and very, very wide – wide enough to fit the entirety of Beacon's dueling hall in it and still have room to spare.

As interesting as the battle-scarred terrain was, I took in the sight quickly and disregarded it just as hurriedly.

The only thing I focused upon for more than a half second was the object in the middle of the room.

My eyes lingered on the jagged, orange rock formation – odd and alien as it was – but another tremor in the ground encouraged me to forget about that in favor of a passageway on the opposite side of the clearing.

'Keep moving forward. Don't look back. Find the surface. Find your team.'

Without hesitation, I threw myself into a dead sprint, clearing a rather large gouge in the stone beneath me in a single leap. I hit the ground running and darted around the red crystal – there was a darkened shape at its center now, I realized, and the thing was much larger up close than it appeared at a distance… easily twice my height.

That thought was thrown from my mind even as I remembered the drawing on the sewer wall, the one featuring the Summer Maiden held within a mountain.

'Or a strange gem,' I thought idly, resolving to let Qrow know about the thing when next I saw him. Let him worry about his Maidens and their wrech. I had my Aura. I had the book of runes.

Magic. Who needed it?

I vaulted over a pit with unnaturally smooth walls and landed just in front of the passageway, running down it even as my ears picked up something moving toward me.

Quickly.

"Outsider!" The naked woman spat as soon as she rounded a corner in the tunnel ahead of me, her tattoos flashing ominously. She brought up a crossbow, already loaded with a bolt, and turned to yell behind her.

But she never got the chance.

An Aura empowered leap put me within her guard easily and her eyes widened even as she began to stumble backward, her mouth falling open. I paid no mind to her poor battle discipline, instead throwing my fist forward, my hand glowing blue with the power of my Aura.

My clenched fingers broke her messy guard, impacted her jaw and immediately, I knew something was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

Something gave in her chin.

I was not new to breaking bones. Cardin's jaw. Neo's nose. I knew what it felt like, I knew the satisfaction that followed it. I knew the grin that would threaten to pull my lips upward when a grunt of pain would escape their lips and their bones would snap – it was a sign of my skill as a fighter.

A sign that I was doing something right.

But this was different.

This was no broken bone. This was no incapacitating blow.

I knew that instinctually, the very second my punch landed on the woman.

I watched, my mind startlingly and frustratingly hypersensitive to what I was seeing, as my fist shattered her jaw and continued on, unhindered, to plough into her skull. My hand sank easily, so, so, so easily, into her face. Fingers disappeared behind skin and blood and muscle and cartilage rippled and broke in ways that they should not ever break. Past her jaw and her nose, my fist continued, and her eyes were swiftly forced out of her very head even as my arm meant brain matter and continued on to slam against the wall behind the woman, the impact jarring me greatly.

And I flinched.

But it was not my fist meeting solid stone that caused it.

I coughed, choking on my spit, even as the last of the woman's… insides splattered against the cave walls and hurtled away from her head. Blood pelted me and the smell of it invaded my nose, nauseating me in a way blood never had. I hunched over, bringing my hands up to my mouth-

'No!'

I thrust the bloodied one – the one absolutely covered in gore - away from me and glanced down at the ruined body- corpse that I just created. The woman I killed because I expected Aura. I expected strength! I did not expect her be without enough Aura to block a single punch! I-

The cartilage gave and bones crumpled, snapping wetly beneath my fingers even as blood was flung away from the impact point and her skin rippled in a sickly horrifying manner at the intrusion. Skin should not move that way! It was not-

I turned and heaved, emptying my stomach of its contents even as my clean arm came up to brace myself against the cave wall.

'She had no Aura,' my mind hollered again and again. 'No defense. No guard. No experience. Nothing!'

Even the fool from before had Aura – the crossbow-wielding buffoon in the ruins. Even he was able to withstand one of my punches!

I heaved again, my stomach roiling and clenching and tears forming at the corners of my eyes even as my lungs fought to draw breath against my shaking and retching. I sank to my knees against the wall, my head pressed against the stone, and turned away from the body at my feet.

"I killed someone," I murmured even as my stomach rolled again and I was forced to hunch over on myself. But there was nothing left to retch, I hadn't eaten a decent meal in days.

"Fuck," I gasped, closing my eyes and pressing my face against the stone – the cold, cold stone – as best I could. I wiped away the mucus and spit from my mouth-

And promptly sent myself into another fit when I realized it was the gore-drenched hand that did the deed.

"Fuck," I spat, glaring angrily at the blood even as I forced it to evaporate and give me the power of my Semblance. Only after my arm was devoid of blood and wiped clean of gore did I stop to repeat the process on all the life-giving fluid that had splattered against my torso during the short lived fight.

It was a frenzied action, that transfer of blood to Aura. It was not measured or calculated.

It was born of desperation to forget.

'I killed someone,' I thought again as I forced myself back to my feet, supporting myself on the wall as I did so. The last of the blood disappeared and my skin was left deceptively clean because of it. I cast a glance down at the corpse then-

And a crossbow bolt exploded against my chest, quickly followed by four others. Their piercing tips did not even come close to scratching my skin, given the purple Aura present there, the product of the dead woman's blood.

'Dead,' my mind chanted. 'Dead. Dead. Dead.'

"Heathen," a man shouted somewhere down the hall, running at me even as I glanced up, wide eyed. He reloaded his crossbow and brought it to bear again. "Defiler! Leave the sacred shrine! Die!"

'Die! Die! Die!'

And he fired.

He and his four fellow cultists fired another volley and I reflexively threw my arm out in front of me, a blast of purple Aura – my blood Aura, the Aura created from the dead – ripping free of my fingertips just as my mind connected the dots.

"No!" I gasped, my throat constricted in upon itself in horror to such an extreme degree that the shout came out only as a strangled whisper.

But the deed was already done.

My retort already launched.

My blood Aura thundered down the narrow expanse of the cave, tearing the points of stalagmites and stalactites off the walls and floor as it ebbed and flowed over the rough terrain like the pure ethereal force it was. The crossbow bolts snapped and broke under its pressure when they met it until nothing was left of them but dust and metal bits.

But the wave of pure force, born from the blood of the dead cultist behind me, did not stop there.

Terrible was its power.

Even more terrifying was its resolve.

The cultists were dead, they just did not know it yet.

The blood Aura impacted the lead cultist with a wet smack that I truly believed I would never forget. The features of his face simply ceased to exist and his bones crumbled under the weight of my power. The purple Aura picked up his entire bulk and bodily threw him backward, limp and twisted and wrong, even as it continued on to greet the remained four cultists with its deadly embrace.

They suffered the same fate their brother did.

All five bodies were gathered up by the purple Aura and, with no Aura of their own to defend them, they were swiftly caught up in the cataclysm. Head over heel, they tumbled, their bodies limp and their limbs broken and crooked. They did not have the weight of the Watcher-Grimm to survive my power. They did not have the agility of a huntress or a hunter.

They had nothing. They were nothing. Not to me! Not to a hunter!

They were untrained civilians!

…And I offered them only the cold embrace of death.

The purple Aura roared and splintered the cave walls into a smooth surface even as it reached a bend in the cave.

My blood Aura served as the rock, the cave wall as the hard place.

And the cultists were helplessly caught in between them.

The ethereal energy impacted the wall with a deceptively soft, harmless thump, throwing loose bits of rock and stone all about the length of the cave. The lone torch that rested against the wall was pulverized into wood dust and its flame was snuffed out quickly, dousing the end of the passage in darkness.

But that did not stop me from seeing the cultists' fate.

Their bodies hit the wall hard. So, so hard. One man was impaled by a sharp spike jutting out of the cave wall, his bones broken and his body crushed. A woman landed on her neck and a piece of stone on the floor caught her chin – my blood Aura then tore her head from her body. Another woman flew face-first into the wall with enough force to cave her chest in; she fell to the floor with her broken ribs jutting out at angles I did not think possible from beneath her skin. A male cultist impacted the wall head-on, hard enough that everything above his shoulders was rendered a bloody paste.

And the leader, under my own power, skidded across the top of the cave, losing skin and blood and bone as he did. He impacted the bend in the cave near the top, his arm torn away from his torso and his body dropped, limp, to the ground shortly thereafter.

And I fell to my knees and stared.

I knew I would have to kill, being a hunter. I knew it would come eventually, the day where I took another's life. But I did not realize it would surprise me so. I did not realize I would not get a choice in the matter.

I did not expect my first kill to happen like this.

Blood dripped slowly off the wall, splattering on the ground beneath the corpse hanging from the rock-spear with a wet splatter.

I shut my eyes.

Everyone I fought before now had Aura. Junior's thugs. My fellow classmates. Neo. Torchwick. The White Fang thugs. Even the other cultist, the one I found in the ruins, had Aura.

All of them.

I did not mean to kill these men and women. They did not need to die.

The ground shook beneath me and I sank to my knees, my arms wrapped around my torso.

Fuck, this hurt. I wanted – needed – to move. I needed to find a way to the surface. I needed to help my team.

But my mind was consumed with the memories of the corpses I made. It was hounded by the feeling of blood and bone breaking so thoroughly under my fist.

The ground shook again and a roar sounded, vicious and angry and visceral, in the distance.

'Ruby!' My mind shouted. 'Think of Ruby! Of your sister in all but blood! She needs you! She- She…'

She hummed, drawing my attention back to her even as the trees around Beacon waved in the fall winds. The expression on her face was one I did not remember ever seeing before – a smile, wide eyes and arched eyebrows. Like she was proud and happy all at once.

"She told me you knew," Ruby muttered, her smile turning lopsided even as she met my eyes. "That you said she should tell me?"

"I did," I confirmed, thinking back to that conversation with Blake over breakfast on our first morning as a team. "I thought you would be- Ruby?"

She was hugging me around the midsection now, her arms tight and her head tucked beneath my chin. It was a good hug, this time. No sniffling or tears and she was even mindful of my recently injured shoulder.

She was happy.

The coppery, pungent smell of blood broke me from my musings even as I squinted through watery eyes at the hallway before me. My stomach roiled threateningly but I clenched every muscle I could to stop it from forcing me to dry heave.

'Up,' I chanted instead. 'Up. Up. Up. Go! They need you! Your-'

"-family," I said, holding aloft the cup in my hands.

"To family," Yang murmured, a grin on her face even as she placed herself on Blake's opposite side.

The faunus shifted in our arms – mine around her shoulders and the blonde's around her waist. Her mouth was hanging open slightly and her eyes were darting across both of our faces. She looked so incredibly lost that I almost repeated my toast.

Almost.

Blake swallowed and, after one last glance at us both, she licked her lips.

"To-" She gasped and drew in a shuddering breath, leaning into my side and drawing Yang closer to her with her free arm. Her eyes were growing watery and the smile on her face was shaky.

But it was sincere.

"To family," she said quietly, her features slackened in an earnest combination of happiness and awe.

Another roar. Another shudder reverberated through the cave.

A growl escaped my throat and I wiped at the moisture in my eyes. My nostrils flared and I pushed myself up, still braced against the wall.

I would not sit here useless. Not while my family fought and died on the surface.

Not after I promised-

'This isn't for me,' Yang muttered quietly, slowly bringing up the necklace for Blake and I to see. It was a slim chain, golden in color, and at its center rested a tiny bauble.

A scythe.

"I don't like how close Ruby came to dying when we were in that warehouse with Torchwick and his buddies. You weren't there, Enten, but that woman – Neo… there's not a single doubt in my mind now: she's insane. She beat Emerald and Mercury for hours. Hours! I don't know if it was an illusion or not but it definitely seemed real and that…"

The blonde paused, visibly making an effort to calm her breathing and pulling at the fabric of her ball gown irritably. She exhaled heavily, her shoulders going lax even as her eyes narrowed. "That scared me. That she could just up and decide to attack Ruby… to attack us… I wouldn't have been able to stop her. They took our weapons. They chained up our hands. They held us captive while she beat two people to within an inch of their lives and not once did she hesitate in doing it! Not once! Not even a grimace or a pause or a… a… There wasn't even emotion on her face! There was nothing! Nothing!"

Despite her best efforts, she was breathing heavily again and when she realized that, she swallowed audibly, piling the necklace into one of her hands. Slowly, she clenched her fist around it.

"That's why," Yang said, locking her eyes with mine, an intensity present there I had never seen before. "That's why I don't care if you do… questionable stuff anymore. As long as no one gets hurt. As long as you don't knowingly hamstring one of our classmates. As long as the only people you target are the people that tried to hurt us… I don't care."

I nodded slowly, fully aware of just how serious this moment was for the blonde. To say that probably hurt her and I would even bet that she did not really like herself for it either, if the narrowed eyes and scowl were any indication. That she was so conflicted and yet, still so trusting made me want to prove myself worthy of that trust.

"Thank you," I said quietly, sincerely, stepping forward to hug her about the waist. She, in return, wrapped her arms around my neck.

"Keep us safe, Enten," the girl whispered into my ear, her voice quiet and thick. "I know there are some things Ruby can't do… Some things I can't do… Can we count on you to look out for us?"

This blonde I was confronted with, I realized with a start, was not the one I knew. The Yang I knew would not plead with anyone, she would not beg or concede anything and yet… here she was, asking me to keep her safe.

Asking me to keep our team safe.

"Of course," I promised.

"Of course," I muttered, my eyes narrowing as I finally, at long last, raised myself to my full height. I heard running in the distance, past the mutilated corpses I made not even ten seconds prior, but they were only another obstacle.

Just another threat.

A calm settled over my mind and I welcomed it readily. The coppery tang of blood in the air faded and my mind ceased its incessant howling. No longer did I balk at the sight of the body at my feet. My rebellious stomach stopped roiling. My arms developed gooseflesh and a chill ran through my spine even as my eyes narrowed, intently watching the far side of the hallway.

The running feet belonged to enemies, after all. Enemies that were just another threat.

And I would put them down, if they tried to stop me.

Just like I would do for any other threat that went against me and mine. Against my family-

"I can't say anything to help you, Weiss," I started, ignoring Yang's growl in favor of meeting the Schnee heiress' eyes. "Fear as deep-seeded as that doesn't just magically disappear overnight with some pretty words. It stays with you, always there, forever waiting for a moment of weakness."

I shook my head. "All you can learn to do is deal with it.

"But that's not necessarily a bad thing," I continued when the white haired girl frowned. "That fear is part of who you are. Part of what makes you Weiss Schnee... Now, I can't speak for Blake or Yang, but I'm glad to have Weiss Schnee as my friend. Not Weiss the singer, the dancer or the heiress, but Weiss, the W on team RWEBY.

"That Weiss, the one I know, has friends to help her through her fears. She has a leader that would readily drop everything she was doing to help out and those other three people on the team aren't that bad either."

The Schnee heiress laughed under breath and a small smile broke out on her face. Progress, at least.

"Besides," I said, fishing out a picture of Phoebe. This was a more recent image that I asked mom to take after the conversation wherein Yang learned that Blake was a faunus – I wanted a photo of Phoebe in Yang's orange beanie and mom delivered. My younger sister had a wide, toothy smile on her face as she stared up at the camera and in her hand was clutched a crayon. A half-finished drawing of a figure with a shield lay on the ground behind her and her ears poked out the top of the orange fabric, carefully modified to allow her to wear the hat comfortably.

I smiled softly even as held the picture up. Yang made a pleased sound in the back of her throat.

"Not all faunus are out to get Weiss Schnee," I said, a soft smile on my face.

And by the way the white haired girl's eyes lit up, I knew she would be alright.

The cave shuddered again and bits of stone and dirt fell from the ceiling even as I turned to regard the corpse at my feet.

'My team. My team is what is most important here,' my mind decided even as my eyes regarded the dead woman's body – naked as the other cultist's were – with a detachment for which my mental state was grateful.

'My team is all that matters. Get back to them. Help them! Protect them!'

Another tremor shook the cavern and even more dust fell upon my head, but I disregarded it the same way I disregarded my tumultuous stomach. Instead, I thrust my hand out toward the corpse I'd made, refusing to spare it another glance as I did so.

The dead did not care for social courtesies, after all. The dead cared for nothing and energy spent trying to treat them as though they were living was entirely wasted.

It was nothing more than a font of power for me now, this corpse.

And so, I pulled.

Blood immediately began churning on the body, swaying in an unnatural manner even as it hurriedly threw itself into the air and promptly turned into a glowing, ethereal, purple energy.

And that energy rushed toward me, eagerly answering my call.

It kissed the tips of my fingers and flowed up my arms. It coiled about my neck and curled itself around my torso. My feet were quickly encased by its all-encompassing embrace and all about my head, a visible aura grew.

It was purple.

It was heavy and volatile – such was its power.

And it was thick. More discernable than it had ever been before.

The body on the ground grew paler and paler but I did not stop. She was dead and the dead served no purpose to the living.

Until now.

The power about me grew further and further until it was nearly a tangible thing, hanging in the air about me. It ebbed and flowed, wisps of its ethereal presence coiling and shaking in visible waves in front of my very eyes.

And, finally, when the blood stopped rushing out of her veins and my power stopped growing, I turned my purple-tinted vision to the end of the cavern.

There were five more bodies there.

Five more bodies who had no use for their blood.

Their power.


A/N: What's up guys!? Long time no see, as they say – the holiday season kept me busy but I'm back with what I consider to be a pivotal point in Enten's time in Liar's Landing.

Runes and mothers and blood, oh my!

Also, before anyone brings it up, Enten is not aware of Summer Rose's appearance. I feel it reasonable to assume that Ruby does not carry a picture of her, given the first time we actually saw the older woman's appearance in the series was when Qrow entered the picture in season three… after we spent two entire seasons with Ruby.

In fact, both Ruby and Yang seemed rather reluctant to share the details of their mothers' disappearances/deaths with anyone (excluding Yang's argument/talk with Blake at Beacon).

Anywho, my point here is that Enten is entirely unaware of just what that white cloak means. It's just another article of clothing to him – the thing he's really excited about is that book filled with odd and promising symbols of power.

Now, without further ado, to the review responses:

MrtheratedG: The Adam fight will go differently, mostly due to Blake's new mindset. She's confronted her worst fears now and instead of retreating, she might just attack.

Badgedbadger: My intent was for the wooden platform upon which Enten was standing to be so fragile that any sudden movement might break it, hence the reason for his lack of, well, movement. It was a tough thing to describe in words, though!

Some Random Guy: I had intended to use unique Grimm from the get-go but I like that the newer seasons of RWBY are expanding upon them. Instead of being forced to use something entirely original and risk jarring my readers with the transition between relative-canon and complete-noncanon, I might just be able find a common ground in between the two. And you're spot on with the finale rapidly approaching. It'll hopefully hit in the next 1-2 chapters, unless I get sidetracked… thanks for the review!

NothingExistence: You have no idea just how on point your review was! After all, what is death but another obstacle to be overcome?

Chaotic Hunger: Malfunctioning computers – been there, you have my most sincere sympathy. It's frustrating to the extreme when a machine just quits working and you get to play twenty questions with something that can't answer you back easily. As for Enten kicking some ass – he's got several bodies' worth of blood Aura now… the ass kicking will commence shortly, and all the moral implications that come with it will follow soon after!

D. Avenoir: I know right! Canon had RWBY, JNPR and CRDL… I understand that animation is much, much, much more time-consuming than story writing and that was one of the main things I wanted to improve upon in my story. Beacon was/is a thriving school with plenty of students! Fleshing out those students/teams was something that I went into this story knowing I was going to do no matter what. I'm glad you enjoyed it! (And to be honest, I've always found the anime habit of naming characters as nouns in foreign languages strange… I can't imagine how the Japanese feel when they read about someone named "strawberry" (Ichigo) or a fish-paste cake (Naruto) but I suppose they just get used to it? I don't know!) Thanks for the review!

Grabblers: I had to go find your PM – I must've missed it in my email (or perhaps I was just intimidated by its size, not sure!). Anywho, here we go: I appreciate, first off, your compliments regarding my interpretation of the speculative RWBY universe. I had a lot of room to branch out from the canon story – you can only include as much detail as your animation time allows with anime, after all. Hearing that you like what I've done makes me happy! On Enten's semblance, I took great care with making sure it wasn't some kind of 'he disappears with super-duper extreme speed then everyone dies' clichéd ability. I do disagree that it needs to be dual natured, though – he may be both idealistic and manipulative, but the core of Enten's character that I have always tried to focus upon is his need to be in control. In this case, in the case of his semblance, he exerts his will over the life force of his enemies. Thank you for your thoughts on Blake – and I'm sorry if this response is somewhat choppy but I'm jumping between points in your PM. She always struck me as a recluse with plenty of emotional baggage. I wanted to show that baggage but at the same time, I wanted to have her overcome it due to Enten's influence – MC's meddling indeed! As for Yang's PoV, you couldn't mean you're expecting me to keep it reserved for the scenes in which she loses her arm, could you?! Never! I would never… alright, so yeah, that's currently the plan. Weiss (and Pyrrha) are two of the characters I am most excited about – thank you for the kind words about their changes! And rest assured, those two are only just getting started… As for the changes with RWEBY, Pyrrha and SDC from canon, well, a lot of those changes will be realized with the invasion of Beacon/Vale. And who says SDC is going down? Enten isn't infallible, after all, far from it, in fact.

Wow – I think I need to break this up into separate paragraphs just to keep my thought process flowing smoothly. As far the Yang/Enten/Raven triangle goes, you might have to end up disappointed on that front…. That said, I wouldn't count out Enten corrupting Pyrrha further just yet :) As far as the rest of the romance department goes, I'll just leave it as this: I have a plan, that plan involves Weiss' revenge on her father. It involves Yang. It involves, to an extent, Cinderfall as well. It's a vaguely hashed out plan at present, but I've found that I write best in the moment, rather than trying to hash out every single little detail. And to the last point (Enten not using his cannon to launch special ammo): that is partly because he has no idea how to make it and partly because he hasn't thought of it. Also, your English is fantastic. Thanks for your review and your thoughts!

Guest-who-reviewed-on-Nov-1 (because I have no other way to refer to you): Hierarchies calling their hangouts 'clubhouses' is totally legit. Because words and stuff. It's like a no-girls-allowed club but better because girls are allowed and it has a fancy-pants name. But all jokes aside: thanks for your review. I was especially flattered by your comment on my characters being written so masterfully – realistic characters are something I put a lot – and I mean a lot – of time into maintaining. Having that effort realized is nice! I also like the point you touched on later in your review, namely that Enten knows nothing about the world around him. What he does, he does of his own volition and because of his own motives. I meant to make a serious SI/OC fic and I think I've done quite well thus far! That you mentioned there's none of the OOC-gut-spilling scenes wherein characters from the show admit things they would never admit otherwise just makes me even happier! That's what I've going for this entire time. I don't want this to feel like a detached checklist wherein the SI/OC goes through the motions of saving Remnant or RWBY or whatever, I want it to be a living, breathing story. That's my goal and I sincerely hope I live up to both my own and my readers expectations. Thank you for thoughts!

TheNightShinobi: Thanks for your comments on the fight scenes being spot on – I've never been in the fight myself so I'm going into this essentially blind. Thanks for your review!

DocKucCRO: Enten has blade-like edges on the sides of Ultimatum. They aren't quite the stabby kind of sword blades and they certainly aren't as sharp as, say, Ruby's Crescent Rose but they can cut if they hit hard enough. Thanks for your review!

Mcd3424: I've had plenty of reviewers tell me they hate Enten and keep reading solely for that fact. He was never meant to be the charismatic-never-do-wrong hero. He was meant to be real. I'm glad you like (and hate him) as he is! As for your questions: how Enten got to Remnant will be answered in a fashion, eventually. That's actually a rather important part of the story down the line. As far as a secret society of Earthen people on Remnant – sorry, but that's not going to happen here. It'd be an interesting concept but something I do not feel up to integrating into the story. I've enough on my plate with the SDC, Liar's Landing and Pyrrha subplots as it is. And that's to say nothing of the actual overarching plot! Lastly, Enten working with the bad guys is possible… but only if his team benefits from it. And also, only if his team agrees to it. Remember that he operates under a very selfish mindset, i.e. what is good for my team will be done, regardless of what other people think of it. Possible, but unlikely given he cares for the opinions of his team too. Thanks for the review!

Flux Casey: Blake's speech patterns were shortened for a reason – the answer to which unfortunately becomes obvious much later in the fic. I know that's not much of an answer but… well, that's what I have! Also, shoot me a link to your podcast if you'd be so kind – I'd like to listen/watch a few! Thanks for your thoughts!

MomMorganHannahFae: I miss you too.

Strikeman: First off, thanks for your thoughts. You hit the nail on the head as far as Enten's passiveness is concerned. I put him on a team with some of the most hard-headed and well-written characters out there. He was bound to clash with them and, given he more often than not disagrees with all of them, he was bound to be on the losing end of some arguments. He gets his way – sometimes – but so does the rest of the team. I did not want to make this an SI/OC-gets-his-way-because-he's-an-SI/OC fic but in doing that I opened myself up to keeping my characters just that – in character. I tried to find a balance, but I will readily admit that it is hard. Hopefully it'll get better for you from here on out – Enten will be… ahh, growing a little more extreme in his views soon! Thanks for your review!

Calzifer: Words are hard man! I can't be blamed if Enten's name happens to mean something in german… I was looking at the Japanese translation of it! Thanks for your review!

That's about it for now. Hope everyone had a great holiday season!

Till next time,

Phailen