Mother and Daughter stood across from each other, eyes locked on one another as Yang walked towards her mother, meeting her half way.
"Yang, I had every bit of faith you'd be alright." Raven stated with a smirk.
"I could have died out there." Yang scoffed at her mother's attitude. "You really don't care do you?!"
"But you're alive!" Raven pointed at her.
"The door, you opened the door into the vault yourself. You're the Spring Maiden!" Yang got into a defensive stance.
"Alright, it's no surprise, yes I am indeed the Spring Maiden." Raven crossed her arms. "Vernal was merely my decoy and as you see, she served her role dutifully in keeping me alive."
"And the original Spring Maiden?" Yang asked.
"I will admit, when we found her, we tried to train her up to be as strong as she could be. It was honestly like raising a kid at first. But it of course came with the same drawbacks as raising a runt. Especially one you wanted to groom into the ideal weapon." Raven explained. "So when I was finally fed up with her I granted her the one mercy I could."
Yang looked down. "I can't believe you, Mom... Throwing lives away like this. Throwing away the life of a member of your own tribe? I thought you cared about them. I thought you actually gave a damn about your people! This isn't what my father told me about you! I guess you killed that Raven too."
"I do care!" Raven stomped her foot down. "Everything I've done has been for our survival! I'm a survivalist, Yang!"
"More like you only care about your own self preservation." Yang scoffed. "Just stay out of my way while I get the relic." she walked past her mother, bumping shoulders with her.
"You?! Getting the relic?!" Raven laughed. "That's hilarious! You think I'm gonna let you take it?!" she drew her sword out. "You're wrong!"
Yang's hand was starting to act up again as she turned to face her mother with hues that matched her own now.
"You will because you're afraid of Salem!" she yelled back at her mother. "You stand here lecturing me about survival and yet I hear things slipping out like mercy, and caring about others."
Raven's eyes flared up as the winds in the room kicked up along with a few rocks. "DON'T YOU LECTURE ME!" she floated above Yang now. "You're standing there shaking like a scared little girl! You mean nothing to me! I abandoned you and Tai because you were nothing!"
"Yet you still have a portal to us." Yang glared at her as she floated herself back down, gritting her teeth. "I look at you and I pity you. I feel nothing but remorse for the person you could have been." Yang turned away from her and stared back towards the vault. "Instead... You chose to be this."
"Yang... Please, you don't want to do this! You stand no chance against Salem! You're just as scared of her as me!" Raven was now looking even more remorseful.
"I know. But I can handle it." Yang coldly stated as her hand finally calmed down on it's own. "Goodbye, Raven."
tears fell by Raven's feet as she took a step back from her daughter. "I'm... Sorry..." she covered her own mouth as Yang turned back to face her.
A single feather instead fell onto spot Raven was standing, landing on the ground gently.
Upon approaching the vault, Yang felt a wave of heat overwhelm her for a second before she firmly took a step inside, approaching the relic.
The Relic of Knowledge appeared to be some kind of lamp.
Yang took hold of it's handle and collapsed to her knees in tears.
The door to Professor Leonardo Lionheart's office slammed shut and he locked the door while scrambling around the office, in search of something. it was then that the Seer Grimm floated into the room and saw Salem's face on the other end.
"Leo, what's going on?" she asked.
"Things have been complicated!" he explained. "The White Fang screwed up their end of the operation and to make it worse, the Mistral Police has been called! We've been compromised!"
"Leo, look at me." Salem instructed.
"Your Grace, what can I do to make it better?" he asked as the door to his office was being slammed into by his students.
"Stand aside, while I deal with these children coming your way." Salem instructed as the Seer now floated in front of the door.
Leonardo looked down in shame at what was likely going to happen to his students before he felt something in him. Something he hadn't felt in years. A spark... A single spark of courage. With that he activated his weapon and fired a rock out at the Seer Grimm, doing little more than irritate it and Salem who now turned towards him, looking rather angrily.
"You... You won't... Hurt my students!" he yelled as the door was forced open finally by Arslan.
"Have it your way then, Leonardo..." Salem stated coldly before the Seer Grimm came at him full force, knocking his weapon from his hand and in an even faster motion, dragging him into his office's hidden chamber, the hidden door slamming shut behind them.
"NO!" Arslan yelled and punched pointlessly at the door as Sun and Neptune tried to search for a hidden way to open the door around the bookshelf. The rest of the students looked around for any more Grimm like the one that had taken their headmaster.
In The Evernight Castle, Salem watched in boredom as Lionheart was killed by her Seer Grimm, while still begging for his life. "Coward." she muttered under her breath.
In the Grand Hall the fighting was seemingly wrapping up as Emerald raised up her weapons to block Weiss stabbing at her before trying to counter her with a swing of a sickle.
Weiss parried it successfully and sliced at Emerald's stomach, causing her to stagger back before Emerald then swung her weapon around in it's chain scythe form, only for it to be deflected by a glyph and hit her in the head. She stumbled back, now holding her head.
Thinking fast, she tried to activate her semblance to make Weiss hallucinate something that wasn't there, but was caught off guard when a glyph formed below her feet and launched her into the air where she was met by another glyph that an Arma Gigas stood on.
It slashed out at her and she flew back to the ground several feet, landing next to Mercury.
In the center of the Grand Hall Ruby was providing suppressing fire with Ren against Hazel. He shrugged all their bullets off with Minimal effort.
Jaune got his attention by slashing him across the chest with Crocea Mors, he then raised up his shield to block an oncoming punch. The force of the punch was more than Jaune knew he'd be able to handle for long.
"NORA NOW!" Jaune yelled before rolling out of the way as Nora swung her hammer full force at Hazel, slamming into his body and knocking him right to where Emerald and Mercury were.
The dust Crystals in Hazel's arms fell out as his aura shattered and he sat up on his knees, knowing when he was beaten.
"It's over!" Ruby stated. "Just give up, you've lost!" Ruby aimed Crescent Rose at them.
"it's not over!" Emerald insisted as she stood herself up. "When Cinder gets back she's going to stop all of you!"
The central lift rose slowly as Emerald glanced over with a smirk, expecting to see Cinder, but instead the only person there was Yang, now holding the Lamp of Knowledge in her hands and looking down towards everyone.
"Yang..." Ruby smiled proudly to her sister
Mercury slammed his fist to the ground in frustration. "DAMMIT ALL!" he yelled.
Emerald fell back to her knees as tears streamed down her face.
"Emerald... Get up." Mercury told her. "Emerald, we have to go!"
The only response Emerald felt appropriate was a scream as her semblance activated again, this time creating a hallucination that everyone in the Grand Hall saw.
Black smoke gathered up as everyone was visibly shaken by what they were seeing, a giant Salem formed in the center of the room and screamed aloud before rushing straight in Ruby's direction. Ruby did the only thing she could think of doing and held her weapon in front of her for defense.
Thankfully it was only a hallucination and it vanished soon after, although any trace of Emerald, Mercury and Hazel was gone.
"W-What was that?!" Blake asked in confusion.
"That... Was a hallucination." Ozpin explained. "But, an accurate one. That was Salem."
Taking a deep breath, Blake turned towards the entrance to the Grand Hall, seeing her parents and Ilia enter through it, she glanced over towards the back exit and saw Teams SSSN and ABRN, but they seemed rather downtrodden. Blake decided to go to her family first to see how the operation went.
"How's everything outside?" Blake asked.
"The explosives are being taken down and all members of the White Fang here were arrested." Ghira explained.
"And Adam?"
"He got away." Kali shook her head. "Chief Foley told me that he managed to slip past her ships and take a few officers out along the way."
"Dammit." Blake looked down.
"It's okay." Ilia assured her, walking over. "After what happened here today, I doubt any faunus in the White Fang will be comfortable taking orders from a man like Adam. One who hides his face and abandons his own people."
"You're right." she nodded before noticing Sun walk over, scratching the back of his head. "Say, did you get Lionheart?"
"No." Sun shook his head. "There was a Grimm in his office, by the time we found a way to get to him... It was too late."
"Oh..." Blake looked down before suddenly Sun then pointed her towards her teammates.
"Why don't you go to them?" he suggested. "My teammates and I are gonna need a few minutes to just get over what we saw."
"Thank you again, Sun." Blake turned towards him with a slight smile as he waved to her before scratching the back of his head and walking over towards his teammates.
Yang approached Qrow, handing him the relic. "What happened down there?" he asked.
"Honestly, I don't know. When I was down there, the door was open, Vernal was dead, Cinder and Raven were both gone." Yang shook her head.
Ruby walked over to her sister and fell into her arms hugging her. "I'm so glad you're okay."
Weiss pulled herself into this hug as well. "You had us real worried."
"Me?! You almost died, Weiss." Yang scoffed a bit and then noticed her prosthetic arm was missing. "Oh right."
You're lost, you're found
You're hard to pin down
"D-Do you... Need a hand?" Blake asked, holding up Yang's prosthetic, hoping to break the ice with her like that.
I never know if you'll come through
Yang just shrugged. "Alright, come here." she held her arm out for Blake to join in on the hug.
Then you appear,
Together we're here
And that's all that matters somehow
The four members of team RWBY shared a hug, reunited with one another.
The next morning, everyone that had come together at Haven all gathered up for a feast in Haven's cafeteria with a few of the Militia faunus chipping in as chefs along with Kali and Ghira.
"Thanks Mr. Belladonna." Ruby smiled to him as she took her plate of food with her to her table.
"Your teammates are very well mannered." Ghira complimented as Blake was given her food.
"Well, they are my teammates after all." Blake chuckled awkwardly.
"Go on now, sit with them, I know you're thinking of sitting alone, but you have a lot of time to make up for." Kali insisted.
"Mom..." Blake pouted before sighing. "You're right." she went and sat down next to Ruby and across from Yang who was sitting next to Weiss.
Nora was of course eating from a massive plate of pancakes while the rest of her teammates had a moderate portion.
"I think it's good Oscar's getting rest after what he's gone through." Ruby remarked.
"So Yang." Blake cleared her throat. "I just. I wanted to apologize for leaving and all that happened."
"We'll take about this another time." Yang shrugged, eating her food and looking away from her.
Ruby put a hand on Blake's shoulder, comfortingly as Blake's ears flattened on her head.
"Give her time." Weiss assured as she placed her cup of tea down.
Qrow sat himself down next to Ruby. "Hey, before he passed out, Ozpin had one last message." he turned towards Team JNR as well. "To get the lamp to Atlas."
Back in the dorm room Oscar laid in bed, resting in exhaustion from the over exhaustion of battle. Beside the bed was the Lamp of Knowledge. It started to glow a slightly brighter blue as Oscar stirred in his sleep.
The slums of Mistral were swarming with festering crime as a flickering display screen with text on it described a failed attack on Haven and listed the targets who were currently at large, including pictures of them.
As the doors to a tavern opened, the familiar shape of Adam Taurus stepped out. He wore a hood over his head now and bumped past the current person who was entering the tavern.
In the tavern were many shady individuals, all of whom had tattoos that seemed to be of a common spider symbol.
A burly looking woman wearing purple sat at the far end of the tavern looking up at the person that approached her. "Oh? And what might Little Miss get for you, darlin'?" she asked.
With that, the figure placed a scroll at the table in front of her, on it was a picture of Cinder along with a small sack full of Lien cards.
Little Miss just smiled to them. "We'll call you the moment we find them."
With that, this individual closed the umbrella she was holding.
Commentary: And with this chapter, Volume 5 is done! Fighting wrapped up for the most part, Emerald still has her freak out moment(But after she gets rekt by Weiss) and we do get a couple of hints for things that'll be address in Volume 6. With Yang still holding resentments towards Blake and of course that stinger scene with Lil' Miss and a certain familiar umbrella toting individual. Also Adam was there too as the "Big guy" that was mentioned in the actual Volume 6, since I'm assuming that was him. Oh yeah, also Lionheart died protecting his students in the very least.