Note: Hi, everyone! Happy holidays to you all. Sorry for the long wait. Finals were rough and we've been occupying ourselves by writing a completely different piece of trash writing as opposed to this one for the past few weeks. But we're back now, just in time for the end of the decade. And good timing too, because there's no new episode of Volume 7 tomorrow, so you'll have to make do with this instead. Sorry. Anyway, we hope to see you all next year as this story continues ad Infinium. Enjoy.

Weiss could recall, in perhaps a most miraculous detail, every terrible thing that had ever happened in her life.

It stained her memory, sticking to her like gum on the bottom of her heel. The pleasant things all faded mere hours after they passed, but if a man had walked up to her on the street and promised her a Lien or every instance of humility she had suffered, she would accumulate a fortune greater than that her father could dream.

There was the one exception: The Third Trial of the God's Arm.

She could recall everything before. The Miner and the Reveler, the glint in their eyes as they sought to destroy, the pacing of her breath as she thrust her sword into the flesh of things that could and should not exist. She remembered everything up to the Third Trial's beginning, and then her memory picked up in its aftermath—particularly at the moment that her eye was slashed out of her head. The first thing she remembered was that the taste of the air changed around her; it became sharp and it stung the buds on her tongue, poisoned by her blood. Then she remembered hitting the ground, the tips of her elbows touching first before her spine. Then there was minute pain, focused intensely in a deep part of her flesh before spreading in a few seconds to the rest of her, then her hand automatically moving to the wound, then the ghastly white world around her, sideways, then the groaning of heavy movements of the thing that cut her, and then, after all of that, she distinctly remembered screaming.

That was the constant until her sister arrived, swooping in front of her, standing proud like a superhero. It was the third time in her life that Weiss ever saw Winter wearing a dress. There was this big flash of bright light, like lightning in the room, and then despite the pain controlling her senses, Weiss recalled Winter speaking.

"I said leave her alone!"

Her father was there. Dressed in white. A bodysuit like her. He breathed heavily. Why was he looking at her like that?

"Insolent," he muttered. "Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"Stopping this madness," she said. Her voice was raw. "This is twisted! Everything about this is wrong!"

"The punishment for interfering in the God's Arm is severe," he seethed. "Think twice before you act against me again."

"This Trial was over. You won!" Winter cried. "Stop this, please!"

There was this viewing chamber up above the stage, and some unforeseen force pulled Weiss's bloody gaze toward it. There were the dreamgazers, stoic. There was her cousin, her aunt, an executive from the academy, her brother, smiling to himself, and… her mother. Her mother was there, face worn down by time that never passed her, looking not at her, but her sister. She didn't show any strong resistance or emotion. She was simply resigned to fate.

"You will regret this," her father warned.

Winter pointed her sword at him. Her teeth were gritted. Her posture hunched. Hair loose. Her knees were trembling under the dress. She was unchained, and her face was contorted and rotten with fury.

"You… you are never going to lay a finger on her again," Winter said determinedly. "Do you understand me? Never again."

Her father was not shaken. He merely smirked, all the knowledge in the world still firmly resting in his position.

"What makes you think you'll have a say in the matter?"

Cold air hit Weiss when she reopened her eyes. It was thin, sharp, like knives dancing on her skin. She was… alive? Still? She looked around at the wondrous, starry sky above, and the rest of the lengthy platform she was lying on. It was the upper patio of her house. She could recognize it from the perfectly trimmed shrubbery in the corner, the small lip on the edge and sculpted glass candles that lined the barrier all the way along. She trembled as she rose to her feet. The tongue that captured her was gone, but the wounds remained. Standing was a struggle in and of itself due to her burns, but she managed just okay. Her sword was gone, but as she grabbed her bleeding shoulder, she noticed that her Witnesses were still there—or at least, some of them. Nora, Ren, Jaune, and Velvet, all coming to their senses just like her.

"Hey…" Velvet stammered. "Is… is everyone all right?"

"I'm okay," Jaune groaned, pushing himself to his elbows.

Nora smoothed her thumb along her jaw, testing to make sure it wasn't broken. "So… I take it that giant God wasn't supposed to do that?"

"It seems so," Ren said, resting upright. Nora helped him to his feet, gently brushing off his shoulders, as Velvet cautiously approached Weiss.

"Weiss? Are you okay?" she asked. Weiss didn't respond. She looked around the porch in a trance, like the world grasped her by the throat and couldn't let go. Velvet tenderly reached toward Weiss's shoulder, but she didn't respond to her touch. "Hey, you're bleeding—"

"It's over, isn't it?"

Velvet's gaze turned cold. "W-What? What are you talking about?"

"It's… it's all over," Weiss whispered. Her eyes were glassy as they scanned the snow-covered floor. "The Trial's over… I can't…"

Velvet hadn't known Weiss for very long. In the time that they had spent together, their relationship had been anything but pleasant. But despite Weiss's resistance, and her burns and cuts and bruises, and the wet stains on her cheeks, and every cruel thing Weiss had ever said in her presence, Velvet could not think of anything else to do but gently wrap her arm around Weiss's torso, and whisper in her ear that everything was going to be okay. It wasn't, but she said it again and again until she even started to believe herself. Weiss didn't react, standing frozen in Velvet's arms as the snow fell around her.

It was only after allowing the moment to settle did Ren finally speak what was on everyone's mind. "Where are we?"

Jaune shivered, hugging himself as he examined his surroundings. "I mean, we definitely aren't in Beacon anymore."

"Are you sure?" asked Nora. "Like, did we get teleported somewhere else, or is this like a big hallucination or something?"

Velvet leaned into Weiss's ear, pushing her hair back and speaking sweetly. "Weiss, do you know what's happening?"

She said nothing.

"Weiss, I know you are going through a lot, but you need to focus," Velvet stated. "The others could be in trouble. We need to know what's happening."

"Could be in trouble?" Nora asked pointedly. "Ruby got kidnapped and Yang got eaten by a giant toad! How much more trouble could we be in?"

"Nora, not helping," Velvet reprimanded her, but she simply rolled her eyes.

"What? I'm saying we need to get moving," Nora explained. "Whatever's happening, we aren't going to be any use to anyone just standing around here. Weiss is out of it, but we can still go and figure out what's going on."

"I agree," Ren stated. "We can ask questions later, but right now our top priority should be finding the others."

"I'm… not so sure, guys," Jaune said, swaying back and forth in the cold. "This place could be dangerous, and none of us have any weapons. We probably shouldn't rush into something we don't understand, especially if we're dealing with a literal God."

Nora argued back at him quickly, but he held his ground, and it wasn't very long before the four of them were lost into their discussion, parroting their positions as the snow slowly accumulated on the ground around them. Weiss remained quiet.

Yang was gone.

Ruby was taken.

When her father saw her next, what would he say to her? She had always assumed that he would greet her with a sneer, a casual remark of contempt, and then hurriedly have her be ushered out of his sight, forever. That thought—and what would come after it—had haunted her thoughts for the past several days leading up to the Trials. But standing on her own balcony, feeling Atlasian winds cling to her damaged skin, watching the others argue about how they were going to leave her behind and rescue Ruby and Yang and Pyrrha and Blake, watching them make their choices as they mattered, a new thought crept into her mind, and the vision came to her so clearly that she thought it was real.

He wouldn't do anything but smile at her, and give her a kiss on the forehead, and tell her how glad he was that she had lived up to his expectations.

"Mirror… mirror…"

The others' voices became quiet as a sound was picked up over the wind.

"Tell me something…"

The world around Weiss came back into focus, and a small gasp escaped her lips.

"Tell me why the face I see in you… is not my own…"

Singing. Beautiful, angelic singing, powerful and yet on the verge of breaking.

It was in her voice.

And it was coming from the other side of the balcony door.

Yang was thrust into darkness before she could scream.

"So… you're fucked, right?"

The chains compressed her so tightly she couldn't breathe. The air was thick and musty and smelled of sour milk and bile. She slammed into a wall, slimy and tense. She fell into a passage, feeling the muscles constrict around her. She could hear a heartbeat that wasn't her own.

"All that hard work thrown away. Wasted. Worthless."

The passage drew narrower as she slid down it. Something nipped at her heels, and whatever approached her flesh felt like fire. Her eyes went wide, and she tried to fight back, but her body resisted her. The thing—she was in its throat. It was eating her. She couldn't stop back. She tried to activate her Semblance, but she felt no strength rush into her. The chains wouldn't break. They wouldn't break. She couldn't move. Stuck. She was stuck. Falling. Into its gut. Ruby. Blake. Weiss. Someone. Anyone. God. Help. Please.

"Honestly, this is hilarious."

Suddenly, there was a violent tear, and then a torrent of blood struck her in the face. She felt something grab onto, and against her will, she was yanked upward out of the esophagus. The walls around her trembled, and through the meat, she saw light flooding into the creature's mouth. Before she could react, she was thrown toward it, and the very next thing she knew, she was on solid ground, coughing and sputtering as Blake hunched over her, racing to free her from her chains.

"Yang! Oh my god, you're alive," Blake gasped, struggling to pull upon the heavy gold. "I thought you were… holy shit, I thought you were dead."

"I—" Yang broke out into a mad fit of coughs before she could answer. Blake did what she could to sit her up and wipe her face clean of the blood and saliva with her forearm, resisting the urge to puke as she did.

"Yeah. Don't talk," Blake instructed. "You don't want to get any of this in your mouth."

"Too—ugh—late," Yang groaned. She spat something onto the ground and shook her head. "What happened?"

Yang received an answer when a chunk of a toad's tongue suddenly landed in front of her with a wet flop. It was right when the leftover saliva splashed onto her did she actually manage to take in what was happening around her. The first thing to catch her attention was the giant royal toad ten yards out in front of her, its mouth drooping open and a massive gash in its underside. Pyrrha was standing inside its jaw, a dead gleam in her eye as she repeatedly jammed Gambol Shroud up into the gross flesh of the toad's mouth. The blood and bile poured loosely from its mouth as the life faded from the massive creature, and it wasn't very long before the thing let out a dull moan and collapsed forward onto the purple, crystalline floor.

That was the second thing she noticed, and when she bothered finally looking up and around at her environment, she came to realize that she was no longer in the theater at Beacon. It seemed to her that she wasn't much of anywhere. Surrounding here were massive pillars of the same crystal-like substance that the floor was made of, and when she was finally loosed from her bonds and pressed her thumb into the ground, she brushed up a thin layer of powder that clung to the fingerless glove on her hand. The pillars spread out in all directions, lit by a sky that displayed swirls of galaxies in dazzling colors. Yang cautiously rose to her feet, nervously spinning around to examine her whereabouts until Blake put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

"Yeah. I know. Weird dream location," Blake stated. "Honestly, it beats being in another forest."

"I don't know about that," Yang said unpleasantly. "Seems pretty weird."

"Well, we're dealing with weird circumstances."

"You mean a literal God trying to kill us?"

"It's not a God," Blake insisted.

"What is it then?"

"I'm working on that."

It was then that Yang's mind was cleared of thoughts pertaining to the inside of the toad's guts and remembered something that she was somewhat ashamed wasn't the first thing she remembered. Ruby was gone. Just... gone. Snatched up by the Reveler like a prize. It called her its bride, and she didn't want to think of the implications of any of that. They needed to find her as fast as possible. A God wouldn't kill its bride, right? Surely, they had some time to figure out how to free her. Yang hoped so. Despite how pissed off she was, she didn't think her relationship with Ruby had deteriorated to the point where she would be fine with becoming an only child. Not yet anyway. So her goal was simple: Fight God. Free Ruby. Hate her afterward for lying to her.

Also, what the hell was it rambling about her eyes for?

The dead toad suddenly shifted, and Blake and Yang took a hesitant step away from it until they saw Gambol Shroud pierce through its lip. A giant gash opened vertically along its skin, and after a brief struggle, Pyrrha shoved her way through, coated with the same foul material as Yang. Aside from a slight scowl, she did not seem to mind. Dripping with blood, she sauntered toward the others, casting a disparaging look at the toad's corpse before offering the weapon back to its owner.

"I'm sorry for taking this without asking," Pyrrha said casually. Blake took one whiff of her weapon and politely shook her head.

"You know what? You can hold onto that."

Pyrrha pursed her lips. The blade trembled slightly in her hand. She looked at the ground. "I… don't feel comfortable using someone else's weapon."

"No. Trust me. I'd rather you take it," Blake insisted, pressing two digits against Pyrrha's knuckles and gently pushing her hand back toward her chest. Pyrrha reluctantly agreed, wiping away blood from her face. She warily looked at the crystal structures, staying light on her toes.

"We should… probably look for that other toad," Pyrrha claimed. "It must be around here somewhere."

"Yeah, about that," Yang grumbled. "You want to tell us how you did that?"

"Did what?" Pyrrha had no interest in her voice.

Yang squinted. "Uh, kill that thing? You know, the giant monster that almost killed Weiss?"

"Oh," Pyrrha said with a nod. "Its hide was only difficult to penetrate from the outside, so by stabbing it from within—" She stopped herself. That wasn't what Yang meant. Refocus. "You want to know why I beat it when Weiss couldn't?"

"Something like that, yeah," Yang crossed her arms. "That thing was summoned by a God. How—"

"Not a god," said Blake.

"Summoned by a God-like entity that is indistinguishable from an actual God," Yang said irritably. "That thing almost Weiss alive and you kicked its ass in two seconds. That's not possible."

"Well, it is possible considering that I just did it," Pyrrha noted.

"How?" Yang asked directly. Pyrrha, seeming completely normal and relaxed and wiping more blood out of her eyes, responded with a shrug.

"I'm a much better fighter than Weiss is."

Blake covered her mouth to stop herself from snickering. "Wow. You are so humble, Pyrrha."

"That statement wasn't—" Pyrrha paused again. Think. She was talking to Blake. "Oh, you were being sarcastic. I'm not good at picking that up."

"No shit," Blake stated. "But seriously, what the hell is your Semblance?"

"S-Semblance?" Pyrrha said, her shoulders contracting inward as she stepped back away from them. "What do you mean?"

Blake placed her hands on her hips. "It means I've been thinking about this for a while, and after what I just saw, there is no chance in hell you are just this naturally talented. Weiss is maybe one of the best fighters in the school, and that's coming from someone who can't stand being in the same room as her for ten seconds. She beats me half the time in our sparring sessions, and that's without any Aura."

Yang nervously clicked her jaw. "Hey, I don't think you should be telling people that."

"I don't care," Blake said simply. "Weiss trains harder than anyone I know. Her body is at its peak. Fuck, it's further than that because of all her enhancements. She's probably as strong and fast as anyone else in Remnant can push themselves—and she almost died. You kicked its ass easily. That shit isn't from training. That's not from strategy. That's a Semblance at work. So, what is it? Stopping time? Seeing the future?"

"It's nothing that complicated," Pyrrha promised.

"It has to be something pretty incredible," Blake reasoned.

"I would prefer that we focus our efforts on finding the others."

"A job which will be much easier if I know what I'm dealing with. So spit it out."

Yang sneered. "Blake, don't pressure her."

"No, I'm totally going to pressure her," she said confidently. "Two seconds ago, you were pressuring her. We're in a nightmare dimension fighting against a pseudo-God without any weapons, so I want to know how the only person who can fight back is going to help us. That's fair."

Pyrrha clasped her wrist behind her back, bowing her head. "That… that does seem like a good point."

"That's because it is a good point," Blake stated. "So, how does Pyrrha Nikos fight back against a God?"

Yang opened her mouth to protest. Blake wasn't being particularly charitable. Did she want to know Pyrrha's secrets? Of course. She had a long list of other people's secrets that she was waiting to acquire, and Pyrrha's name was close to the top, maybe even at its peak behind Blake's past. But those needed to come out willingly, and it was more than obvious looking at Pyrrha's shrunken posture that something was wrong with the prodigy of Beacon Academy. Not that Blake cared, or had any reason to care. Truthfully, that was something Yang should have concerned herself with as well, if not just because she hadn't been up to date on her trips to church, but also because she didn't like the odds of Weiss's faith treating gay people very well.

But Pyrrha. Back to her. Yang couldn't recall a conversation she had with the JNPR starlet since perhaps the inauguration ball when she first arrived at the school. She remembered it being cordial and friendly, and she also remembered that she was the one doing ninety percent of the talking, so her judgment wasn't the best to work with. Her point was that she had never seen Pyrrha fall under such immediate pressure before, and she was more than a bit stunned when Pyrrha—the deadliest student in Beacon Academy—had her face start to well with tears as she crossed her arms and stared down at the floor.

"I… I really, really don't want to talk about this," she said softly. Yang reached tentatively toward her, but before she could do much of anything to comfort her, Blake rolled her eyes.

"Great. Real helpful," she scoffed.

"I'm sorry," Pyrrha said honestly. "It's just very uncomfortable for me."

"Well, we wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable, would we?" Blake shrugged, turning to leave. Yang snatched her shoulder.

"Hey, stop being a dick," she chastised her. "She just saved our lives."

"And she could help us save the other's lives by just being honest with us," Blake said sternly. "I don't get what the problem is."

"The problem is you are being a little inconsiderate."

"Inconsiderate? No, what was inconsiderate was Weiss purposely excluding us from the God's Arm and then lying to us about it."

"Look, I get that you're pissy because your entire belief system is crashing right in front of your eyes, but—"

"It's not a fucking god, Yang."

Suddenly, Pyrrha shot her arms straight down by her sides, and in a moment of anguish, she closed her eyes and screamed. "Cognitive reconfiguration!"

Yang and Blake ceased bickering and turned back to Pyrrha, who tried her best to shut out the world around her. Blake cocked her head to the side. "Wait, what?"

"It's… cognitive reconfiguration. My Semblance," Pyrrha explained mournfully. "That's what my doctors called it. It's an Active-type Semblance that affects the synapses in my mind; a very rare mutation of other brain-related Semblance varieties. They called it cognitive reconfiguration. I've always just called it Super Focus."