No Man's Land

by Kerberos314

"What you're telling me is like a fairytale. A world of monsters and hunters, gods and magic." "Yet you're willing to bet your life on this 'War to End all Wars?" "You know what they say, when something sounds too good to be true…" Team RWBY experiences the Great War. This is not a kid's show. (No established pairings... yet?)

11. In Hell I'll Be In Good Company

Nope. I am NOT going to quit. And not just because every time I try I feel bad about it...

Seriously, love you guys, and if I could, I would be writing multiple chapters a week. But some bastard decided that there should only be 172 hours in an average week and so far about 80 hours on average has been consumed by work. I also probably spend WAY too much time trying to research the chapter than actually writing it. That, and my body decides that it needs things like food, and sleep. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm weak. How the heck did they do it back then, seriously?

In any case, in the spirit of Douglas Haig and Charles 'the Butcher' Mangin along with many other WWI leaders... One more push lads! We've got the Hun on the back foot!

---

"Headmaster…"

Pyrrha was breathless, as if she'd only just arrived in the man's office, not waited what felt like hours in uncomfortable silence as the man leisurely regarded the news she'd brought him. The few times he spoke were to himself, mumbled words and statements as if underwater. Pages were turned after only a cursory glance at the rippling lines of text, making Pyrrha wonder if was even trying to read them or just perusing like a fashion magazine.

"Ozpin."

The current leaf was allowed to fall on its own after he flipped it, a tree falling in a forest. Unacknowledged by either of them, Deputy Headmaster Goodwitch had appeared at Ozpin's right shoulder. Her expression as always was a bastion of conservatism, while simultaniously her feet were poised, ready to dive in and save them from drowning in the milieu.

"Yes… well…" Coughing into his hand drew Pyrrha's attention to Ozpin himself, his haggard appearance and bags under his eyes as dark as the swirling ink. "This certainly is… an interesting development."

That uttered 'interesting', as perfunctory as a 'thank you' when the postman delivers a black letter. Not surprised, Pyrrha wondered why she should be so disappointed. Ozpin had essentially admitted his powerlessness when he'd relinquished the book unto her. Though until then, she'd maintained hope that he was exploring other avenues to retrieve the missing team RWBY, that the book was just a distraction, a red herring rather than evidence of bloody murder.

"Ms. Nikos," Glynda intoned, moving around the desk to guide her towards the elevators. "Thank you for your diligence, but right now your priority should be your own health; we will take things from here."

Pyrrha at first wanted to stand her ground, but one look at the headmaster robbed her of the will to fight. There was such an uncustomary defeatist air about him-

From behind the man's desk came a sharp draw of air, an expression of shock no less than the two women who halted dead in their tracks to look back at the normally unflappable headmaster.

"Well…" He wasn't fooling anyone with his attempt at monotone. It lacked its sense of assurance, the way his desk was absent his ubiquitous coffee mug- though his hand reached out unconsciously looking for it, trembling.

And as if he had spilled that invisible cup, a dark stain had begun pooling in the gutter between pages. Ozpin backed away from the growing splotch as it flooded the text, threatening to spill its way onto his lap.

"This can't be good."

---

'Why am I not surprised?'

There really shouldn't have been anything to be surprised about anymore; a single, bare lightbulb swinging from a piece of twine was enough for that austere room, pungent yellow light dusting the corners piled high with broken furniture like stacks of bones.

'A common language shares its lies- comforting as gravity keeping us tied down to earth.'

An oak desk sat proudly in the center of the dirt floor, framed by support beams made from scavenged railroad track and a recently poured concrete ceiling that already looked like the surface of the moon. An overturned inkpot dripped irregularly off the tabletop, off-rhythm with the slow pendulum swing in the light of the aftermath.

'This world is faithfully cruel. I'm not surprised.

'And yet…'

Adam began drumming his fingers in dissonance, making sure that anyone else listening was as uncomfortable as he was.

This was what he was reduced to, less a room and more a burrow, a bunker, a hole in the ground with scant to show that anything but an animal occupied it.

And yet he didn't have it in him to be angry about it.

Though he could forgive Hugo for thinking otherwise, the man bearing witness to Adam's destruction of the room. And when he'd broken what he could, in a fit of petulance, he tore off his Iron-Cross medal and crushed it with his bare hands until it looked like a bite-sized pretzel.

The Hauptman waited unobtrusively off to the side, accustomed to these bestial tantrums to the point they had become almost tedious.

Almost. Some things a man couldn't get used to. Boredom came with apprehension. Silence intertwined with tension. For it was never a matter of if, but when.

"Did they say why they would not send reinforcement?"

"N-" Hugo cleared his throat. The air was already thick with dust and sweat, natural and nervous. One could not show fear in front of such a beast. "No. But it is quite obvious why they will not consider the request."

"Tell me." Adam's chair groaned as he leaned back, staring at the wall which bore both the marks of excavation and his cathartic exercise.

"Your offensive was never meant to succeed." Hugo lectured. "That it did is testament to your skills as a front-line commander. The fact that you were able to accomplish so much, with so little, is nothing short of a miracle."

"I don't need your flattery."

"Toadying up to you will get me nowhere." Adam met the eyes of his German counterpart for the first time without his mask between them, and Hugo quirked his lip, bearing a little tooth. "It will get us nowhere. Command did not assign me here to pamper your ego, but to make you an effective tool. Hence, it is my job to keep you faithfully apprised."

That's the way he saw it, anyway, and not necessarily how others might interpret his orders. In a way they were two of a kind, he acknowledged with a huff.

"Anyone else, given the forces at our disposal, would have thought victory an impossible task. That you did not might be considered a character flaw. You never bothered to ask why this front has stayed quiet for years now. What is there to gain besides prestige? The land is hospitable, as beneficial to the defenders as it is a hindrance to invaders. Any large-scale offensive here would be bogged down and lose any advantage it had in terms of swiftness or surprise. So, why? Why would the higherups send more troops to die over which rock is French and which is German? What is there to gain besides the most precious thing: time?"

"A distraction."

Adam's response was sharp as the alpine winds howling outside, redoubtable peaks leering down like fangs in the distance.

"A feint, yes," Hugo wetted his dry lips and throat, "There is no point to waging a campaign in the Vosges. Except perhaps to lure enemy forces away from a planned offensive up north at Verdun, or maybe the lowlands. These are just speculations; I am not privy to Ludendorff's machinations. Likewise, I am sure a man such as him has never even heard of you or myself. So it is probably not a personal slight. But even if they wanted to capitalize on the success, the rout you delivered was doubtlessly as surprising to them as it was our enemies, hence why there are no reinforcements at our disposal."

Looking sidelong at the swinging lightbulb, Adam rested his chin on the chapped knuckles of his fisted leather glove. "And maybe someone convinced command that I was untrustworthy, and they want me to fail, thus removing a potential thorn in their side."

"An upstart who accomplishes too much too quickly will always be a threat to the established order," the Spanish-born bastard agreed, settling to lean on the hard, bunker wall the way he had resigned himself to a lackadaisical career without chance of promotion. He looked every bit his four and a half decades. After three years of fighting, too weary to be wary anymore. "You do not seem to understand how fortunate you already are. A young man suddenly being given your rank and responsibility is unheard of without significant political connections. Yet it is painfully obvious you are not from any noteworthy family. You are not a Prussian, not even a German,"

Not a human, Adam mused almost absently.

Not that it mattered. In their eyes, the Slavs Adam had butchered weren't very human either. In retrospect, they were probably simply unlucky to have stumbled across him first. They were not wrong to treat him with hostility.

His Germans 'allies' had simply been canny enough to take advantage of the situation, manipulate his anger towards any humans who pointed their weapons at him. It was only much later that he discovered that the so-called 'civilized' people were no less cruel than Remnant's oppressors.

No surprise, it was too late for resentment.

"One would think," Adam posited while leaning further back in his chair and propping his muddy boots up on the tabletop, toe flicking at the stirrup straps that he'd never had a chance to take advantage of. "A weapon, if it is to be used effectively, would be made aware of its purpose."

"Most men are not eager to march to their deaths knowing that it will be for nothing."

"I am not most men," Adam said sedately, making Hugo recall how he had once called the young man a devil. Perhaps unfairly. "I won't die, not here."

"Many young men had the same notion," The swarthy officer muttered under his moustache which was now turning grey at the tips, "…including my son." [1]

If Adam with his inhuman hearing heard what had been said, he did not respond except to abruptly stop thrumming his fingers like the timer on a bomb reaching zero.

"If I am to accomplish anything," The young leader began almost as a question, toes flexing and fingers steepled in his cracking gloves. "What I need are not simply men who will follow direction. I need allies. People who will give me their opinion, wholly and unvarnished." He looked pointedly at the German officer. "If I don't have their confidence, how else can I ask someone to give their lives for me?"

With a bitter set of his jaw Hugo gave him a stiff nod. And then after mulling it over, he straightened and gave his fellow officer a salute that wasn't strictly necessary, before dropping it and walking towards the door which was little more than driftwood hung on nothing but hemp lashings.

"I have much work to attend to, if we are to mount an able defense with our remaining forces," The Hauptman excused himself, "Good day."

Once his liaison was gone, Adam planted his feet back firmly on the ground and shed his gloves. He lay his palms flat against the rough desktop and took a deep breath.

Then he added it to the piles of kindling in the corners.

---

It always happens in the blink of an eye. Skill? Desire? They have nothing to do with it. Fate is fickle and oblique. One second the people standing next to you are alive, the next… nothing but a red mist.

Seraphim had spent years being the one to stagger away while his comrades were nothing more but a crimson blush on his cheeks. During his incarceration, he had spent days listening to the anonymous drill of the firing squad outside his cell. Thus, he thought that he'd had ample time to come to terms with his morality.

Though in the end, his opinion never really mattered.

By the time that electrified whip reared back to strike him dead, something had already jolted Seraphim out of his seated position. He was on the balls of his feet before he blinked, corpse throwing itself at the intruder before either of them realized it.

With only the tiniest slivers of conscious will, he grabbed the wooden stool- wood is a good insulator, said a voice equally as mysterious as his body's sudden frantic energy- and threw it between him and the oncoming attack. The segmented switch was caught in the trident of wooden legs, and with a jerk of his arm Seph tossed both objects off to the side. Then he uncoiled his body and struck the intruder with all of his anemic weight behind a right hook.

She stumbled onto her back foot- then that foot was kissing his face. Such a graceful movement had no right to hit so hard, Seph remarked as he was flicked to the side like a spent cigarette.

Momentum carried him only so far before he had to scramble backwards as the woman chased after him scooping up her weapon along the way. Her blows came unnervingly close to his hands, feet, crotch- which, really, was unfair, given that he'd not even had time to consider anything lude.

Seph didn't actually have many ideas or strategies, so much as a series of instincts which had kept him alive until that point. When his hand sunk into a pile of something soft, he hadn't registered what it was except as something to throw right into the fact of his attacker.

The result could have been a lot worse (or better), had it been fresh horse manure instead of the dried cow patties they used for fuel. Nonetheless, she was kept busy trying to clear it away from her eyes and mouth as he closed the distance once again.

Groping almost blind himself, he latched on and foolishly tried to strong-arm the weapon from her. He would know better from then on, the lesson beaten into him; a sharp knuckle struck his exposed kidney, another jammed between the ribs, a stiff kick nearly buckled his knee, followed up by an open-hand palm strike which popped his eardrum and made him lose sense of what was up. But Seph refused to go down, now clinging on like a drunk to a banister.

Before he tripped over his own feet, he pulled himself up- pulled her arm into his knee, trying to snap it like a tree branch and forcing her to drop the weapon. There was a pained grunt- his. As she ducked underneath his wide, right hook she delivered another two quick jabs to his sternum which complimented the previous bruises. He got lucky with a backhand that caught her just at the edge of her jaw but lost the exchange as it left him exposed to a straight kick to his gut that felt like it came from the horse in the next stall.

The confused mare whinnied in blind fear as his back hit the brick wall, mortar or cartilage crackling in the one ear that wasn't busted as he slid roughly to the floor.

This sound finally alerted the guard, who must have been half-deaf himself or else unconcerned with the welfare of his prisoner to ignore the racket. The cumbersome shift and scrape of the iron bolt delayed his entrance another few seconds in which Seph pulled himself into a respectful stupor, wiping spittle from his bottom lip and feeling the indentations of her knuckles.

Between the ringing in his ear and dry retch scraping up his throat he heard the guard ask, with brusque concern, what the hell was going on. He repeated his question after Seph failed to respond with anything but a wad of bloody saliva he tossed over his shoulder.

"Decriss. Je veux être suel."

He told the guard he wanted to be alone; and that was the truth. Despite his eyes closed in pain of headache, he could feel the guard's dubious stare and he started to lose patience.

"Dehore!"

Wincing as the door slammed shut, Seph could feel the vibrations through the back of his head as it rested on the wall. Strangely, he could even hear the disgruntled grumblings from his warden, questioning his prisoner's sanity. Seph wondered that too. He didn't hear the woman anymore- which didn't mean much, considering he had not heard her in the first place.

He opened his eyes just as the tip of her weapon was leveled at his throat. Only afterwards was the hand holding it painted into existence like a Grecian Fresco. Or unpainted, rather, as he watched the camouflage hue disappear from the woman's skin, leaving bare flesh which she quickly covered up with the canvas cloak.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She asked as he cocked his head dizzily.

Now that her hood was down, he could see she that she was pretty, if in a plebian way. Her skin- at the moment- was a respectable tan, the kind a hard-working farm girl might have. And it wasn't blemished by her discolored freckles or that growing purple bruise on her cheek. He would have regretted giving her that shiner, if it weren't for the ugly glare beating down on him.

"Well? Why didn't you tell the guard?"

Not saying anything to her, he lifted an accusing eyebrow, disbelievingly.

"Come on, I know you're not dumb," She scoffed, rubbing her jaw where the bruise was forming. "Although, I suppose it takes some kind of idiot to not know how to use his own Aura properly. It's supposed to protect you, not just your knuckles."

The string of words didn't seem to make any sense to him despite the nagging in the back of his mind saying otherwise- Now that he thought about it, the voice vaguely reminded him of Belladonna. But it only added to his throbbing confusion, which culminated into him firing back,

"Perhaps this is the same kind of fool that tries to kill a man slated to face the firing squad."

As she flinched, Seph decided then that this woman did not hide her emotions as well as her presence. Though she tried to bury it- and him- with a glower, he suddenly felt his own anger at the whole situation burble up as a growl in his throat.

"For a dead man, you seem rather determined to stay alive."

"What animal does notfight back when cornered?" He hissed, ignoring the voice telling him that was the wrong thing to say along with the weapon pressing further into his jugular. At this point, he simply did not care. "Look, if you are not here to kill me or fuck me, then please just leave me alone." He gazed up the weapon's length which dithered less than the minute hand on a clock. "I have a long way to go if I am to make peace with God before my appointment with his representative."

"Bastard."

He shrugged, which he was only able to do as she tucked her weapon under the cloak, keeping it shut tight with her other hand.

But, of course, she didn't go away; merely stalked over to the furthest wall and turned around to lean on it. She stared down at him without even the decency of contempt, griping, "Of course, I don't know what I else I should have expected."

"Nor should I!" After an exasperated toss of his arms, Seph began searching his pockets fruitlessly for a cigarette, forgetting he had borrowed his last three from the guard.

She watched him flounder for a while, despondently searching himself for something he knew wouldn't be there. She took a good look at him, from threadbare clothes to patched face which reminded her too much of her own less-than-ideal skin.

Actions twitchy like an addict on withdraw, he ran a hand through hair like a spent paintbrush before he noticed her leering. He stared back at her with eyes made grossly wide by the pock-marked moons of his glasses.

"No," Her admission was accompanied by a flash of green on her face like the glint of metal from across the trenches. [A] "I expected more."

"Ah," Came his small gasp of discovery, giving up on the cigarette and sitting tiredly back down on his sorry excuse for a mattress. "I see now. You are Belladonna's friend."

---

Blake didn't like the look of the place. Enough of the woods around the tent city had been cleared away that it was awkward to cross at a walking pace. And from afar, the sight reminded her too much of the mining camps in Remnant. She didn't even need to squint to pretend that she knew the hangdog faces behind the barbed wire, slumped shoulders and general malaise hanging around the POW camp like fleas (gods, she hoped she didn't get any by coming here, stories of lice infesting the trenches nagging her).

Unfortunately, there was no concealment, enough open space that sneaking up on the camp would have been nearly impossible. Which, she fathomed, was probably the point, a buffer designed to give the guards time enough to draw a bead on any escaping prisoners. To say nothing of giving them a verbal warning that might or might not be understood by its foreign 'guests'; Various members of the polyglot Austro-Hungarian empire, Czechs, Poles, Bulgars and, most recently, a handful of Adam's crack German troops that had been captured in the latest counter attack all milled about on the trampled dirt yard, watching her approach without even curiosity. It made her sick.

But she buried this feeling behind a professional mantle. When the back door wasn't an option, Blake found that the next best thing was to act as if one had every right to walk in the front.

"Excuse me," She approached the flimsy barbed-wire fence that was less a barrier than a psychological deterrent, Seph's diary cradled in her left arm and a pencil tucked behind her right (human) ear. "I'm a reporter for the… Beacon." She repressed a wince, feeling especially uncomfortable as she asked, "Is there, um, anyone here who speaks English?"

Nothing lit up on the other side of the fence. The most Blake got were a few half-hearted scoffs from soldiers who were either bitter at their capture or else jaded to everything and everyone. But then she heard it.

"British?" Blake didn't know who spoke until she saw the lips move a second time. "American?"

"American," She chanced as she moved over to that part of the fence and discovered why she hadn't spotted the speaker even with her keen eyes and ears. The gaunt face and hands hanging between strands of wire didn't look like they spoke any human language, let alone one the Faunus would know. "Reporter." She repeated, less for his benefit than for the armed guard on her side of the fence who edged closer when he saw her approach.

The prisoner's nod was stiff like a nutcracker, eyes two lumps of coal buried deep in in the woods behind Blake's shoulder.

"How can I be of assistance?"

"I'm taking a census of the different nationalities being interned," She pressed through the story she had rehearsed on her way over, daunted by the man's apparent fluency which made it the more likely to catch her in a lie. "While in town, I heard rumors that there was a French soldier who was detained as part of the last action. Have you heard anything like that?"

She hoped that the Poilu guard hanging about in the background hadn't heard the question; the topics that the prisoners were more likely to want to talk about were the very thing that the 'allied' forces probably didn't want leaked.

"Sorry, I don't think so, no."

Well, she thought, this was a total waste of time and effort. As unpalatable thought as it was, she was considering that it might have been more productive to go along with Yang's plan, slumming about the various wine bars and soldier's dives where those with info might be more likely to talk. [2]

"-But let me ask around, they have been moving people around quite a bit so there is a chance I missed him."

Blake wondered how she had overlooked the prisoner's height; as he quit hanging on the wire, he stood to rival the wooden fence posts holding it up. Almost as if he could leap over them with a running start, it seemed to her that the only thing keeping him interred was a pathological sense of law and order. Or perhaps he possessed a calm serenity about the situation, something which made her think of Lie Ren.

He called out to the formless crowd congealing behind him, and she half expected someone like Nora to come skipping out. But the person who emerged and walked over to them was only similar in height to the cheerful Valkyrie; their face was one Blake would have pegged as German even if he hadn't had the uniform, eyebrows and lips both pinched into such a tight, lemon-squeeze frown that it didn't look like they'd get a single word through.

This didn't stop a back and forth between the two prisoners in a casual basilect which sounded nothing like the German she was accustomed to. The tall, skinny soldier who was helping Blake kept his eyes roving while he chatted, gesturing to the various tent complexes stacked up like a library's organizing cards. Whenever he asked a question, he would lean heavily into a shoulder left or right, as if there were someone there whispering suggestions to him. He turned back to her.

"This man, do you know what he is supposed to look like?"

Blake carefully passed Seph's description to him, trying not to sound too certain. This wasn't hard, as her response returned a series of gruff words and gesticulations from the other side of the fence that seemed completely unrelated to the question. The shorter German sounded angry in his explanation- then again, they all did to her.

"He says this man was here." The tall soldier gave her a smile which was unfortunately creepy, "I remember him now as well. Didn't look much like a poilu. Thought he was one of ours. He also didn't talk much. Jurgen here, though, had a nice conversation with him in French. They both play the violin."

Still deathly serious under an iron brow, the troll-faced Jurgen nodded.

"Do you have any idea where he is now?"

This time when he shook his head, Blake managed not to immediately lose hope. However, she was still dubious when the two prisoners then proceeded to call the guard over, beckoning with accustomed words and hearty hand gestures.

"Ja, ja, Poilu, kommen se, vite, vite!"

What came next was a rather surreal conversation which Blake started in English and was then translated into German by the tall prisoner, German to French by his friend and then conveyed to the guard who must have spoken an Alsatian patois that was as thick as his chest-length beard, because Blake couldn't catch a single word.

Although, miscommunication somehow didn't seem to be an issue between the three of them; Blake was eventually cut out of the discussion while the soldiers all conferred matters over a shared cultural ritual which involved a foul-smelling cigarette passed delicately through the gaps in the wire.

It seemed Blake would have to put up with it. Though if all it took to get both sides to come to terms was a smoke break, Blake would happily give up her sense of smell.

"There seems to be some… issue," If she wasn't imagining it, the tall man's grim features seemed to take on even more morbidity as he addressed her for the first time in what felt like half an hour, "He says," gesturing to the guard with the very cigarette loaned to him, "the man you are looking for is to be tried, for treason."

Indifferent to that point, the Poilu gave Blake a dirty look as if simply asking about it were a crime by association. Taking the cigarette back and going for a drag, he paused with the smoke lingering by his unshaven cheek. He seemed to be considering something as he regarded Blake. It was then she decided it was time to leave.

"I see."

"Sorry."

Rather than words, Blake gave the three men a nod without meeting their hostile stares. Only the English-speaker returned the gesture, but she had already turned around and tuned out.

"Bon chance, Mademoiselle." He said as he went back to hanging on the fence like a pair of shoes with their laces tied together strung up on a telephone wire.

She ignored him like they did her; that is to say, feeling the guard's eyes on her back the entire way across the yard. The long road to the town felt much shorter with her feet practically flying and head going in loops, but she never quite shook that feeling of being watched. In fact, she hadn't not felt that feeling all day.

The backdrop changed seamlessly as if it were painted on rollers, and dirt gave way to gravel gave way to cobble and asphalt with Blake barely noticing. The afternoon sun was soon swallowed up by the shadows of buildings; but it was one shadow in particular that Blake had her attention on, one which had been dogging her since that morning.

Without warning, Blake made an abrupt jog to the left off the main route into one of the many labyrinthine alleyways which seemed to hold the ancient city together like spiderwebs. Her muscles twanged on a high E and she froze.

Tension buzzed in Blake's ear like a fly, and the feline Faunus stiffened as a scrawny tabby cat darted across her path. Before it disappeared into an impossible crack between buildings, it paused and glanced at her, yowling harshly.

Suddenly Blake whipped around, pistol drawn from underneath the book she still clutched tightly to her chest.

"Who are you and why are you following me?"

Standing stock still at the mouth of the alley, the person following her wasn't trying to hide anymore, yet they continued sticking to the darkness of their cloaked hood. They chuckled darkly, and then said in an unnervingly accustomed voice,

"You're still the one person I can't seem to hide from, aren't you?"

Blake felt her nerves light up at the same time her arm slackened, and the muzzle of her pistol drooped.

"…Ilia?"

"Hey Blake"

The cloaked woman's reply was burdensomely short, and she still would not draw back her hood. She took a tentative step towards her old friend only to have the revolver jump back up in her way.

"Ilia," Blake's voice wavered more than her aim as she confronted her childhood acquaintance, "Last time I saw you, you were still with the White Fang. You know I left Adam, right?"

Ilia's frown was not unexpected. Blake figured the other Faunus would be angry at her, perhaps feel betrayed by the wedge, if not the weapon, she had thrust between them.

"There is no White Fang here."

Hearing this was almost a relief. Almost. Blake was still on her guard as there was anger in Ilia's voice at something. And it was a fresh rage, reminding Blake that if Ilia was here, now, in this godforsaken world, it was undoubtedly her fault. With guilt she lowered the pistol, almost to the ground, not convinced of her safety but not caring that much, either.

"But the White Fang is here," The revolver's worn cylinder rattled as hand and teeth clenched. "Adam-"

"I know." Ilia also seemed to know what she was doing, following up as this admission clearly made Blake nervous. "I only used him to find you. Don't worry, I'm not with him."

"And why not?" Blake asked, eyes narrowing on what she could see of her former friend's face. "I thought you respected him."

The only color she could see was a slowly growing spot on Ilia's cheek like an overripe banana- was that why she was wearing the hood? But the twisting of Ilia's bottom lip reflected Blake's nervously churning stomach, clearly hesitant to answer.

"Adam, he…" there came an incendiary flash of red on Ilia's face, before she dismissed it with a shake of her head. "He's lost sight of the goal. He's not fighting for the Faunus anymore. When I saw him… I'm not even sure if he knows what he's doing right now."

"I'll have to take your word for it."

"That would be nice."

"But then…" Desperately wanting to trust her friend, Blake's eyes groped past the gun's muzzle which had hovered somewhere around Ilia's bare feet. "Why are you here, Ilia?"

There was a pause as the chameleon Faunus hung her head.

There was yet another world out there, one where Ilia said exactly what she meant. She confessed to Blake how she had truly felt all along, the way she hated how she'd let others keep them apart. She'd tell Blake that it wasn't her fault, that they had both said and done stupid things with the fleeting zeal of youth which had cost them invaluable time together. And now, here- hell, no matter what fucked up world or confusing reality, being by Blake's side was the one thing that would always make sense.

However, the only fragment of this truth to escape the black hole was a wan smile.

"The guy you're looking for-" Unable to get the words out, Ilia unnecessarily gestured to the book Blake was clutching like a child. "-I can tell you where to find him."

With this proverbial weight lifted Blake dropped her guard, pistol sliding into her pocket as she stripped the beret from her head and ran a hand through her hair, her feline ears. Maybe she should have been worried how Ilia knew what she did, but the floodgates had been opened and elation mixed in with a desperate urgency.

"Great, this is great," There was still the hint of disbelief in Blake's voice, a feverishness which caused the normally withdrawn Faunus to rapidly approach her friend with a need to touch, to feel and confirm the truth. "Ilia, this is perfect! Don't you see? If we can work together and figure out what's going on, maybe we can finally get back home… what's wrong?

Already teetering on the edge of hesitancy, Blake noticed how Ilia retreated from her as if afraid to let herself be touched. This raised a red flag more than her chameleon friend's propensity to change her skin color along with her emotions.

"A lot has happened, Blake," Her voice dropped several octaves, as if she were attempting to crawl back within it. "I- I might have gotten sick…"

It had been when she'd first found herself in this strange world; everyone around her had been so wretchedly ill, or else so grievously destitute that there was hardly any difference. She recalled the children… there was something so wrong about children who were so downtrodden that they did not cavort at least once in her presence. They stuck close to the skirts of their mothers who had everything they owned on their already hunched backs- no fathers in sight. No help, either, running away with a retreating army at their backs.

Yes, she could have gotten sick then, from all the flea-infested clothing which she'd been forced to burn when she realized it had been contaminated. She could have gotten sick from helping these poor, poor people- the same people who had given her the canvas cloak after smoking it clean over a fire. [3]

Or, it could have been because she was sick (her control over her ability coming undone and her skin turning a purple to match the bruise on her jaw) that she even bothered to help them in the first place.

There were people who looked at who she was, what she was and said she was abnormal. What she had done to survive, to help others survive, people called degenerate. And whom she chose to love, well…

Would Blake understand? Or would she be disgusted by it, unable to acknowledge her actions let alone Ilia's feelings for her. To say nothing of returning them.

"Please… I don't want you to see me like this."

And as much as it shamed her, Blake agreed. She didn't wantto see anything but the Ilia she remembered, like cartoon antics taken out of context. People didn't bounce back from an anvil to the head, or a bullet to the heart.

Blake was nonetheless obliged to reiterate the offer of working together, just as Ilia was obliged to refuse it. This was not the time nor place to make amends.

Before she left, however, the chameleon Faunus did promise to keep Blake appraised of Adam's movements and to help out where she could as a voice form the inside. A relief in more ways than one, Blake wasn't sure how she could handle working with her old friend from the White Fang days, let alone how her team- sans their leader- would view the situation.

Though it was certain, conflict made for strange bedfellows.

Speaking of, before Blake made her way to Seph with the directions Ilia gave her, she needed to retrieve her partner from the dens of depravity she had unleashed the blonde upon. Blake had figured that Yang's extroverted personality would lend itself well to this kind of information gathering, and boy, she was right.

Whereas Ilia had faded from both sight and the forefront of her mind like a stick of incense, Yang's boisterous laughter could be heard from across the city like the church bells warning of a city on fire.

It wasn't hard to pinpoint the tavern, even easier to spot Yang despite the enthusiastic crowd packed into that tiny establishment. As expected, the voluptuous blonde was the center of attention, especially with her arm raised and exposing more of the skin on her body than what was considered decent by even their standards.

"No, no, no," Yang motioned with the arm that wasn't toasting the ceiling with a dangerously overfull mug of ale, sketching a shape on her ribcage. "Heart, heart, yeah, okay? But 'stead of 'Love Mom', I wannit to say 'Fuc'-"

"Yang!" Blake called out, pushing her way through clumps of patrons made thick by enthusiasm for the spectacle and drink.

"Heeeey Blakey!" She waved back, wavered with the beverage in her hand sloshing over onto the grizzly Poilu who was so busy canvasing the blonde's torso that he apparently didn't notice his head getting wet. "Guys, guys, this is my friend, Blake. Say hi. Ooh! Blake, Blake, check it out!"

Yang leaned over and snatched one of the drunken soldiers hanging about her like dazed moths. She ripped open his pull-over shirt, exposing a chest that was covered in crude tattoos as much as body hair while the Poilu played along, laughing sloppily and flexing for a room full of cheers and whistles.

"Innit awesome?!" Grinning cheekily, it became clear that Yang was probably one of the least inebriated persons in the establishment, including the bartender whose nose was red as an apple as he polished glasses and pretended not to be interested in what his patrons were doing. "Check out thetats! [3]"

Undeniably inscribed like Egyptian hieroglyphics in stone, there were none too few quasi-oriental motifs, esoteric symbols, phrases inked in beautiful cursive and portraits that looked like they were drawn by the children of those middle-aged martial patrons. Hardly works of art, yet the tattooed soldiers were only too happy to share their bodies with the newest female novelty.

"Whadda'ya think, Blakey? Should I go 'classic' with the heart? Ooooorrrr Dragon?!"

Blake wrinkled her nose, staring more skeptically at her partner than the living 'exhibition' paraded in front of her. Yang grinned lecherously.

"'m sure if you wanted, the guys'd be more than happy to do you¸ too~"

"Perhaps some other time." Blake said as she cut forward, snatching her partner by the collar of her jacket and dragging her out of the bar like a kitten by the scruff.

Between polishing off her drink, Yank garbled an apology to her admirers who by in large didn't seem to notice her exodus as they went back to drunken conversations they'd rehearsed and rehashed years before the huntresses entered and exited their lives as nothing more than boozy vision.

"Y'know, I'll hold you to that~" Yang pressed herself to her partner as they fell in step, her drunken blush transferring to Blake as she hung of her shoulder. "Anyways, where're we headed?"

Blake groaned but allowed the contact, practically let Yang carry her weight as she guided them like a lead ballast towards the other side of town. She felt heavy, Ilia's gaze following them most of the way to the outskirts of the city. Though by the time that feeling had disappeared, the heaviness had descended into Blake's stomach.

The teammates stood at the front gates of the country estate which had been coopted by military administration. The stables-cum-stocks lingered somewhere in the woods beyond, wooden corner of the building peeking out beyond manicured hedges which had been allowed to go feral with the new owners.

"So, that's where they've got him holed up, huh?" With hands planted on her hips, Yang projected herself beyond the wrought-iron bars and the two sentries on either side which could stop them as little as the lions resting on their stone laurels atop the columns. Blake wished she could have such confidence. "Well, what're we waiting for?"

She gave Blake a slap on the back, the sound making the two guards stir dangerously- which was nothing compared to the glare that the Faunus gave her.

"Go on, go get your man."

Desperately wanting to throttle the blonde, Blake wrapped her hands around the metal bars instead even as the soldiers lurched towards them and then back as Yang gave them both a far more fearsome look than Blake had given her.

"Let's get this over with."

---

At the risk of sounding like her eternally impatient partner, everything in this world nonetheless felt so darned slow.

Nighttime couldn't come quick enough, even with the sun setting sooner and sooner as the months slogged on into Fall. It had been dusk for hours, and afternoon tea had felt like a four-year college stint a she studied up on local politics.

Ugh. That was another thing that was even more uncomfortable than this bumpy carriage ride on a dirt road (though she had it on good authority that the automobiles here weren't any better [5]). And it wasn't the stiff wooden bench seats which caused her to fidget uncontrollably in that beautiful yellow dress- so much as the silk garment itself which, while it had been tailored just that afternoon to fit her waspish frame, was, once again, not really hers to begin with.

Weiss really just wanted to get this over with.

"Is there something troubling you, my dear?"

Turning to the man sharing the cabin with her, Weiss adopted what she was sure would be her most genuine and beatific smile of that evening, and then proceeded lied to his face.

"Everything is perfectly fine, thank you."

"Mm. Quite." Himself seeming as content as a portrait atop a fireplace, he probably could have sat in contemplative silence the entire ride if it hadn't been for her, "Everything is indeed fine and will continue on as it is, however, I asked if you were alright?"

Weiss let her smile drop, in part because she knew she was not committed to maintaining it in this private setting. The acquaintance she shared with the man sitting across from her allowed for this kind of honesty. Though she was still hesitant to admit this much.

"Ah, see now, that sort of look really does not suit you. It would be a darned shame to have orchestrated all this and not have any fun out of it. Relax! What is keeping you from doing so, hm?"

The Major ginned and winked with flirtatiousness that was perhaps not as much a joke as he would like to pretend. Likewise, Weiss wasn't as offended as she pretended to be, as she might have been with her blond teammate who would so carelessly trample over the situation.

"I'm sure a man like you already has a good idea." She grumped and turned back to the window with a huff, fogging that too-clean reflection of hers, pale skin starker than the sliver of moon that was finally coming out.

Why did she still feel so dirty after her first bath in weeks? Was she so unaccustomed to luxury that it felt like a crime to wear something that wasn't used or torn, eat something that wasn't icy cold by the time it got to her? Could she still hold her own in blueblood society, or was she too accustomed to banging her head against the wall with the decisions of her obstinate teammates?

Maybe it was that fact that she had gone behind their backs which was making her feel so ill at ease.

"Oh, I am certain to have one or two guesses," The Major settled up against the stiff back of the carriage, "But to so carelessly voice them wouldn't be very gentlemanly."

Questions that Weiss didn't know the answers to certainly couldn't be expressed to the man lending her such help. Such uncertainty was unbecoming of her. She knew that the Major was going out on a limb here, and so she had to at least appear absolutely confident in her actions.

Weiss sighed with this burdensome task.

"I do apologize for any issues which-"

"Now, now, that's quite enough of that," A hiccup in the road below jarred them; there was still a command hidden in his jovial tone, reminding her who she was dealing with. "There is no reason for you to apologize for anything. While a lesser man might claim to be bewitched by your mere presence, I assure you that I do these things of my own volition… and only partly because I am smitten."

And if Weiss hadn't had such compliments paid to her by lesser men, she might have blushed. Though by now she knew the difference between a silver tongue and spoon, the man's gray hair speaking for the former.

"Poor decision making could be a sign of infection, you know." Weiss quipped, hoping to inject some levity but finding herself frowning as the Major chuckled at her.

"You wound me. Though fortunately, it will not be the first time," A hand rubbed his side which Weiss fathomed couldn't be appreciating the bumpy ride. He shifted in his seat to look out the window, as if he could see whatever Weiss wasn't actually looking at. "It is true. The first time I saw you and your friends, I will confess that I did mistake you for something divine. But only for a second. After which, I saw quite clearly your mundane purpose, the confidence which comes not from Lordly right but hard work and competence."

The expression he turned to Weiss was gentle and yet firm, his patent-white gloves tightening around the hilt of his saber which sat propped between his legs, more powerful as a symbol of authority in his hands than it was a weapon had it been in hers.

"And I recognized it again when that same woman came knocking unexpectedly at my doorstep, demanding assistance. She knew exactly what was needed, and what steps were necessary to get it." He punctuated, rapping his saber against the floorboards, "In this world, only fools, madmen, and the servants of God can get by on their own. Leave such Heavenly mandates to the seraphs and cherubs who blithely carry out God's command," waving them off as if shooing invisible flies, "Such fatuous creatures would never understand what it takes to survive in this bloody Hell of man's world!"

Initially shocked by the rousing which felt like it even spurred the team of horses outside the cabin to pick up the pace, Weiss blinked and settled back into her seat with a smirk that came more naturally than it had in a long time.

"Well then," she croaked wryly, two wine glasses scraping against one another. "Let's hope this party doesn't solely consist of fools or madmen."

The major coughed and pried a finger under the collar of his crimson dress coat, as chagrinned at his martial outburst as if he'd neglected to tuck in his shirt tails.

"*Ahem*, yes well…" He sighed, brocade drooping as his chest deflated. He glanced out the window at the manor house coming into view around the bend, like a lighthouse flashing against his gilded epaulets which slumped ever so slightly.

"Let's try not to get our hopes up, shall we?"

---

'To be or not to be…'

Seph sat alone in his cell, somewhere between darkness and night, the last of his candles worn down to a nub. His notebook, the story of his life, tottered at the tips of his fingers like a feather on its scale.

'And what dreams should come?'

What was it, exactly, that he had been hoping for? Life was like Shakespeare- only insofar as the bits and pieces he could recall like slivers of wood stuck tenaciously underneath his fingernails. Not a drama, but a farce.

'The world you describe sounds like a fairytale,' He recounted with a wistful smirk, his conversation with the Belladonna a few hours hence, 'Kingdoms and their castles. Monsters and their heroes.'

The Cat had come back like a curse. And in addition to his diary which he thought lost, she came bearing a need to explain herself, how she and her friends had come to be in his world.

'Is it really any more incredible than a 'War to End All Wars'?'

"If only…" He chuckled scornfully, guiltily, resting his elbows upon his knees and staring at the blank cover of his diary at arm's length.

Was it really his, though? Once put to page, the account belonged to the world at large. His would be the last remnant of their conflict to survive years, centuries, millennia- unthinkable eons for someone like him who had born and died when this war began. Although, he had no reason to disbelieve her.

The same way she had seen the truth in his immortal words despite the context being lost to history. Belladonna had told him how she had experienced for herself the pain, the elation, the hate, the love- Pandora's Pantheon of emotions unleashed with the turning of the page.

'I came to see what kind of man you were,' Belladonna's friend had defended her rashness, 'To see if you were worth it,' Her contempt for him was borrowed though not misplaced, unlike that blatant jealousy. '… Blake wants to save you, you know…'

He shook his head. Such lofty drama that he couldn't relate to. She should have just finished him off.

'Why not?' Belladonna had asked as she reached a hand down to him, urging Seph to flee with them, 'If you don't, they'll kill you!'

He smiled.

'And if I do, what kind of life should wait for me? I am not like you; my enemy does not have the decency to be a soulless monster.'

'No one is forcing you to fight,' She had looked at him with such empathy that for a second, Seph thought that she might be right. 'Sometimes… the braver thing to do is run away. If you know that everyone around you is wrong, you don't have to go along with them. Ultimately… it's your choice."

However, the other woman had said it better, more succinctly:

'Coward.'

'You would ask me to abandon my comrades?' Neither had understood until he spelled it out, further proof that he could no more fit in with them than he could slip through the iron bars on his window. 'Even if I do not fight, others will. People with softer sensibilities will be forced to take lives in my place, simply because I decided to follow the moral high road much too late in life.' The way both women had cringed was vindication that his grin was something barbaric, bestial. 'I am already ruined- I am good at being a soldier. So, just as the Legion cheerfully marches towards battle, is it not my obligation to stand in front of those reluctant conscripts who erstwhile might be useful in peacetime?'

What kind of man was he? The type who bled. Who made others bleed. Whose depravations were only to be outdone by his honesty.

The other woman, Ilia, would never be satisfied by what he had to say. In her eyes, he would always be guilty of some hidden charge, and he was okay with that. But he could tell that he had disappointed Belladonna with his answer, and he really was sorry for that. In the end, both had eventually left him alone to his selfish cowardice.

But both were still subject to it, trapped in this world by his conceited desire to be heard. It was his fault that they were here, wasn't it? This was his bitter significance. He was otherwise powerless to help them.

Unless…

No matter how much his muscles ached, and the leather cover of his notebook wrinkled like the Pyrenes, Seph couldn't bring himself to tear up his work any more than he could undo God's creation by slitting his own throat.

Instead he brought the pages closer to the light, letting the candle do the job for him. The flame drowning in its own wax leapt at the paper like a plank of wood, catching it quickly and scrambling upwards.

He held the miniature fireball in his open palms, hardly needing to coax it as it flared and gobbled up more oxygen than it could handle, collapsing back in on itself and continued to nibble at the cardboard binding. Staring at the purifying light, he didn't notice that his hands never felt the burn until long after the light went out.

'Ah well, some stories should probably be forgotten.' [B]

---

Weiss subtly looked around at the décor that was anything but. Every corner in the manor was fortified in sumptuousness, a migraine of twisted floral patterns from the carpet to the ceiling, and in between were oriental vases mounted atop faux Corinthian columns to be perfectly at eye level. The amount of crystal hanging from the chandelier was only to be outdone by that festooned on every other party guest. More women than she had seen collectively in one place were only surpassed in lavishness by their men. Gaggles of French officers strutted about armed with glasses of red wine or champaign, adorned with so many medals that it looked like they wore armored cuirasses. And though fewer in numbers, the British nobility were no less conspicuous with their Crimson tunics and starched white trousers, both parties dressed to the gills with real gold filagree.

There was something to set it apart from the lavish parties of her world which made it intolerable. It was an overwhelming, full-frontal assault of stimuli with no respect to the situation. Such decadence made Weiss sick, to the point where she could almost ignore her growling stomach. Uniformed busboys continued to circle around her like sharks, platers in their hands laden high with crudité and puff pastries that looked more dangerous than a hand grenade. Speaking of which…

"A drink, my Lady?"

Hiding her distraction, Weiss slowly turned so that she didn't accidentally knock the fragile glass out of the Major's hand. Her face, however, made no question what she thought about the idea.

"Not to worry," He leaned in with a theatrical aside, at this angle and atmosphere, reminding her more of the boisterous Professor Port, "It's just apple juice."

Weiss then accepted the drink with a muttered 'thanks' and a strong sense of irony as she tasted the bittersweet and very clearly non-alcoholic drink.

"Can't be dulling our senses before the 'operation', can we?" Weiss rolled her eyes at him, coming to settle on the crystal snifter in his other hand which contained liquid amber. "-Just a little something to calm the nerves."

"I might need something like that after this," She admitted with another sip to wet her throat while she scanned the room for her 'target', along with all the other groups and cliques which lay in her way like the fortifications of the Hindenburg line.

"Agreed. Though let us not celebrate too early," Raising his glass in a halfway toast, he nodded edgewise to Weiss while making eye contact with a French officer who tipped his kepi before turning back to his own conversation. "I still wish to have that drink with you. But even if this works, there will be much left to do before we should feel confident in the War's outcome."

"Of course," Weiss snipped, her other hand fisting the dress that was originally meant as a present for the Major's niece. He had offered it to her, since she hadn't anything presentable to wear to this party, "We're not here to win the war for anyone. Adam's our problem, and we'll take care of him… provided resources and an assurance that none of your people will get in our way."

"Hmm."

"The rest is up to you." Trying to take another sip, Weiss found her lips pressed so firmly into a line that they wouldn't come undone, not until they were allowed to spit out a confession into the bell of the wine glass,"…Not that we could make much of a difference overall, even if we'd wanted to…"

"You are right," Teasing the drink under his nose, he saw Weiss flinch in the honied reflection and smirked, "I do not believe Yellow is your color."

With a hearty laugh, the Major ignored Weiss's glare along with the attention of half the room, which was far more fleeting.

"Come, come, this talk we should have left behind in the carriage," Lowering his drink, he lifted his elbow for Weiss to take and nudged his shoulder towards where a fellow British officer was conversing easily with a French colonel. "There is our opening. That man, Atkins, I went to school with his older brother. And the French dandy he's talking to is a field officer subordinate to Général Hippolyte-Alphonse Pénet [6],"

Here the Major motioned with his glass to a figure at the far end of the ballroom. Even clothed in the typical shade of 'horizon blue' which was supposed to be less a target than the pantalon rouge the French wore at the beginning of the conflict, the man did not fail to draw the eyes of the room with his bellicose voice and energetic gestures.

"He is the man you should most want to talk to in order to procure any kind of material support in the region. It will, however, take some time to maneuver ourselves into his company, so I suggest that we- w-wait, Ms. Schnee!"

Part of her wanted to put the blame on Ruby's impulsiveness wearing off on her. But in reality, Weiss knew taking the long, 'proper' route would give her too much opportunity to lose her nerve and back out. So, pretending she didn't see the Major's quiet but fervent coaxing her back, Weiss made a beeline for the highest-ranking officer in attendance.

In doing so, she had to cross the invisible border dividing the room into 'male' and 'female' spheres of influence. It wasn't instantaneous, but like the laborious mobilization of their armies, the audience of military men all slowly perked up and took notice of this dandelion floret gliding across the floor towards the very heart of their dominion.

"Général…" She placed herself right in front of the head honcho and his entourage. A flawless curtsy nevertheless had the same reaction as if Weiss had flashed them a view of her pale thigh.

"Excusez mon extrême impertinence, mais j'ai un sujet de la plus haute importance à discuter…" She raised herself ever so slightly, trying to assert her presence without being aggressive. It was a delicate balancing act which made other considerations frankly impossible. "… I am sorry, but might we continue in English? This is a matter of great importance which I am unable to express in your language."

A gaping pause left Weiss straddling a half-curtsey, forced to wonder if her luck had run out prematurely so that none of the addressees spoke English. Head still bowed, she raised her eyes to see three sets of deer-in-the-headlights, startled looks as if she had just brought them a dead mouse for offering and they had no idea what to do with it.

These were the people she was supposed to be seeking help from?

"A-ah, *ahem*, gentlemen…" Though he was obviously out of shape, she couldn't fault the Major for his panting or the nervous flop-sweat which he dabbed with an embroidered handkerchief when he finally arrived as her backup. "Please do excuse my-uh, my niece. Her parents are quite liberal with her activities you see, and she was just so eager to meet with you-"

"My name is Weiss Schnee, and I approach you, sirs, on behalf of my team of huntresses with important information, and an offer regarding the most recent attack on Baume-le-Dames." With one last apologetic glance towards the Major, Weiss turned her back on him. There was no way to properly thank the man for all he had done, except to protect him from any flak should this endeavor turn south.

She couldn't be certain which part of her introduction finally caught their attention, but by the time she had turned back around to fully engage with the retinue of officers, they were committed to pretending that the previous moment never happened. The whole meeting might have even been their idea, as the lieutenant-colonel with a dark goatee on the right gestured magnanimously for Weiss to continue.

"Mademoiselle, this-ah, matter of importance…?"

Weiss straightened her posture, set her gaze and her shoulders to become a statue of Artemis like the ones standing in the orthogonally manicured garden outside. She did her best to match her appearance with the official tone of voice. It would be an uphill battle.

"The name of the man responsible for leading the German assault on Baume-le-Dames is Adam Taurus,"

The general pinched the tip of his mustache- a sign that they were paying attention. Good. While their eyes still reflected the image of an impertinent girl, hopefully they could be wooed by the information she brought to the table. They were like her in this respect, Weiss admitted begrudgingly, taught to think that with the right amount of knowledge, victory was inevitable. She had since learned.

Would they?

"Taurus is known to our group as an insurrectionist leader of some skill and experience in guerrilla warfare. If I might offer my opinion, he is unlikely to be foiled by one defeat. Furthermore, the strategies he is liable to use in the future are specifically designed to counter conventional military tactics. If handled improperly, the situation has the potential to become… disadvantageous to your forces. So while I have the utmost faith in your generals' capacity, I feel I must warn you about the danger this man poses."

Weiss hoped the message was not lost in her obsequiousness- it wouldn't help her to offend these officers' obviously swollen egos, but the fact that they were hosting such a loud event boasted their arrogance. If they thought themselves untouchable, all this would be for naught.

Honestly, she couldn't tell what they were thinking. Expression as frazzled as his ashen beard, the graying officer on the far right likely hadn't understood a word she said. Meanwhile, both the general and his subordinate looked downright bored at this point.

"Additionally," A subtle shift corrected this, bringing more weight forward and forcing the men's instincts to acknowledge her even if they obviously did not. "Because my team and I are familiar with this blackguard, we would like to lend our assistance in-"

"Hmph!"

A prideful sound like that of a rooster came from the leading man in the middle, scratching any doubt that they had indeed been listening.

"Alors, yes, zank you Mlle.- uh, Schnee, vas it?" The Lieutenant-colonel indulged her as one might a child who had been up past their bedtime; he moved to lead her away from what had obviously become a very awkward encounter. "Mais, you 'ave absolutement no need to worry, ah? In a matteur of months, le Bo- l'allemands will soon be retreating back to vere ze came from."

This was the intent, but upon laying hands on the huntress the French officer got a shock like static which caused to falter.

"Hmph!" But another of the same sort of cocky noise came from the general as he waved off his subordinate's own statement. "Indeed, the Bosch shall be returned to the stone age! We will crush them so thoroughly that no one will remember a thing called Germany and names like Schnee will be erased from the ledgers!"

It was in this world that Weiss had been afforded the opportunity to experience prejudice for the first time. But the amount of anti-German vehemence, whether specifically against her or not, was not something she had encountered before, so she was as momentarily stunned as the Lt-Col had been brushing up against her Aura.

"You can't be serious," It didn't last long, and Weiss began to shed the gloves on her own calloused grievances. "It doesn't matter who started this, no one has the right to just erase another culture!"

"Culture? The Bosch's 'culture' is one of conquest and destruction! Those barbarians wouldn't be a legitimate country if not for a strongman holding them together. They have no understanding of the intricacies of peace, and any armistice that is in the least bit fair will only lead to another war in a decade or so. No, it is not merely for justice that we must wipe them out- but survival!" General Pénet uncrossed his arms only to issue Weiss a fleering gesture. "I should not expect a woman like you to comprehend this. Go! Do not presume to speak to subjects on which you have so little authority!"

No one stirred, however. The Lt-Col. was dubious about attempting to move the woman again as she stood entrenched, and the other ranks who had flocked to the commotion were tripping over which had authority. The Major continued to dab his throat and forehead as a new round of sweating seized him, a feverish sensation like he was once again trapped under the chandelier back at the Cabaret.

"You are wrong." Weiss unclenched her cream-colored gloves and breathed deeply through her nostrils, perfumed air choking her head. "You are so wrong, and you have no idea…"

General Pénet had a blusterous response ready, but a sharp wind gracing his Adam's apple cut him off.

His eyes, already energetic and wild stared in blatant shock at the wispy little girl who would dare lecture him on military matters, and who now held him in check with a British cavalry saber.

Behind Weiss, the Major blinked and brought a hand down to pat his hip where the hilt of his sword should have been. When he realized what had happened his bowls sunk, almost bringing him to his knees as they scrunched up against his still-tender wound.

Though at the same time the rest of the room leapt to its feet, soldiers moving to engage with bare hands and decorative arms- neither of which would have stood a chance had the General himself not halted the action with a small motion of his hand. Lowering it slowly, he gazed down his nose at the diffident woman.

"And now, just what is it you intend to do, girl?"

The General tested Weiss who continued to stand unflustered and unflinching, appearing to be in total control of the situation- if not for the fact that he could see a conflagration behind her eyes, melting her cool. By not answering, it might have seemed like Weiss wanted to let him sweat it out some. But the truth was that she couldn't answer, not without doing something she would regret.

She couldn't convince them. Not with words, at least. This ought not to have come as a surprise by now. For some reason though, it was. No. Not for some reason, it was because try as she might, she couldn't help but think of these people as beneath her. And yet for all her talk of finding a better way, here she stood at the end of her wit and a sword. She would have chuckled at the irony, but that would not have been proper.

"I challenge you to a duel."

Nary a murmur or a peep followed the declaration. It was as if the room had collectively gone deaf. Even if they had heard the words, none grasped them at an intellectual level. No one but the General, that is.

Even with a sword already drawn and leveled at his nose, he could have refused the ludicrous request without any loss of face on his part. There was no honor in fighting a woman, regardless of her seriousness or ability.

There was also no mistaking the Schmisse [6] just underneath the woman's battle-hardened eye. Many such a wound he'd observed in his German counterparts who wore the blemish with more pride than their medals. Ultimately however, this was not why he decided to acquiesce.

The General raised an expectant hand, palm up, not looking at his subordinates who continued to gawp dumbly. It was the Lt-Col who responded first, offering up his own weapon. At the sound of the sword leaving its sheath, the rest of the room suddenly became a frenzy to get out of the way.

Still, they could not help crowding around the two would-be combatants, instinctively forming a regulation two by fourteen gap in the ballroom floor. Not a whole lot of room to maneuver.

This would not be like her fight with the Arma Gigas, Weiss knew. It would also be harder than actually fighting her classmates, as she had to try not to hurt the man too seriously. But even if she had to have a light touch, she couldn't afford not to take him seriously.

That the Frenchman was as obstinate as grizzled Boarbatusk notwithstanding, he was doubtlessly skilled with a sword. The Major had informed her that fencing was part of every officer's curriculum, and the way General Pénet moved vouched for a healthy interest in the subject. He took his time moving to the other end of the strip, not wasting energy nor thought about turning his back on her. It reflected his arrogance as well as his age- no younger than half a century.

Which meant that he had at least fifty years of experience on her.

Like a windup tin soldier, he pivoted on his rear foot to face her, assuming a stance that reeked of fencing as a sport. Not intending to use his left arm, he tucked it behind his back and squared his body up to her as if they were preparing to dance a waltz. The tilted angle of his sword offered nothing except a trigonometrically perfect relationship with the floor.

In a moment of nauseatingly astute self-reflection, Weiss couldn't help but notice the similarities to her own rigid form.

"I trust you know what you are doing…" The doubt in the Major's voice was hurtful and humbling, forcing Weiss to take a breath and a step back into the improved footwork she'd evolved over the past months. "…Try at least to leave a little of the man's dignity intact."

"I'll try, but some people need a stronger lesson."

And while her smirk was anything but modest, Weiss hadn't forgotten that she'd been such a person at one time. She wouldn't neglect to treat the man with respect even if he would not do the same. So, she made sure to issue him a very visible salute with saber held high in front of her face, vertical line bisecting the uneven symmetry.

"You believe in your right to face me as an equal?" The man opposing her scoffed, not moving a muscle. "Even in a million years you could not earn this."

His pride nevertheless demanded he match her, hoisting his sword so that its broadside touched the rim of his kepi before he tossed it off to the side again.

"En garde."

The General was not, however, ready.

With the ferocity of the attack, it was almost over before it began- Which would not have been to Weiss's benefit. She told herself she could win at any time; the rules were to first blood, and so with Aura her victory was inevitable. If she wanted the man out of the way, she could just overwhelm him with her Semblance.

But that wasn't why she was doing this. While she acknowledged the childish desire for 'vengeance', it was less important to humiliate the man than it was to dismantle the precepts upon which his power resided, to show everyone the feebleness of their ideas. To do this, she needed to defeat him as an equal- even if he would continue to deny it, and especially because she was so much better.

Her own pride demanded nothing less.

Though while the General's arm almost buckled and his stance wavered, he did not fall to pieces. In fact, he seemed to absorb the arcing energy of the crossed blades, mustache flaring and wild eyes leaping out as he shoved her off with commendable vigor. His repost, however, was made somewhat sluggish by the previous strain and Weiss was more than capable of batting the thrust aside. And after the initial shock he was better able to keep control of his weapon, and thus didn't have to put as much effort into deflecting the huntress's following strikes.

Weiss didn't have to put as much strength into her attacks as she was, and soon backed off when she realized that the General was no longer being rattled by it. The novelty had worn off and continuing to try and beat the old codger to death wouldn't serve any purpose. Her own bones were feeling numb already and she had to admit, begrudgingly, that her stamina was not up to par with the rest of her teammates. At this point, it was honestly a tossup which of them would get exhausted first.

As she noted earlier, Pénet wasted very little movement forward or back- what she hadn't counted on earlier was her inability to maneuver anywhere but a straight line. The onlookers were too dumb to move out of the way when swords were swinging right in front of their noses, making it a very narrow- and by consequence, more level- playing field.

Neither had to move very much to bring themselves in or out of range of their opponent. It was all coming down to a matter of pure skill- what Weiss had desired from the beginning. And yet it wasn't; it felt less like a sword match and more like a chess game which favored the one more familiar the rules.

When Weiss eventually noticed a pattern, she became indignant. The General was only targeting her torso, making no attempt to go for any of the openings she left (intentional or otherwise) at her legs or face. Whether it was a consideration for her as a woman or not didn't matter, because he was still managing to fend her off with this handicap.

She had no such qualms and actually, now more of a compunction to show the man his folly. Weiss blocked an overhand strike and circled downward to swipe at his extended kneecap. But with a quick and simple move that might have been choreographed for a dance, he took a shuffling step backwards and let her swing pass wide.

"Quit mocking me!"

"You make a fool of yourself," though his nonchalant attitude wasn't helping either as he waited patiently for her to make the next move, "And you sully the play with your womanly passions."

Weiss wouldn't have allowed herself to fall into the trap of getting even angrier, except that she could tell that these were his genuine sentiments and not a ploy to get her riled up.

Though they had exchanged blows rather evenly thus far, the General had always been either defending or counterattacking. But as Weiss threatened to drive him into the edge of the crowd with her sudden surge of 'womanly passions', he planted his heel and met her fanatical assault head on.

The battle took on a new tone- it had become an actual fight where all thoughts about finesse and fairness were drowned out by the ringing of steel. Weiss could be forgiven if she forgot she was fighting a hexagenerian, as his vigor was both unexpected and unpleasant.

"You lack the only true emotion- Élan!" He bellowed in the wake of four quick strikes that fell on her like the hammers on a piano. "C'est la guerre à outrance! Attack- or nothing! [7]"

With a cry of her own Weiss rose to this ideal, hurdling herself upward and forward like a thoroughbred.

*SNAP*CRASH*

Someone in the crowd let out a cry when a broken piece of blade flew across the room and sliced him in the shoulder. But most everyone else's concern was still on the General who had collapsed and was now kneeling under the pitiless stare of the huntress and the fractured nub of a blade she held threateningly over his head.

While the General gasped for air after his last exertion, no one else breathed; the injured man was helped over to the sidelines where his groaning would not interrupt their abject shock.

"Now…" Clenching his throbbing fist even tighter between his knees, the General turned his furious eyes up at the victor. "Are you willing to listen to what I have to say?"

His answer was a continuingly defiant gaze and a teeth-gnashing silence which told Weiss all she needed to know:

No.

Weiss felt something twist in her chest, anxious as the broken blade which rattled in her hands. This wasn't something she had considered, and as such, she had no rational response to it.

This aged buffoon, this incontinent hound dog, so rooted in his ways that he was incapable of seeing that his ideals were as decrepit as his old bones. She should have pitied him for it. She should have felt some modicum of admiration for the strength of his conviction, for being unlike many of the other generals in doing as he preached. That he would rather lay down his life than his honor was…

Exactly the sort of stupidity that she couldn't stand!

"That's enough, Weiss."

Flinching at the gentle touch, Weiss let the calm and commanding voice dictate her movements. Her hand dropped to the side and the saber's hilt was delicately pried from her grip by its owner.

Though it was only after she turned to face the Major that she realized the voice hadn't been his, and the hand on her left shoulder moved off towards the downed General.

Weiss had been wrong. She thought for certain that it would take more than a plain white shirt and a pair of men's trousers to make a disguise, and yet she hadn't recognized her own partner until that point. She realized that during the course of the party, she'd looked right at her several times and been completely unaware. Even now, the name Crescent Rose was first to her lips, the scythe appearing from underneath the silver platter of canapé it had been hiding under.

"Ruby-"

"Arretez-"

Moving to intercept the huntress before he even saw her draw the obvious danger, the Lt-Col suddenly felt its cold shadow hanging over them like a precarious bridge that could fall any second and froze.

*SCHLINK*

He went rigid, dared not move- unable to even lower his gaze past his moustache which had turned white with the sound of the scythe being buried into the floorboards by his feet.

"Take care of this for me, will you."

Ruby then deliberately stepped around, over the man as his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed into the crowd who fumbled to catch him.

She then approached the General who regarded her with the wariness and hostility of a neglected Pitbull. Undiscouraged, Ruby kneeled until she was even lower than he was and offered her hand for him to sniff at.

"Here, let me help."

Not actually giving him much choice, she lifted the prideful old man off the ground with a smooth surety of a familiar steed. The onlookers tripped over one another trying to clear a path as Ruby led them over to an armchair that had been pushed aside off the dance floor.

Ranks closing up behind the pair, Weiss watched her partner take the reins on the situation before she and the General disappeared behind an oblivious curtain of wool uniforms. With attention off of her she didn't know where to turn, casting her gaze downwards at the spongey carpet and stamping uselessly at its faux-arabesque floral designs.

"You girls really are something, aren't you?"

When Weiss turned back to look at the Major, she noticed that the corners of her vision were blurry for some reason.

"I- sorry…"

"Hm?" From where he was examining the remnant of his blade, the British officer chuckled and brushed off her distraught apology. "Not to worry. I should say this will make a fine souvenir of the evening. After all, I need something to show my niece to convince her of the necessary delay in her present."

Sliding what was left of the ornamental weapon into its sheath on his hip, he patted it to comfort himself before moving to do the same with Weiss. His baseball mitt of a hand felt a little too assuring against her back, and Weiss's lip twisted in embarrassment at her shameful display.

"There, there," He managed to kindle a small smile from her before guiding the huntress away from curious eyes that were just starting to return to center stage. "You know what they say about the best laid plans of men…"

"So…"

As the General settled into the velvet armchair, he was looking everywhere but Ruby; likewise, the other officers at least had enough sense of discretion not to continue staring. Otherwise useless, they had since formed self-assured little cliques which pointlessly barked at one another while around them, the maître d' and his workforce were busy actually trying to clean up the mess. A coterie of women far in the corner was doting over some of their number which had fainted- including much to Pénet's chagrin, his Lt-Col who lay propped on a chaise while an elderly matron fanned him excitedly.

"Here,"

The General found his fingers pressed around the geometrically carved patterns of a crystal glass, cool to the touch. He looked up at the serenely smiling face, wondering more what there was to be content about rather than where she had found the time to fetch the drink in the few seconds he had looked away.

He continued to hold her in suspicion even as he took a cautious sip. While a shot of dubonnet would have been preferred, he could admit that it was harder to poison water unnoticed, and that the luxuriously iced drink was much needed.

What he could do without was the tomboy's weak attempt at patience as she waited for him to finish. Simply trying not to choke, he forcibly cut himself off after a mere few sips and set the glass aside on a mahogany end table. Only after he had assured himself that it would not slip off the edge did he let go, disappointed to find that it was his own hand which was less than stable.

"What is it you want?"

"My name is Ruby Rose," she introduced, able to ignore his hoarse growl only because she was focused on getting her own words out. "I am the leader of our team of huntresses which Weiss mentioned."

"I see, your team…" He began again, leaving room for this supposed 'leader' to take responsibility for her subordinate. After a pause wherein he discovered much to his annoyance that an apology was not forthcoming, he said "…And I am to understand you have something to offer?"

"Yes," she answered but quickly snapped shut, furthering his doubt.

There was much to be desired. He hadn't seen her hoist that gigantic weapon after all- or if he had, hadn't believed his own eyes. The only thing he saw was yet another feckless little girl who struggled to match his stateliness even as he huffed and puffed like an asthmatic.

"Whatever it is, spit it out, girl." He snarled, rubbing his shoulder which was beginning to ache now that he was seated, and the adrenaline was allowed to settle. "You waste our time if we have something to discuss. If not, you waste mine."

"Mm-hm, right-" Nodding, she finally managed to extract her bottom lip from her teeth enough to say, "The problem is, before we talk about any of that… I really need a favor."

The veteran General stared at this juvenile little thing who squirmed uncomfortably as if she still needed permission to use the powder room.

"-Please?"

Glancing past her elbow he could see the uprooted commotion these two mere women had caused, the broken half of his sword still laying there next to the oversized farming implement which two grown men tried and failed to extract from the floor. On the other side was his Lt-Col who was just now being roused with the help of copious amounts of smelling salts- only to faint dead away again upon catching sight of the white-haired witch.

It was at that moment, General Pénet realized he could no more bite down on his guffaw than he could keep the world from descending into madness and degeneracy. He shook his head in lamentation.

"Well, then, shall we hear it."

---

Talks lasted for several hours after the rest of the guests had left, and it took almost that entire time to convince the remaining authorities that it was all really happening (thankfully, they did not need nearly as much convincing as the General). Once they came to this epiphany though, discussion was moved into the privacy of the lounge and from there progressed rather quickly- though not to say without its necessary hiccups.

All that was positively glacial, however, compared to Ruby the very minute everyone else retired for the night.

Though things were far from settled and it could scarcely be called night anymore. The only thing keeping the sun from breaking on a new day was a heavy fog that Ruby had to practically swim through to get where she was going. She would have needed goggles to be able to see in front of her, but instead, relied upon a compass loaned to her by the nice Major Weiss had introduced her to.

It was a straight shot as the crow flies. And boy did she, crossing the mostly empty farmlands faster than a red line could have been traced across the map, with few obstacles to get in her way.

Just a few.

Ruby was pretty sure that she was more startled than the poor cows she had almost bowled over, and she made a note to come back and fix the farm's roof and to return their weathervane which had gotten caught up in her tornado wake.

Then there were the hedges she'd plowed through, the twin ruts as deep as if they'd been made by tank treads as she ground to a halt in front of yet another chateau. The huntress herself was soaked to the bone, leaves stuck in her hair and the soles of the shoes she had just purchased for her male disguise were now toast- but she had made it, hopefully to the right place, and hopefully in time.

Wiping a sheet of water off her face, Ruby looked around for the stables Blake's friend had told her about. It stood to reason they wouldn't be too far- and sure enough, they were right there within walking distance.

She decided to jog.

And as she neared, she pulled the piece of paper out from behind her waistbelt where she had tucked it so it would stay nice and dry. Waving it above her head like a regimental flag for anyone who might stand in her way, she called out to every corner of the estate in a voice that would have woken the dead,

"Hey, Seph!" Brandishing the official pardon which she had gotten signed by Général Pénet less than an hour prior, she ran a circle around the makeshift jail cell looking for her wayward friend, "I've got great news! You're free to go-"

*C-C-C-CR-RACK!"

Ruby turned the corner on the far side just in time to feel the ripple of muzzle blasts. Echoes off the brick wall caused her heart to flutter, and her fist clenched around the now useless scrap of paper.

There was something about this world's gunpowder. Where normally she could count it among her tops favorite scents (surpassed only by wild Strawberries picked at the height of summer and a well-oiled workshop), there was something about this particular blend which smelt… off, sour like spoiled milk or rotten eggs.

It was at that particular moment that she realized what it was that made it so olid:

Blood.

She didn't notice the little droplets which speckled across her face, entirely focused on the dark red bloom flowering in his chest. Seph didn't seem concerned- they hadn't deigned to give him a mask or even a blindfold so she could see his final expression; not-unpleasantly surprise, he glanced at her moments before he collapsed.

Hands still tied, he just sort-of fell backwards against the wall and slid down, haltingly, until he was sitting on the ground with his head slumped forward and resting on his chest just above the five neat little holes which leaked slowly like maple syrup in winter.

Time had already stopped; the attending priest froze while moving to check the condemned man's vitals when he noticed Ruby standing there. Realizing they had a witness, it was as if the rest of the firing squad had suddenly come to their senses about what they had just done, and they were overcome by looks of horror [9].

And Ruby stood there, the light in her eyes fading like the condemned man's last cigarette.

---

From where the ink had inundated the pages and was now seeping out onto the desk, the pool of black liquid suddenly caught fire and caused the three observers to recoil backwards.

"Glynda!" Ozpin shouted at the same time he lunged for the fire extinguisher which now seemed illogically far from his desk, hoping that the woman had kept up to date on replacing them and cursing himself for not checking.

And while a span of only a few seconds, by the time each of them had returned to the sudden conflagration with their own fire-fighting implements (Glynda was maintaining control of a tendril of water from the sprinkler system which had yet to go off, Pyrrha in the process of removing a withered bouquet of flowers from an antique vase and Ozpin forgoing the instruction pamphlet on the extinguisher in favor of simply ripping out the split ring) what was left of the pages were already floating back down to the desk like blackened snowflakes.

However, as they fell, the pieces seemed to land in a specific order like a jigsaw puzzle, whereupon an image started to take form. The three crowded their heads around it carefully, not wanting any more singed eyebrows.

Realizing that their shadows were blocking the light, Ozpin and Glynda backed off in unspoken agreement to allow (force) Pyrrha to be the one to examine it closer. All too aware that a few seconds ago it had been nothing more than ash, Pyrrha picked up the postcard-sized image carefully and held it up to the light.

"It's… a photograph." Squinting at it from arm's length with the two professors crowded distressingly close over her shoulders, Pyrrha tried to understand what she was seeing. "Wait… is that…?"

"Glynda," Not quite as loud, Ozpin's tone was no less urgent as he himself purposefully moved over to the pile of volumes which had never been returned and lay in disarray in front of his bookshelf, "Bring up all the images you can of military formations between the sixth and eleventh centuries,"

"On it." Already with tablet in hand, the reflections scrolled by in her glasses like a film reel.

Without the two looming over her, Pyrrha brought the sepia-colored image closer. Practically with her nose on the glossy surface, she looked past what were obviously military uniforms and a staged regimental portrait- though of what affiliation or era she hadn't the foggiest.

The faces, however…

"Is that… Ruby?"

'… although, just because we forget the pain does not mean it never happened.'

---

[1] Explaining this conversation between Adam and Hugo just a bit: Firstly, many generations served during the first war, and it was not uncommon for officers to have multiple be enlisted ( I believe it was Ludendorff himself who had three sons become fighter pilots and two died in combat); it was actually considered a point of honor, and perhaps even a duty, especially for select classes which leads to point two: the Germans were almost as obsessed over classes and were as the British. The Prussians, and specifically the Junkers made up 90% of the upper echelons of the military, and so you had a very tight-knit group of elites who mostly shared the same ideas. By 1917, Erich von Ludendorff had essentially made himself the de facto leader of Germany above the Reichstag and even the Kaiser. He had long since given up on a campaign in the Vosges as anything but a distraction, and no one was in a position to talk him out of it (except perhaps Hindenburg). And frankly, the Germans weren't in a place logistically to do so; they were fighting a defensive war on the Hindenburg line. And so it is doubtful that even if Adam were to have startling gains there would be any attempt to follow up on them.

[A] Not part of the historical notes, but I felt like I had to include a little bit of explanation as to just WTF Ilia is doing. The other part of me feels like it should be up to the reader to interpret what's going on, as there isn't really a right answer. I will say that yes, she's jealous/envious of Seph, and yes, she might have wanted to kill him because of what little she overheard Blake talking about with Yang (the whole causality of time travel: if he never existed, they wouldn't have been dragged into this, etc.). But she decided otherwise.

[2] Maybe I mentioned it already, but all sides in the war by this time had extensive censorship of the media. Reporters were almost never permitted to go to the front lines, and anything like interviews with prisoners would have been well-vetted beforehand.

[3] The Typhus epidemic of 1915 killed upwards of 150,000 people in Serbia (some statistics put it at 250,000, out of a population of 4 million). Typhus is spread by fleas or lice, and it continued to be a problem, especially when the civilian population was forced to flea alongside the Serbian army in retreat after the fall of Belgrade (the capital).

[4] Though crude by today's standards, and far more controversial, tattoos and other forms of body art were popular among certain classes of soldiers, most noticeably those who had served overseas in places in Africa, Asia, etc. Which, considering France's colonial possessions in the Maghreb and Indochina, made a situation that was ripe for such cross-culture.

[B] Another non-history note. Sort of. I am not sure when exactly the concept of time-travel causality first entered our social understanding. What I mean by causality in this case is, for example: if Seph burns his diary, therefore Blake never would have read it and never been drawn back to his time. While this 'retroactive' version of time travel seems almost trite to us now, and has been done to death with movies and other media which like to play on the whole 'paradox' angle (i.e. something happens in the past which couldn't have happened because of something in the future), the more modern concept of time travel is that time 'branches', and that by changing something in the past you are simply creating a new 'future' which is a separate though near-identical universe which you perceive as 'reality'. Seph's just a farmboy who's read too much, so I don't know if he would really grasp this concept (unless he has some mysterious connection to the future?).

[5] Have you ridden in a stagecoach? I have. They suck.

[6] I apologize to the family of Monsieur Pénet for my portrayal of him in this fictional work. Part of the reason this chapter took so long was because I devoted so much time trying to research which French Generals would have around this location during the time period. And I specifically was searching for ones with more of a passion for fencing for others, along with perhaps a more bellicose personality to fit my needs. In the end… I sort of gave up. I really couldn't find a whole lot of information on General Pénet apart from the various units he commanded (the French wiki article on him has more than the US one, but not by much). The only thing I could see was that he was (relatively) younger than many of his contemporaries, and the anecdote which stated that he had a certain "energy" in his command… I just ran with it. That being said, while I specifically do not know the personality or opinions of M. Pénet, there were certainly French officers which fit my portrayal.

[7] Fencing was an integral part of the elitist culture back then. In Germany especially, there was a sub-culture of duelists within higher education, and to have a wound obtained in a duel of honor was seen as mark of character. It became so representative of status, that some young men would intentionally give themselves a mark even if they did not fence. The scars from these wounds were known as Mensur or Schmisse.

[8] All the jokes about the French surrendering are actually pretty funny considering the number of suicidal attacks they conducted throughout WWI. Back then, the whole theory of 'the best defense is offense' was taken to the extreme. Among the French leadership there was a "cult of the offensive" and a belief that superior fighting spirit (élan or energy) could conquer anything… even machineguns.

[9] Firing squads were composed of men selected by an officer out of a company, and they often had little choice in the matter. If they were reluctant, sometimes they were told that only one or two of them had live ammo while the others had blanks (they didn't). Although, refusing to participate could result in one's own death sentence. It was usually up to either a priest or an officer to check the condemned man's vitals after the initial volley to ensure that he was dead. And if not, the officer would then finish the job with his sidearm.

[C] And just in case you were wondering, no, this is not necessarily a Blake x Seph pairing. This is war! Hardly time for that kind of thing...