Note: Hey, did we mention last time that we are on the final ten chapters? Because we are. Crazy. After this chapter, we are officially halfway done with the final battle as well, so be prepared for a few more surprises and for things to escalate quickly. Enjoy.

"Y-Yang?" Ruby gasped. "W-What are you—" She tried to stand up—and immediately received a boot to the chest for her efforts. She fell down onto her hip, clutching at her heart as she tried to crawl backward. Yin approached her slowly, teasingly, savoring her panic.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Yin asked.

"I don't…I don't understand," Ruby stammered. It made no sense to her. Yang. Here. Now. Of all the times, of all the places, why did it have to be now?

"You don't understand? I was left for dead," Yin laughed. "Abandoned. Forgotten. I was hoping to find Belle, but you…Nah, you'll do."

"Yang, we tried to find you, but—"

Ruby heard a terrible scream from behind her and froze. The Grimm began to stir from underneath the rubble, the entire ground shifting underneath its weight. Yin looked past her and sneered at the colossal beast. It was in the bottom of the exposed elevator shaft, and glancing up, she saw one elevator suspended high above it, dangling from its cables. Her head twitched, and she suddenly grabbed Ruby's scythe from out of her hand and reared her arm back.

"You stay out of this!"

Yin threw the scythe with all of her strength. It spiraled through the air like a buzzsaw and tore straight through the cables; the elevator broke and plummeted, grinding against the walls with a loud screech before falling onto the Grimm's heads. The crash sent more debris flying into the main hall, and Ruby shielded herself with her arms from the heavy dust. Yin had stolen her idea, but even now, she questioned how long it would last.

"Now…"

Ruby heard Yin cock her gauntlets, and she horribly realized that the Grimm was no longer her biggest concern.

"Where were we?"

Yin punched down as hard as she could, and Ruby rolled back and popped up to her feet before the fist collided with the shiny floor. She caught a glimpse of Yin's twisted smile, and her mind went into overdrive.

Yin. Trying to kill her.

Scythe. Weapon. Get. Now.

She took her eyes off her sister for one moment to search for Crescent Rose, and Yin immediately took advantage, lunging forward and tackling Ruby's legs. Ruby scrambled to escape, but Yin easily pinned her down and hovered over her. Up close, Ruby could see the damage to her skin, the bruises barely hidden beneath her clothes, the scar along her hairline where she had been split open in their previous battle. She was stronger. Faster. It had been a week since they saw each other. Just how much pain had she put herself through to get ready for this?

Yin grabbed Ruby by the throat and clenched her fist.

"You can't run away this time," Yin said. There wasn't any remorse in her eyes. No second-guessing. Ruby had to act. She built those gauntlets. She knew exactly what they could do to a Human skull. She couldn't beat Yin up close, though, and she was trapped. She really couldn't run away. At least, not in the traditional sense.

Yin threw her fist, but before impact, Ruby triggered her Semblance, and both sisters were converted into a flurry of multi-colored rose petals. Yin found herself and Ruby flying across the Embassy's main hall, and together they slammed into the one statue that was left standing from the Grimm's rampage. The impact through the stone separated them, and while Yin reverted to normal as she crashed, Ruby's rose petal flew upward toward the elevator shaft, where her scythe was embedded into the wall next to the broken cables. She sailed over the Grimm and turned sharply upward, finally coming to a stop on top of her weapon, some thirty feet in the air. Ruby balanced carefully on the staff, trying to figure out her next move.

"Think."

She couldn't kill Yang.

"Think."

She had to leave. But the people in the Embassy…the Grimm…

"Think—"

"Hey, Ruby! You forgot this!"

Yin's voice echoed across the room, and Ruby turned her head just in time to see a massive chunk of stone being hurled toward her. In her panic, she slipped off the scythe and was only just able to cling on with her fingertips; a saving grace, unexpectedly, as the stone crashed into the shaft wall above her. She made the mistake of looking down, where the Grimm woozily stirred underneath the rubble. Yin, furious, grabbed another piece of the destroyed statue—an especially jagged one—and picked it up over her head. Ruby's eyes darted about for an exit. The front door: She could make it. Yin was in the way, but she could weave past her.

But she heard more cries. Above. The hole in the ceiling.

"You're not running from me!"

Yin launched the stone, and Ruby pulled the trigger on Crescent Rose. The firing of the rifle dislodged the scythe from the wall, and together, Ruby and the scythe dodged beneath the projectile and then swerved up into the ceiling, narrowly passing through the fresh gap. She landed on the second floor, and as the petals dissolved, Ruby checked her new surroundings.

Conference room. Some twenty feet long. Big wooden table beneath her feet. Diplomats and workers surrounding her. Looking at her. One two three four five six seven…eight of them. Ruby glanced behind her. The conference room had clear walls. Beyond them: office spaces. More people were huddled together, hiding behind desks, cowering. Too many to count. Ruby's thoughts briefly wandered: God, those people looked fancy.

They were all staring at her expectantly—this weird girl with a red hood and an oversized weapon panting heavily and covered in cuts and bruises. What would she think if she was in their shoes? She didn't understand them. With their values, Atlasians might as well be from another planet. The irony wasn't lost on her that she was probably going to die protecting a group of people who were actively working against her. Maybe they thought she was insane. Hell, considering that she was about to throw herself into the mouth of a Grimm, maybe she was insane.

Focus.

Ruby heard Yin's furious screaming from below. She would be charging upstairs once she figured out how, and Ruby knew that she wouldn't be the only one caught in her wrath. She had no time to question anything. She had to act. In some sense, it was funny. Of all the things they taught her at Beacon, comforting those she rescued was never one of them. She had always been better at talking to guns than people. And yet, in the heat of the moment, her instincts took over and everything seemed to perfectly come together.

"Okay, everyone," she announced, her voice no longer shaking. "I'm going to get you out of here."

And then shortly after, it fell apart. Immediately, the questions started flying in faster than she could answer them.

"What is going on down there?"

"What is that thing?"

"Who are you?"

That last one she could answer. "My name is Ruby. I'm a Huntress. I'm going to need everyone to calm down."

One of the men in suits clutched at his heart and stumbled against the wall. Two more ducked beneath the table. She heard one of the women whisper hoarsely. "Huntress? But…you're just a kid."

Another whimpered. "Yeah, where the actual security? Shouldn't they help us?"

"Listen," Ruby said, "We just need to—"

A few of them ran to the far wall, sinking to the floor. One had the common sense to run for the door, but even in the other room, they resorted to hiding, unsure of where to go. A loud crash rang out from the floor below, only further destabilizing the room. Ruby heard someone mutter under their breath. "Oh Gods, we're going to die."

Ruby's resolve faded. Of course, they wouldn't listen to her. Her? Commanding others? With her pathetic, squeaky voice and the clear mask of panic on her face? How the hell would she ever get them to listen to her? The doubt came creeping back in—and then subsided when she heard Yin's yelling again from below. She didn't have time to doubt. All these Atlasians were fearing for their lives. They were scared, at least as scared as she had been. There were two monsters on the floor beneath her, one of her own making, and the chaos they caused was enough to make anyone lose hope. But if she could get Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna to follow her orders, then dammit, she could make a bunch of grubby rich people in suits get behind her.

Ruby slammed the end of her scythe into the table, and for just a moment, she was able to ring the room to a standstill. "Quiet down!"

All eyes turned to her, but she didn't buckle underneath the stares.

"All of you, listen! I'm getting you out, but you need to work with me. You can either help me, or face whatever's down there on your own! Got it?" She didn't wait for an answer. She quickly pointed to the woman closest to her—a terrified lady in a pantsuit squatting behind a chair. "You. Are there any other exits to this building beside the front door?"

The woman stammered. "I-I—"

Ruby snapped. "Spit it out!"

"N-No!" the woman admitted. "I don't think so."

That complicated things. There was no way Ruby was letting them get anywhere near that Grimm. There was a large window behind the conference room leading back to the square, but if the Grimm woke up, it would be all too easy to chase them down out in the open. Ruby slammed her scythe into the table again, thinking quickly. "Are there stairs close to here?"

The woman nodded hesitantly. "Yes. Out the door and to the right."

"Okay," Ruby said. "I want all of you to head up to the roof. Grab everyone you can find and tell them to get to higher ground. No matter what you do, do not go to the ground floor, and keep moving until you get to safety. Hiding from that thing doesn't work, so I'll keep it out of your way. Got it?"

Her intensity finally seemed to do the trick. Finally motivated, the woman in question headed out the door to the conference room and began yelling at others in her vicinity. Then another followed—and finally, the rest of the diplomats or interns or whatever the hell they were finally decided that it was in their best interest to get out of there. They hurried out of the room, nearly trampling over each other in their desperate escape. Ruby watched them from the table as they called to and gathered up their co-workers and ran out of sight, and Ruby took a moment to consider following them. It might have done her some good to keep an eye on them. The last thing she needed was some random bystander wandering into a battlefield. She decided against it. The easiest route was to distract the others. Ruby peered down into the hole in the ground. She couldn't see or hear Yin, but she knew she was there. Luring her back outside would have been the easiest route, though whether the Grimm would follow them was a risk. Hopefully, Yin pissed it off enough to get it to chase her.

Ruby looked out the window overseeing the square, planning to make her escape back into the open. She hadn't realized that Yin had also doubled back outside in the intervening seconds, or that she had located her sister through the second-story window—and it was a little too late when Ruby realized that in a fit of rage, Yin had used her gauntlets to blast herself up into the air toward the conference room, hurling herself across the square like a rocket. Ruby only noticed Yin barreling toward her when Yin was about to burst through the glass.

Yin crashed into Ruby and tackled her straight through the table, wooden splinters and glass shards flying in every direction. The stragglers in the other room screamed out in panic, and they fearfully sprinted away as Yin grabbed Ruby out from underneath her and threw her with all her might toward the hall. Ruby flew through the door, several desks, and a few chairs, trying to protect herself from the impact. Tearing straight through the center of the room, she left a clear line of destruction in her wake, and Yin stared her down amidst the rubble. She landed back first, dealing more damage to her already wounded spine, and she lay on the ground as Yin snickered, marching through the broken plane of glass.

"Come on, Ruby," Yin taunted her, stepping through the trail of destroyed desks. "No more fucking running. I've waited long enough. Let's do this."

Ruby rolled onto her back, transformed her sniper, and aimed down the line of her stomach. Easy shot, but she stopped herself before she could pull the trigger. Yin looked at her strangely, almost in disbelief at her hesitation. She quickened her pace, but before she could make it halfway across the room, Ruby swapped cartridges on her weapon and launched a smoke pellet at Yin's feet. It erupted, filling up the room and eliciting more screams, and Ruby vanished into the smoke.

Yin just smirked. "Really? You want to do this again?"

She planted her feet in the center of the room, scanning through the thick grey fog. She was doing that damn strategy again. Running. Hiding. Keeping her distance. Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic…

Yin didn't even realize she was trembling, but she forced herself to be still and concentrate. Ignore the voices. Find Ruby. She turned herself around and began walking back toward the office.

"Do you know how long I waited for this?" Yin screamed into the fog. "I'm not just talking about this past week. I'm talking about seventeen years of being treated like I didn't exist. You couldn't imagine what that's like Ruby. It's hell. Literal. Fucking…"

There. Out of the corner of her eye. A flash of red streaking toward the window.

"Hell!"

Yin lunged through the fog and reached out. The tips of her fingers managed to wrap around the fringe of Ruby's cape just before the redhead could escape out of the building. Yin yanked hard and Ruby gagged as the cape tightened around her throat, and she was forced down to the ground, whacking the back of her head against the ruins of the table. Her weapon was dislodged from her grasp. The smoke began to pool out of the open window, and as the air cleared, Yin saw Ruby's face beneath her, racked with fear. Yin grabbed Ruby by the hair and hoisted her up to her feet. She reared back her fist. Ruby's face looked so small, glasses crooked on her nose, teeth gritted, whimpering.

"Y-Yang," Ruby gasped. "Please. Stop."

Yin flinched. Her fist drooped. Her entire demeanor seemed to shift.

Ruby sounded horrified. She didn't want to die. She didn't want her sister to kill her.

Wait…

Yin closed her eyes and furiously shook her head. She dropped Ruby and clutched her face in pain. Ruby stumbled to the ground, too stunned to do anything but stare at her sister as she slowly stumbled back into the fading fog.

"Dammit…" Yin muttered. "Shut up…"

Ruby's gaze shot over to her weapon, and she grabbed Crescent Rose before Yin could recover. She didn't know what was afflicting her. She wasn't privy to Yin's struggles over the past several days. All she knew was that she had an opportunity to strategize, and she wasn't going to waste it. Luring Yin away was the best possible option, but she still needed a plan to take her down. The fundamental rules of fighting still applied from their previous battle. No direct physical contact. No close quarters. No standing still. And yet, something kept Ruby from running. Something about Yin seemed fundamentally off, different than their last encounter.

"Yang," Ruby asked hesitantly. "A-Are you in there?"

Yin growled and suddenly took a wild swing at Ruby's head. Ruby rolled underneath the attack, and as Yin stumbled behind her, they swapped positions in the room. Yin grabbed at her head again in agony.

"I said, shut up," Yin hissed. Her muscles tensed like they being tased. She felt a rigid pain jump down her entire spinal column. "You don't have a right to be here. You have no goddamn right."

When Ruby realized she wasn't the one being spoken to, she only doubled down on her efforts.

"Yang, I know this isn't you. You'd never want to hurt me."

Yin snapped, clasping her hands together over her head and bringing them down hard toward Ruby. Ruby jumped back to avoid the blow, which cracked through the ground once again. Yin was slower than she was a moment ago.

"Yang, come on—"

"Do not talk to her!" Yin screamed. She threw three quick punches, shotgun blasts exploding out of her knuckles on each swing. Ruby batted away Yin's fists with her scythe. She felt the air shift and burst against her face as the gunshots narrowly missed her. "You speak to me! Me!"

She dove haphazardly toward Ruby's legs, but Ruby was ready for her. The moment Yin hit the floor, Ruby rolled over her and landed on her back. Pinning Yin beneath her, Ruby hurriedly unclipped her red hood and removed it from her collar. As Yin arched back in response to the pressure on her spine, Ruby suddenly wrapped the cape around Yin's entire face, pulling the cloth taught over her head. Yin gasped for air and clawed at the fabric, but Ruby didn't budge.

"I don't want to fight you!" Ruby cried desperately. Yin bucked underneath her like a wild bull, and she didn't know how much longer she could hold her. "You need to snap out of this. Yang, please! This isn't who you are."

Yin's thoughts were like a series of car crashes. The oxygen deprivation only made things worse. Wasn't who she was? This was exactly who she was. It had to be. She had no one else she could have been. If she was anyone else, she wouldn't be herself, and she had to be herself. She couldn't let anyone else be her. That wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, dammit. Why couldn't they just leave her alone? All of them. Tai. Raven. Ruby. They all wanted the other back. They didn't even give her a chance. It was all their fault. All their fault she was like this. She was going to live. She wouldn't let them strangle her any longer. She would exist. That was the only thing that mattered to her. If she had to kill Ruby, and the Grimm, and the other, and anyone else, she would do it. She would push anyone else down to stay afloat for just a little bit longer.

Yin managed to find Ruby's wrist in her blind search, and upon feeling the flesh, she squeezed and twisted it as hard as she could. Ruby yelped in pain and loosened her grip, and that was all it took for Yin to break free. She threw Ruby off her back onto the floor next to her before ripping the stupid cape off of her face. She mashed the red cloth into a firm ball and chucked it across the room in frustration. In its place, she grabbed something else: Ruby's ankles.

Ruby didn't want to fight? She wanted to run? Well, Yin decided, she wasn't going to fucking run anywhere.

With just one hand, Yin dragged Ruby out of the conference room by the leg into the main office space. The smoke had cleared enough that Yin could see the full damage her initial throw caused to the room. No matter. There were plenty of desks still standing. Ruby tried swinging her scythe at Yin's torso, but being dragged wounded back-first across the floor made aiming difficult, and trying not to seriously injure her sister made it impossible. She hardly had time to adjust her bearings before Yin dragged her next to a random desk and tightened her grip on her ankle. She grabbed Ruby firmly and swung her arm forward—and like a pendulum, she flung Ruby directly into the side of the desk. The wooden structure collapsed on top of her, along with all of its contents: papers, staplers, some collector's bobbleheads that the desk's owner thought were special. A computer monitor too, which landed on her shoulder. Ruby barely had time to brace herself, and even then it hurt like hell. She tried her hardest to recover, but after a few seconds, she realized that Yin never let go of her ankle.

And then Yin dragged her away and flung her into another desk.

And another.

And just for the hell of it…another.

By the fourth desk, Ruby was like a ragdoll, helplessly flying through objects without any real means of shielding herself. Each impact was worse and worse as if the desks were somehow getting thicker each time. The only thing that saved her from any worse injury was that her arms were so limp that whenever Yin flung her into something else, they would fly up toward her face and shield her skull from most of the damage. Her body was less fortunate, and after the fourth desk, she felt like she had been hit by a train. Her entire torso was numb. She could barely breathe without her ribs feeling like they were going to collapse. She felt a severe laceration on her arm where the wood splintered and cut her open. Her fingers could barely hold onto Crescent Rose.

Yin swung her a fifth time but finally released her grip. Ruby sailed across the open space and landed directly against yet another desk. She didn't crash through it this time. Instead, she just smacked her chest on top of it and pathetically bounced off, rolling onto the floor. Her glasses flew off somewhere during her arc, but she was certain that even with them the world would look just was blurry.

"Is that enough to make you shut up?" Yin shouted from across the room. "Or do I have to bash your fucking face in—"

Yin's gloating was short-lived. The floor beneath her rumbled, and then all at once burst open. The snake head of the Grimm shot out from under her feet, and without any warning, Yin found herself trapped within its jaws.

Ruby rolled onto her stomach, too injured to help. "Yang!"

"What the hell?" Yin screamed. The snake head rose several feet into the air, its long neck thrashing about, and Yin felt its teeth sink into her hips. She cried out in pain, and her headache worsened, blistering and bulging as if some tumor was threatening to break out of her brain. The Grimm bobbed with her in its mouth, wriggling all around in an attempt to disorient her. One of her arms was free from its mouth, but the other was pinned against her side. She felt its hot, sticky tongue slide against her shoulders. That grotesque, monstrous thing…

Yin refused to die easily. She pressed her one free hand against the snake's eyes, wedging the tip of her fist in-between the marble white of its skull. Her knuckles almost sank into the deep red pool of its eye, and her own red eyes went wide and bloodshot as she screamed harder at it. The gun went off, and the blood sprayed everywhere. The snake rolled its head back and its mouth opened enough for Yin to slip out of its hold. She didn't seem to care about the indentions or the two fresh pierce marks on her skin where the snake's teeth sliced her open. She charged headfirst toward the writhing creature and wrapped her arms around its long neck, slamming it to the ground.

"I told you to stay down!" Yin shouted at it. Before it could recover, she ran over to its face and stood directly in front of it. She planted her foot hard on its lower jaw and raised the roof of her mouth over her head, opening its mouth up wide. Black liquid and the smell of death radiated from within. Yin cocked her shotgun. "Why…"

She shot the inside of its mouth.

"Won't…"

Again.

"Anybody…"

Again.

"Ever…"

Again. Again. Again.

"Listen to me?"

The Grimm's tongue and throat exploded into puddles of blood, but Yin wasn't finished with it. Like all snakes, it had its fangs, and Yin grabbed one of them and pulled on it as hard as she physically could. With a twist, she was able to yank it free. Using it as a knife, she slammed it into the bottom of the Grimm's jaw, tearing right through its flesh and pinning it to the floor. The Grimm yelled in pain and tried to worm its way free, yet no matter how hard it fought, it could not move. Yin stepped to its side and hooked her hands onto its upper jaw—and then she pulled as hard as she could. The Grimm's mouth stretched wide, wider, wider…

And with one final pull—its lower jaw trapped to the floor and its upper jaw in her hands—the snake's flesh gave way, and Yin tore its mouth apart at the seams. Its halves ripped apart, but Yin didn't stop there. The top of its head folded back onto itself and Yin pulled further; the seam widened, and its neck peeled back, inch by inch, tearing like a zipper. Ruby watched with disgusted horror as the sinew holding it together snapped and it stopped resisting Yin's pull. She tossed the remains onto the ground, and where the Grimm once had a single long tail, it now had two, bleeding and oozing heavily all over the office floor. Yin calmly brushed her fingers through her hair, covered in so much blood and fluid that she no longer knew how much of it belonged to her.

The Grimm was powerless to stop her. So was Ruby. So was everyone. She was going to finish this.

"Now, where were we?" Yin muttered, catching her breath. She kicked the snake's torso for good measure, taking some small, sick satisfaction from hearing its meat squish beneath the tip of her boot. Her bloody eyes went back to her sister, and she started to march back across the room. "That…that's going to be you next, Ruby."

Ruby tried to stand up, but she couldn't. She tried to crawl away, but she couldn't. She was frozen in fear.

"Yang, it's over. Please."

"Oh, it's not over," Yin said bluntly. "It's never going to be over."

"You can stop," Ruby begged her. "You beat the Grimm. There's nothing left to fight. Y-You wanted to be a Huntress. You wanted to help people. That's what you wanted."

"What I wanted?" Yin said in disbelief. She clenched her jaw, struggling against herself. "No…I don't know what I want…it doesn't matter. All I want…is you dead."

Ruby had no other options. No ideas. Yin just incapacitated the same Grimm that almost effortlessly killed her. Her Aura was nearly depleted. She was too tired to move. Yin drew closer and Ruby's mind desperately searched for anything to break through to her. She couldn't think of anything. God, where was Weiss? She was supposed to be here. She could help. Where the hell did she go? Why hadn't she heard back from Blake? Why didn't she tell her father goodbye before she left to kill herself for this? She was out of breath and exhausted and she felt the tears fighting to come out.

Yin's face had gone blank. Whatever internal war she was waging, she had finished it. At least for now. Long enough to end Ruby's life.

But a noise stopped her dead in her tracks.

A low, tepid buzzing noise coming from behind her.

And then another noise: something gross and wet. Also, from behind her.

Ruby's face suddenly became engulfed in a dull red glow, and she no longer looked at Yin, but past her instead. Yin, confused, turned around. The buzzing grew louder.

She saw dark, meaty tendrils flying across the room. Pulsating. Connecting to one another. Glowing bright, earnest red. Another noise suddenly joined in: distorted static that was gradually becoming clearer—transforming into screams.

The snake halves were merging back together. The buzzing grew more powerful, rising in frequency as the glow of the Grimm's innards deepened.

"What the…" Yin muttered. It was coming back? It seriously wanted more from her? She cocked her gauntlets, sending the empty shells scattering across the floor. She prepared to lunge at it, but from afar, Ruby sensed something different. Something horrible. Her instincts screamed louder than anything else: run.

It took all of her strength to crawl out of the way, while Yin just stood in wait. She wanted it to come for her. She wanted it dead. If one blow wasn't enough to kill it, then a thousand would be. Whatever it took to live…

The snake head suddenly snapped back together, all of its muscles and bones neatly merging back into place. Its hide fused together, hiding any indication that it was ever separated. The buzzing didn't disappear as it looked toward Yin and opened its glowing red mouth. No screams came out—but Yin quickly realized that something else was inside.

And before she could defend herself, the buzzing reached its peak, and a massive beam of energy shot out of the Grimm's mouth, engulfing Yin and the office in a blaze of red.