Not for the first time, Yang woke in the night when she dwelled on Adam Taurus. But it wasn't his maiming of her or his brutal attack on Beacon that haunted her dreams now: now it was their more recent confrontation before they'd left Argus. Now it was the moment of her triumph that compelled Yang to return from sleep to the mortal world before she'd meant to.

She took pride in knowing Blake was alive and finally safe from his wrath. She took some pride in defeating the man who'd once bested her, but mostly she was just proud of having been able to protect Blake and convinced Blake to believe it simply possible to be protected from him. He was a monstrous, obsessive madman who'd sought to forever trap Blake in some twisted, abusive relationship and Yang took some pride in extracting Blake from that.

Blake was still asleep; apparently no longer troubled by the memory of that man or the shadow he'd cast over her. Yang took a few moments to look at Blake resting so peacefully -even on the hard metal floor of the transport- that it immediately set Yang's mind at ease. They'd be in Atlas soon and that'd cause its own troubles, but in this moment, looking at that sleeping, content face... she couldn't help but be at peace. One of the people who hurt her was gone, after refusing chance after chance not to pursue his depraved ends… and because of Blake and herself, the world was a better place. They'd done something harsh, perhaps, but at least for Blake it hadn't caused her to have any trouble sleeping afterwards.

Blake had nearly broken down crying after Adam fell. She held tightly to Yang and reassured her she'd keep her promise, and Yang was all out of reasons to doubt her. Together, they defeated their doubts, combating them with unity.

Yang lay back down, still looking at Blake's peaceful slumber. It didn't take long for her eyelids to grow heavy, for her heart to steady… and for peace to find its way back to her again.

As for Blake, however…

Even in sleep, she was guarded. Even surrounded by her friends, she kept up her mask. She feigned peace and contentment and hid guilt in her own shadow, now that she no longer had its source to conceal it.

He was gone now, just as she hoped he would be. He was dead, and no one had to know anything more than a brutal psychopath met his deserved end after rejecting every opportunity to reform.

That was the truth. No one would know any differently.

No one but her.

"Blake, I'm sorry," Adam tried to say. "I told you it was an accident."

"Was it?" Blake demanded, her ears turning quite expressive. "This isn't the first time humans have died on missions you led- how many more accidents are there going to be?"

Blake's ears always told her the story. Unlike so many who saw Adam as being callous or anti-social, she knew how many more emotions surged under the surface, and in the beats of his heart knew when he told the truth.

And to her, he never told anything else. He couldn't control his emotions when they were brought to the surface, hence why he spent so much time suppressing them around his subordinates. For a brief moment, Blake heard his rage start to boil… only to simmer down as genuine grief and shame took anger's place. "I don't know," he admitted. "I'm out there, fighting for us, and when you fight people get hurt.

"What do you want me to just abandon our cause?" Adam asked, some fight returning to his voice. He even resorted to pulling one of the few advantages he had over Blake: "Like your parents…?"

"No, I'm not saying that!" Blake quickly argued. "I…" He'd managed to outmaneuver her. "I… don't know."

Adam didn't enjoy fighting with her. He liked it so little, he hated to win. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have brought them up…" Again he let emotion step in and poke through, letting Blake see the real him. "I just get scared when it feels like you don't believe in me anymore."

Few people could be so honest - with anyone. Blake was the only one he ever allowed to see him vulnerable. Blake was the only one he trusted enough where he could be himself.

For someone used to seeing the very worst greed and cruelty of humanity and the rawest opportunism and politicking of Faunus, trust did not come naturally. He gave it to her and only to her.

Blake reached her hand to his shoulder, trying to reassure him. "I never said that."

Adam smiled. It was such an unfamiliar thing for him, he couldn't help but be stoic and wooden when he tried to wear it on his face. "Thank you, Blake. It's good to know I've still got you."

He did. Whatever his violent tendencies, he still had her love. It wasn't as intense as it had once been -time had made his flaws more apparent- but she still felt something for him, something that made it easier to accept his proclivities than to acknowledge her own lack of forethought.

Her parents were wrong; she and Adam were right. They were going to change the world for the better.

Maybe after they finally left Forever Fall, maybe after they forced the SDC out of the countryside of Vale, maybe after someone reasonable in the kingdom saw the Faunus were fighting injustice rather than stability… maybe that'd be enough to see things change for the better and be the spark so many other Faunus were waiting for.

Adam may not have been the right man to lead them then, but Blake thought perhaps he'd get better. She'd been teaching him, making him better… and his worst impulses he now suppressed of his own free will.

She liked to think eventually she'd remember that feeling of such powerful admiration and love, and Adam would be molded into the man she'd perceived him to be, rather than the man he was.

"Blake, it's time."

She turned to face him, doing her best not to let her disdain show. "Okay."

She knew this moment would come. She knew she'd run from him now.

It would destroy him. It would shatter the only bond of trust he'd been able to forge, but she no longer believed it could be done. She couldn't fix him.

He improved, perhaps. But he still had moments where he turned to his sword rather than used his head. He still believed that violence was the right solution more than he considered it his last resort.

Blake did not enjoy comparing Faunus to animals, but Adam made the comparison apt. He made their enemies arguments more palatable… he'd become a liability in pursuing Faunus equality.

She tried to love him. She tried to fix him. The man she thought he was shed his mask and revealed the beast he'd always been.

She'd betray him today. She'd hurt him.

She didn't hesitate long. She was able to brush aside her doubt when she needed to.

When she heard Adam callously dismiss the lives of the people who might've staffed the train they'd meant to attack, Blake knew she was right.

When she watched him fade into the distance of a separated train car, Blake still felt that way.

She just didn't know it for certain any longer.

She told herself not to doubt. She told herself she tried, but he could not change.

She hoped to think of him no more after that.

When Weiss was tossed into the lead car, Blake moved immediately to defend her friend. To defend a Schnee, no less… she had no doubt such an action would confuse Adam's lieutenant, and grant her the opportunity to outmaneuver him. He was always big and bulky, and his armor may have been useful in deflecting the blows of Weiss's rapier, it did little to defend against Dust discharged by Gambol Shroud. She hit him enough to disrupt his Aura, then struck with rock Dust to ensnare him, knowing even his strength wouldn't be enough to wrest him free.

While Blake attended to Weiss and went to rouse her from consciousness, the lieutenant strained at his bindings, growling at her. "I hope this satisfies you, traitor… I hope you can be proud of what you and your human masters achieved."

Blake did what she could to ignore him at first. She knew him to be zealous and devoted, but far worse: bloodthirsty. He was part of an increasing trend in recruits to Adam's Vale faction, motivated by the promise of vengeance and repayment of humanity's debt. Blake found him distasteful from the outset.

"That fool Torchwick," the lieutenant grumbled. "We never should've accepted that foolish bargain…"

"You're right," Blake flatly replied. "You shouldn't have."

"Oh, don't pretend to be so above it all, Belladonna," the lieutenant snapped. "You left us before things went bad. You stopped whispering in Adam's ear and we ended up here."

"I'm not responsible for what Adam does," Blake quickly snapped back. "And if he couldn't do better than this without me, you deserved to be here."

"Only because of Adam are we 'here' at all," the lieutenant informed her. "If he hadn't agreed to their terms they'd have killed us all. If he hadn't bowed his head and done as the humans asked, all those brothers -your brothers once- would be dead in Forever Fall."

"...what are you talking about?" Blake demanded, curious against her will.

"Adam refused their offer first," the lieutenant explained. "He didn't want to throw our lives away for this; for thievery, for such needless slaughter. But the very morning after he refused, you left him… you didn't see what they did next, or how many of our brothers they put to the sword to force his hand."

Blake's eyes widened. Adam… the White Fang… they were forced to do this?

"He was still mourning his loss," the lieutenant continued. "He kept asking himself what he could've done differently or cursed himself for failing you. He hid in his tent so his followers wouldn't see his weakness and doubt their course… until they came back and forced him to their heels. It is only because he yielded to them, only because he set aside the pain you caused him and swallowed his pride…"

"You're lying," Blake interjected. She didn't believe it; Adam would never allow his weakness and failure to be seen, not even to save lives he valued. He'd barely been able to let her see him like that; she knew he wouldn't let anyone else hold such power over him. He hadn't changed… he couldn't change.

"I was standing right beside him," the lieutenant told her. "I hated having to see him do that… but I know I am alive only because he traded his pride for us."

Blake shook her head. She wasn't… she wasn't wrong about him. He was a violent beast, and whatever sincere feelings he'd had for her hadn't been enough to change that. "You're lying," Blake said again.

The lieutenant dismissively shook his head. There was no point in arguing with her now: Blake Belladonna had already decided on her version of the truth. She had already decided that shewasn't wrong.

Adam listened to her once. He'd loved her, enough to try and better fit what she wished him to be. He'd stumbled again and again, and his progress had been too slow for Blake, so she cast him aside when her patience had expired.

That was one man's understanding of events. And though she'd called him a liar, the pace of his heartbeat indicated he firmly believed such an interpretation of events.

Unfortunately, no one else would know. When the train car drew closer to impact the support structures beneath Vale, Blake chose to save her friend Weiss rather than her former comrade. Torchwick may have had some miraculous luck in surviving the crash, but Adam's lieutenant did not.

His truth died with him. It wasn't a 'truth' Blake had ever allowed herself to believe.

He'd never struck her before this. He wouldn't have bothered to cross swords with her had she not been so insistent in saving a human's life.

She knew he didn't want to. Before he'd been ecstatic to unleash his anger. Once he was clashing with her, he buried it down under cold focus once again.

Her ears picked up so many sounds. Distant cries of her classmates assailed by the Grimm and the Atlesian machines, fire steadily burning, weapons discharging… but Blake had never forgotten the sound of his heartbeat. She hadn't forgotten the truth of who he was, no matter how he hid it away.

Adam had always been wounded, in all the time she knew him. He lashed out against a world that showed him nothing but cruelty, until the White Fang gave him Sienna Khan gave him praise.

Until Blake gave him love.

When she left him, she shattered his belief that he could change for the better. He stopped believing that love was what would free him from the pain the world had inflicted.

He still loved her. He hated her and loved her at once, and Blake could hear it, under the facade of a steady heart rate.

She saw under his mask a few times; the beautiful, soft blue of his eye. On occasion, Blake thought she saw someone kinder than the man he ultimately became.

Before he raised his hand to her in the heat of battle at Beacon, she'd never believed his violence would turn towards her.

Now she would believe it had always been there, waiting below the surface, and Adam's murderous impulses had spared her his wrath at the cost of other innocent lives.

Her belief would be her truth. Adam would not contradict her - not unless he won.

And she wouldn't return to him. She was not wrong.

And if she couldn't best him now, she would run.

It'd mean admitting her parents were right… but that mattered less to her now. They still loved her, and loved her sincerely, without this corruption, this stain that corroded Adam's… she didn't want to call it love. She didn't know what to call it.

He never expected anyone to love him. Or stop loving him. That wasn't her responsibility to change.

Adam suffered one humiliation after another. But one aspect that genuinely surprised Blake was his willingness to detonate the bombs, even when he knew it would kill him too.

His heart was a chaotic melange now; not something she could easily read. But she could clearly hear his despair when he saw all his allies abandon him. Perhaps he expected to lose them, but not without achieving his victory first.

He was beaten, and -twisted as he'd become- he knew it. Blake was glad to see him suffer after all he did at Beacon.

So she kicked him while he was down.

"You can try and regret making me come here, Adam, but… honestly?" she deigned to look him in the eye, though she made her disdain as evident as she could: "I've got more important things to deal with."

She wanted him to feel small. She wanted him to recognize his insignificance.

She told herself he deserved it; that he hurt her and her friends and that merited this harsh lesson. She told herself that he hurt her and she'd only responded in kind, but paying the scars he'd left the worst insult possible: to be dismissed and ignored.

She told herself it was justice.

The salt in his wound was a bonus. It was a punishment of his own making.

"It's nice to finally have time to ourselves, don't you think?"

He had no trace of his old heartbeat now. He was a twisted mass of emotions, and emotions she could no longer decipher.

He'd already been broken, and then Blake broke him further. And further.

"Leave me alone!"

"But I've waited for so long... for you to be away from them…"

He had nothing left. Nothing but that twisted desire, that memory of suffering… all rolled into the same person.

A person who betrayed him, deceived him, thwarted him, and humiliated him.

A person who believed herself righteous for doing so.

"Why did you have to come into my life and ruin everything?!"

Before he met Blake, he had no hope anyone would love him. He didn't believe it was possible.

Once she no longer loved him, he had only the cause, and he was used and betrayed by Cinder and her strange cabal of allies. Blake couldn't tell what all he thought in the mess of emotions that rang in his voice and pounded in his heart, but the one she was certain of was despair.

There was nothing for him now. Nothing but her.

"You stalked me across Anima! I don't want anything to do with your life!"

He was the monster. She wasn't at fault because she couldn't change that.

He hurt her. He abused her. That was how she remembered it now.

She only hurt him because she chose not to be hurt by him. That was the truth.

"Let go of the past, Adam. Do it for yourself."

She kept offering him a way out. She kept telling him he could stop.

She wasn't going to offer him any more help than that. She wasn't going to help him stopbeing a monster, she was just going to let that monster wallow in misery somewhere far from her.

"Just… forget it all? Is that what you did to me?"

Rage now. So much anger, born of hurt.

Because she moved forward. And he couldn't.

He couldn't after she fled his abuse. He would've always been that monster whether she came into his life or not. He just couldn't accept that truth.

Because his warped version of the truth was that Blake betrayed him; that she gave him love and support and then snatched it away without warning.

"You just threw our memories away…"

Blake would never forget. But she would gladly put them far from her.

For Adam there was no way to forget. The only happiness in his life led to his greatest despair. She was his life now; the only aspect left, and thus all he was now.

For him there could be nothing else.

When Yang came to her aid and avenged the harm Adam did, it was justice.

When Adam refused to leave them alone, when he did not heed their warning, he got what he deserved.

When Adam showed he was still willing to hurt them, Blake was certain whatever 'love' he claimed to have for her was a facade, a lie he told to himself.

No one would know any different now. Blake's truth was observed, and Adam's was lost.

She lived. And he died.

Her story would be the only one anyone ever knew. History would be forgotten.

Adam Taurus was a monster with no redeeming qualities. That was how he'd be remembered. If anyone spoke up and told his story...

His allies abandoned him. His anger and rage turned those who cared for him away. He may have once been good, but that wouldn't be the story she'd tell.

When she spoke of him at all.

She heard his final heartbeat, and heard his despair at all he'd lived for was gone, and the only person he'd ever loved had been the person who killed him.

That she'd leave out.

She slew a monster. No one would spare thoughts for what was in his heart when he died.

Those troubling dreams eventually caused Blake to stir. Unfortunately for her, the unconscious mind all too often told tales that conflicted with what she believed.

She had no wish to shed tears for Adam. She didn't believe she should feel guilt for playing her part in his death. And yet…

Blake reached over to Yang, to see if she was awake; if she too was troubled by the pangs of her conscience. Yang seemed quite content in her sleep, untroubled by the echoes of the past still ringing in Blake's ears.

For a long time she sat there, thinking on whether she should try to rouse Yang or simply return to sleep and try to put Adam from her mind. Yang moved on, and in time Blake expected she'd take the same step.

But there was something she wanted to admit, to confess…

Something raw, something wholly true and untainted by perspective. Something Yang would understand and forgive, because blameless as she tried to claim herself to be, Blake still felt the need to be forgiven.

What Adam took from her proved him a monster. It reinforced all Blake's rationale for leaving him behind to wallow in his suffering.

"I don't know if you can hear me," Blake murmured. "But I… just wanted you to know something… about Adam."

She said she wouldn't break her promise.

From her perspective, she hadn't. No one would ever contradict her version of events.

"I just wish… maybe, things had been different," Blake admitted. "I… I hope we never speak of him again, but before we do, you should know…"

That she betrayed him. That she brought much of this misery upon them by scorning him and provoking him.

"...that you're so much better than he was."

Yang she could fix.

That was the truth.

What came before? What was there left to say?

She could move forward. She didn't have to look back.

And fortunately, it seemed no one wished to.