"Kill them, both of them,"

"Why!? What did they do?"
"Any faunus who thinks to be in a relationship with a human is a traitor to our cause. And traitors must be eliminated,"
"But a relationship like this should be a sign of progress! That we all feel the same basic feelings! Why are we doing this?"

"This isn't a sign of progress Blake! It's a sign of submission! That we'll freely make ourselves loyal to humans because of some petty emotion,"

"But, we love each other, right?"

"If you really think you love me, then you will help me kill them,"

"I… I'll do it," the two walked down the road towards the apartment complex. It was in view, the home of their targets, Derek and Sallie. The pair approached the door to the apartment, one knocking on the door, and a swift answer came. The man was a dog faunus, ears flopping down his head, he spoke with frustration, "look Adam, I'm not going to do one of your 'missions' okay? I help to protect everyone, not just a select group of people,"

"That is not what we are here for,"

"Well then you might just end up out in the alley with your little friend here. I don't deal with the White Fang's bullshit, so please leave," in a flash of light, a blade came towards him, only for it to smash to the ground, it was the blade of Gambol Shroud. Adam took advantage of the man's one use semblance, grabbing his blade and ripping it out of his sheath, slicing straight through the man's apparent aura, creating a massive wound on his stomach. Blake picked up her weapon to finish him off, but Adam stopped her, "let him bleed," a woman entered the room, a human, who looked at her husband, then at the two White Fang members standing in the room, and screamed, "YOU FUCKING FERAL ANIMALS!" before running up to attack with a chair. Blake immediately took advantage of the woman's lack of aura, killing her immediately, the two left after that. What they didn't know was that the man had managed to write two names in his own blood, "Belladonna" and "Taurus".

Blake woke in a cold sweat. It was midnight, but she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep anymore that night, again.

Classes were over for the day finally, and everyone was filing out of the room. Blake was a bit on the slower side today though, being the last one to notice the bell, almost falling asleep in class, and being the slowest to actually leave the desks for the door. Yang noticed, and decided now was the best time for what was a long overdue conversation. The timing was probably the biggest coincidence though, as the dance was in a few days, and everyone was preparing for it. Yang managed to quietly close the door before Blake could leave, but the faunus nearly walked into it anyways. Yang grabbed her shoulder and pointed her towards the desk, which she proceeded to walk to and curl up on, "that's actually kind of cute," Yang commented, she felt like she was finally able to do so now,

"Cute has nothing to do with this Yang," Blake stated, in a dead voice,

"Um, I wanted to have a chance to speak with you, alone. So, here we are," Yang was getting more nervous,

"Well what could this be about, hopefully it's some better news than most of the past few days," Blake still sounded mostly dead inside, but there seemed to be an inner sadness to the words,
"What's wrong? I mean, I get the whole black, isolated, and somewhat emo thing you have, but you never usually sound this depressed," Yang was worried, she expected Blake to be a bit more uppity about Yang being a bit more social to her,

"I've just been having a shitty past few days, nothing too special,"

"Well, you could tell me what exactly made those days shitty. It can't be something that difficult to fix compared to everything else that's been going on,"

"Guilt, an absolute fuck-ton of guilt, and I don't know what to do with it, or how to deal with it. It's kept me awake at night even, though that should have been obvious, I just can't seem to feel anything else anymore after finding out I'm partially responsible for orphaning another person, a faunus, in the name of some fucked up crusade for supposed 'equality'. I don't know what to think anymore," Blake's voice was cracking a bit, she was tearing up, but felt Yang sit her up and hug her, the blonde girl's embrace feeling especially warm due to Yang's semblance. Blake broke at that point, just wrapping her arms around Yang and crying into her shoulder while Yang continued to tell her she would be okay. It was a while before Blake stopped crying, but Yang was the first to speak, "I hope you can feel at least a bit better now. I did have something else I wanted to talk about, but I can keep hugging you like this if you need me to,"

"Well, I feel better, if it wasn't to ask what was wrong, then why did you want to talk to me alone?" Blake was certainly feeling more awake now, far more attentive than before, she quickly realized that Yang was talking to her, alone. Yang was the girl who seemed to avoid interacting with her, and whenever she did, it was always quickly, because whenever they did stick together for long periods of time, one or the other started feeling a bit nervous and had to leave, neither would admit to being nervous around the other though.

"I wanted to talk to you to say… Iloveyou,"

"What?"

"I… I love you, I wanted to get that off of my chest. It's been killing me inside not to tell you and I just didn't know if you were into girls or if you would even want to be with someone so, just open about everything, I feel like I'm too social for someone like you. Not in a bad way,"

"I… I… ah to hell with it," and what might have been a combination of Blake's lack of sleep, and her inability to communicate with words at the moment, she forcefully pressed her lips against Yang's, trying as hard as she could to tell her she felt the same way without speaking. Yang looked surprised to say the least, but took it with grace, leaning into the kiss.

Johnny was sitting in the room working on some of the stuff they needed to get done for class, when Alice walked in. "Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?" Alice looked rather nervous about something, Johnny had an idea what was about to happen,

"Yeah sure, what's up?"

"Well, there's the dance coming up soon and…"

"You wanted to ask if I would go with you right?"

"I, yeah, I did. How did you know?"

"You're usually always trying to find time to hang around me, so I kinda assumed you would ask at some point,"

"You are certainly smarter than you look,"

"If you think so. My answer is yes,"
"Really?"

"Of course, I wouldn't have anyone else to go with anyways, and besides, I like you too. I just felt like I'm a bit too broken to be able to admit it a lot of the time, but here we are,"
"Yeah, here we are," the two sat down on a bed and continued talking.

The dorm of JNPR was empty minus Pyrrha, she hoped the display actually managed to convey that she wasn't some goddess, completely unattainable by everyone, she actually had someone in mind to ask to the dance, someone who everyone thought was just incompetent, but Pyrrha saw a light in him. Even besides that, Jaune was fun to talk to, always kind, and was actually really brave in some situations, he was just held back by his lack of skill with weaponry, aura, no semblance, it would appear as a wonder she found much appealing about him at all to anyone else. Pyrrha noticed the door open and sat down in her chair, pretending to do schoolwork she already completed, Jaune walked in, and sat down on his bed, apparently listening to some music. Pyrrha twisted her chair around, catching the attention of Jaune, "oh! Hey Pyrrha, I didn't notice you were in here. Are you feeling alright? That fight looked brutal for you,"

"I'm fine, thanks for asking. You know, you're the only one other than my sister that actually worries about my emotions. I'm glad for that,"

"Well, you are my partner, and I was raised with seven sisters. It was kind of easy to learn emotional support from that,"

"I guess so, but… I was wondering…"

"Wondering what? Are you okay?"

"I… I was wondering if you would come to the dance with me?"

"Wait… what? Like, as your date?" Jaune looked like he just saw Pyrrha strip down right in front of him,

Pyrrha giggled, "yes, that is what I mean. Will you?"

Jaune attempted to recover his composure, "of course, of course I'll go with you. Why wouldn't I?"

"Well, I figured you thought I was 'too far out of your league' or some other phrase people use,"

"I… I did think you were too far out of my league, way too far. I never would have guessed you would ask me to the dance,"

"I know, but look at you now, you've certainly improved in everything else as well,"

"Thanks, I wonder what's going to come next."

Nathan was walking back to Beacon from Vale with a flower in his hand, he had wanted to ask Weiss to the dance and figured now was the best time. On his way back he saw Weiss talking with someone else outside, Neptune. He hid behind a wall to listen in on what was happening, he was hoping it wasn't what he thought it was, but that was soon proven false, "it's a nice night right?" Neptune actually seemed to be making small talk that wasn't flirting for once, despite what he knew was about to happen, Nathan couldn't help but feel somewhat proud,

"Yes, I suppose it is, now unless you have something to say, I have some business to attend to,"

"I do actually, I wanted to ask you: will you come to the dance with me?" Nathan walked away after that, he felt he knew the answer already, Neptune was far cooler than he was, probably able to treat Weiss better as well. What did he have anyway? A public name? A band? It was stupid of him to think she would actually want him. It was stupid of him to actually think he could have what he used to. It was stupid to think he actually managed to get over the death that happened only a few years prior. Life wouldn't give him a chance to fully heal, it would never give him that chance. He walked far out of earshot, then threw his flower on the ground, stomping it, then falling to the ground himself, screaming, "DAMN IT ALL!" staying there and crying for a bit before picking himself up and dragging himself to his room.

Nathan opened the door to the dorm room, failing to notice Alice and Johnny staring at him as he walked over to his bed and flopped himself onto it, not bothering to change and just crying on the sheets, "Nathan, are you all right?" Johnny walked over, sitting on the bed adjacent, facing his backside,

"Does it look like I'm fucking alright Johnny?" Nathan nearly shouted,

"You could at least tell me what's wrong,"
"I'm not going to the dance,"
"That doesn't really say much,"
"Why does it matter to you?"

"Because you're my teammate and one of my best friends. Just tell me what happened,"

"I was going to go ask Weiss to the dance right?"

"Yeah," Johnny knew something happened to do with her, Nathan never called Weiss by her name, it was always Snow,

"Well, I'm coming back from Vale with a flower I bought for her, and I see… I see Neptune talking to her. He asked her to the dance, and I knew she would say yes to him, he has so much more to offer than I do. I just wanted to feel better here, not like the kid who wanted so badly to end it all in combat school,"

"Um, no offense, but you might be overreacting, she never actually said yes to him, you still might have a chance," Johnny was kind of annoyed, but was willing to deal with it, he had dealt with emotionally hurt people before,

Alice was far more willing to voice her discontent though, "look Nathan, can you stop acting like a whiny baby because someone you like might actually like someone else? Like come on, here you are crying over someone that may or may not like you, and you refuse to actually go find out if she does, you should just wipe off your tears and go ask, cry about it later. Do you honestly think you're the only person who's ever had dating trouble before?"

Nathan was still nearly shouting, "what makes you think you know me so well!? What makes you think you know anything I've been through!?"

"That doesn't matter right now. Just get up, and go talk to her. Ask. Do you know how hard it is to get a date being related to someone famous, no one wants you, they want the famous sibling, just grow up and realize that your problems won't be solved by sitting on your bed and crying your eyes out,"

Nathan finally wiped his tears, "you know what, maybe you're right, I'll go ask, but I may or may not come back crying again,"

"Well at least if you come back crying again, we know that it was a definite answer, and you actually have some reason to act all hurt like this,"

"Yeah, I'm gonna get going, see you both later, and try not to let me come back catching you two making out," Nathan coyly suggested, Johnny and Alice could barely hide their shocked expressions. Nathan walked up to the door, dusted himself off, and opened the door, revealing Weiss standing right in front of it, ready to knock. Nathan looked to be the more shocked of the two, but quickly composed himself, "hey Weiss, how are you doing?"

"I'm doing well, can we talk?"

"Sure, why not?"

Johnny and Alice got up and stepped out of the door as Johnny told them, "we should probably leave you two alone, have fun!" before winking at Nathan from behind Weiss.

Weiss decided to continue the conversation, "so, can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure," Nathan stepped away from the door, letting Weiss into the room, then closing the door,

"I'm not going to delay it, I like you, and I was hoping you would accompany me to the dance," Weiss simply stated, as if this kind of thing was normal to her,

"Oh, I see. Then I shall accompany Madame Schnee to the dance," Nathan joked in a stereotypical "rich" voice, getting a laugh from Weiss,

"I didn't expect to feel so attacked yet find that so funny at the same time. You really do know how to make anyone laugh,"

"It's my specialty, sort of. You can add it to the list of things you'll probably eventually hate about me,"

"What!? No, I like laughing, I wish I could more often. Is something wrong?"

"I mean, there was, but not anymore, and it's kind of embarrassing anyways,"

"What did I say about telling others about your issues?"

"I did, Johnny and Alice heard about it,"

"Well I want to hear it too, a solid relationship isn't built on secrets,"

"Alright, I thought you were going to go to the dance with Neptune,"

"What?"

"I thought I would never be good enough for you, I mean, look at me, do I look like anyone worth talking about?"

Weiss looked him over, it was the first time she actually got a good look at his clothes, he wore a black jacket with a purple t-shirt underneath, black pants with only two simple pockets, he always wore sleeves on his arms though, probably to hide something he wanted no one to see. The style suited him, but it looked like the jacket was unable to close, he seemed to have muscles too big for the coat to contain.

"I certainly see something worth talking about," Weiss stated, wiping blood off her lip,
"Um, I think your nose is bleeding,"

"Yes. Yes it is,"

"Are you going to do something about it?"

"Not until I'm done looking at… oh my gods… that looks amazing,"

"Snow, could you please do something about your nose bleed? Blood loss isn't fun to suffer from, and I think you're gonna stain my partner's bed,"

"What? Oh… oh holy shit! Where's the tissue box?"

"I've got it," Nathan used his stand to grab the box from the desk, Weiss took a tissue and stuffed it in her nose, preventing more bleeding for the time being,

"I can't believe I've never gotten a good look at those before,"

"Look, I know you're trying to compliment me, but I think I understand even more why girls don't like it when guys can't stop talking about their chest size now. Could you please stop staring?"
Weiss finally tore her gaze from Nathan's abs and looked at his face, "I'm sorry, I just got lost staring at… that. I hope you can forgive me?"

"Of course I forgive you, it's just, if you want to compliment me, try not to get a nose bleed and lose all train of thought while you do so, and I'll try and return the courtesy,"

"That… that makes sense. That was all I wanted to say, see you tomorrow?"

"Not yet," Nathan put his hands around Weiss' waist, she just grinned,

"I figured as much," Weiss kissed him, only for Alice to walk in the room at that moment,

"What's going on?" she asked, rather calmly considering she just walked in on two people kissing,

Nathan was the first to say anything, "exactly what it looks like. Why does it matter to you?"

"Well, I personally prefer that your affectionate moments be held outside of the room the entire team can access at any moment,"

Weiss chimed in, "she's right, maybe we should take this somewhere else,"

Alice sighed in relief, "great, I don't want to hear about it in this room from now on, I'll make sure it applies to all of us,"

Nathan and Weiss left, leaving Alice alone in her thoughts, "I wonder what Johnny's doing right now?"

Johnny was walking into the library, at night there were very few people in the place, a small select number who were studying to keep their grades up above the rest. Alice wanted to go back to the room and actually try and get some sleep before the next day, but Johnny had other plans. He knew his grades were good enough, but he decided good enough wasn't enough for his future, some extra studying was going to be necessary, and it would keep him up, preventing him from more nightmares. His nightmares had been affecting him even more recently, he would wake up in a cold sweat, which was the usual, but it would be around one in the morning, and he couldn't get back to sleep. The nightmares were more disjointed than before, but the memories brought up were far more damaging, he only hoped his teammates wouldn't notice, so he needed to keep up in everything, even if he was sleep deprived. He was stuck in his thoughts when he bumped into someone. A woman nearly fell on the floor beside him, but was upright again in a matter of seconds. The woman looked confused for a second but her expression of a casual smirk came to, finally saying something, "thanks for the save,"

"It's no problem, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, who might you be?"

"Johnny Swift, and you?"
"Cinder Fall. I must ask, do you have someone for the dance?"

"Yeah, sorry. I imagine someone like you wouldn't really have problems getting a date though, you look remarkably pretty,"

"Thank you, I'll keep looking, although I have one more question to ask, where are the international dorms? My team and I have been looking for hours, and we still haven't found the damn place,"
"I certainly understand the feeling, hell if I couldn't pull up a map on my scroll at any time I would be so lost around here. The dorms are just over there," Johnny pointed across from the library to a rather inconspicuous building,

"Thanks again, I would have never guessed that was where it was, I should go get my teammates and get there. You're welcome to come visit any time, well, after I text you the room number. Can I get your scroll number?"
"Sure, why not, you seem like a nice person, and a good friend,"

Cinder shied away from the word friend, "right, well thanks, I'll text you later,"

"You got it, I'll probably be in here for a while, so, see you later I guess,"

"Yeah, I'll be off, finally. Thanks for lending your time for me,"

"No problem, now go get your teammates set up in the dorm," Johnny said to Cinder before she left. Johnny was thinking to himself again later, "that was weird, who asks a person on a date right after meeting them? I guess I could see it but that was still unexpected. And besides, she really seemed to dislike me calling her a friend, that could mean a few things, most of them aren't really fun possibilities to think about. I hope she's just a bit weird in that sense," Johnny pulled a few books and started reading.

Cinder walked out of her dorm after getting her teammates in there. She stepped into the bathroom and looked into the mirror, thinking to herself, "dammit! Why do I have to fall for the first cute guy I meet, and he's really cool too. Fuck, I can't let the plan go to shit, but I can't leave him go either. He said he has a date to the dance, that shoots that down any chance of me getting with him now, and maybe involving him. But I could take out this girl, no, I think he should be happy, and if he's happy with her, then so be it. Maybe after the plan takes place I can get the girl killed and not have it pinned on me or seen as a deliberate act of tearing them apart, then I can get myself in his life. What the hell am I thinking? Am I really this obsessed already? Holy shit just stick to the plan, he is not part of it," Cinder ridiculed herself before leaving the bathroom and heading back to the dorm room to inevitably find a fitful rest.

AN: Alright, to my favourite part of the story, rewriting some characters that weren't really all that good in the show to being what I hope would be somewhat competent(that's probably wishful thinking though). First rewrite: Cinder, I decided to make her a sort of yandere like character, obsessed with one of the main characters in the story, I couldn't really think of who to make her obsessed with at first, I immediately ruled out Ruby, Yang, and Natalie, because after the events af volume 3, she absolutely hates Ruby, and that will still stand later, and of course Yang is Ruby's sister, which I actually plan to make known to Cinder, and Natalie is with Ruby, and is also one of the people contributing with Ruby in one of the more… depressing scenes in volume 3. Weiss, yeah no, I could kind of see it, but she is a well known figure, and well known to be straight, whether she was or not(she is in this story). Nathan, another well known figure, and also known to really not be that appealing for obsession before now, and besides, I think Nathan would catch on and stop that shit quick. Alice, that one is a no, she's the sister of Pyrrha, and of course Pyrrha has a special role in Cinder's plan. So I came upon Johnny, he's perceptive sure, and smart, but he still wants to find friends wherever he can, so he doesn't really care if the person in question acts really weird around them, and no, I'm not making a plotline where Alice thinks he's cheating on her or something along those lines, as Cinder stated, she wanted Johnny to be happy, and if being with Alice was what made him happy, so be it. I have some special plans for Alice and Pyrrha in the future though. Enough rambling about someone's obsession, I decided to set off some ships right at the starting bit of the dance arc, that being Arkos, Bumblby, JohnnyxAlice, and WeissxNathan. I hope you don't mind me getting things like that started earlier on, because I really just wanted to make a quick set up, get them settled into comfortable relationships, and I shouldn't mention the rest until it happens. I probably should have actually provided a set up for Arkos in earlier chapters, but I wanted to keep them a bit shorter before, like little bite sized pieces, and JNPR kind of bloated volume 1 and 2 in my opinion, at least originally. I know it's no excuse, but I hope you guys at least understand my reasoning, just like Ironwood's actions at the end of volume 7. Quick summary of my opinion on Ironwood's/RWBY's plans is this: they both suck, RWBY doesn't have a plan, and Ironwood's would be doomed to fail, both sides let emotion get the better of them, they could just as easily drag Atlas over to Vacuo to get help from them, and we could get our hands on another relic, the one of destruction, you know, that glowing blue sword. Yeah, I have a seemingly different view to the entire fandom on that, because everyone I've seen was either convinced that RWBY's idea of no leaving anyone behind was better, because it was morally better, or that Ironwood's plan was better, because it was an actual plan and not suicide, while I think that, while leaving people behind sucks, it would be better than staying because if they stay, everyone dies, but if Ironwood's plan goes through, and I assume they launch Atlas to likely the outer atmosphere to avoid the Grimm, saving as many as they can but leaving some behind, everyone dies anyway, because their systems likely rely on dust, and they would no way to get dust from up there. In this scenario, Ironwood is right about one thing, the philosophical points won't matter if Salem wins, but Salem will still kind of win if everyone on Atlas dies in the outer atmosphere or wherever they push Atlas out of the way. Anyway, I've spent pretty much an entire page rambling in an author's note, so I think it might be best I sign off, reviews are appreciated, Raz3r out!