Death, Ciel felt, shouldn't be scaring her this much.

Intellectually, she knew that Huntresses died in action. She knew that choosing this profession notably lowered her life expectancy. She'd thought she'd come to terms with the notion. Plus, having experienced death—many times—she'd expected that her fear of death would have been blunted.

Yet another unexpected and unpleasant discovery.

Things were different when death was an inconvenience, or even a boon. Now death—real death—was looming certainly in Ciel's future. Her cheat was weakening. She couldn't count on it for much longer. Final death awaited her in the form of a battle too lethal to survive.

She would meet it, she knew. She wouldn't run away again. If she couldn't find a way out of this before then, maybe she deserved to die.

That thought didn't make her feel better.

Her unfocused eyes fell on Penny, who was even closer to death, but wholly ignorant of the fact. Ciel wouldn't be the only one to die for good if she failed. Penny, and all the students who would die in Beacon's courtyard and dorms… they were doomed.

But what could she do?

"I can't beat that woman."

It was a plain fact that she recorded on her scroll. Just thinking about that woman was almost unbearable.

There was no avoiding it. The woman—who was clearly aligned with the White Fang and whatever malign forces were assaulting Beacon—was an enemy. Her pursuit of Ozpin, and cutting down whomever was in her way (meaning Ciel), were evidence enough. Yet that woman was insurmountable. She moved as quickly as speed specialists, hit as hard as strength specialists, and was more precise than any of them. She outclassed Ciel in every conceivable way, by laughable margins. Ciel would need dozens of loops to even follow the woman's attacks, never mind be any sort of threat to her, and she didn't have dozens of loops left.

Ciel's chest tightened and her breathing accelerated.

No time left. No time!

In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick.

There was only so much that breathing exercises could do at a time like this.

And even if she could survive the woman, she was still no closer to finding a way to stop the dragon, or beat back the White Fang, or limit the grimm invasion, and all of that was after Penny was slaughtered and scattered across the arena floor.

Penny… If Ciel were as strong as Penny, maybe she'd have a chance against this nightmare of a woman. She wasn't. Not even close. Why had she been assigned to this mission, anyway? What business did she have pairing with Penny?

She didn't know. No one knew, probably, except the General.

The General—ha! Now that was someone who would know what to do with a semblance like this!

Why did it have to be Ciel who got the time-loop semblance? Ciel, who couldn't get her head in order to figure out how to fix anything, and didn't have the power to accomplish anything she figured out? The General would know what to do for sure, and he'd get it done. Ciel, like most Atlas Academy students, revered him for that. Yet Ciel couldn't even talk to him, not with eight walls of military bureaucracy between her and him.

The General was the only one who could possibly redeem this situation, but he might as well have been on another planet.

She didn't even know where he might be other than Benefactor, nor did she know how to find out, and it wasn't like she had infinite loops to find her answer, either. Her time was limited. Each loop had to be jealously husbanded. To think she'd thrown them away so casually before!

In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick.

It did no good to her efforts not to waste time to panic about how much time she was wasting fretting about wasted time.

Circular logic. Like a loop. Like a time loop…

In, tick, tick… dammit! None of this was working!

Why couldn't the General be somewhere she could reach?! If she were at Atlas Academy, she'd be able to camp the Headmaster's office, and if he wasn't in when she arrived at least she knew he would be… eventually…

Ciel's breath hitched.

Hold that thought. Back up. Focus. A big ask with her heart pounding in her chest and her brain scattered to the winds, but try.

Write it down. It helps.

"I can't reach the General because he's in a battleship and not an office I can reach."

No, that wasn't it. Refine it.

"…not in his Headmaster's office I can reach."

Better. Dancing around it. Ah! Trembling with excitement, she tried again.

"I can't reach the General because we're not at Atlas Academy, so he's not in the Headmaster's office."

She swallowed as the natural follow-up flowed directly from subconscious to fingers.

"But we're at Beacon, and someone else is in that office."

Did she dare? Did Ciel dare bring this to Headmaster Ozpin?

On the one hand, he had no reason or grounds to give her the time of day. She wasn't his student. This was his school, though, and his Kingdom. She could give him a reason to hear her out, if she could get him focused on the threat to his school.

Would he believe her, though? How could she convince him? All her earlier attempts at telling people had been pathetic failures. Oh—oh! But she'd been telling people who had some reason to doubt her: Penny, who distrusted anything that seemed like an attempt to fence her in, and Lieutenant Som, who resented Huntresses in general and Huntresses taking his job in particular.

Knowing her luck, Headmaster Ozpin had some other biases she knew nothing about that would get her thrown in prison until this battle killed her yet again.

Could she afford to waste a loop trying?

Penny drew her attention once more—Penny, who was completely outside her power to help, to save.

Could she afford to waste a loop not trying to tap this awesome resource?

No. She had to abandon the notion that she could do this on her own. She needed all the help she could get. And who knew? Sure, Ozpin might have something that set him against her… but he also might have knowledge of or experiences with semblances like hers. He might have something that angled him towards her. At any rate, Ciel might not stand a chance against that woman, but Ozpin would.

She had to try.

For that matter, she might not even waste a whole loop on this. There was a chance he was in his office even now. This certainly would be the time for him to be working late, she thought wryly, with Vytal in full swing at his Academy.

It was settled, then. She wrote it down to definitize it.

"I will try to convince Headmaster Ozpin."

It was a risk worth taking.

"Simulation complete," her console chirped.

"Excellent," said Penny as she stored Floating Array. "I am pleased with how I performed."

"Me too," said Ciel. "Now let's get you… actually…"

Penny cocked her head. "Is something the matter?"

Keep Penny safe, on-schedule, and out of trouble. Well, Ciel knew from experience that nothing bad would happen tonight, to Penny or anyone else. She knew Penny would get to the cliffs, and then on to Magnanimous, unmolested. In which case…

"Penny," said Ciel slowly, "I just remembered something I have to take care of here at Beacon. Do you think you can make it to the cliffs on your own?"

"You mean without your supervision?" Penny said, suspicion clear in her voice.

"Exactly," said Ciel. "Can I trust you to go to the cliffs, wait for the Manta, and take it back to Magnanimous, without wandering off or getting distracted?"

With reluctance, Penny nodded. "Yes, I can do that. What will you be doing?"

"I need some help from…" Ciel hesitated; she probably should have come up with a plausible lie earlier, she reflected. "…from Beacon's faculty. On my Aura essay."

Penny blinked. "Beacon's faculty have office hours so late in the evening? They must be very dedicated to teaching!"

I hope so, Ciel thought. "Can I trust you with this much freedom?"

The last words caused a visible reaction. Ciel remembered at last that Penny's determination to fight in the tournament came from how it promised her more room to act, more give on her leash. Freedom was an awfully big carrot. She hoped she remembered for the future.

"You can count on me," Penny said determinedly.

"Alright," said Ciel. "I will see you tomorrow on the Amity concourse at 1615."

"Affirmative," said Penny.

And Ciel turned away.

It was harder than she thought. Keeping a close eye on Penny was a direct order from the General. Any act that seemed to go against that was hard to swallow. Well, she told herself, by going to Ozpin she was trying to save Penny from disaster, so she was fulfilling the spirit of her orders.

And hey, in the worst-case scenario, something would go wrong with Penny and Ciel would earn a personal reprimand from the General, and then at least she'd know how to get his attention!

…That was no comfort at all, actually.

Beacon's courtyard was as crisp and pleasant as ever, slightly cool with just a touch of wet in the air, quiet and calm. It was the picture of tranquility. It seemed so false to Ciel, such a lie, when she knew this same tranquil place would be the scene of such carnage in a few short hours. She wondered if there was a single other person who could understand this; if there was anyone else on the planet for whom past, present, and future all smeared together.

She seemed the only person making the trip this evening—and wasn't that representative of her whole life lately. The gentle green lights of the Emerald Tower marked her destination. She craned her neck back and back and back, trying to determine if Ozpin's office light was lit.

There were some lights on high up in the tower, but there was no way to know if those were his. She'd have to find out the old-fashioned way. Her nerves all a-jangle, Ciel stepped inside the Tower.

She jerked back, phantom pains searing her chest.

Impaled can't breathe so hot KILLING ME…

Nothing there.

No woman with obsidian swords. No fire. Not even a dazed-looking Pyrrha. Instead, she saw an unadorned lobby and distant elevators.

She wished her chest would stop hurting.

Inside the elevator she noticed a number pad next to the floor select. That was probably what they used to access the secret chamber down below. "Headmaster's Office" was listed on the legend. She selected it.

The elevator ascended, but when it got to the chosen floor, the doors refused to open. A cool voice came from the area of the keypad. "State your name and request entry."

"Ciel Soleil, Atlas Academy, I need to see the Headmaster."

There was a long pause. Ciel had no way to know if the voice was automated or if someone was waiting on the other side. After an unbearable wait that had Ciel checking her watch every few seconds, something must have decided her response was good enough. The elevator doors opened.

She emerged into the sanctum sanctorum.

Headmaster Ozpin's office was mostly empty; there was no visible furniture besides his desk and some chairs. It reminded Ciel of the General's office, actually: austere, open, more concerned with visibility than belongings. Maybe this was a common thread. Maybe being Headmaster so cluttered their minds they had to keep their offices spare for sanity's sake.

The view was unimpeachable, though: panoramic glass windows looked down over the whole of the campus, into Vale City on the one side, into the forest on the other. There was a steady, low rumbling noise overhead. Ciel glanced above her and saw the measured rotation of great gears—

-and Ciel was on the ground bleeding out with her right side pulverized and enormous gears dropping for her face and her unable to—

She threw herself backwards, right back into the elevator, hand whipping to her side to draw the weapon she wasn't carrying, hyperventilating as if that would help.

"I assure you, there is no danger here."

It was perhaps the calmest, most unflappable voice Ciel had ever heard, and she'd been taking classes with Professor Absinthe for three years. Swallowing hard, her heart hammering against her breastbone, Ciel gathered herself and focused on the figure rising from behind the desk. Professor Ozpin was stepping around his desk, hands empty and spread wide. He stopped a good distance away from her. He sounded serene.

"This is a safe place. Whatever scared you, it is no threat."

"Not now," Ciel mumbled. She was embarrassed the words escaped; hopefully he didn't hear them.

Whether he did or not, his arms slowly lowered. "Good evening, Miss Soleil. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Her eyes drifted up to the gears overhead. They stayed nicely in their orbits. Ozpin followed her gaze before returning to her. "Clockwork," he said with a smile. "I know Atlas embraces technological progress, but I prefer the older methods for certain things."

"R-right," said Ciel. She felt foolish, especially since this was her second episode in as many minutes, and she couldn't stay in the elevator forever. She couldn't help but shoot one more look at the gears before she emerged. Their steady meshing noises probably sounded reassuring to people in other mindsets; to her, they were like the ticking of a bomb.

Ozpin waited for her, ever patient despite having no reason Ciel could tell for being so. There was a buzz from somewhere on his desk; he frowned briefly, hit an unseen button, then returned his attention to Ciel. He clasped his hands, leaning in one direction to favor a leg Ciel guessed was bad, and looked over his wireframe glasses at her.

Whatever she'd planned on saying had fled her along with her composure at the sight of the gears. She had to start from scratch. "Uh… you're… you're not going to believe what I have to tell you."

He raised an eyebrow and radiated faint amusement. "Though it may surprise you, I have seen enough that little strains my credulity. I will keep my own counsel on what I will believe."

Might as well rip the bandage right off, then. "Tomorrow evening, Beacon will be attacked. It'll be a total catastrophe."

"I find that quite believable," said Ozpin immediately.

Ciel felt like the floor had vanished. "You do?"

"Oh, yes," said Ozpin. "The signs are all there. I'll admit to some curiosity, though. How did you come in to this knowledge?"

"That's… that's the part you won't believe," Ciel said, trying to master her embarrassment. It was harder trying to explain it now than it had been for Som or even for Pavlov; the pain of their unbelief and rejection had left a wound that had yet to heal.

But she was running out of options to save Penny. This was her last, best hope. She marshaled her strength.

"Because I saw it myself, before I died," she said.

Ozpin quirked an eyebrow at her.

It occurred to her she might have chosen a slightly less dramatic way to say that.

"I think it's my semblance," she said in a rush. "When I die, I come back to the same time—almost the same time," she amended, "the night before. I remember what I saw, but no one else does. It's a reset."

Ozpin nodded. "In that case, I think we have much to discuss. Do you mind if we sit? This might take a bit, and my leg will bother me."

Ciel's metaphorical knees were buckling at being asked for her approval rather than groveling for his. "Sure. Sir," she added shame-facedly. She managed to get into the seat opposite Ozpin's before her legs gave out.

"Splendid," Ozpin said as he eased himself into his chair. "So tell me. How does the attack unfold?"

"I'll need my scroll. I take notes there." She didn't think she could keep her thoughts in order without it.

"Whatever helps."

"Thank you, sir." She brought up her scroll and took a deep breath. "It starts with a negative emotion bomb at Amity. Someone rigs the match so it's Penny versus Pyrrha, and then manipulates Pyrrha into killing Penny. I don't know how they do it, but I think it's some sort of illusion cast on Pyrrha, similar to what they just did to Yang Xiao Long."

Ozpin's face frowned slightly. "When you say 'killing Penny'…"

"I mean she's… she's…" Ciel stumbled over it, hating the images—repeated so many times—that appeared in her mind's eye whenever she had to think about it. "She's torn apart on the arena floor. It shows everyone that she's a gynoid."

She forced her eyes up towards Ozpin's to gauge his reaction. He didn't look suspicious, or skeptical, merely thoughtful. She had to ask. "Did you know she was a gynoid, sir?"

"I was aware of Penny's nature," he said with care. "The people who told me did not use that term for her."

"It's the term she uses for herself," Ciel said, remembering that exchange keenly.

"Well, then that's the term I will use, also. What happens next?"

"Next, they hijack communications. A woman's voice goes into a prepared speech about how awful you and the General are—it's all lies," she hastened to add before he took offense. When he showed no signs of such, instead waiting for her, she pushed on. "All of that generates so much negative emotion a huge grimm invasion begins. Threat level nine."

"Nine?" Ozpin repeated.

"Nine. I know," she said, cringing, "it sounds impossible, but that's what happens."

Ozpin clasped his hands in front of his face. His eyes slid out of focus for a moment. He betrayed nothing more. Ciel was realizing that, when Ozpin wanted to keep his reactions in check, he could with great discipline. She had no idea what he was thinking.

His eyes snapped back to her. "Continue," he said.

"Someone takes over KAS Benefactor. The flagship."

"Takes over?" interrupted Ozpin. "Do you know who?"

"Just that the General calls them 'some rapscallion'."

"There are, unfortunately, too many who fit that description. Although there are a few candidates… " Ozpin murmured. "But seizing the flagship sounds disastrous."

"It is. Benefactor shoots down the other battleships, then the rapscallion loads a program that hacks the Atlesian Knights. They turn on us. It's a catastrophe."

"So grimm on top of James' AKs."

"And the White Fang. They use Bullheads to invade Beacon, too, and to…" she hesitated; this was the next least-believable part of her story.

"Go on," said Ozpin. "It does us no good to flinch away from the truth."

The words bolstered her. "To bring grimm onto Beacon grounds. So Beacon gets attacked by grimm from the mountain direction, and by grimm and White Fang from the cliffside, and by the turned AKs already here."

Ozpin nodded gravely. "How does it go?"

"Badly." Ciel winced as memories of deaths—her own and others'—intruded on her. "Very badly. A lot of students don't make it out of the dorms. I see mostly other students doing the fighting. Some of them die. I… I don't know how it ends. I never survive that long. I live long enough to see the dragon."

"Wyvern," Ozpin corrected.

"Wy—what?"

Ozpin frowned. "I apologize. I presumed. Describe what you mean by 'dragon'."

Ciel blinked. "It's a large, flying, lizard-looking grimm. It drops black goo that can dissolve people or create new grimm. What would you call that?"

Ozpin sighed. "I would call it a Wyvern. Unfortunate. I didn't realize it had gotten so close."

Ciel wanted to snap at Ozpin—oh, so glad we're calling this huge, unkillable menace by the right name!—but the way he'd phrased his reply gave her pause. "Are you… are you saying you believe me?"

"That is the crux of the matter, isn't it?" said Ozpin, with a calm almost as infuriating as his ambiguity. He tapped his forefingers together, brow wrinkled in thought. "Belief, after all, is not binary. There are things we believe with more or less conviction."

"What can I do to make you believe me more?" Ciel said in desperation. "Do you want me to detail how many times I've seen this? Ten. I've died and returned ten times, and I've never been strong enough to sway the fight. Do you want me to tell you which students die? I know a few that never survive. Do you…" She trailed off as another memory surfaced. "Do you want me to tell you that I've seen you?"

Ozpin frowned. "Doing what?"

Ciel hesitated. She had the strong impression that she wasn't supposed to know about this. At the same time, it was obviously significant if he was plumbing for more details. What better way to prove her knowledge? She plunged on. "You call Pyrrha Nikos out of the battle, and take her somewhere underneath us."

Ozpin gave an almost imperceptible nod. "And then what?"

"I don't know," Ciel admitted. "When I followed to investigate, a woman killed me."

"A woman?" Ozpin said, more sharply. "What manner of woman?"

That startled Ciel, especially given she didn't want to remember the woman. Just thinking about her brought the sensation of impaling fire back to her. She had to compose herself to answer. "Uh… I don't know, older than me? Black hair, obsidian swords?"

That answer seemed to satisfy Ozpin, for whatever that was worth. She couldn't tell if her answer was expected or not, or whether she'd disappointed him or not. He gave only another miniscule nod. "Very well."

"Now do you believe me?" she said with rising desperation.

"Partially," Ozpin replied. "Everything you've just laid out is plausible, from what I understand of our situation."

"Partially? Partially?! Sir, I don't have many loops left, I can't afford to throw any away, and if I can't convince you now… what would help you believe me?"

Ozpin tapped his fingers together as his eyes went out of focus again. Ciel didn't know what it meant. Maybe his internal dialogue was simply so absorbing and rich he was talking to himself in his own head, and it took all his concentration.

Yeah, fat chance of that.

"Miss Soleil," he said, his eyes snapping to her once more, "have you ever heard of a man called 'Listing'?"

Ciel wracked her brains to no avail. "No, sir," she said, much as it pained her.

"Mm," said Ozpin. "He once did me a great service. He had a semblance that seemed to operate on a principle similar to what you've described."

Finally! Ciel's heart soared in elation—then plunged into confusion. "I never saw that name in my research," she protested. "I looked hard for anyone with a semblance like mine and I never saw anything, nor any mention of this 'Listing'."

"Well," Ozpin said, and he sounded almost abashed, "that is my fault. I took pains to make sure his contribution to the cause went undocumented. With his consent. We both agreed it was for the best that no one knew such a thing was possible."

Ciel had no time to feel outrage on behalf of this supposed Mr. Listing. "Well, this is great! If you know semblances like that exist, then you can believe I have one!"

"I could," agreed Ozpin.

The lukewarm agreement sent Ciel's mood plummeting once more. "But you don't."

"Understand my position," he said with some amount of apology. "I can't go around taking action with no corroboration at all. Even knowing semblances like Listing's exist, it's hard for me to take your word that you have one like his, and I can't test it in any conventional or ethical manner."

Ciel's heart felt like it had lurched into the cold, dark pools at the bottom of Solitas caves. "So we're back to square one."

"Not exactly. There are some things I can do to hedge my bets. But, more importantly, I have given you a key."

Ciel was too exasperated to have patience with the cryptic. "You did? When?"

"I told you about Listing," Ozpin said. "Which was no small matter, mind you. You told me you didn't know about Listing. If you truly have a semblance like his, and the battle truly is as dire as you say, then you will loop again. In that case, return to me on your next loop, and tell me you have Listing's semblance. That will make me believe you."

"I don't have infinite loops!" Ciel said.

"I know, and I know it is unpleasant," Ozpin said, and he did sound sympathetic—not that Ciel was going to give him much credit for that. "The worst part of my position is having to ask people to die. Even when they do so willfully it's a cause for sorrow. I do apologize."

Oh, sure, it makes things better that you apologized—but Ciel wouldn't say that, no matter how frustrated she got. She still had too much training to respect authority to mouth off that badly. At the same time, the man did look sorrowful. He suddenly seemed so very, very old. He'd never seemed young, exactly—the gray hair suggested his youth had been ages ago—but there was a weight to him now she hadn't felt before.

"I guess… it's hard for me to figure out this trust business," she said.

Ozpin nodded sagely. "That's one of the conveniences of the Atlas system. Trust becomes implicit between those wearing the same uniform. Granting some amount of it becomes automatic. The system is not without its weaknesses, and I prefer trust that is developed organically and earned, but I would be a fool to deny it makes some things easier.

"In the absence of such a system, though," Ozpin said as he stood, "I find that the most reliable way to earn trust is to extend trust."

He gave her a smile that was as unreadable as it was infuriating. "Until we meet again, Miss Soleil."

She was out of his office almost before she'd realized it had happened.


If all of the normal things that kept her awake weren't enough—and they definitely were, especially with this new impaled-by-fire nightmare on top of the others—Ozpin's words would have done the trick.

'Extend trust to earn trust'? That sounded like something out of a Mistrali fortune biscuit. And yet, somehow, Ciel found herself unable to stop thinking about and worrying over those words.

Ciel couldn't pretend that she could win this battle on her own. She needed to get other people on her side, and she had to do it quickly and efficiently, since she would have little time for it each loop. Seeing as getting others' trust had never been her strong suit—no matter what Ozpin said, the automatic trust relationships of the military were a boon for her—she needed all the help she could get.

Ozpin was a teacher, and a Headmaster. He was on Vale's council, so he was at least partly a politician. With all that, he had to know a thing or two about getting people's buy-in. Maybe she should take him at his word.

So… whose trust should she try to get, and how should she get it?

She sat up in her bed. With the memory of that woman murdering her so sharp and clear, she wasn't going to get much sleep anyway. Might as well spend some time on this. She reached for her scroll and went to note-taking mode.


Normal morning.

"Gunnery score: 250." (She was somewhat surprised it wasn't worse, as poorly as she'd slept the night before, but it did not augur well for the coming battle.)

"You're doing some semblance research?"

"Yes?" Blake's eyebrows were the limit of her responsiveness, as usual.

Time to break from the usual. "Me, too. I'm looking for illusionary or hallucinatory semblances."

More, unguarded surprise came over Blake. "That's an eerie coincidence."

"I don't think it's a coincidence at all," said Ciel. "I'm here because I think Yang was framed. You do, too, don't you?"

Blake took a step back; her posture seemed similar to a combat stance. "What do you know about it?" Blake said, her voice carrying tones of suspicion.

"Not much," said Ciel. "Penny told me Yang was nice, the sort of person who'd never just clobber someone like that. I believe her, and that means I believe there was foul play. I came here to see if I could find anything to support that belief."

She watched as Blake evaluated her words like they were under a microscope. "Just out of the goodness of your heart?" she said warily.

"It could happen again," Ciel said, swallowing her sense of irony. "If it can happen to Yang, it could happen to Penny when she fights. If I investigate and make things right, I protect Penny, but it helps out Yang, too. Wouldn't that be better?"

"It would," said Blake, though with reluctance, like someone was having to squeeze the words out of her like toothpaste. "What do you know about it?"

"Less than I thought. I found some books that reference semblances of this type," and she waved at Blake several of the books that had yielded positive results in past loops. "They don't put me much closer, though. I'd need to know from Yang's side of the story, from her or her team, to narrow things down. As I've been told, I don't have evidence, just a theory that fits the facts."

Blake seemed to come to a distasteful decision. "I'm… not good about people helping me."

"I'm the same way," Ciel replied. "I don't even have a permanent team. That's why I was free to be matched with Penny. But this is too important and too urgent to do ourselves, don't you think?"

"You have a point," Blake grudgingly admitted. "Okay. Let's go sit, and we'll talk about what you've found."

It was a quick matter for them to compare notes on Yang's experience and Ciel's research to this point. "It's plausible, but hardly conclusive," said Blake grumpily. "There are so many unknowns. Who is doing it? How are they doing it? What do they want to get out of it?"

"Do you think the White Fang could be involved?" Ciel prodded. She knew they were; what she didn't know was anything else about them, outside of boilerplate Atlas counter-terrorism briefs.

"This isn't their type of operation," Blake said with bite in her voice. Her eyes flashed to Ciel's Atlas uniform-esque outfit. "I'm not surprised you'd assume the worst from the Faunus."

"Okay, but you were at the Breach, weren't you?" Thank you, Ruby. "I don't think the Breach was the usual White Fang operation, either."

Blake's righteous indignation faded to embarrassment. "That's… true," she allowed. "A lot about the White Fang is… different, these days. Here in Vale, at least."

Ciel took a mental note. Blake's sensitivities to the White Fang topic were intriguing to say the least.

"Does that mean the White Fang isn't running the show?" Ciel said, trying to explore. "Could they be working with someone else?"

"We know they were," said Blake. "Roman Torchwick. He's a well-known criminal here in Vale. He was running the Breach operation. I apprehended him."

"You did?" said Ciel, impressed and unafraid to show it.

"I knocked him out, at least," Blake said more modestly. "The Atlas military took him into custody."

"The mili… oh. Oh. Oh."

"What is it?" asked Blake, but her voice was distant, like it was underwater, or maybe just a thousand miles away. Ciel's mind had been thunderstruck by this new information. It was racing on ahead.

Torchwick is the 'rapscallion'.

It fit. He was involved in this prior operation, which was also a White Fang/grimm/unknown party venture. The Atlas military took charge of him, and the General wouldn't remand him to Vale custody even if he was in Vale. He'd keep a hold of him. That was one of the General's defining characteristics: when he cared about something, he wanted to keep it where he could see it.

He'd keep Torchwick on the Benefactor.

Except that was the enemy's plan, because the other thing the General wanted to keep under his direct supervision… was drone control for the AKs. The General was placing his enemy exactly where they could do the most damage.

But if Torchwick was in custody… Ciel hadn't seen the brigs on the battleships, but she had to assume the General wasn't taking chances with a known enemy. That meant a third party had to be involved. Someone broke Torchwick out, and then Torchwick hijacked the Benefactor.

Gah, this was a whole new mystery! Every time Ciel solved a problem, it revealed a new, even more complicated problem hiding underneath!

"Are you okay?"

Blake's voice jolted Ciel back from her rumination. "Sorry," she said. "Just… I don't think that's the last we've seen of Torchwick, is all."

Blake raised an eyebrow. "Is that a lack of faith in the Atlas military I'm hearing? Didn't see that coming."

Ciel winced. "That stings. Let's just say I've learned a lot over the past few days and leave it at that."

"Fine by me." Blake's smidgen of humor faded. "But where does that leave us? Let's assume Torchwick or whomever was behind him is involved. If we don't know who that is, what good is knowing that?"

"None by itself," Ciel said slowly. "We have one other data point. I talked with Ruby and… oh, drat, I can't remember her name… the Beacon photographer Faunus."

Blake looked distinctly uncomfortable. Ciel resolved not to talk about Faunus around her again. "Velvet."

"That's the one. When I talked with them, Velvet said her team leader experienced some hallucinations, too."

"Really?" Blake brought out her scroll and summoned up the Vytal Tournament bracket. "That would have been in the doubles round, right?"

"Right," said Ciel. "Against Emerald and… Mercury."

"Who was Yang's opponent in the next round!" said Blake excitedly—but the emotion curdled quickly. "That doesn't make sense, though. If you were cheating to get ahead, why would you cripple your own team?"

"Not just crippled," Ciel said, accessing the bracket on her own scroll. "I heard their whole team returned to Haven to look after Mercury. If someone is manipulating all this, it might be a coincidence, but they're definitely not doing it for that team's… benefit…"

"You are spacing out a lot today," Blake said. "Reminds me of someone, actually."

Ciel had no bandwidth to process the jibe. She was looking at the team profile that included Mercury. There was an older student as part of the team, one with a vapid expression, a sleeveless tan top, and dark hair of indeterminate length. Something about her seemed terribly familiar, but the tiny, low-res thumbnail portrait wasn't enough to let Ciel make the connection.

This was going to irritate her.

"Well," said Blake as she stood, "hopefully we're just being paranoid and none of this matters."

"Yeah," said Ciel in a choked voice. "Hopefully. Still… watch your back, okay? There are too many coincidences happening these days. I'm staying armed wherever I go." She gestured to her hip, where Metronome hung.

"I don't want to live in a world where I need my weapon all the time," Blake said with a shudder. "Still… maybe just for the next few days."

Ciel gave a mock salute. "I hope it all works out with Yang."

The full, unexpected blush that came over Blake at those words was as emotive as Ciel had ever seen her.


Ciel had another reason for carrying her weapon around with her.

"Sorry!" said Velvet. "I just really like taking pictures of weapons. I'm a bit of a nerd about it."

"No problem," said Ciel. "Here, how about I give you a cleaner look?"

"Really? Thanks!" said Velvet as Ciel took Metronome from her hip. She took a picture of the weapon at full extension.

"Back at it, Velvet?" called Ruby, trotting over to join them. "Ooh, a mace with a mecha-shift to submachine gun? Nice!"

"I thought so," said Ciel ruefully, "but I'll probably have to redesign it soon. it's been pointed out to me that the mecha-shift assembly is exposed. Someone could jam it mid-transition."

"It's not that exposed," Ruby said, giving the weapon a once-over. "It'd take someone really, really skilled to pull off something like that."

It was supposed to be reassuring. It was, in fact, the opposite. "Good to know," Ciel said through gritted teeth. "You're Ruby Rose, right?"

Ruby nodded. "And you're with Penny."

"Ciel Soleil, Atlas Academy. Penny has talked about you a lot."

"Really?" said Ruby in surprise.

"Absolutely. In fact, would you share your scroll number with me? Penny would like to call you some time."

Ruby's smile would have melted even the General's iron heart. "Wow. Sure thing."

A few moments later, contact information had been exchanged, even though Ciel would have to try and commit the number to her mental memory rather than rely on her scroll. (Ciel had heard tell of distant times, when people couldn't just record contact information in their scrolls. They had to use their memories, or even books. How primitive! That was barely a step above cave drawings.)

"There," said Ciel, pocketing her scroll. She'd revisit it later. "You know, I heard all of you were at the Breach."

Ruby put a hand behind her head bashfully. "Yeah, that was a thing."

"Could you tell me about it?" Ciel said. "Why were you even there?"

"It was… a thing!" said Ruby with visible panic.

"You said that already."

"…yep!"

Ciel sighed and looked at Velvet, who shrugged. "Look, Blake already told me that your team was there, and that you knew the White Fang was working with Torchwick. I just wanted to know how you wound up there."

"It was awfully convenient that your team was able to find the White Fang base," said Velvet keenly. "And that's after you fought the White Fang at the docks last semester."

Ciel arched an eyebrow at Ruby, who wilted. "Well… I wouldn't say it was 'convenient', exactly…"

The line nearby them started to move. "You can explain on the airship," said Ciel.

Ruby's rapid-fire explanation of the docks fight and everything leading up to the Breach was little more intelligible than her previous explanation of the Breach itself. The big takeaway for Ciel was that Penny had been involved, somehow.

Yet another note to take, yet another loose thread. Sometimes Ciel thought she didn't have a garment, just endless loose threads sitting in a tangled mess.

"Tell Penny I said 'hi'!"

"Sal-u-tations!"

"What a dazzling display!"

Time for Ciel to gather herself. She needed to be ready. In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick.

She looked at her scroll again. The image of Mercury's team was displayed once more. It didn't seem possible that the innocuous-looking upperclassman there could be the whirlwind of glass and flame that had cut her down. Ciel had reviewed the footage from the preliminary round and been disappointed; the dark-haired part of the team had done relatively little, not that the match had lasted long enough to force her hand.

And yet: that same team had been at the center of the other illusions, and there was a physical resemblance between that murder machine and Cinder Fall, student of Haven.

Ciel's priority for this run, then, was to confirm the identity of that woman.

She just had to get through all of this, no matter how…

"This was not a tragedy."

awful it might be.

Why was it worse? Why did Penny's death hurt worse each time? Only by fixing her gaze on Ruby and following in her wake was Ciel able to rally herself.

As before, she reached the General as he was getting into his speech. "…the White Fang is releasing grimm into the school, and worst of all, some rapscallion tried to take over one of my ships. We were forced to shoot it down."

Ciel felt like she'd eaten a shard of Lightning Dust. They'd shot down Benefactor? With its crew still aboard?

Was this Ozpin's way of "hedging his bets"?

"No one will fault you if you leave," the General concluded, but it was harder to believe him than in her earlier loops. There was an edge to the General's voice that hadn't been there before. He hadn't wanted to sink Benefactor, but he'd done it.

Was that the General's legendary "iron will" at work?

And had her tipoff to Ozpin caused these powerful men to move? Was the future changing so dramatically because she had found and pulled the right lever at last? The prospect was exhilarating and terrifying at once.

The crowd of students was moving towards the transport that would take them to Beacon. Hard as it was to collect herself, Ciel had to—had to prepare, had to find JNPR, had to make this loop mean something.

"Alright, but you owe us the story later about why you don't have a team!"

"It's a deal," Ciel said to Nora, and wondered who might be moved most by that story.

"Coming in hot!"

The first thing Ciel saw on arrival was a row of collapsed AKs. Previously, they'd all been in pieces, torn apart or shot up from battle. This time they'd collapsed in neat formation. They'd fallen where they stood when Benefactor went down.

It was a costly victory, but a real one. It made the battle—what Ciel could see of it—go vastly better. The students' line in the courtyard was holding much better, and Team SSSN, predictably, had the gumption to go on a counter-offensive, chasing after some White Fang fire teams. Ruby Rose was in the thick of the worst fighting, and wherever she went, the line stabilized. Things were actually looking up before Ciel saw him.

Headmaster Ozpin, standing like a sentinel.

Ciel needed a delicately timed delay before she followed Pyrrha, to replicate her hesitation from the previous loop. She needed to be in the lobby after the elevator started its descent, but before the woman arrived. She thought she had the timing right when she saw a White Fang fire team emerging from a dorm (don't think about how many people they might have just killed); she sprayed bullets in their direction and sprinted for the Emerald Tower.

Sure enough, the indicator on the elevator had just flipped to 'B' when she entered. She crossed the lobby and stood before the elevators, pretending to study the floor legend and really trying to school herself. Her breathing, she noticed, had spiked, for reasons completely unrelated to the running.

She's coming, she's coming, she'll kill you, she'll kill you in the worst ways—

Yes, but it'll be okay.

Will it? Will it really? Is it 'okay' to get filleted like a fish and then cooked from the inside-out-

The sounds from outside got louder. Ciel spun, her eyes already wide, Metronome already leveled.

There was the woman, amber eyes radiating malicious amusement. "You shouldn't have followed them. Too bad for you."

"You're Cinder Fall, aren't you?" Ciel accused, but even without verbal confirmation she could tell, she could see.

"You're more perceptive than the typical Atlesian," Cinder purred. Her voice was a perfect match for the one that had hijacked CCT communications after Penny's death. It was all her. It always had been. "Pity that won't do you any good."

Obsidian swords flared into being in Cinder's hands. A tongue of flame crackled from her right eye.

Ciel's time sense informed her that her resistance lasted not even a second longer this time. Cinder was a cat gleefully enjoying her murder. Ciel was meat before a butcher. In no time at all Cinder made a mockery of her defenses, sliced her Aura to shreds, and knocked her into a wall. As Ciel tried to gasp, tried to make her lungs do anything, Cinder fused her swords into a bow, and sent a black glass arrow racing for Ciel's—

Bright!

Ciel flinched and stumbled backwards. She managed not to fall. She closed her eyes and put all her effort into schooling her stomach. She might be nothing but meat to Cinder, but she was still a person, dammit. She could… could…

In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick.

…could control herself. Could master her body, feeble and useless though it might be.

In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick.

If she was going to die, it was good to die with purpose. She knew the name of the enemy now.

She was no match for Cinder Fall on the battlefield. She didn't have to be. What she had to do was set Cinder against those who were a match for her.

It might seem like she was back to square one, standing here at the console for Penny's simulator once again. She knew better. Ciel had proved she could influence not just her death, but the course of the whole battle. She knew how the attack unfolded, she had Ozpin's key, and she had the name of the enemy.

For the first time, she dared to hope.


Next time: Through a Mirror, Darkly