(A/N) I hunger for sweet, sweet feedback.

Volume I | Part III

If you're a lamb, act the wolf. If you're a wolf, act the lamb.

- Alorn Rihfaris

I always forget how much I hate boats.

Well, to be fair, I'm never deluded to the point of thinking that a boat trip will be fine, but there's always a little cloudiness to my memories that makes me think it can't be that bad, right?

It can.

It absolutely fucking can.

I've been sitting on a bench on the deck of the Eastern Wind, a civilian transport ship, for two hours of on and off dry heaving. Before that, it was half an hour of actual vomiting until there was nothing left to vomit. Something about the seasickness also seems to amplify every single other little discomfort- chief of which is the black bandage cloth wrapped diagonally around my head to cover up my left eye.

It's been a… challenge, dealing with the fact that I can no longer show that eye in public without attracting the wrong kind of attention. It's just so clearly Grimm in its appearance that even civilians react uneasily. Neither the hood nor tinted glasses are enough, because the fucking iris glows red. Until I find a better solution, I'm basically reduced to walking around with the top left quarter of my face covered up.

I'm lucky that it was the left eye, because it means I can keep practicing with Aurora in my right hand. Most of me and Arnaut's time during the week-long journey out from Vale City to Cala, the largest port in Eastern Vale, was spent hammering in Spring Storms further and doing repetitive Aura and strength building exercises. I know it's necessary, and god only knows I've spent enough hours doing repetitive physical training for hand-to-hand, but the brief taste I got in learning all the new moves and stances makes me resent the current stagnation despite my better judgement.

"You know… I thought you were exaggerating before when you said that you'd prefer the dust wastes to sea travel," Arnaut comments. "Now I'm not so sure."

"Shut… up," I manage, suppressing another dry heave. I should have just stolen a fucking plane and kidnapped a pilot to fly it for me.

"Do you feel up to doing more Aura exercises yet?" Arnaut asks, knowing full fucking well what the answer is.

"No." Well, that's actually a bit better. Keeping to one-syllable answers seems to be quick enough that I avoid the worst of the nausea surges.

"Are you sure?"

"Shut." I give him a one-eyed glare, implying the 'up'.

He sighs and looks back towards the sea, clamming up for once.

It's almost nice. Peaceful, even-

So it just about tracks that not even five seconds pass before a newcomer places a hand on my shoulder. I turn a single eye, filled with as much loathing as I can possibly stuff into it, up to see what appears to be a wealthy teenager.

He's actually fairly tall, 6'3" at least if I had to guess, but his build is fairly average, and his smug, oh-so-very-punchable expression immediately causes my opinion of him to take a nosedive. His hair is an obnoxiously bright blue, his eyes a darker shade, and he's got a pair of bright yellow goggles sitting uselessly up on his forehead, which only furthers the plunging of my respect for him. Then he flashes his eyebrows at me and says "Hey" in a 'trying-too-hard-to-be-suave' voice.

"Go," I manage, doing my best to burn a hole through his face with my one working eye.

"What, you want me to go first?" He smiles and drops down onto the bench beside me, arm reaching up and across the back of it, obnoxiously close to being over my shoulder. "Well, the name's Neptune Vasilias, Mistral Huntsman. Just finished up saving a bunch of people in Vale, actually- no need to thank me."

"Dont… care-" I double over and gag, the second word proving too much strain. Fucking hell.

"So what about you, mysterious? You a Huntress?"

I feel a sudden, violent regret for taking off my hood. With it on, people just think 'Shady Faunus', but with it off, people apparently fucking think 'Huntress'. Maybe if I just tell him… "Fuck…" Off.

"Oh, was I not supposed to guess that?" Neptune shakes his head. "Darn, I'm sorry. Here, let me make it up to you by buying you a drink."

"Go!" I glare at him again.

"Sheesh, are you that thirsty? What do you want?"

"No."

"Huh. You want me to guess, then? Well, alright, I'll give it my best shot." The arrogant tool swaggers off, leaving me to consider the benefits and drawbacks of simply jumping ship and swimming to Mistral. Maybe if I overclock on my Aura sprint, I could run on the water, right? I'd only have to keep it up for a full day or two.

"What a charming young man," Arnaut comments.

I turn to look at him in disbelief.

"He reminds me of myself, when I was younger," he continues, giving a wistful half-grin. "Funnily enough, Victra was the one girl that wouldn't give me the time of day, so I had to be persistent- I think I tried sixty-two different pickup lines before she relented and went on a date with me."

My respect for Arnaut starts to plummet as well in hot pursuit of Neptune.

"You're seventeen, right?" Neptune slides back onto the bench beside me and offers me some sort of light-pinkish-orange cocktail, complete with a little pink umbrella in it. "If not… meh, I won't tell if you won't."

I just stare at the pink drink, and then slowly turn my gaze towards him. "…What."

"Oh, this?" Neptune shakes his head. "You'll love it. It's mostly orange and cranberry juice, with some peach schnapps and vodka mixed in with it."

I numbly accept the drink as he pushes it into my hand. I'm sixteen, so technically a year below the legal drinking age, but- believe it or not- Roman wasn't exactly father of the year when it came to enforcing sobriety.

A pang of grief and hate shoots through me at the thought of Roman, and I distract myself by taking a swig of the drink Neptune handed me.

Yikes. He wasn't kidding about it being mostly fucking juice. That said, it does taste pretty good, so I down the rest in a few seconds.

I look back to see his smirk turned up to eleven. "You like it? It's called a 'Sex On the Beach'."

Oh, this son of a bitch. "Fuck off-"

My stomach gives me a gurgle of warning, and I immediately vault the railing around the upper level where I was sitting- only to slightly misjudge the ground's approach due to my lack of depth perception and land awkwardly, stumbling a few steps over to the edge of the ship before vomiting the drink right back out into the ocean.

After a few minutes of gradually less intense hacking, I take a walk of shame back up the stairs to my bench, not trusting myself to make any Aura-enhanced jumps with one eye and my balance shot. Neptune is still sitting there, doing an odd ritual of peering slightly over the edge of the railing and then snapping his gaze back down towards the ground, as though he can't bear to look at something.

When he spots me, he winces. "Ooh, sorry about that. Don't hate me?"

"Hate…" I can't manage the 'you', and drop heavily down onto the bench.

"Boats?"

I mean… yeah, that too. I nod, cautious at the first time he's taken anything but the worst possible interpretation of my one-word responses.

"Yeah, uh…" he scratches behind his head, as if hesitant to say something, and ultimately seems to decide against it when his grin returns. "So, what brings a cute girl like you out to Mistral? You, uh, heading back after the Fall of Beacon? Kind of late for that, though, right?"

"Go," I hiss.

"What, you want me to go first?" Neptune fucking winks at me. "By the way, loving the 'mysterious and aloof, girl-of-few-words' thing you're doing. You remind me of one of one of my buddies' girlfriend… but anyway, me and two of my other friends are heading back to Haven Academy. Maybe I'll see you around there?"

"No." I've reached a point of consignment to the torture, an acceptance that this brainless fuckboy will not be dissuaded, regardless of what I say. In fact, the main thing keeping me going at this point is the realization that once we get on dry land again, I'll be able to beat the living shit out of him.

"Huh. Wait, you are a Huntress, right?"

"No."

Neptune frowns. "Damn, really mysterious, huh? I can dig it." A frown crosses his face, though, as he leans back slightly and sizes me up again. "Hold on, you aren't… with the White Fang, are you?"

I turn to glare at him again, sorely tempted to say yes just on the off chance that it'll get him to just fuck off. In fact, even if he reports me in, it can't be that bad, right? Just having to dodge the police all the way across Mistral, which seems like a field day compared to this. I open my mouth to say 'yes', but am cut off by the approach of another Huntsman.

"Lay off the poor girl, Neptune." It's a boy's voice with a strong Eastern Vale accent. I look over to see a… I suppose the best descriptor would be metrosexual pirate- he's got a red navy captain's coat dangling behind his back, only touching him at the shoulder, a white tank top with grey jeans and what appears to be a wholly useless extra belt loosely hanging just below his waist.

Great, another one, I think. People wearing things for appearances alone, specifically things that actually imply a proficiency in something, annoys me to no fucking end. Neptune's goggles and biker jacket, Scarlet's… shoulder… coat… cape thing, and the two belts wrapped around his waist-

Hold on, he's actually armed. An old-timey flintlock pistol and saber are attached at his hips.

I glance up to his face and see- besides what appears to be fucking makeup and a tattoo beside his eye- that he's got an undercut of scarlet hair that sweeps down to cover his right eye.

The world is a cruel, harsh place to send both of these obnoxious dandies at me while I'm crippled by seasickness.

Surprisingly, my opinion of the newcomer rises a bit when he continues: "Can't you see she's not interested? Go… hide from the water in our room, I suppose."

Neptune rises to his feet to face the other boy. "Dude. Not. Cool." Then he turns down to me with a well-meaning grin. "Ignore what my friend Scarlet just said, about the water, and me being afraid of it-"

Scarlet takes a step forward. "Shoo. Do I need to get the spray bottle out again?"

"No!" Neptune flinches, and then narrows his eyes. "Hey, hold on a second, who died and made you the boss of me? Sun's the team leader, dude."

"Sun's off on a honeymoon," Scarlet says, unamused. "And we all agreed I'm second in command when he's gone."

Neptune's retort dies before it leaves his mouth, and he slumps backward. "…Fine, I'll-"

He can't finish the sentence because the boat shakes violently to the side, a spray of water coming up and spattering against the three of us- or, two of us, because Neptune makes a genuinely impressive leap up onto the ship bridge's roof to avoid it.

The shouts start to come from all around us- "Grimm!" "Monster!" "Everyone get inside!"

I don't feel like moving, so I just slowly turn my gaze back over towards the source of the shaking and see a large tentacle begin to gradually writhe its way up onto the deck, followed by another, and then another-

"Kraken!"

As I watch, one of the tentacles, faster than its brethren, snakes forward and snags hold of a man before he can make it off the deck. It curls around his body and drags him, screaming, down towards the water.

"Dreki! Help him!"

"No." I draw Aurora, but don't even get up from the bench.

"Dreki, you…" Somehow, Arnaut is still clearly holding on to a delusional hope that if he convinces me to fight Grimm enough times, there will be some magical moment where I realize that my real dream is to become a Huntress and save people.

I'm not able to form full sentences at the moment, so instead I just gesture for him to look towards the man, who is about to be dragged overboard…

Only for a large, dark-skinned boy with a large grey ultra greatsword- though not as large as Aurora, I note with an internal smirk- to come flying in and cut the tentacle in half, freeing the would-be victim.

Another tentacle comes swinging in to hit him from behind, but it's stopped in place by some sort of electric shot originating from the gun of Neptune, who has apparently gathered his wits enough to provide fire support from up on the highest point of the ship.

Scarlet also leaps into action, vaulting forward in a t-pose, but gliding impossibly far forward through the air like a flying squirrel, even curving in his path to avoid being struck by a tentacle. He lands in a rolling motion that ends with an upwards slash of his cutlass, severing the tentacle above him.

"They can…" I suppress a gag reflex. "Handle… it."

And I can't. As difficult as it is to admit to myself, in my current state I'd honestly more likely be a burden than any real help. I can barely even walk straight through the missing eye that I've yet to adapt to and the seasickness that's only getting worse as the ship bobs in place and violently shakes around, much less fight.

With that said, a tentacle comes sweeping along the side of the cabins, shattering windows and denting walls in a line heading straight towards me, and my hand is forced-

So I respond with the laziest move Arnaut has taught me, Planted Roots, and stab Aurora through the bench on my left, edge facing away from me. The tentacle doesn't even slow in its approach and bisects itself on the unmoving blade, leaving me unharmed.

"Hey, you! You can fight, right? Help us out here!" Neptune calls down.

I just lean back again and watch, taking this as an opportunity to size up these Huntsmen on the off chance I'd need to fight them.

Neptune's a mediocre long-range fighter, but he's obviously terrified of water and that's causing him to hide on the top of the ship and take potshots, so I don't have much of a clue as to his limitations for melee fighting. I also have no clue what his Semblance is, which worries me.

The larger dark-skinned boy with dark green hair is a melee specialist beyond even what I am- I don't see anything even vaguely resembling a gun on his person. He's fast, but not faster than me, and strong, but not stronger than me, and skilled, but- you get the picture. I'm fairly confident I could avoid him to get to the others, but again the Semblance being unknown is a worrying factor.

Scarlet is fast and graceful, and he's equally good with his pistol as he is with his sword. He's also the acting team leader, which makes him the most likely strategist, so if a fight breaks out I'm killing him first. His Semblance is also the only one I have a good guess on- it seems to be some level of wind manipulation, as his jumps and gunshots keep traveling further than normal and curving around obstacles.

Another tentacle comes at me directly this time. I respond with Planted Roots in front of me and it splits itself in half, but keeps traveling forward, leading to a spray of dusted Grimm against the walls to either side of me.

"Are you just gonna sit there!?" Neptune shouts.

I turn up to look at him with as much disbelief as I can possibly conjure. "This from…" another dry heave- "You?"

"At least shoot it!"

I shake my head and drop my gaze back to the battle, where a fourth Huntress has joined in; this one middle-aged and clearly more competent than the students. She's armed with a pair of identical 4-foot-long greatswords that she wields with extraordinary speed and dexterity, advancing across the deck and towards the Grimm in a normal walking pace even as the swords blur into a wall of grey all around her.

The Kraken's attention seems to focus in on her, and several tentacles streak down to pulverize her, yet none can land a solid hit. Her swords are almost like a barrier; anything that comes within a meter of her is reduced to dust.

As she nears the edge of the deck closest to where the monster lays under the water, a loud screech sounds out, and then a huge form erupts out from the water.

The Kraken's main body is unknowably large, still mostly underwater, but its mouth alone yawns nearly fifteen meters across, similar to that of a Terrawyrm. Row after row of circular teeth ripple instead of spinning, leading down to a dark gullet at the very center. The tentacles come from all around the mouth, and new ones grow out to replace their severed brethren even as I watch.

Still, as large as it is, the older Huntress makes mincemeat of every single one of its attacks towards her…

And yet, the battle enters an unexpected state of stalemate.

None of these Huntsmen have the necessary firepower to down the monster, and yet neither does it have the dexterity to harm any of them. The fighting slips into a repetitive holding pattern, new tentacles surging up to strike the ship or the Huntsmen and being severed without any real progress being made by either side.

I occasionally have to protect myself with a passionless Planted Roots, but… nothing is actually happening.

"Dreki, I think it's time I taught you something," Arnaut comments from his spot leaning against the wall behind me.

I shake my head, decidedly not in the mood for another fucking lecture.

He reads my meaning and clarifies. "No, no, it's not about morality. It's a function of Aurora that you haven't been using properly."

That's a little more promising, and I turn to give him my full attention, though still keeping the corner of my eye searching for tentacles. My peripheral vision for anything to the left of me is fucked, but luckily the wall is to my left when I face him. "…Talk."

Arnaut only responds with a knowing grin, giving me a nasty feeling. "First, you must promise to use it to defeat that Kraken."

"No."

He shrugs and turns away, feigning nonchalance, but I know him too well to buy the act and keep my eyes trained on him. When he turns slightly back to look at me, I'm already giving him a 'get on with it' expression.

"I'm not obligated to teach you anything, Dreki. I'm willing to do it, because I see promise in you, and because I don't want the Way of Wind to die, but if you refuse to use it for anything more than selfish purposes…"

I slowly shake my head. Does he seriously not realize? "I can't… seasick."

Realization dawns for him. "Oh. Oh! No, don't worry, it won't require you to leave this spot."

That does change things. If it's really something I can do from here, and doesn't require me to risk my life, then… "…Fine."

"Excellent. In that case, I'm going to start by noting that you seem to have little to no experience with Dust firearms, correct?" I nod. "Well, something that I've noticed is that you aren't using your Aura to amplify Aurora's shots."

Huh? "I can…"

"Do that? Yes, you can. What, did you think that Huntsmen and Huntresses used weapons that any ordinary civilian could get the same sort of power out of?" To be honest, I completely did. "While it's true that Dust rounds have in-built power, and thus can be used by anyone, that power can be amplified by one's Aura in the same way that one's body and weaponry can be."

"Okay."

"Now, to start, you'll want to swap Aurora into rifle mode."

I do as he says, then lift it to rest against my right shoulder and look along the blade down towards the action.

"Excellent! You already have a Burn/Blast round chambered, good… before you fire it, you'll want to channel your Aura into Aurora, understood?"

I bring my Aura to bear within the sword in the same way I do in every fight, fortifying the metal and making it into an extension of my soul.

"Normally, that's where you stop. However, the core concepts behind Aura combat- passive Aura Enhancement and the more costly Aura Strikes- can also be applied to gunshots. The use of Aura Blasts- the Aura-expending ranged equivalent of an Aura Strike- especially, is one of the more advanced techniques for Huntsmen to learn, but given your abnormally high aptitude for Aura Strikes, I suppose it won't hurt to try. Now, try to build up Aura the same way you do for your Strikes, but center it around the Dust round in the chamber."

I concentrate my Aura as he says, right around the spot in front of the handle, just guessing the location at first… but I soon realize that I can feel the Dust inside the round, despite it being hidden within the sword. I can also feel the power getting more difficult to keep a lid on, almost like trying to hold down the lid on a bottle of expanding gas- I can't let the Aura dissipate and lose it all, but neither can I let it explode, at least until I fire the round. The balancing act begins to grow too much, too difficult, and my breathing grows erratic-

"Once you've built up enough, release it-"

Moments before I would have lost control, I immediately pull the trigger while simultaneously discharging about twenty-five percent of my Aura.

The results are… dramatic.

In my focus on the technique, I failed to notice my aim drifting upwards, so when I actually fire the projectile of bright-glowing red-orange Burn Dust flies over most of the Kraken and only impacts the very far upper lip of its maw.

Then the thing detonates and I become very glad that I allowed my aim to stray, because the fireball expands nearly ten meters in every direction, melting most of the Kraken's head near-instantly.

The resulting blast of steam from the huge volume of water that was just vaporized rocks the boat dangerously far backwards and nearly scalds my face, but I'm saved from that pain by my active Aura.

Then the Grimm decays into dust and the water surges back in to fill the gap, and the ship comes swaying right back the way it came, rocking violently at first but gradually settling out into normality. It doesn't seem like anything particularly structurally important was damaged by the blast or the Grimm.

I once again notice the leftover curls of dark mist, much more of it this time due to the Grimm's size, trailing in towards me and dissipating upon contact with my chest.

"As I suspected. You actually seem to be a bit of a prodigy for your age when it comes to techniques that involve discharging your Aura," Arnaut comments.

I feel a slight glow at the praise-

"But your passive defense and reinforcement skills are severely lacking."

There it is.

I chamber a new Gravity/Puncture round and slide Aurora back into its sheath, before allowing myself to slump backwards, getting back to trying to suppress the nausea and headache.

"Holy- was that your Semblance?" Neptune hops down in front of me, and I genuinely consider cutting his leg off. "Man, you're pretty strong. Thanks for helping us out; wanna go get another drink to celebrate?"

My inability to effectively communicate is slowly driving me insane. Is this how Neo feels?

I jolt upright- Neo. Thinking of her reminds me of how she'd communicate more complicated details to us, and I whip out my Scroll to type up a quick message before showing it to Neptune.

He frowns and reads it: 'Go away.'

He looks back towards me to respond, but I raise a finger in front of him and add to my message:

'Go away. Right fucking now.'

"Sheesh, alright," he replies, wandering off to find some other girl to annoy. I'm left to my misery, although that misery is significantly lessened by Neptune's absence.

And yet is reinflated once again by the approach of the older Huntress, whose swords are sheathed upon her back. She strides up purposefully and offers me her hand, which I reluctantly shake.

When she speaks, it's in a commanding tone: "That was an impressive use of Aura Blast- though I suppose I should have expected no less from the Golden Guardian's successor. It's good to see that the promising rumors are true, and that the… less positive ones are falsified."

I nod and she walks off…

Hold on, what rumors?

The rest of the two-day boat trip passes without much incident. The seasickness gets slightly better, but only to the degree that I can start to keep food and water down when I lie still in my cabin. Speaking, reading, and any sort of physical training are still beyond me… which threatens to leave me alone with my thoughts; something I never allow myself to be.

Arnaut… technically helps, by telling long-winded stories from his life and lectures, as well as essentially reciting an entire Alorn Rihfaris autobiography from memory. I couldn't actually remember most of what he said, but it was still a pleasant distraction from the grief.

When we arrive, I'm incredibly tempted to disembark immediately, but know full well what the proper procedure here is. I'm not technically on the boat, per se- the captain is an old smuggling contact of Roman's that I paid off. Getting myself and the sword through customs without a passport would be a colossal pain, and stowing away is risky; this way is simpler.

Eventually I get the go-ahead signal: the captain, Sheffield, taps on my door. When I step outside, he surprises by handing me a refund on my ticket and smuggling fee-

"Huntsmen get a free ride for dealin' with the Grimm, so… I figure you should get the same, after what you did. Sorry about Roman, kid."

I nod and step off onto the cargo unloading dock. Motor functions return rapidly, and it's only a minute or two before I'm back in business.

When I reach the edge of the wide-reaching, busy docks, I pause and take a look around. The city of Xiangan is old, most of the buildings from before the Great War, and honestly looks more like a Vale city with its grandiose grey stone architecture than a Mistral one.

Actually, I vaguely recall Arnaut mentioning something about that. "This place is… one of the Vale colony cities, right?"

Arnaut sounds pleased that I remembered that detail. "Yes, this was the first city established by the Vale explorers, and served as Vale's base of operations on Anima leading up to and during the Great War. Afterwards, though, it was gifted back to Mistral along with all the other land Vale had claimed as part of the Treaty of Shade."

Now that he mentions it, I can see the Mistral here, too- it's just in all the little details, and the more recent construction. A large grey stone building with a newer red paint job over it, a dark-red shingled roof with several of the aging ones replaced by brighter greens, and old-style wrought-iron streetlamps refitted to hold more modern lights shaped like lanterns.

Of course, I can also see the touch of Mistral in the people eyeing me from alleyways.

People always envision Vacuo as a lawless wasteland, but for my money Mistral is the shadiest kingdom by a fucking landslide. In fact, I was surprised to discover that Vacuo wasn't even all that bad- in most places. Luskhan was an exception, as were the dust wastes, and of course there was the crime you always get in the big cities… but besides that, the kingdom was actually almost nicer than Vale.

See, the thing about a big, centralized government like Vale's is that it's… like trying to build one massive, interconnected 'wall' around every single settlement and city to keep out the criminals. Shit is obviously going to slip through the cracks, and the larger the wall, the harder the cracks are to notice and fix.

Vacuo has its own wall for every individual city, both literally and figuratively, so the cracks are a thousand times easier to fill up. Plus, since it's composed mostly of nomadic, isolated settlements in the middle of a desert, people who commit a crime have nowhere to run.

Atlas… I suppose Atlas does it by putting a wall around every single person, a wall formed out of surveillance and an incredibly tight grip on Dust weaponry. As much as the White Fang hates the Kingdom, it's telling that they can only go after mines in the far reaches and attack shipments once they've left Atlesian airspace. Crime there is lower than Vacuo not because it's any more civilized, but because it's so vicious and totalitarian that risk is almost always greater than the reward.

Mistral, though? Mistral has no wall. It says something about the kingdom that there's multiple known, named clans of bandits like the Branwens that have existed for decades and yet have never been dealt with- they don't attack anyone too wealthy or important, so they get to carry on unhindered. Huntsmen here more than anywhere else are bought and paid for commodities, and as long as you pick your targets wisely- i.e. people who can't afford to hire a Huntsman on you- then you're fine. Here, wealth is actually a deterrent to would-be thieves.

Roman always hated that-

I shake the thoughts of him from my head once more, and keep walking along the sidewalk of the city's main road- until I hear a kid cry out for help off to my right.

Glancing over, I see one little girl doubled over, clutching her arm with some sort of injury, while another boy stands over her crying out for aid. Given that it's far past dark and the roads aren't exactly bustling, what few passerby there are just ignore the situation.

"I'd assume you're just going to leave them to their suffering?" Arnaut asks sarcastically.

Him saying that makes me want to show him his own idiocy, so I stride into the mouth of the alleyway and over towards the two kids.

The shouter turns to me with the waterworks turned up to eleven. "Oh, miss, please can…" he hesitates when he sees me- horns, scales, tail, one eye scarred and covered in cloth while the other one is slit-pupiled, with a sword larger than his entire body strapped to my back- but actually pulls it together enough to persevere: "Uh, can you help us?"

"Who, you? Your friend who's not really hurt? Or the third one hiding up in that emergency stairwell?" I ask, gesturing up towards the metal platform above my head.

Both of the kids freeze, and the third one must've been so startled by my identification of him that he lost his grip and tumbled down. Acting on instinct, I catch him before he can slam into the ground, but then frown and drop him like a sack of bricks anyway.

"Miss, how did…"

I smirk at the reverence the shouter, apparently the ringleader here, is giving me. "Most Faunus have night vision, kid. I could see Mr. Wannabe-Ninja here the second I turned to look down the alley." The brat shuffles guiltily, but I'm not done. "Second off, the girl-" I nod at the 'injured' one, who has since stopped pretending and is looking at me through sullen eyes- "Was faking an arm injury. She can still move and talk, so why are you the one calling people over?" She opens her mouth to protest, but I bulldoze ahead: "And third? This ain't Mistral City, kid. There aren't any people here rich and naive enough to fall for that."

Arnaut looks vaguely abashed.

"Wow, miss, you sure know a lot… what do you think we should do?" The ringleader asks.

I laugh. "I don't know, kid. I'd suggest you either learn to pickpocket, learn to act, or learn to fight, and find a boss who'll pay you to do those things. No matter how good you are, no one lasts long on their own."

I spin around to walk off- but hesitate, and then turn back around, drawing a 100-Lien card out of my coat and holding it out to the kid: "You can actually start now: this is yours if you take me to the shadiest bar in this town."

He shares an unbearably hope-filled glance with the other two before nodding furiously and taking off. I keep up with him relatively easily as he leads me through twisting streets and finally to a dingy hole-in-the-wall joint.

"Deal's a deal," I sigh, flipping him the money… but then I hesitate again.

Something about that brat, about the way he seems to be looking out for the other two, and about the way I encountered him… reminds me of how Neo and Roman met. And as much heartache as the thoughts of Roman give me, I can't help but think about what he'd do-

"Hey, brat." The kid turns back around to face me, equal parts worry and hope in his eyes. "If you want to get out of this place, stop by the docks and ask around for Sheffield. Tell him Dragon sent you, and that she'll vouch for your acting skills."

He slowly nods, and then runs off. The bit about acting skills is a kind of code phrase- it really means that he's a good candidate for a Screecher, someone to draw public attention in order to create openings for pickpocketing, robberies, planting evidence… you name it. If the kid does a good enough job, he'll get his fair shot at rising up the ranks of the Syndicate, and even at helping his friends off the streets as well.

"That was… surprisingly decent of you," Arnaut comments.

I consider explaining that I only did it because… But then again, why did I do it, besides some sentimental passing connection to Roman?

Roman…

The grief returns, and I close my heart while pushing open the tavern's door.

Inside, it's even shadier than the one in Luskhan, and a fair bit more populated as well. Most of the motley crew of customers give me the side-eye that indicates they're up to less-than-reputable business. Even in my cursory once-over, I spot no less than three distinct groups of bandits, one of whom is wearing Branwen insignias, as well as all the usual mercenaries and petty criminals- there's even what looks to be a group of White Fang operatives at a table in the corner, which is surprising.

The White Fang are actually pariahs in the underground crime community. Their usual refusal to work with humans and desire to bring down larger institutions means that, more often than not, groups like the Syndicate stand to lose out if the Fang gets what they want. Roman only worked with them because of Cinder's ultimatum- in fact, Roman only even agreed to work for Cinder because of her unspoken promise that if he wouldn't work with her, she'd install a new Overboss who would.

Fuck, what is it with all the thoughts of Roman? I clear my head for what feels like the tenth time today and turn towards a different corner, and the person sitting alone at the table in it. The bits of purple in their clothing, as well as the corner of the tattoo just peeking out of the low neckline on their dress, tells me all I need to know.

By the time I start across the bar, most of the curious eyes have left me. I drop into the seat across from the Spider, keeping Aurora leaned up at my side, just in case.

"Greetings," the Spider offers. He's a man who looks to be in his mid-twenties, plain in appearance except for the purple streak dyed into his brown hair. He seems a lot less concerned about hiding his identity than the one in Vacuo, although I suppose that's natural- here in his home turf, he doesn't need to hide his identity because he has spies to do the work for him, and doesn't need to worry about being attacked.

"Yeah, sure," I respond, lacking the patience to exchange pleasantries with this person I'll likely never meet again. "Look, I need info on Neopolitan. Where in Mistral is she?"

He blinks at my aggressiveness, and then a crafty look slides onto his face. "She passed through this town asking about another… unnamed party, and then moved on to Higanbana."

"Great," I reply, reaching into my coat to grab the payment, only to freeze when he names his price:

"Two thousand Lien."

I laugh. "I hope that was a joke."

"No joke," he says, leering at me, and it's then that I sense movement behind me and activate my Aura while using the sixth sense Arnaut has been teaching me to search for those belonging to other people. It feels like… three people are approaching, two of which have their own Auras unlocked and activated. This idiot is going to try to extort me for money.

I settle a hand onto the hilt of Aurora and level my gaze at the Spider. "That's highway robbery."

"Yep, that's the idea," he responds.

The three people stop, a few meters away behind me, as if awaiting some sort of queue, so for the moment I keep talking: "So you're overcharging by a gigantic margin. Let me guess: the extra isn't exactly… on the books, is it?"

His smile fades. "I'd be careful of what I was saying, girly."

I snort again. "What, the three jokers behind me? You think you can intimidate me into paying you ten times the normal cost?" The smile is gone now, but he's more annoyed than scared, which isn't exactly great. If I have to fight him, killing a Spider- regardless of the circumstances- is going to put a monster of a target on my back. "Look, dick, I usually operate under a 'live and let die' policy. If you want to rip off your own organization, all the power to you. But if you push me on this shit, me and Little Miss Malachite are gonna have words."

Shit, wrong move. I can see him shift from annoyance to panic at the thought of his betrayal being outed, and he gives a nod to the goons. "You can't say shit if you're dead."

Son of a bitch. I snap Aurora out of its sheath and rise to my feet-

But something is up. The second the blade leaves the sheath, the Spider's eyes widen and he pales, shaking his head towards the goons who also halt in their tracks.

When he next speaks, his tone is much more accommodating: "Oh, I… sorry, I didn't realize that I was speaking to… uh, look, we can talk about this, right?"

"What the fuck?" I drop back down into the chair but don't put the sword away. "Why'd you lose your balls all of a sudden?"

"You-" he frowns, then completely fails to hide another surge of craftiness on his face. "Oh, it's nothing. Your weapon is simply intimidating, is all."

"Bullshit." I reach across the table to grab his hand and activate Arnaut's Semblance-

A half-demonic, half-heroic figure with constantly shifting features, standing atop a mountain of dead humans and Grimm with a massive blade shining like the sun itself-

He yanks his hand from my grasp, but I've seen too much now- plus, I now remember something that Huntress back on the ship mentioned about rumors. "Listen, asshole. Either you tell me what the rumors about me are, or I beat it out of you. I know Malachite personally-" A lie, but I have spoken to her before, whenever Roman saw the need to run an operation in Mistral- "And I'm pretty sure she'll forgive me when I explain to her all the embezzling you've been pulling."

He swallows, terrified. "I, uh… I…"

"Talk. Now."

"I- Yes, ma'am. I've- we've been picking up on a string of stories, starting all the way back in Vacuo but stretching across most of Sanus- isolated incidents of a suspicious chick- all we knew was that she was a Faunus, but people kept disagreeing on whether she had horns, or a tail, or scales, or-"

"Keep it moving."

He nods frantically. "Right, yes. Okay, so at first we thought it was just a folk story that the Vacuese people came up with to deal with the death of the Golden Guardian… but then one of our actual operatives in Vacuo reported that they met someone that matched the description, someone looking for Roman Torchwick. So… then we started to take it more seriously, and when we really started looking, the stories kept coming from all over Sanus. In a kind of order, too, getting further and further north over time, like it was one person on one long trip. The thing was… half the stories are really good, like, killing Grimm and saving people and stuff, but the other half are bad, like killing people and beating up Huntsmen."

Son of a royal fucking bitch. I lean back in my chair. "Fuck. Okay, what're the… defining characteristics, here?"

"Huh?" The man looks a strange combination of confused and terrified.

"Like… what can I do to not have these fucking stories keep spreading?"

The Spider just sits there, confused. "I… all the stories agree on the person being a Faunus, and carrying…" he trails off, staring at Aurora.

God damn it. I'm annoyed enough to want to punch something, but at the same time, I was bluffing when I said I could kill him without consequence. Little Miss Malachite has zero tolerance for people who kill Spiders.

"Fuck." I reach into my coat and drop him three 100-Lien cards, and then turn to leave. The goons all nervously shift out of my way, but someone else steps up-

A Faunus from the White Fang table. He's a bit taller than me, with wolf ears poking up from a head of unruly black hair. "You're… the Grimm Guardian, right?"

What the fuck? "…No…?" I try tentatively.

Apparently it isn't convincing, because he just shoots me a look. "Look, I was just gonna ask… you ever get tired of dealing with Humans' shit?"

"Sure," I sigh, already seeing where this is going.

"You ever feel like- what?" He didn't expect me to answer right off the bat like that, and fumbles for a second before soldiering onward: "Oh, well then, have you ever considered… you know, fighting back?"

I give him a dead look. "Yes. For about three seconds. Then I realized that you idiots aren't getting jack shit done-"

That annoys him. "Hey! Since the White Fang started-"

"Shut up." I could just walk away, but… I don't know. Ever since… what happened to Roman, happened... I've had a secondary, festering hatred for Cinder and for the White Fang, for dragging us into their idiotic mess. "You goddamn sheep follow Adam fucking Taurus, an angsting teenager with the critical thinking skills of a fucking houseplant. Please, explain to me how blowing up a fucking Huntsman Academy in Vale of all places helps a single Faunus."

He opens his mouth to reply, but whatever it is dies on his tongue.

"Yeah, doesn't seem so smart now, does it? Come back to me when you decide to take on Atlas or Upper Mistral," I sneer, pushing my way around him and out towards the exit-

Only to be blocked again, this time by a smug, greasy-looking bandit with piecemeal leather and metal armor, a scrap of cloth wrapped around his upper arm with the Branwen Clan's black bird-wing symbol on it. He might be a blonde, but it's impossible to tell through all the smudge and dirt in his hair.

Yeah, all that stuff about criminal hygiene and lifestyle? That doesn't apply here in Mistral. Ironically, for all they screech about 'survival of the fittest' and 'the strong prey on the weak', bandits here have a much easier time of it than in Vale, and as a result can afford to be incompetent wastes of oxygen like this guy.

His voice is about what I expected. "Hey, kitten. Heard somethin' about you bein' some real impressive shit back in Vale. Even caught a couple of rumors about you killin' some criminals, like a regular Miss Huntress."

"Funny, I didn't hear jack shit about you," I respond, not even bothering to go for the sword.

He smirks. "Well then, I guess you better start learnin', because you're in Mistral now, babe, and here in Mistral we don't let shit like that slide. We're with the Branwen Clan, and the Branwen Clan isn't to be fucked with, you hear?"

I don't make any effort to hide how unimpressed I am with his charade. "You're blocking the door. Move."

"Chill, Scaly," he replies.

A wide grin splits my face at that, even as I hear chairs being pushed back behind me and the White Fang striding up. The one who talked earlier strides up beside me: "Think you might wanna take that one back before we make you, scum."

I just start laughing, and they both turn towards me incredulously. The bandit is the first to speak: "What's so funny, Scaly? You think you're tough, just because your pack showed up to save your ass?"

"Dreki, please leave," Arnaut suggests, but it's clear in his tone that he knows what's coming.

"Chill, I won't kill anyone," I respond, cracking my knuckles in front of me, and then turn to face the Branwen Clan guy: "I'm actually pretty stressed out right now, so… I'm begging you, please give me an excuse to beat you like a cheap rug."

He throws a mediocre attempt at a punch, and I sway out of the way with relative ease.

"Thanks."

Then I pound a fist into his stomach hard enough to launch him across the room, slamming into the table of some other bandits hard enough to break it and send all their food flying. They look up angrily and settle their eyes on me-

And then all hell breaks loose.

The chain reaction of destruction sucks almost every party in the room, one after another, with no real defined sides.

I weave through the kick of another Branwen Clan member, catch his leg, and swing him into another one of his comrades. A third one runs at me from behind with a chair, but I donkey kick him so brutally that he goes flying right out the tavern door and leaves the chair to fall into my waiting hands.

A fourth bandit charges me and I break the chair against his chest, then notice with delight that he has an Aura up and proceed to beat him mercilessly until it shatters, finishing him with a final blow to the head to knock him unconscious.

Arnaut is extremely unimpressed. "Dreki, this is a complete waste of time."

"What do you mean?" I roundhouse kick another guy from behind. "I'm… punishing the wicked, right?"

"No, you're taking out your grief on these… admittedly probably deserving victims," he responds harshly. "But their guilt is irrelevant to the fact that this isn't a productive way to deal with your feelings."

"Shut up." I slam another bandit with an uppercut hard enough to fling him up into the roof, denting the wood, and then falling into a sprawl that I proceed to drop onto with a Falling Elbow of Heavenly Wrath.

"You're just… venting," Arnaut insists. "Picking a fight like this will not bring Roman Torchwick back from the grave, nor will it erase the pain of him being gone."

"Shut the fuck up!" I hiss, slamming the face of another bandit with an Aura into the bar repeatedly until both the Aura and his nose break… but then slowing to a stop, the glee rapidly draining from my body.

I look around at the violence happening- most of the bar has joined in by this point, so the entire room is full of people beating the daylights out of one another. What had filled me with exhilaration only a few seconds prior, now seems ugly. A chaotic mess of idiots beating each other senseless, so… hideously stereotypical. Matching that image in the public eye of criminals being nothing but angry brutes.

Roman would have hated this.

Another Branwen bandit takes a run at me and I flip him over my shoulder before stomping him against the ground… but the joy's gone from it. In fact, I come to the inescapable realization that there never was any joy- only an empty facsimile of the rush to be found in a real fight.

Beating on criminals several leagues below me isn't a challenge, regardless of how much I wanted it to be… how much I wanted something to distract me from the gnawing grief.

"Fuck you, Arnaut," I spit, and then tear out of the place in an Aura-enhanced leap. I don't slow as I continue off down the street, trending generally east as I pull up a map to Higanbana on my Scroll.

"Dreki?"

"Just… fuck off," I say angrily. "You… don't get to..."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand-"

"Don't ever bring up Roman," I snap, turning on him. "You didn't know him, and you don't know me, so don't you dare stand there and talk down at me from some high fucking horse."

"Dreki, remember what Russel said," Arnaut replies, expression full of a genuine sympathy that makes me sick. "You can't just bottle up your emotions, just run from them forever-"

His arrogance makes my blood boil- his confidence that he can change me, that he can save me from this imagined evil. "You know what?" I interrupt, unbuckling the front clasp on Aurora's sheath. "I'm getting real tired of your first-year-psych-student bullshit. I told you before and I'll tell you again: if you don't shut the fuck up, I'll bury Aurora outside town, and you can sit there alone next to it forever."

"Actually…" Arnaut scratches beside his head. "That's not entirely accurate. When you're separated from the sword, I don't disappear, I just seem to… go back to wherever it is I was before."

"What?" This is news to me, and it's surprising enough that the misplaced anger fades from my mind. "Wait, so when you aren't here, then…"

"I honestly can't remember very clearly," he admits. "But… when you leave, I have this sense of passing on, and when you come back within range of the sword, I return to consciousness, with only vague memories of the time in between, flashes of… people I've lost. The same thing seems to happen when I go to sleep."

I stumble over towards an alleyway and lean back against a wall, then slowly slide down to stop with my knees curled up before me. For such a simple thing, it feels like the world itself is shifting around me. "So… you've been able to move on to the afterlife this whole time?"

He blinks, working his jaw in a slightly worried manner. "…Yes."

"And you…" I look at him in a new light as the realization washes over me. "You… stayed."

The worry fades from his expression and is replaced by that same empathy, though this time it doesn't annoy me nearly as much. "Oh. Yes, I've chosen to remain on Remnant for a little while longer."

Arnaut isn't bound to me by forces beyond his control, as I'd assumed. He… chose this. Chose to stick by my side, to give me advice and teach me to fight better… to give me the Way of Wind, give me his Aura and his Semblance.

He had the most reason to abandon me out of anyone I'd ever met, and yet he didn't.

He stayed.

I look back upon him again, trying to keep my voice from cracking despite my throat closing up on me. "Arnaut, I… thanks."

Arnaut just smiles- not a cocky smirk, not a grin of amusement, but a genuine smile, the kind intended to share happiness rather than gloat over it. "What kind of Huntsman would I be if I left a young maiden in trouble?"

The moment of vulnerability fades, but doesn't disappear entirely- it lingers in the way I look at him, no longer as an acquaintance or an enemy, but as… something greater. Then the origin of his words enters my mind and I snort. "Really? A Peter Port quote?"

"The man's a legend in Vale," Arnaut replies with a grin. "Or, at least he was, back when I was a student at Revere. I even bought and read a copy of his autobiography. Did you know that evolution is a myth? The creatures of Remnant are simply a list of things that Peter Port has allowed to live."

I return the grin. "Oh?"

"They say that the moon is shattered because Peter Port once accidentally used more than two percent of his strength and punched a Sea Leviathan right through it."

I smile a bit wider, my thoughts turning to the mental image of the burly, boisterous Huntsman from a week and a half prior.

Arnaut doesn't stop. "A Deathstalker once stung Peter Port, and after five days of excruciating pain, the Deathstalker finally died."

I giggle- actually giggle- at that, and roll my eyes. "Who comes up with that shit?"

Arnaut breaks down laughing for a good ten seconds, eventually recovering enough to reply: "No, no, that's the best part- those are all from his autobiography! He wrote them!"

That's the last straw for me and I start to openly laugh as well. "Wait… so the… entire book, is just…"

"Yes!" Arnaut cackles. "It starts by describing the moment of his birth, where he came out completely stoic, with a full mustache, and it was everyone else in the room who cried."

Still laughing, I wipe a tear from my eye and shake my head. "Fuck it, I need more. Remind me to pick a copy of the book when we get to Higanbana."

"Oh, I will," Arnaut replies. "But one last thing- a historical research team once concluded that the reason Grimm corpses dissolve into dust is so that the bodies of those that Peter Port has slain don't pile up to over all of Remnant."

I chuckle again, and… for the first time since the retaking of Vale, Roman recedes from the edges of my mind. The feeling of loss lessens just a bit, and the smile doesn't fade from my face even as I stride out of the city, following the road east towards Higanbana.

(A/N) And a third arc begins! I'm thinking there'll be four in this first volume, which'll end right about when Volume 7 of the show starts.

Threw in an SAO Abridged reference there. If you haven't watched that... go do it. It's free on YouTube and it's fantastic.

I'm slapping a rock song that I like on the title of each arc as a theme/OP of sorts.