Hello everyone! How are you doing? hope you are all doing fine!

Chapter 117 is here and as always, I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks again for following/ favoring/ reading the story so far- you are all awesome, as I tell you every time and probably will keep doing.

See you all next week in Chapter 118. Until then, be well and have fun!

Shadows shifted and pulsed with energy, raking the earth beneath. As a mighty slash came towards her body, all light was snuffed out- even for a faunus, that was a pretty horrible scenario to imagine.

With a quick motion, 'Blake' dodged to the right with impossible speed, creating a clone without being even slightly encumbered by the loss of light. As the clone was sliced in pieces, she pushed forward.

The Nameless One swung its thin right arm once more, forming another shockwave. She conjured another clone and ducked underneath it. The cut decapitated her image, but her purple eyes saw only one thing.

The little red eyes glared at the surprisingly defiant and sturdy faunus. A couple more shockwaves formed by its magic were sent towards her forming an X-pattern that would be impossible to dodge at this point.

With speed that would be equally impossible for a mortal brain to naturally and properly process, Blake conjured one clone and jumped behind it. Then, the very moment it was hit, she created another one and stepped on it.

The new clone managed to make a foothold for her and send her jump above the wave before they were both annihilated. She then created a new one and had it kick her body straight down.

This way, she managed to avoid the new wave the monster sent to her. She landed a couple steps away, her target now within reach. She knew though, that this monster was a lot trickier than normal and got ready.

How she knew that? It didn't matter- she just did. And that knowledge saved her life, as it had done for so many people before her. Which kind of people? It didn't matter at all at this point.

The only thing that mattered was that the very moment the monster's body burst into shadows and reformed behind her back, she had been expecting it and had already conjured her clone to absorb the attack.

Spinning on her right leg, she swung her dagger and sliced- a burst of pure shadow dodged her attack and reformed a few meters away from her strike range. She glared at it with her pulsing purple orbs.

"You are truly Elder-related" she spoke in a knowledgeable and haughty voice. "This sort of refusal to be killed is right up your disgusting alley, you abomination" she whirled her dagger, its blade shining in the dark.

On its part, the monster did nothing. It merely stared at her wordlessly, its pin-like red eyes concealing the frightening malice beneath its mask.

"I guess it would be too much to expect any sort of response from such a failed project as you after all" she shook her shoulders, her body still ready for any sort of sudden attack from it nonetheless.

There was no such thing, however. Or at least, there was no indication of an attack. Only the hair-like tendrils in its left humongous hand did flicker for a moment, sending a surge of invisible lines of magic to her.

The lines could easily bypass all sorts of magical barriers and aura and strike directly at one's neural system, causing intense shock- possibly that was what it had used to make her teammates collapse like this.

That was the attack the Nameless One was feared for the most back in her time. Blake took one deep breath. She wasn't able to see them, but that didn't mean she couldn't dodge them to begin with.

After all… purple disks shone with determination, despite the anxiety in her heart rising. I finally am what I wished to be- powerful!

She pushed her semblance to the limit, conjuring two clones at once. A surge of pain throbbed in her heart; as if her conscience was trying to warn her against her actions. She ignored it- she wasn't weak anymore!

She jumped back, letting the clones to take the hit. They collapsed and vanished at once. She created two more and jumped away- they were annihilated too. She didn't stop and made two more to be destroyed.

She jumped to the right. Another clone was annihilated by the unseen attack. The bad thing about that sort of action was she didn't know at which point that thing would stop attacking her. In that case…

She dashed forward, sacrificing three more clones and a lot of her aura to push through, carving a straight line towards the Grimm "I will make sure you will never use this thing again, you bastard!" she shouted in a quite uncharacteristic for her manner as she sidestepped around it.

The sudden change in direction made her dodge another shockwave. A quick jump forward let her get closer, passing by it with her back turned. She grinned in triumph as she found herself within strike range.

The only thing she needed to do now was turn around to kill it. A surge of happiness filled her very being as she realized she had pulled the act through! She conjured another clone and attacked as it dispersed again.

Not this time! She swung the knife and struck with all her might at the flowing tendrils that swayed in the disproportioned left palm. The blade shone with a powerful purple light, as it cut through flesh and bone and severed the alien appendage, dripping thick dark blood on the ground.

I… she jumped away with her eyes turning back to yellow and the blade losing its purple shine. I did it! She stood there, mouth agape and feline eyes wide open, staring at the Grimm whose hand she had just cut off.

Blood oozed from the sliced arm, pouring down to the earth. The figure stood there, eyes straight fixed at her. Its malice was now focused. She gulped and got ready- her eyes turned purple once more as she smiled.

The Nameless One didn't care for its loss. Even without its invisible attack, it could still kill her. It was its master who thought different and commanded its retreat back to his side, glaring through his magic gaze.

For Bistre had realized something important he had never expected to see in this era. His eyes fell on one of his sacred books and upon a very old-looking image of a curved blade etched with a purple set of runes.

He furiously slammed the book shut and turned around as his servant's shadows filled his surroundings, indicating the Nameless One's arrival.

At least, the little fox will get the fight she wants, he angrily thought as he glared at his servant's severed hand. The Grimm stood there waiting for orders and he fought with the urge to vent his frustration at it.

Calm down, Woodrock, you are almost close to reaching your goal. You may be controlling it, but never forget its power and how easily it can snap you in half if you get sloppy against the Nameless One he thought.

He glared at its eyes and saw the malice return his gaze from the little pin-like red dots behind the cracked harlequin mask. Only there was at the moment a visible, abhorrent sense of glee in its predatory gaze.

You are enjoying seeing me squirm and frustrated? His face got marred by fury and he dismissed it to hide inside the planetarium's shadows. In the end, you are just another hungry monster he knelt and scribed two circles on the floor, before he took two steps to the left and repeated it.

-o—

The shadows dispersed from around her, slowly revealing the very few outlines of the tunnel around her, barely visible through her feline eyes.

Her friends' forms were around her, standing still; she could see Velvet and Weiss' chests slowly moving as they breathed in their unconscious state- but at this point, her mind was preoccupied with something else.

She had done it! She had driven that monster away on her own! This Grimm that had taken the whole team down within a mere second had been defeated by her and her only! She… she had protected everyone!

A never-felt before euphoria filled Blake's heart. It was a very alien and unprecedented feeling, but the mere elevation her soul felt right now was more than enough for her to ignore all her usual rational thinking.

She had become strong! She was no longer binding her team down! It had- the sound of moving from behind made her turn on spot, holding her dagger ready to strike. Her yellow eyes met a pair of lilac ones.

"Hey, you woke up" she told her partner in a very reserved and neutral manner, as if she recited a text. Yang didn't reply, but she saw blonde eyebrows rise in questioning. "Is there any problem, Yang?" she asked.

"Well" the reply came "between a scary knife that cut off a Grimm like butter without using dust, the purple headlights in your eyes and the creepy-as-fuck grin on your face I would say yes, there is a problem."

Her face hardened "being sarcastic barely suits you, Yang" she spat. "Smiling like a homicidal maniac doesn't suit you either, Blake" a quick cracking of her fingers accompanied the reply "but what am I saying?"

She glared at her with a burning passion reserved only for the very few people Yang Xiao Long hated with all her might "we both know you are not Blake, so do us a favor and get out of my partner's mind" she said.

"You are wrong; I am Blake" the cat girl exclaimed "I am Blake at her very best. The best Blake I could be." "And that weird cryptic answer is going to convince me, because?" the tall woman joked in a serious face.

"I am not trying to convince you, Yang" she tried to take an apologetic tone, but her emotionless voice and the still cradled dagger made it a lot less believable. It felt as if a soulless clone was trying to mimic Blake.

"I am saying that right now I am at my very best; don't you want me to? I just chased the Nameless One away. I can protect all of you just as you deserve! Don't you agree this is what I should be doing all along?"

The words were confusing her. She knew that after the War her partner was trying her best to recover and that she had always been trying to prove herself to, well, herself. RWBY had never demanded this of her.

But this was different. This thing talking to her, with the haughty grin and the pulsing eyes… was not Blake. Normal Blake had that surge of passion hidden beneath her drive- that fondness in her serious way.

This thing lacked it, along with any normal emotion one would put into talking. It was as if Blake was possessed by a vengeful ghost formed by her lurking fears. What's more, something in her words stood out a lot.

"How do you know what this thing is called?" her glare hardened. "You called it the Nameless One. How do you know that is its name?" Blake's face contorted in surprise and then returned to its original state.

"Does it matter?" "Of course it does; at least to me" the taller huntress took one step forward "because right now, I am almost certain you are not Blake."

The faunus clutched her heart- for a moment, her eyes lost the purple hue and shone with the familiar yellow tone. "I told you…" and then it was lost, consumed once more by the purple shining light.

"I told you already; I am Blake!" the protest somehow managed to be both emotional and emotionless at the same moment. "You just see me this way, because you haven't gotten used to me being this powerful."

"This is not why." "It is why!" her outburst sent a dim light pulse across the surface of her blade, violently swaying in the dark tunnel; the only source of light cutting through the pitch-black darkness.

"For years, I have done nothing but struggle to keep up with you! For so long, I have been forced to see you bloom! I always" Yang stared at her friend; the flat yet emotional outburst was far too creepy for her tastes.

"I struggled and did my best to stand along you. I always fell behind and had to be remembered that I wasn't as powerful as Ruby. I wasn't as determined as Weiss" her voice trailed off "I wasn't as brave as you."

The purple light pulsed again, sending surges of energy around the cat girl. Yang gritted her teeth. This thing is Blake but isn't her at the same time; is it Nyctos' ability? Or am I missing something and it is unrelated?

"But not anymore!" she roared and the luminance spread even more. "I shed off my weak self!" she glared at Yang "I am the Blake you deserve; the only Blake that should have existed to begin with!" she protested.

"Look" Yang decided to try and calm her friend down. If she was being under control of something, aggravating her even more was a definitely bad idea. On the other hand, it didn't mean she wasn't going to give her the earful she deserved. This was this and that was that after all.

"I don't give a shit about your strength" she crossed her arms under her chest "because this is not what Blake is." The wide-eyed stare those purple eyes gave her made her smile in the inside; she had shaken her.

"We told you again and again; Gods, I personally said that to you more than a hundred times this past year. You have no reason to feel a need to catch up to us- and I don't understand why you still feel that way."

"I have hallucinations!" yellow eyes replaced purple again. "I am seeing things during combat! I am a liability- I almost got you killed!" a smile came at Yang's face. This voice was her partner's; that she was sure of.

"And yet…" she panted "and yet! You all treat me as if I have not been doing all these! Glynda wants to make me commander! Ruby thinks I am good enough to be a leader! You three trusted me with your lives!"

A loud gulp from her throat made the cat faunus stop for a moment "I have to be this strong! I…" her gaze locked on Yang's and the lilac-eyed woman gasped at the sadness she could see inside her friend's stare.

"I have to let her take my place" Blake added, meaning the clone "she is much more powerful than me. Without her, we would all be dead now. I am not worthy of standing in her way. At least during missions, I-"

"I was wondering what is going on, but I am sure now" the girl's gaze hardened. "You have lost it; dunno why, but you have officially lost it, Blake. There is no other excuse for the bullshit I am hearing right now."

"What do you mean? I am finally doing the right thing-" "Shut up!" the brawler's fist swung mid-air, the sound from it hitting the walls cutting Blake off "you are not doing right! And you are not yourself, moron!"

The black-haired girl took a step back. "You say you are weaker than Ruby? I say you are smarter than her! You tell me you are not as brave as I am? I say you are wiser! And don't let me hear about your lack of determination, when you are working twice as hard as everyone else!"

"These are-" "you are irreplaceable to all of us; not only because we all love you so much, but also because you are an excellent huntress, you moving inferiority complex! How can someone as amazing as you have such a low self-esteem they would consider replacing themselves?"

"You can't understand… I am so tired of trying, Yang…" she whispered, her voice as low and hushed as back then, when Yang had cradled her for a whole night after Adam's death. "So, you are going to run away?"

All of a sudden, her face perked up. Her eyes stared again at her friend whose harsh, narrowed glare was fixed on her "don't you understand? The only thing you will be doing is leaving us behind once more, Blake."

"No!" she protested. "I am doing this for-"

Her voice stopped. She stared at the haughty, smiling clone standing at her right, slowly and gently touching her shoulder… "-for me!" she let out a pained gasp as realization hit her. "Exactly" the replica smirked.

"You are not doing anything for us, if you behave like this" Yang took a step ahead- and stopped at her tracks as she saw the purple hue return back to her partner's sockets. Blake smirked at her, making Yang stiffen.

"Trust me; she realized it- took her a while" the voice returned back to the previous emotionless state. "You are quite the busybody I have to admit, Yang Xiao Long. You almost shook her back to normal."

"I knew it! You are possessing Blake!" Yang took an offensive stance. "I am not- at least not without her consent" the reply came. "I truly mean that I am the best Blake I could be; exactly as she wished to."

"Get out of her." "No." "I wasn't asking." "Blake Belladonna has proven unworthy of the existence she was gifted with" she cryptically replied "it makes sense that since I am better than her, I will take her place."

"As I said" Yang cracked her fingers "I am not asking!" she rushed at whatever that thing was, the purple light emanating from the dagger giving her barely enough light to reach and attack her.

She teleported away and kicked Yang's fist away. In inhuman speed, she ducked and gave a powerful kick at the woman's cauterized and still healing stomach. She was forced to stifle a mighty gasp of pain.

"If you are going to be like this, then I am-" "NO!" all of a sudden, she fell down, clutching her head "you are- supposed to protect them!" a voice akin to Blake's, a little stretched and rasped, echoed in the dark.

It was the very distraction Yang needed. "Sorry for that!" she amassed aura in her left arm and punched the figure, hoping to knock her down and give her a chance to recover. At least that was her original plan.

Because as soon as her fist got stretched, a green pulse of power filled her vision. The eldritch eye opened again- and stared at her friend with an abhorrent and unprecedented malice.

The punch found home and a mighty explosion of eldritch green energy blasted Blake on the wall, throwing her dagger away to clatter on the ground, snuffing the purple hue out and giving way to total darkness.

-o—

"So many things have happened I don't even know which one to begin with" Weiss, seated on a rusted chair under a half-working blue light, commented. She felt a squeeze at her right hand and returned it.

Yang was lying down, occupying the rest of the chairs next to her. They were currently taking a break to treat their wounds in Dawn Station's underground platform, after they had cleared a bit of grime and blood.

Velvet stood guard a few meters away, making small rounds around the piled corpses and dried-up bloodstains. Blake, sniffing and trembling, was kneeling next to the couple while tending to the blonde's stomach.

"You tell me- ouch" the lilac-eyed woman commented. "A horrifying as fuck Grimm knocked us all within a minute, only to be driven away by Blake's imaginary evil twin before my not-imaginary creepy eye tattoo slammed her back to her senses with a magical blast; did I tell it well?"

"I can't even imagine how you find the courage to make jokes in such a situation" ears flattened in shame on top of her head, the black-haired faunus commented. "It's one of my best traits" Yang winked at Weiss.

A silence fell among the three girls for a few seconds. Velvet rolled her eyes and sighed "will someone speak first, please? Besides an apology for being so easily beaten, I have nothing to add" she exclaimed.

"I will go first" Blake gulped. "I have no idea what is happening to me and I am really sorry for overlooking it like this so far" she rubbed one thick layer of healing salve on her partner's stomach, fingers trembling.

"Same here" Yang exhaled deeply "I have zero idea what this thing is or why it's happening to me- and it grinds my gears. I am thinking of what I could have done to Blakey and it scares me to no effing end, girls."

"Ok" Weiss kept squeezing her fiancée's hand and gently caressed her leader's cat ears "can we agree you are both morons and get to the real point? What are we going to do to prevent this from happening again?"

"As for me, it's easy- it seems this thing reacts to me channeling aura. I will just have to make do without it until the final battle against Nyctos" Yang commented, groaning as Blake tied up her wounds.

"Regretfully, I don't know what I can do on my part" Blake responded.

"I could say I am going to keep her under check, but even as we speak I see her trying to get under my skin" she took a side glance, seeing her image smile from a broken window before fading away in the darkness.

"That's hardly reassuring, but again it's your call to make" Velvet said. "I know" the cat girl ran her fingers through her ponytail "and I can only say that I will try my best to stay calm and avoid acting stupid for now."

Three nods returned her statement. "You trust me way too much" she complained "I almost killed Yang down there."

"Yet you didn't. Or, to be more accurate, she didn't 'because you held her back, Blakey." Yang's smile was met by Weiss' "This is why we trust you. You'd rather die than hurt us, which is an issue as well, of course."

"I have nothing to counter this with; I deserve all the teasing" she said. "But thanks; I feel a little better now, despite my bruised cheek." Yang sheepishly rubbed her fists "hehe… sorry about that."

"So, we are throwing this whole thing under the carpet? I am not fond of the idea" Velvet said as the three girls stood up ready to move.

"I know; but I have no idea as to what to do" Blake admitted. "At this point, hesitation can lead us to making even more mistakes and we can barely afford something like that. Or at least, that's what I think."

Velvet respectfully nodded in approval "understood." Blake smiled at her "thanks, Velvet. Really." She then turned around and pointed to the stairs with the blood-splattered, half-fallen sign that read

DAWN BRIDGE STATION

EXIT TO DAWN BRIDGE AVENUE

On the other side of the avenue, draped in a black kimono with white lilies and wearing a pair of brown boots, Cherry lowered her mask as soon as she saw the four women burst out of the station.

She knew they would try passing the bridge and that they would see her in a few minutes after they started climbing the avenue. There was no possibility of Grimm interfering; she had driven all of them away.

The girl knelt and offered a solemn prayer to Nyctos, her eyes drifting at the top of the massive dome surrounding the ruined city. She took out the dagger Bistre had given her and strapped it to her belt.

I am sorry for having to use Grand Mother's gift in the middle of your domain, oh King of The Night. I will dutifully accept my punishment if I am alive after your glorious awakening.

Cherry Itazura walked to the middle of the bridge and stood. She took out Mandragora and clutched it; she could barely feel Master Silk's presence through the weapon. She raised her head and whispered.

It is time to repay my debts to you, Master. I am going to open the gate and revive our God- just as you and Master Woodrock wish.

In the sky above, a pair of sinister elder eyes momentarily gazed at the girl, dripping malice and raw hatred before they faded back into the swirling miasma, leaving no trace behind.