If there's one thing that Neo has learned over the past year, it's that the pursuit of revenge requires a truly extraordinary amount of patience. But for Roman, it's absolutely worth it.
Ever since Roman was killed during the battle at Beacon Academy, Neo has felt adrift, cut off from any purpose or meaning in her life. He'd found her and raised her up from the filth she'd been living in, given her a mission and a place to call home, a reason to go on living. He'd been the closest thing to family that she'd had.
And now he's gone.
At first, she'd been unable to believe it. The circumstances of his death had been so ridiculous, so impossible, that she'd assumed it was just another one of his tricks to get the upper hand on his opponent. One moment he'd been standing triumphantly over his opponent, and the next, he was gone, vanished into the beak of a Giant Nevermore.
Surely it couldn't have really happened. It was just a ploy, a sleight of hand so that he could escape being captured once more. Roman would be back, she was sure of it.
But he hadn't come back. And slowly, Neo had been forced to realize that the most important person in her life was gone for good.
And she knows exactly who's to blame.
It's that stupid Cinder Fall's fault, of course. If she hadn't come in and dragged Roman into her mess then he would still be alive, she's certain of it. If Roman had never been pulled into her ridiculous schemes for world domination or whatever it was that Cinder was after, he'd still be here, ruling the criminal underworld of Remnant with Neo by his side.
The way things should be.
Every second that Cinder is alive and well while Roman remains dead feels like a personal insult to both Neo herself and to Roman's memory. Fortunately, there's a simple solution to this problem, an easy way to make Cinder pay for what happened to Roman.
Cinder must die by Neo's hand. She'll hunt the other woman down and seek her revenge. From there—well, she's not sure yet. But at least Roman will be avenged.
Fortunately, working with Roman for years has left Neo with the perfect skill set for tracking down Cinder Fall. She knows how to find the right people that might have seen something useful, and how to ensure that they tell her everything they know without too much hesitation. She knows how lay low, how to travel through the cities and streets of Remnant without leaving a trace.
Cinder won't know what hit her.
But just because Neo is a master of obtaining information doesn't mean much when there simply isn't any information to be found. It turns out that Neo isn't the only one who knows how to hide. Cinder clearly doesn't want to be found.
It takes months of fruitless searching, but eventually Neo gets a solid lead that tells her that Cinder has been spotted in Haven. Apparently she has another scheme involving one of the huntsmen academies. Neo doesn't particularly care about that, besides the fact that it finally gives her a narrowed-down location to look in.
Guess she's heading to Haven, then. Where Cinder is ready or not, here she comes.