A relatively small chapter for today, I'm currently trying to be more regular with my updates.Anyway, hope you like it.

We live in a dangerous world, no one can deny it, a bloody revolution in Vacuo, a looming economic crisis in Vale, and most of all the dead of our headmaster, may his soul find peace.

Yet despite all of this, there are those who want us to lay down our arms, and for what ? The opportunity to bicker among ourselves, to sow discord through our land, to divide our people during it's darkest hour.

They say that we are corrupt, but without us they wouldn't even be alive to complain about it. We are not perfect, we never pretended to be, but we are the shield of the Atlesian people, the only thing between them and extinction.

Our loyal allies in Argus need our help now more than ever, and it is our duty to answer their call. It is not only a matter of keeping our word, we are the protectors of Remnant, of humankind as a whole, against the eternal threat that are the Grimms.

We cannot allow ourselves to feed the Grimms with the negativity generated by such changes. I plead you, people of Atlas, it is only with confidence and pride that we can beat back the hordes, don't doom us for empty promises, remaining united is our only hope.

Turning her eye away from screen in front of her, Griza returned her attention to the task at hand. She had some unfinished business in Mantle, in the form of a young faunus who had escaped justice for already far too long.

They hadn't been away for two months and yet it was undeniable that something had changed. The atmosphere was tense, like a overheating kettle. While the streets were as busy as usual, people weren't talking to each other in the open like they used to. The seagulls were quiet, hovering over the city like vultures, waiting for a pray.

Back to where her operative career started, she had learned a lot since then, became much stronger too. Griza just hoped it would be enough to defeat an opponent against which her master had struggled. She had chosen not to wear her uniform, and judging by how the faunus looked at her compared to last time, it was probably a good choice.

Her intel led her to an old inn, it's apparence wasn't very welcoming, the whole crumbling building looking like it would collapse at the first breeze. This didn't discouraged Griza as she resolutely pushed the door open, entering into what seemed to be, truth be told, a relatively normal bar at this time of the day.

Employees were carrying crates of liquor behind the counter, a few old faunus were sitting in the corner, slowly whispering to each other all while regularly taking a sip at their drinks. The bartender could be seen taking a nap with a glass in his hand waiting to be cleaned.

Griza slowly approached the bartender, the only human of this building from what she could see. Just as she was going to knock on the counter to wake him up, he jolted awake on his own, and started unconsciously cleaning the glass with a dishcloth that was probably too worn out to do anything else that dirty the glass even more.

"What can I do for this young lady ?" The man asked with a strong Vacuan accent.

"I'm looking for someone, a small wolf faunus, his left hand is missing, does this remind you of anyone ?"

"I'm not sure, many people come by, few of them stay long enough for me to remember them, why ai' you looking for him anyway ?"

"I've been looking for him for a while, it all began a few months ago when he saved me from my burning house, the rest of my family wasn't as lucky. He leaved immediately but after this I tried desperately to meet him again. When I finally found him he was in the middle of a fight against two members of the Atlesian military, it was terrible, I was unable to do anything but watch as he got injuried and lost his hand against those murderers. Thankfully he managed to flee, but I lost him there, only barely managing to recover his sword. If I could, I would like to give it back to him while thanking him for saving my life."

"I'm sorry for your loss, if you need to talk, everyone here should be willing to listen, most of us have also gone through this. But I believe I know who you're talking about, he doesn't live far from here. I can give you his address, just say it's the Old Dog sending you, he will know what that means."

"Thank you so much Sir, I will make sure to come back and have a talk with everyone here, when I'm done thanking him." Were Griza's last words before she exited the building and headed for the location given to her.

Now, she had to come up with a plan. Simply knocking on her target's door and hoping for the best probably wasn't a good idea. She could of course try to disguise herself to lure him out of his lair long enough for her to subdue him. But he was a wolf faunus, so chances were high for him to have some kind of smelling ability, thus the disguise would probably be useless.

On the other side she could wait for him to leave the safety of his house and simply shoot him down from afar, but this method beared the risk of the criminal not going out before someone came to warn him about her, as the cover story she had used at the inn wouldn't last for long.

Eventually there was also the option to simply break inside of his house, and hopefully catch him unprepared, but yeah, this could go wrong at so many places that simply bombing the building would seem like a valid method compared to it.

But of course, why not all of these at once ? She could wait for him to leave his house with a sniper aiming for his door, maybe use a bait of some kind. If he refused to meet her she could put a neighbor's house on fire, which should be enough to lure him out and make her odor unrecognizable. If he still refused to show himself she would be forced to break him and get her hands dirty.

Griza had spent enough time locked in her thoughts to have reached her destination. She now stood in the middle of a modest neighborhood, filled with small houses each with a respectable plot of barren land around them. The one owned by her target wasn't really standing out, only looking slightly more neglected than the others.

It was time to execute the first part of her plan, and for this she would need to find a nearby building with a good view and preferably empty. Thankfully what looked like an abandoned supermarket stood nearby. The rusty locks were easy enough to break, and a few minutes later she had found herself a nice spot on the roof.

It was late in the afternoon now, all of this had to be done before the night settled in, after which her enemy would have an unaffordable advantage with his night vision.

With her weapon ready, Griza started to wait for her opponent to show up. Minutes passed, hours passed, her boredom only sometimes broken by the occasional faunus wandering down the street.

As she was going to leave her vantage point to execute the second part of her plan, something finally moved in her target's house. A hooded figure came out, wearing a thick trench coat, that didn't managed to hide it's wearer's small height.

He strolled through the street, while Griza carefully aimed at him. She was hesitant, he seemed so powerless, he wasn't even a serious threat. But an old piece of memory choose this moment to resurface, a man tortured beyond recognition, his suffering making even the bravest huntsman pale, no one deserved something like that, and no one could restrain his anger when faced with this injustice.

Only a monster could do something like that, someone like this didn't deserve to live, couldn't be allowed to live. It was on her that befell this task, and it was one she could conclude without remorse, knowing that the world had become a better place thanks to her.

Steeling her resolve, Griza glared at her prey through the scope, ready to kill, but just as she was going to shoot, her target bifurcated to head in direction of a small alley. Fearing to lose track of him, Griza adjusted her aim as fast as she could and finally pulled the trigger one instant before losing sight of the faunus.

The bullet quickly traveled the distance and finished its course inside its target's ribcage. The sound of tearing flesh could be heard as the faunus aura was intently destroyed, just before he stumbled and fell on the ground like. But as she was lining up her rifle for another shot, the faunus managed to somehow get up and hastily stumble inside of the narrow alley.

With a resigned sigh, Griza quickly packed up her equipment and started chasing after her prey. Simply jumping off the building, a short sprint was enough for her to reach the alley. Blood was littering the ground, pieces of flesh laying here and there. A literal trail of blood was generous enough to show her the path that her target had taken.

"Resistance is futile, show yourself now, and you might survive." Griza said in the open, hoping that her target would hear the offer.

As only silence answered, Griza began to follow the trail. At first it was only small puddles of blood regularly placed on the ground, but soon enough those started approaching the wall to the right, eventually leading to what looked like a grim painting on this same wall, but the fleeing faunus was nowhere to be seen.

Finally the trail ended suspiciously close to some kind of storage crate. Taking a careful look around, as well as overhead, Griza guessed the pretty obvious location of her target. Taking out her pistol and slowly aiming it at the crate's opening, she started cautiously walking towards it.

Once she was barely close enough to touch it, she seized the lid and quickly threw it away to aim her gun inside of the crate. But before she had time to redirect her weapon, a black mass suddenly jumped out of the box to land on her. Before Griza had time to react she felt the sensation of teeth biting deep into her neck. The ensuing pain made her drop the pistol, but she eventually managed to recover from her surprise and defend herself, even if only by pushing with all her strength against her opponent's head.

Eventually the auraless faunus lost the battle of brawns and ended up throw aside. He however managed to quickly recover and tried to hit his opponent with a sloppy upward swing with his right hand, more a stump really, which Griza easily dodged by slightly moving to her own right, but this move allowed the faunus to steal the knife on the right side of her belt.

The fight was now somewhat even, the both of them being gravely injuried, one of them having a weapon while the other still had aura. Not liking those odds, Griza opted rather to avoid the faunus sudden attack before turning around and rushing to get her pistol back.

Her opponent reacted by throwing the knife at her back, which was enough to break what aura she had left and make her stumble, causing her to crash on the ground right next to the gun. Reaching for it as fast as she could, she had barely the time to aim it at her opponent before he was on her, blindly shooting a lone bullet in the approximate direction of the faunus.

She didn't get to see if the bullet hit before its target reached her, a claw aimed for her throat, barely missing, but brutally mauling her face in the process. Griza reacted by instinctively biting at the exposed arm, the pain was getting unbearable and thinking was becoming harder and harder. Her opponent countered by throwing his left knee into the operative's belly, pushing her away in the process.

Both were struggling simply to stay up by this point, their breathing loud and rash, all while a puddle of blood steadily grew on under them. Too exhausted to continue with any meaningful attack, the enemies simply staring at each other.

When it became apparent that none was planning to resume the fight, they both very slowly, started relaxing. At first it was only a timid weakening, almost unnoticeable, but then the operative imitated the move. Arms fell down, covering injuries or helping to stay upright. The faunus started using the wall as support, the Atlesian soldier slowly doing the same on the opposite side.

And there they stood, barely out of striking range of each other, their blood mixed on the ground. Their exhausted legs were slowly giving up on them, forcing them to lay down on the ground. After their legs, it was their resolve who abandoned them, and a small river of tears joined the sea of blood.

Those were tears of physical pain of course, but in the end, they cried because of some strange mix of both relief and despair. Relief that they managed to end what had seemed like a fight to the death only a few minutes before, it showed them that they weren't alone in this suffering, even if, by some twist of fate, their enemy seemed like the only one to understand them.

The despair for itself, was born out of the realization that such an understanding wouldn't last, that they would end up resuming the slaughter. Torn apart between the expectations put upon them and the reality in front of them, they just wanted to stop worrying for a moment, to be able to curse those voices without feeling bad.

But over all, the tears came because they knew, they had been cursed with the knowledge that everyone they had killed, everyone they would ever kill, could be understood, could be just like them. The burden of this knowledge had increased the already crushing weight on their minds, the specters of their victims coming back to haunt them.

"Why... How... Nothing makes sense, why did it have to come to this..." The boy managed to say.

"I wish I could have stayed in my home, I wish none of this had happened." Uttered Griza.

"They always say how glorious it is the fight for what's right, they never say how shameful it is to kill for what's right. I feel so lost, like none of my life had been real until now, I don't know what I can believe anymore." Was the boy's answer.

Griza let out a deep sigh, not feeling the need to hide it. "Same... I don't know who I can trust anymore, it's driving me crazy. Curse them, to hell with the mission, to hell with Atlas. By all means we shouldn't even be here, and yet we are."

A moment of silent followed, no one willing to break it. But good things don't last, and eventually Griza asked the fateful question.

"The man at the Antique store, right next to where we fought last time, why did you do this to him ?"

"Are you talking about Rustang ? It's true that he wasn't very nice to us, but we wouldn't have been able to touch him even if we wanted. He was a really powerful huntsman in his prime you know, not many would have been able to kill him."

"Wait, you're saying you weren't the ones who killed him ?"

"Yes."

"Do you know who did it then ?"

"Well I do have an idea..." As the boy spoke, Griza's face was suddenly engulfed in darkness. She looked up to see what was blocking sunlight, on the building in front of her, a shrouded figure was standing.

"I think it must be the work of an ..." Were the faunus last words, before a single gunshot echoed in the alley they were in, the bullet going through his depleted aura like a hot knife through butter, hitting him in the back of his head, instantly killing him.

Griza clumsily leaped to her right, barely managing to evade a bullet aimed at her head. Thankfully she landed right next to her pistol, which the operative quickly grabbed and used to fire blindly at the roof over her.

In the end Griza didn't even knew if any bullet had hit its target, but when she looked once again at the roof, no one could be seen.

Taking a quick look at her injuries, Griza rapidly abandoned the idea of following the assassin. Her aura would struggle to heal this on its own, she would need to spend a least a few days at the infirmary. With a suppressed gurgle Griza tore off her sleeve, using it as a makeshift bandage. The dark fabric certainly wasn't made for this, but it would do the job for the time being.

After this she needed to take care of what was left of her target, the instructions were clear, she was to destroy any proof. Griza rushed back to the roof where she had left her stuff, which meant limping around for a few minutes and taking even longer to climb the stairs.

When Griza finally reached her backpack, she rummaged through it for a moment before finding what she was looking for, a few vials of fire dust.

With the backpack now sitting on her back, Griza headed first at the deceased faunus house. Not long after, the building was on fire, and it's owner's corpse would soon follow. The alley was thankfully empty, the only witness being the assassin.

In the end, it felt like nothing had changed, the person to silence had just switched. Peoples had died for nothing and a few more scars now adorned her body. You could say it was buisness as usual.

At this point Griza could finally head back to Atlas, the closest thing she had to a home. If it wasn't so hard for her to think straight, and if her vision hadn't been so blurry, she probably would have noticed how people reacted around her, she probably would have looked up each and every single one of them out of fear of there being an assassin.

But right now, Griza was too tired to think, too tired to fear. A singular goal was on her mind, to make it back home. Thinking was painful, filled with bad memories, the truth was that she simply wanted to fall asleep, to be freed from the shackles of consciousness, even if it was to be definitive.

Despite this, Griza managed to find an airship headed to Atlas. Yanking herself inside, her legs gave out the second they felt the wooden floor. She couldn't gather the will to get up, the floor felt comfortable, and she only wanted to close her eye, only for a minute, it wouldn't be long...

Don't really have anything to say, leave a review and have a good day I guess.