General Ironwood strode with purpose for the bridge of the Benefactor. He'd been preparing his speech in his head on the trip up.

At the first sign of trouble, Ironwood's instinct had been to return to the Benefactor immediately. When the Benefactor engaged first the many grimm fliers and then the Wyvern, doctrine had waved him off. His own standing orders forbade hangar operations during combat so that the ship could maintain maneuverability. Ironwood would have violated that rule only under dire circumstances. Instead, he'd taken his ship down to the city and linked up with Glynda Goodwitch and the Huntsmen of Vale (who had been unusually and suspiciously well-organized), before personally leading the counterattack.

Now that the danger had passed, it was time to return to the ships that had fought so well. Congratulations were in order. Medals, too, later.

The bridge door opened. "General on deck!" called a junior sailor.

"At ease," Ironwood said as he entered. "Commander, I must congratulate you on a battle well-fought. Some of your maneuvers were… inspired…"

The ship's commander was standing at his post, radiating acute embarrassment. Next to him, lounging back in a chair and with his feet propped up on a console, was Qrow Branwen. "Hey, don't stop there, Jimmy," said Qrow, "you were just hitting your stride."

Ironwood drew his pistol. "What are you doing here?"

Qrow raised a skeptical eyebrow at Ironwood's aimed weapon. "Well now, that's not a very good way to say 'thanks'."

"Sir," said the Benefactor's commander, who visibly shrank as he spoke, "we owe Mr. Branwen for our survival."

Ironwood shook with surprise. Reluctantly, he lowered his pistol, but didn't holster it. "Start talking."

Qrow lowered his feet and whipped into a standing position. His eyes went keen and critical. "A high-level criminal, Neopolitan, got aboard your ship in a stolen Manta. She got clearance to land even though she can't speak." The commander seemed to wilt a little more at those words. "She killed or maimed half a dozen crewmen on her way to the brig, where she meant to free Torchwick and seize your ship.

"She was carrying this," said Qrow, waving a scroll, "which, near as I can tell, is home to more viruses than a Vacuo whorehouse. If she'd gotten Torchwick free and gotten to the bridge, she coulda hijacked this ship and all your precious AKs.

"Lucky for you," Qrow said with obvious relish, "Ozpin got wind of this little op and sent me to head it off. I stopped Neo, and now she and Torchwick have matching cells down in your brig. Then I came up here and helped your commander out with his… what'd you call 'em? Oh, yeah—'inspired maneuvers'. And I cleared off a small flock of Nevermores and griffons that landed on the bow of this tub."

Ironwood found himself unable to mount a response. The only thing more shocking and disgusting than having been so close to disaster was owing his salvation to Qrow.

As if to rub it in, Qrow chose that moment to take a swig from his flask. "So, in conclusion, your authentication for docking relies too much on automated IFF, your hangar security is crap considering you knew infiltrators were around, your habit of keeping known enemies on your battleships is asinine, your ships need better point defenses, your crews suck at fighting big flying grimm, and your whole cyber security infrastructure is shot to hell."

Qrow gave a crooked grin at the ship's commander. "I miss anything?"

Looking like each word caused him intense pain, the commander replied, "No, that's all of it."

"Oh, no, there is one more thing," Qrow said, looking Ironwood square in the eye. "You owe Ozpin a big fat thank-you for saving your ass."

Qrow clapped Ironwood on the shoulder. "See you around, Jimmy." Hands firmly in pockets, he slouched his way off the bridge.

Ironwood still hadn't moved when the bridge doors shut, which meant he heard the conversation between two junior crewmen at the side of the room.

"I'm surprised that Huntsman guy can walk."

"Why's that?"

"Because he's got the biggest balls I've ever seen."


It had been an eventful twenty-four hours. Perhaps it just seemed that way, since it was the first day in weeks that wasn't the same day. Even now, trying to wrap her head around what had happened to her made Ciel nauseous. Nor was that the end of odd sensations: after lunch she'd felt and heard a strange snapping in her chest, like a thick stick had been cracked in half behind her heart. She thought it meant she'd left her anchor behind, that she was no longer tied to returning to the night before the Battle- but there was no way to be sure. At least, no way she was unwilling to attempt.

Thankfully, there was one person who understood her situation and all the weirdness that came with it.

So, late at night the day after the Triumph at Beacon, Ciel let herself in to Ozpin's office, in an Emerald Tower that was miraculously intact.

Ozpin was bent over some paperwork. In a stark departure from her earlier visit(s), his desk was so covered in papers it looked like a child's pillow fort. He looked up as she entered. "Ah, Miss Soleil. Good of you to come. I'll be with you in a moment."

"Yes, sir," she said. As she approached and sat down opposite him, she tried to get a look at his legs.

"Healed quite nicely, thank you," said Ozpin without taking his eyes away from the paperwork. "Or, at least, healed enough that I don't require urgent attention and Aura can take its time with the rest. Others have a greater need for our finite resources."

It was true enough. Ciel didn't need to say she'd witnessed much greater demands put on Vale's 'finite resources'.

"Early intervention made all the difference," Ozpin added, and he flicked a pen at a commendation he'd signed. "Mr. Arc will be recognized for his contribution."

"Will I?" Ciel blurted out. Confound it—now that she was back to a world where she didn't know what was coming, some of her worst instincts were returning.

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "That remains to be seen. Public commendations are only partly for the good of the commended. The question we have to ask is, Do we do more harm than good telling people what you did?"

Ciel remembered Atlas Academy's recognition of her role in Swan's expulsion, and all the hardship it had caused. "I don't know the answer, but I understand the question."

"That, sadly, is what life is like at this level." Ozpin signed his latest document with a flourish, set it aside, and leaned back in his chair to pay more of his attention to Ciel. "I do owe you an apology. I objected to your proposal to send Miss Xiao Long to aid me in the basement. It seems that you knew better than I."

With effort, Ciel resisted nodding.

"When she arrived, I was already on my way to retrieve Miss Nikos, so I was in no position to refuse her. Telling her the 7-9-2-9 code to get into my office was a nice touch."

"'Use existing trust relationships'," Ciel said. "Were you hoping she'd figure it out on her own?"

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "Whatever would that mean?"

"Blake pointed out to me," Ciel said evenly, "that the digits 7-9-2-9 spell out R-W-B-Y."

Ozpin's eyes twinkled with mischief. "I have my reasons. I hope you'll forgive me for not divulging all of them."

It was a response Ciel had expected even without foreknowledge. She shrugged.

"Now, let's move on to things I can talk about. I imagine you'd like an update on the ripple effects of your service."

"I'd like that, yes."

"It's fair to say you deserve one. The Atlesian Air Fleet, I'm sure you've noticed, has departed," Ozpin said, waving out the window. "Returned home, reports say, for repairs and refits following the battle. It's even partially true."

"But not totally?" Ciel said, thinking she caught Ozpin's cue.

"James has become aware of the threat to the cyber security of his forces," Ozpin said. "It is a sufficiently dire threat that he has recalled much of Atlas' military hardware worldwide, including all his Atlesian Knights and Amity Coliseum itself."

Ciel had wondered about that. "I guess I underestimated the danger," she said slowly. "I thought that whatever hacking tool the enemy had, it was just to hack the Benefactor and the AKs. I realize now it was in Amity, too."

"And who knows where else," Ozpin said. "There was a break-in at the CCT tower the night of the Vytal Dance. At the time, we didn't see any damage done. We thought that the intervention of a Huntress trainee might have scared off the intruder before they accomplished their mission. It seems more likely, now, that the purpose of the mission was to insert a virus into the tower, and that the mission succeeded."

Ciel's eyes went wide. "Which means it could be anywhere."

"Which means it could be everywhere." Ozpin gestured at the stacks of paper around him—stacks of paper, Ciel realized, that normally would have been files on his scroll or computer.

Ciel's shoulders slumped. "I thought the battle was over," she moaned.

Ozpin gave a wry smile. "It's never 'over', I'm afraid. It merely varies in nature and intensity. There is no telling how long we'll be cleaning up this mess. Computer viruses are outside my realm of expertise, but I know enough to never believe I've stopped them."

It was a prospect that made Ciel cringe. She grasped for a subject change. "You said a Huntress trainee broke up the break-in?"

Ozpin nodded. The amused glimmer in his eyes suggested he knew where this was going.

"Who was it?"

"Guess."

"Ruby Rose again?"

"The girl, it seems, has a nose for trouble. Which is another bit of news I think will interest you." Ozpin's expression was keen. "Have you received any orders regarding Miss Polendina lately?"

"No, sir," said Ciel. "I haven't heard anything from her or about her since the battle."

"I see," said Ozpin, and his look sharpened further. "That's because James has been unable to locate her since that time."

"Really?" Ciel said, trying to seem surprised-but-not-too-surprised.

"Oh yes. Word came through… alternative channels that Miss Polendina was okay, but without disclosing her location. On a wholly unrelated note, I cannot seem to find Miss Rose, either."

"Huh," said Ciel.

"Similar circumstances, however. Word has reached me though informal contacts that Miss Rose is safe and sound, but those contacts took care not to say where she was." Ozpin looked at Ciel expectantly.

Ciel remembered held hands, excited looks, whispered promises... and a silent dereliction of duty.

"Imagine that," she said.

The standoff lasted another few seconds, during which Ciel tried to hold herself steady, before Ozpin smiled. "I wonder if I'll ever know what became of those two. For now, it does appear they're okay, and I simply don't have the time or resources to chase after them, so I suppose I'll have to let them be."

"I'm sure they appreciate that, sir, and I'm confident they're being very wholesome and sweet, wherever they are," said Ciel.

"Indeed," said Ozpin, and for a moment he looked almost like a child who knows they're getting away with something. It passed; Ozpin's expression soured. "There are other people, after all, that I am very interested in pursuing."

"Like whomever created the virus?" said Ciel.

"That is beyond me. Or Vale as a whole," Ozpin admitted. "That was a breach of Atlesian technology, and only Atlas' best can address it. No, I was referring to those who breached the tournament for the benefit of Cinder Fall and her associates."

Stabbed impaled burning dying BURNING—

Ciel only just tamped her reaction down.

Ozpin must have noticed, but he chose tact. "Their credentials were perfect in every way. There is no chance of forgery. They were genuinely issued by Haven Academy."

The heat inside of Ciel flared up again. "Meaning they had help from someone inside Haven."

Ozpin allowed disgust to overcome him. "Yes. That would have been a most uncomfortable investigation, but someone has saved us the trouble, which actually makes it worse. The deputy headmistress of Haven has informed me that Headmaster Lionheart—and may I never call him that again—has fled."

Ozpin's expression made perfect sense now, but Ciel couldn't match it; she was too consumed by shock. "An Academy Headmaster, working to take down another Academy?"

"We don't know for certain- we don't know what Cinder told Lionheart to secure his cooperation- but it seems that way," Ozpin said, closing his eyes. "Haven officials have promised an inquiry, but we have more immediate concerns, such as catching Leonardo before he vanishes completely. That's why Mr. Branwen is now on his way to Anima. There is no one better for tracking down someone who doesn't want to be found."

Ciel considered this. Qrow did seem to have a facility for getting places he ought not be. Still… "He seemed… kind of uneven to me," she said carefully.

When Ozpin's eyes opened, the disgust still in them was matched by something as hard and unforgiving as a millstone. "Leonardo directly enabled Cinder's infiltration, which endangered Qrow's nieces, me, and one of only two places he's ever thought of as 'home'. The things Qrow values most in life, in other words. There is a reason Leonardo ran as quickly as he did. I do not envy him when Qrow catches up."

Ciel swallowed thickly. "I see."

Ozpin sighed, and tension flowed out of his face. "As terrible as it is, at least that problem is straightforward. Deciding what to do with Adam Taurus is much thornier."

"I don't care what happens to him," said Ciel, feeling a reflection of RWBY's collective disdain for the man. "He's a criminal like Torchwick. Treat him like one."

"They may both be criminals, but no one sees Torchwick as a hero, and that makes all the difference," said Ozpin. "Sometimes justice, however richly earned and properly delivered, still looks like persecution. Mr. Taurus' supporters would take perverse satisfaction from a trial. It would, in their minds, prove him right."

"But you can't just let him go!" Ciel protested.

"No, I can't. Hence the problem. Making it worse, Adam Taurus committed crimes in Kingdoms and localities across Remnant before his move to Vale. Now governments everywhere are clamoring for extradition in the hopes they can extract their pound of flesh from him."

"I'm surprised the General let him out of his sight."

"James appeared only too eager to not have someone that dangerous on board his ships." Ozpin gave a grim smile. "At least we've learned something."

"That would have made things simpler, at least."

"Oh, certainly. But simpler is not always better. If James had held on to Mr. Taurus and tried him as an Atlesian criminal, I have no doubt Mr. Taurus would already be dead."

"You're saying you want him alive?" said Ciel, struggling to keep up.

"I would prefer a world without Mr. Taurus over one with him. I would much prefer a world that doesn't produce men like Adam Taurus." Ozpin gave Ciel a look that made her feel attacked. "But going from one such world to another is rarely easy. To illustrate my point, one of the groups asking for Mr. Taurus' extradition is the White Fang."

"The…" Ciel's mind broke, unable to produce the words.

"Yes, the White Fang. High Leader Khan has vehemently denounced Mr. Taurus. She's disavowed all knowledge of his activities, and publicly asked for the privilege of ending his life herself."

"Do you believe her?" Ciel wondered. She didn't know if she did.

"I do, but it's irrelevant. Extradition to the Fang would recognize the Fang as a legitimate political entity. Atlas and Mistral would react… poorly, to that. Parts of Vale would react poorly to that," Ozpin admitted reluctantly. "It also sets the stage for more strife. If Adam Taurus survived extradition—if he escaped or Sienna chose not to kill him—it would be seen by the Kingdoms as a willful betrayal. It would harden opinions against the Fang, perhaps to the point of large-scale conflict. If Sienna did execute Mr. Taurus, it would potentially lead to civil war within the Fang, which she might not survive. As bad as the Fang is, it is at least a singular entity, with a set chain of command and clear, understood goals. I can bargain with Sienna Khan. I cannot bargain with chaos."

"Okay, but if Sienna's right and Adam attacked Beacon without her say-so, how good can the Fang's chain of command really be?"

"A fair point," Ozpin said graciously. "Still, there is no doubt that handing Mr. Taurus over to Sienna would worsen matters."

Ciel wracked her brains. "What does that leave, though? If it's not one of the Kingdoms, and not the White Fang, then…"

Ozpin smiled. "Menagerie."

It took a moment to register. When it did, excitement raced through Ciel. "But that's perfect! It's a Faunus authority, so this isn't humans persecuting Faunus, it's them policing themselves."

"And it increases the perceived authority and legitimacy of Menagerie," said Ozpin, nodding, "both among Faunus and among the Kingdoms. If there's any hope for healing between humans and Faunus, Menagerie will play a key role in the process. Menagerie must not be an afterthought."

Ciel frowned. "It sounds like you're holding back a 'but' in there somewhere."

Ozpin sighed. "Menagerie does not have the death penalty."

That was baffling to Ciel, absurd. Atlas would never relinquish the death penalty, not in a thousand years. "Really?"

"Indeed. Chieftain Belladonna does not believe in it."

Bella… donna?

"Professor," said Ciel slowly, "is 'Belladonna' a common name?"

"No," said Ozpin, a smile creeping onto his face. "It belongs to only one family I know."

"Blake is the Princess of Menagerie?!"

"The title of Chieftain is not hereditary," Ozpin said. His expression had turned impish. "Which I am sure she would be delighted to tell you if you asked, and it would surely not embarrass her at all."

"How does nobody know that?"

"Miss Soleil, thirty seconds ago, you did not know the name of the Chieftain of Menagerie. Polls consistently show that only about fifty percent of the population knows the name of their own Council representative, and almost no one can name the full Council… and that's of people's native Kingdoms. It should come as no surprise that people have no idea about the politics of other Kingdoms, Menagerie most of all. Miss Belladonna didn't need to change her name to hide in plain sight."

"But you knew," accused Ciel.

"Of course I knew. Was delighted, actually," said Ozpin, and he smiled, the rat bastard. "Which makes me wonder if Ghira might make an exception to his policy for Mr. Taurus. The man did try to kill Ghira's daughter, after all. Alas, all these options carry great risk. And I have no way to test which course has the best outcomes and then go back to make the best choice. I must make educated guesses."

"I was guessing too," Ciel said, her mouth running ahead of her brain once again. "I'm not sure I made the best choices."

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "I understand that the, ah, unaffected outcome of the Battle of Beacon was unmitigated catastrophe."

"Right, and this was better, but that doesn't mean it was the best. For that matter… it's not like it was all better because of my choices," Ciel said, struggling to put the idea into words. "RWBY and JNPR did all the heavy lifting, and they had ninety percent of the picture figured already. I just provided the little bit extra, which wasn't much. Even at loop fifteen, there was so much I didn't know. There was so much that could have gone wrong." She slumped in her seat. "A lot of it was just luck."

"Humility will serve you well. As for luck, I think you'll find it plays a key role in all our endeavors. It was a Mantleborn officer who quipped, "Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent"." Ozpin leaned back in his chair and looked up at the gears clacking steadily above. He had a wistful look on his face, like he was remembering something from long ago. "If his successors in the Mantle General Staff had understood the book they kept quoting, the Great War might have gone very differently.

"But listen to me ramble on," Ozpin said, sparing Ciel from having to reply to this. "You came here to ask me about what has happened, and you had to endure my speculations about what might happen. Shame on me. What else would you like to know?"

There could be only one answer. "What about the rest of Team RWBY?"

Ozpin clearly had expected the question. His answer came swiftly. "Yang Xiao Long has been completely exonerated. She is free to go once more, though so far she's stayed mainly in the dorms, along with her teammates.

"Weiss Schnee defied an attempt by her father to come fetch her. He tried to do so quietly and privately, but she outmaneuvered him and made it public. You might have seen a great commotion from your peers around some SDC ships?"

"So that's what that was," Ciel said. "I was wondering why so many weapons were being waved around."

"Yes, the response from Miss Schnee's classmates was whelming. They weren't about to let him just take her, and Jacques was obliged to retreat. I suspect he will be writing her out of his inheritance soon. By the time he does, said inheritance may have lost some of its value. Someone took very high-quality photos of a peculiar scar on Mr. Taurus' face and anonymously distributed them far and wide. I daresay it is not what Mr. Schnee was looking for in terms of… brand recognition."

Ciel blinked. "Was that a joke?"

"You students don't get to have all the fun," said Ozpin with a glimmer in his eye.

Ciel was not about to engage with that. "And Team JNPR?"

"Fine, all fine," said Ozpin. "They have informed me that they will be celebrating the end of the Tournament off-campus, and will return when it's time for classes to resume, and would I please stay the hell away from them until then, because they have… shall we say, internal team dynamics to sort out."

She could imagine what "dynamics" were being "sorted". "They have the time for it. I suppose it would be hard to restart the tournament in the middle of all the cleanup from the battle."

"Quite. Professors Port and Oobleck are trying to slap together closing ceremonies, which I believe they intend to air tomorrow. Regardless, the Finals have been cancelled, with the seven remaining competitors declared co-champions."

"Seven?"

"Miss Xiao Long was reinstated, remember?"

"Ah." Ciel chuckled. "So Pyrrha's unbeaten streak continues."

"Which I'm sure she can't wait to have pointed out to her. Alas, the news was received poorly in other quarters. I'm told the gambling organizations declared it a push and refunded all bets, with the sad side effect of setting off gang warfare amongst Mistrali syndicates. No good deed goes unpunished, I'm afraid."

Ciel tried to laugh at the gallows humor, but the look on Ozpin's face made her wonder if he'd been joking. "So… that's it, then?"

"It seemed like a lot to me," said Ozpin. "Unless you have more?"

"I… well, sort of," Ciel said, realization coming to her as she spoke. "That doesn't really explain everything. I think we're done talking about the aftermath, but I still have questions about the battle itself." She huffed. "I repeated the same day over and over, and there was still so much I didn't know."

The Headmaster nodded sagely. "Believe me, I sympathize. That feeling never goes away."

"There are some things I saw that don't make sense," Ciel said, reviewing her memories. "Like the White Fang transporting grimm into the school. It'd be one thing if they'd captured the grimm, but we all know that's really difficult, and it looked almost like the grimm were working with them. I didn't know grimm could even do that. It surprised me… but it didn't surprise you. It was like you expected it. Then there were the powers Cinder used. They were more than any semblance, more than any Dust. Plus there was that eye flare thingie she did that, again, you expected and no one else did. Speaking of eyes, Ruby! She vaporized the Wyvern! What was that?!"

Ozpin nodded with gravity, but said nothing.

"But most of all," Ciel said, her frustration finally boiling over, "what I don't understand, even now, is why. I fought against Cinder and her allies for so long, over and over, but never understood what they thought they were doing. Who wants to tear down an Academy? The Academies are what stand between people and extinction! Who could possibly want to destroy them? What's in the basement beneath this tower that could possibly be that important?"

Ozpin nodded as if he was the one with foreknowledge. "Those are excellent questions, Miss Soleil. Also, very dangerous ones. The answers are more dangerous still."

She frowned. "Are you going to give me the need-to-know talk again?"

"That depends. It seems to me that we have come to a moment of decision."

Ciel said nothing. If there was one thing that hadn't changed about her through the loops, it was that she hated waiting. If there was one thing that had changed, it was her ability to tolerate things she hated. She would wait.

"If you were to retract your questions," Ozpin said at last, clasping his hands in front of his face, "you would return to General Ironwood and Atlas Academy to continue your education. James doesn't know yet the full extent of your contribution, but he will, and he will know you completed your mission in extraordinary fashion. You have positioned yourself for rapid advancement and positions of great trust."

That sounded nice, Ciel decided. All she'd wanted, once upon a time, was to do the General proud, fulfill this mission, graduate, get her license… do her job, in short. She'd done it, and she'd be rewarded for it.

So why did that sound like a penalty?

Because, she realized, it came at the cost of ignorance. Somewhere along the way, she'd figured out that her orderly, sanitized world lay beneath a veil of secrecy. Cinder had burned a hole in that veil. Something unspeakably awful lay beyond it.

Could Ciel really go back to pretending that the veil wasn't there?

"What's the other choice?" she prodded.

"I could tell you the truth," Ozpin said gravely. "Do not count that as a blessing. Dire responsibilities accompany such a burden. It will bring you into something much larger and more alarming. Your singular talent notwithstanding, you will be standing into great danger."

Such ominous words were, perhaps, meant to scare her. Ciel still felt fear, she realized, but its power was blunted. She was old friends with fear.

Ozpin seemed to interpret her rumination on this point as hesitation, because he went on. "General Ironwood will also understand that choice."

"The General knows… whatever this 'truth' is?" Ciel asked.

"You are perilously close to making your decision with questions like that. But yes, the General knows. You will find that it is a major component of his decision-making. Perhaps the major component. He is… not so good at compartmentalization."

"Unlike you?" Ciel said, then winced. "Sorry, sir. I think I got mouthy somewhere along the line."

"No offense taken," Ozpin said with a slight curve to his lips. "Compared to the things some of my more colorful colleagues say, that was rather mild. Not that I'm encouraging that behavior," he added.

Ciel smiled, and only a few seconds later did she recognize how adeptly Ozpin had dodged her question. She shook her head, trying to refocus. "So… the question is, how badly do I want the truth?"

"And all the obligations that come with it," Ozpin said.

Obligations. Ciel had thought she'd known what that word meant. She'd associated it with Atlas Academy's rules and regulations, with keeping to schedules and timetables, with following orders. She hadn't realized how much more it meant.

But she'd learned. Somewhere during the loops, she'd learned. Certainly she'd internalized it before the final loop, before her decision to try for total victory, before she'd made that nearly-disastrous choice to try and save everyone.

She could do more. She could trust more. She could love more.

If she could, she needed to.

Going back to a life of ignorance, turning her back on the veil, that was less than she could do. I won't run away. I will learn.

I have another chance.

She realized she'd made her decision long ago.

"I want to know," she said.

Ozpin nodded slowly, and let his eyes drift close, as if in memoriam, like he was singing a silent requiem for her innocence. When his eyes reopened, they were keen, clinical, with none of the playfulness she'd seen at their first meeting. They held instead the same depth of purpose as when she'd invoked Listing.

"Tell me, Miss Soleil… what's your favorite fairy tale?"


End.