Blake woke to the smell of fire confused she rose from her bed and quickly dressed herself, thanks to Akames' training she was much quieter when it came to things such as this, moving towards the door she drew Gambol Shroud and slid it open, looking left then right she saw the hall was empty but the smell was stronger, walking towards the stairs down from her room she began to move silently unsure of what she was going to find but certain she needed to find out
(o)
Akame leaned on the wall behind Ozpin as he spoke, she was watching him closely and listening to his voice for any hint of a lie the anger she felt towards him bubbling with each passing word
"It has come to mine and Qrows' attention that Leonardo has... betrayed us-" Ozpin began but was cut off by Akame
"You."
"And we-" he continued ignoring her interruption
"I."
"Wanted to tell you all about our-" he again attempted to finish his statement but Akame again saw fit to interrupt him
"My."
"Ms. Branwen can you please stop that?" Ozpin finally asked turning towards her
"Once you speak honestly to us." Akame answered coldly, he sighed in frustration, she had been doing this quite a bit over the past few days
"We are all in this together, you cant exclude all of you due to your own personal disdain for me." Ozpin said earning a sigh from Akame
"Then tell me the truth, why were you granted immortality, when so many other, more worthy people die." Akame said causing Ozpin to cover his eyes for a moment
"My ability to reincarnate is no blessing, it is a curse, my soul is ripped from death and given to someone else, combining our souls over time." Ozpin explained seemingly tired of repeating the same statement
"Well if it is certainly a curse and you are tired of your suffering." Akame began as she pat Murasame which was resting on her belt "Allow me to kill you once and for all." Akame said earning a shake of the head from Ozpin as he took a sip of coffee
"I wish poison could kill a soul, but I know all too well that not even poison can rid me from this world." Ozpin denied a tired look shined in his eyes
"Murasame is not of this world, and it's poison is a poison of the soul, as you should remember from Glyndas' suffering." Akame countered causing Ozpin to pale a little bit "It seems you still want to live." Akame commented her neutral tone seemed to poorly hide a large amount of anger in it, no one in the room had ever heard Akame speak in such a way before, not even Qrow
"You okay kid?" Qrow asked as Ozpin silently stood and went to get more coffee
"I'm fine, but I really don't like hearing him talk, Oscar is fine but when Ozpin speaks... I can feel my anger boil to the surface." Akame answered hear voice returning to normal as he exited the room
"I can tell. But what he has to say is important."
"Leonardo has betrayed us for Salem, and now we have to protect the Vault and keep a closer eye on him. Which is what I was doing, before getting called back here, Leonardo has also left the school tonight and went to a hotel a few floors down which is abnormal behavior for him, so we should be safe for now, given the fact that he keeps the key to the vault on his person at all times, add in the fact that Salem wants Ruby dead we don't have to worry about them attacking the school before calling us there." Akame hastily explained as Ozpin reentered the room
"I suppose there is no reason for me to explain anything then... thank you." Ozpin said surprise in his voice he then took a sip from his drink as he sat down
"I don't need nor want your thanks." Akame hissed as she sat on the edge of the couch next to Ruby who looked at her for a few seconds, even she was scared of the girl next to her
"You... wanna go get something to eat?" Ruby asked, Akame shook her head and leaned back a bit
"No, I want to see if I can pick out his lies." Akame answered earning a nod from Ruby and a snort from Qrow, Ozpin just sighed and slouched in the chair
"I was going to say that I want you all to act naturally when dealing with him. Nothing to tip him off that we are suspicious of him." Ozpin said clearly irritated and exhausted by Akames' disdain for him
"Yeah if he catches on we cant nab the key from him, and he is a very cautious guy." Qrow added earning a nod from Akame
"Okay, so who all are good liars?" Ruby asked looking around at everyone
"Leave the interactions between Leonardo and us with me, Akame, and Oz." Qrow said before they could start arguing "He is also good in a fight... but he has gotten older and spends most of his days at a desk so he probably ain't as good as he used to be." Qrow added as he drew his flask
"Akame, can to continue to watch his office I want to know what he is up to and if he gets any visitors." Ozpin ordered, but Akame was staring at Qrow as though she didn't hear him that caused Qrow to sigh
"Akame can you-"
"Of course." she answered as she stood and swiftly exited the room causing Ruby to laugh, but after a few minutes of silence she finally stopped laughing and spoke
"Hey Qrow, do you ever wonder why Neo doesn't talk? Akame seems to understand her just fine, I've heard them hold full conversations and Akame is the only one talking." Ruby asked after silence fell over everyone
"I have no idea." he answered with a shrug "Where did that come from anyways."
"I don't know. I saw Neo walk through the room goin' to the kitchen and it reminded me to ask you about that."
"But why ask me and not either of them?" Qrow asked earning a nod from Ruby
"I asked Neo... it wasn't... productive." Ruby answered causing Qrow to laugh a bit
"Yeah... I can see that." he commented as he walked towards the kitchen "Try asking Akame next time." he advised causing Ruby to hum
(o)
Blake watched as more spies were wrangled up and shoved into cells, for some reason Ilia wasn't found among them, each times she thought she tracked her down she would slip away but she was running our of places to hid.
"BLAKE!" one of her soldiers shouted running over to her "The White Fang have attacked your house, we heard shots and-" Blake vanished into a purple mist that slowly faded away, a sign that she used a shadow clone for the extra boost to rush home
(o)
Reaching the building she could see orange lights flickering in the windows, rushing inside she watched as her father fought off Corsac and Fennec, both welding small daggers, infused with wind and fire dust respectively, Ghira grabbed Corsacs' wrist and threw him into Fennec sending both sprawled
"Dad I'm here, where's mom?" Blake asked drawing Gambol Shroud
"Other fang members, and your old friend Ilia." he answered "Go find your mom, she is somewhere near the living room." he added as his foes stood
"I cant leave you alone here." Blake said clearly conflicted by his order
"He's not alone." Sun said running in from the other side of the room "That fire is out of control we need to get people here to... yeah I guess it's not really our main focus here is it?" he asked preparing his gun chucks, Blake ran past him and into the main hall, looking around she saw how vertical the room was, the plants above were in flames and smoke was gathering on the ceiling
"You should have left Blake!" Ilias' voice echoed around her
"Of course you would want me to run, I gave you a chance." Blake called back
"When we are done here you will be returned to Adam..." Ilia said trailing off but she seemed upset, she didn't seem to want to do any of this
"You would have to work very hard to get me then, most of your spies around Menagerie are locked up, and I have my more... flexible soldiers guarding them, so how about instead of fighting or arguing you come down here and call off your... little friends and I'll think about telling my men to not execute your spies." Blake ordered coldly, one of the many things Akame had taught her was 'ruthlessness can be out weighed by confidence and intelligence'
"You wouldn't dare." Ilias' voice came it was slightly shaken, Ilia was always very close to her spies so that was a chink in her armor
"I would, at Beacon I learned much... Esdeath taught me everything I needed. After all; the weak die, and the strong live." she added, dropping Esdeaths' name would make anyone in the White Fang scared, and it seems that Ilia was no different due to her dropping down from the ceiling and threw her weapon to Blakes' feet, she looked paler than usually and her eyes were black seemingly holding much more than just horror in them
"Please, don't hurt any of them." Ilia asked her voice shaking endlessly, her hands and feet were also shaking violently but it made sense, Ilia was always on the team sent to retrieve the corpses left behind by Esdeath, she was 'kind' enough to send them the location, just so they knew that she knew where they were, no matter how many times they moved camp she would always send her messages, usually a finger, hand, or on one occasion a head, it had a note stabbed into the eye the note itself said 'I have given you a head start for your clean up crew.' no one knew if it was a joke or a genuine statement but Blake could guess that it was both, it was common knowledge that Esdeath was the most horrifying person to be sent after and most people who are sent after her... tend to be the most fanatical or suicidal
"Good." Blake said as she quickly aimed Gambol Shroud at Ilia "Now surrender to the soldiers outside and I will ensure their survival as well as your own." Blake ordered as she began to make her way towards where she suspected her mother to be
"Why would you trust me to do that?"
"Because otherwise you would let your soldiers die, and earn the mark of cowardice." Blake reasoned as she began to walk away "Trust me, it is far better to face your enemies then run away. Esdeath taught me much about how to deal with people who flee." Blake added, again it was a lie but Ilia seemed to believe her on that too
(o)
Qrow sighed, he had so many issues to deal with... Ruby and Weiss arguing about Esdeath, Akames' hatred for Ozpin, Neo trying to get Akames' attention, Jaune Nora and Ren were the most well behaved, they train with him and Akame, help around the house, and try and help settle the issues that he has to deal with... not that they are any help in that regard but the gesture was appreciated
"Hey Qrow, where you going?" Yang asked as he walked up to the door
"Out... no need to worry 'bout it." he said as he exited the building leaving Yang to tell everyone else, she was probably going to say he was out drinking but he had somewhere else to go right now
(o)
Reaching the lower floors Qrow stalked towards the last place he knew Shadowlight was, he couldn't remember where Lil miss was holed up these days so he had to go through the info network to find her, she had been keeping tabs on him sense he got into the city anyways he needed to talk with her a bit.
(o)
Blake entered the kitchen as smoke filled the room, ducking down she looked around the room it was smoke filled and a few of her soldiers were unconscious due to smoke, grabbing each of them she yanked them out of the smoke filled room leaving them to recover before continuing deeper into the room, covering her mouth she crawled along she looked around avoiding the flames that dropped from the ceiling she heard the roof groan quickly leaping out the door at the other side of the room as it collapsed in on itself.
Gasping the fresher air of the next room she looked around it was clear that a battle had taken place, standing she felt her head begin to spin, dropping back to the ground she waited for a few moments trying to regain her focus, after a few moments of waiting she stood and began to walk towards the shattered door where the sounds of battle was coming from, reaching the doorway she was surprised by the sight
Kali ducked under a slash from one of the special forces sent after them, it was a man with a pair of bat wings he swung a kick at her mom but it was easily avoided by Kali who grabbed a tray from the ground and swung at the mans head knocking him out and sending him into the wall, spinning the tray behind her she blocked a shot of web from a young woman with white hair and blue eyes, she was surprised when Kali grabbed the web and yanked the girl towards her and slammed her heel into the girls gut causing her to stumble back into another strike from the tray, knocking her to the ground
"Mom?" Blake asked after watching the scene in front of her
"Come on, lets get these two out of here." Kali ordered as she yanked the girl over her shoulder then grabbed one of her bodyguards
"When did you learn how to fight?" Blake asked following her lead grabbing the other two
"I was raised in the wilds, fighting is in my blood and survival is too, these kids barely compare." Kali commented as they made their way towards the doorway that Blake entered from
"Actually that way is collapsed." Blake said earning a sigh from Kali who gestured for her to follow her, walking towards one of the nearby windows she kicked it out then leapt out soon followed by Blake walking back towards the front of the house
Reaching the front of the building they found her father and Sun with both Corsac and Fennec in cuffs and Ilia was sitting next to them ignoring the shouts that the other two were hurling her way
"Ilia, come here." Blake ordered as she dropped the body of the White Fang soldier, standing up she walked over to Ilia who still looked frightened "Thank you for being reasonable." Blake thanked as she placed her hand on Ilias' shoulder
"It makes sense that you became so... powerful... if Esdeath... has you." Ilia carefully commented earning a awkward laugh from Blake
"Actually that was all a massive bluff. Esdeath did nothing but scared me every time she was near me." Blake admitted causing Ilia to blink a few times and caused her to laugh dryly
"I should have know..." she commented covering her eyes "You're smart, and you played on my fears... I guess you did learn something from her." she added as she covered her eyes in shame for how quickly she surrendered
"I guess... anyways now that Menagerie is liberated we should move our soldiers towards Mistral." Blake said turning towards the captains that were nearby "Go and rally your troops and prepare to move." Blake ordered
"I... if... Blake..." Ilia stumbled trying to draw her old friends attention, Blake turned to her
"Get ready to move." Blake ordered looking over to Ilia briefly then turned back to the guard captain
"Keep a small detail of troops back here with you to keep the prisoners in line, we'll take a few of them to use as bargaining, Sienna always had a soft spot for her spies." Blake ordered
"You haven't heard?" Ilia asked surprised in her voice, Blake turned to her and raised an eyebrow
"The White Fang is in pure chaos and infighting, after Adam failed to kill Sienna the fang fell apart, the White Fang is still led by Sienna and Adams' splinter faction is the Anti-human front, you know... due to their beliefs on the whole... human... thing." Ilia explained earning a nod from Blake, that was probably in the heavily encrypted files they found on her scroll
(o)
Leone walked into the seedy building and looked around plenty of people were around all of which had spider tattoos on them, all were watching her cautiously as she walked towards their boss
"Hello, you must be Lil miss Malachite." Leone greeted as her bodyguards stepped in her way and she quickly dodged around them barely missing a beat as she moved
"I am, and who might you be? Not often do unknowns walk in here." she commented seemingly irritated by the mystery in front of her
"Unimportant, what is important is that I want information and you can give it." Leone avoided "I'm lookin' for a guy named Qrow Branwen, came into the city a little while ago." Leone said crossing her arms
"So someone is looking for the lil lost birdy. That's quite a bit of costly information, he pays good money for that treatment when in Mistral." she said causing Leone to hum "How much are you willing to give for that information?"
"Hows 'bout I don't make your life a living hell." Leone offered coldly with a animistic grin that earned a dry laugh from Malachite
"The council is already doing that. The most you can do is cause a headache." she said with a sigh
"Well I guess that's fair, but I could always kill your guards and torture the info outta you." Leone reasoned smugly that caused the whole bar to fall silent as everyone prepared to attack this woman, the only thing that gave them pause was miss Malachite laughing
"It's rare that a person actually stands up to me these days... but as you know I cant let something like that slide." she laughed out and raised her hand ordering her thugs to prepare to attack
"Leone." Leone said loudly causing Miss Malachite to pause "My name is Leone. You know where Qrow is and I need to find him, so I figure knowing anything about me should be good."
"Qrow is worth a little more than some personal information." Malachite said her hand completely unmoved
"What else do you want to know? I know that the bank on floor six column eight has a security system that doesn't actually work." Leone added tossing a few cards of Lien on the table, counting it out Malachite saw that it was worth three hundred thousand
"Well... Qrow isn't worth this much." she muttered to herself "Floor two, column five, address is 5632212." Malachite said scooping up the money
"Thanks, don't spend it all in the same place... and don't use that bank." Leone added walking out the door, her heart was racing as she took off towards Qrows' house, unfortunately even if she hurried it'll take her two days to make it up there, given she didn't have huntsman privileges which basically meant that they had a straight shot from top to bottom of this place but she had to deal with this because she didn't have time for schooling
(o)
Qrow walked into the seedy bar near the bottom of town, looking around at the spiders he let out a sigh, they were the best info brokers in the underworld so this was important
"Miss Malachite." Qrow greeted walking up to her
"Well if it isn't Qrow, what brings you here?" she asked smugly, she always took that tone with him even if he hated it he had to deal with it because he needed her as a contact
"I need information, Leonardo the headmaster of Haven what can you tell me about his activities over the past few weeks." he said tossing a stack of Lien on the table
"He hasn't left the academy much sense the fall of Beacon, everyday he goes either from his house to the academy or he sleeps there, he doesn't go out and he doesn't go shopping anymore." she answered taking the cash "He has had a few visits from an man wearing a cloak that conceals his features. But people come to me because I can get info other people cant... would you like to know who?"
"Yeah I would." He said crossing his arms
"Arthur Watts." she answered earning a raised eyebrow from Qrow
"I thought he was dead." Qrow commented earning a nod from Malachite
"I believed so too, until I saw him." she said folding her hands "I don't know what they talked about in that meeting. But whatever it is cant be good for the city." she added earning a nod from Qrow
"Yeah... alright, thank you." Qrow thanked turning he walked away from the table "I'll keep in touch." he added shoving his hands into his pockets
(o)
Oscar walked out onto the training grounds and watched as Ruby and Akame darted around the arena the sounds of blades striking each other echoing again and again through the area the screams of the blades distracting him as he walked causing him to trip, the combat stopped as Ruby caught him
"You okay?" Ruby asked as Akame sheathed her blade
"Y-Yeah... sorry, I was distracted." he apologized earning a laugh from Ruby
"How 'bout you go a round with Akame." Ruby offered earning a awkward hum from Oscar, but Ozpin encouraged him to do it
"Sure... if she wants to." he said looking to her
"One." Akame answered drawing her blade and pointing it at him, Oscar grabbed his cane and extended it, both moved into the arena
Akame watched as muscle memory took over Oscar
"Wrong." Akame said "You aren't thinking. Concentrate." Akame advised confusing Oscar who looked at his stance then gripped the cane in two hands, this time he began to focus on Akames' stance, she didn't let anything slip through the cracks his eyes accidentally wandered on her skirt for a little too long
"Don't let your eyes wander too much." Akame said lowering into an attack stance "Always keep your eyes locked on your opponents, use your peripheral to track their movements and and keep your eyes on your foe." Akame explained again, Ruby watched, she recognized the words that were said to her before
(o)
Akame stepped forward and swung downward at Oscar his body moved on its own and blocked the strike, yet he didn't seem to notice, Akame stopped her assault
"That was a perfect block." she said dodging his follow up
"Thanks!" he said happily
"No I literally mean that was perfectly preformed. You have no skill in combat apart from the sloppy practice that Ruby has put you through." she said causing Oscar to awkwardly scratch the back of his head
"O-oh... huh..."
"That is Ozpin, he is making you like him using such abilities." Akame said coldly "Every time an attack comes your way-" Akame said swinging at his neck causing Oscar to dodge back and knock the blade off course "You counter and protect the parasite within you." Akame said sheathing her blade "You cant progress as a warrior if Ozpin wont let you learn on your own." she added with a sigh
"Well... I mean... you also threatened to kill me." he reasoned
"I would only kill him." Akame corrected "Murasame kills the strongest soul within a being. This is a near impossible occurrence that would save your life and remove an actual threat to this world." Akame explained causing Oscar to nod a bit, he didn't like what was happening to him either
"But he has done nothing but help." Oscar reasoned
"Did you want to fight? Or did he force this onto you? Why do you fight?" Akame questioned quickly
"I wanted more from life than being a farmhand... he kinda forced this on me, but I don't think he was given a choice either." he reasoned on the final question he paused and began to think "and my reason... for fighting..."
"It doesn't have to be to protect people, or to save the world, I don't care if your reasons are selfish but if you cant think of any reason then give me your weapon. You'll have no real use for it." Akame said holding her hand out to him, he stared at the cane, it felt comfortable in his hand
"I... fight so others don't have to." he said "I'll carry the weight of the world for as long as I have to so others can lead lives that they can be proud of." he said looking Akame dead in the eyes
"Whether that was you or Ozpin remains to be seen." Akame commented after a few moments of staring
"Hey Oz." Qrows' voice came from the doorway "Just got a call from Leo, apparently he got a few council members ready to talk." Qrow said causing Oscar to glow green for a few moments, his posture changed and he placed his hands behind his back
"Didn't he call a few days ago and tell you that he hadn't made any progress?" Ozpin said earning a nod from Qrow
"Yep, contradictions are everywhere when talking to him." Qrow said "I say we bring everyone and our weapons." he added both Ruby and Akame voicing agreement
"Very well then. You three should inform the others, me and Oscar have quite a bit to talk about concerning Leo." he said causing Akame to immediately walk away from him, Ruby told them to have fun and followed her, Qrow was already gone leaving the boy to his thoughts and to talk with Ozpin about the unfortunate circumstance that they found themselves in
A/N Battle for haven next, it might take up two chapters because there is a lot that I want to show off and a lot that I want to put in, it'll be great.