Draco and the students were hardly the only ones that noticed the burning airship. They all knew someone was in danger on that airship, but before they could move, a man with long black hair, white robes, and a blue hat rose above them in his rocket boots. After a quick ascent, he sped forward towards the airship. Just before he could crash into the airship's cockpit, he opened his left hand to release a giant hailstone to shatter the windshield. The man flew into the cockpit and grabbed the pilot, an owl faunus with green hair and gold-colored robes. A pair of swords were strapped to the pilot's waist with a quiver of arrows being strapped to his back. The man in white robes cranked the airship's steering wheel to the left, forcing it towards a crash zone.
Seconds later, the man in white robes landed, holding the pilot in his muscled arms. Some distance away, a fire crew showed up to the crash site, dousing the flames with great efficiency. A small group of nurses rushed towards the huntsman in white robes and had the pilot lowered onto the bed. The students watched with worry as a professor named Hideyoshi Burgonyu led them to their rooms for the night. He wore a ragged burgundy suit and his brown hair was an absolute mess. The nurses rushed the pilot straight to the academy's local infirmary and hooked him up to a machine. Hours passed as the huntsman watched the pilot's status wax and wane and an elderly lion faunus walked up behind him.
"Goodness, Leo you still fail to sneak up on me despite our thirty years of knowing each other." The huntsman remarked.
"Professor Zhuge Snow, I was not trying to. I thank you for your quick actions upon seeing that airship. Do you know anything about the kid?" the school's headmaster asked.
"Unfortunately, yes. I found this picture on him before he was taken into the infirmary." The professor showed the headmaster a photograph showing the young man smiling with a middle-aged man with blonde hair holding a longsword and wearing a cuirass.
"That's Sigurd Nieblung." Said the worried headmaster with a singular tear streaking down his face. "Y-you don't think-"
"Yes, one of Haven's finest graduates died today. I checked the mission boards for Mistral missions in the southeastern parts of the kingdom. Sigurd was protecting a cargo train. Apparently, he didn't mention the kid or the fact that the mission was never finished." Professor Snow interrupted the distraught headmaster.
"How did anyone or anything kill Sigurd?" Leo Lionheart asked. "Grimm trembled at his sight. You've heard the evening news coverage ever since he graduated twenty years ago. A quarter of their stories are just him saving villages from grimm."
"There's only one explanation for his murder, in my opinion." The Haven professor began. "I know how you'll hate this one. It matches the death pattern for many huntsmen and huntresses over the past two years. I believe that the killer was a man only known to many as the Huntsman-killer."
"It can't be him!" the headmaster punched the glass in front of him in sorrow.
"It's the only possibility that fits, headmaster. I also tracked the kid's face across the past couple of years. His name is Ragnar Fafnirssen, who went missing after his parents' house was burnt to the ground four years ago. Like many of Sigurd's students, he fell through the cracks of our system. We should take him in since that's what Sigurd would have wanted." Zhuge explained.
"Of course we're taking the kid in." Said Leo Lionheart. "But the kid has a lot to live up to." The headmaster muttered.
Professor Zhuge Snow walked slowly to his office and looked at his desk. It was made of elegant mahogany and had a stack of books on top. One was titled The Great War by Platinus Loades. Next to it was a small plushie of Sigurd Nieblung and a stack of case files on the Huntsman-Killer. The Haven professor cradled the plushie with tears streaming down his face. He knew how much the legendary huntsman hated merchandise and fame. To Sigurd, a good job was just simply a good job, not an opportunity for fame or glory. However, the plushie and Ragnar were all that was left of his favorite student.
"I'm so sorry, Sigurd. I-I wish I was there. Maybe you'd see him and smile. Maybe I could have protected you. I'll look after Ragnar. I promise-" The huntsman stopped himself. He had gone from the high of a perfect, by-the-books rescue to understanding that he had failed to protect a friend. Tears dotted the plushie as the professor reminisced of days gone by, when the two fought together and saved thousands.
"I will finish what you started. I will protect Ragnar. I will teach him to be the huntsman of your dreams. That I promise you." The huntsman muttered through tears as he held the plushie.
"I honestly don't know why I'm talking to the toy of my greatest student. It hurts, knowing what happened. But it does make me a little calmer." The huntsman said to himself as he placed the plushie on his desk and poured over the details of the Huntsman-Killer's many cases.