Cold water numbed her skin. Weiss clawed her hands in the shallow river without feeling a thing. Though it wasn't her who killed the camp of bandits, she was still complacent in the act.
If Winter knew what happened, Weiss had no doubt she'd voice her disappointment in Weiss' judgment. If Winter was in her shoes, she would've never turned her back on what he did. She would've done the right thing and stopped him.
But when Weiss recalled the constraints binding the victims and that old man's comment about selling them to the SDC, a part of her was glad Adam had put an end to their captors.
She hissed at the sharp pain stinging the back of her hand. She held her hand out of the water, staring at the thin trail of blood staining her pale skin.
Weiss sprung up to her feet at the sound of approaching footsteps. Adam's sword remained sheathed by his side, but she refused to let her guard down. Weiss expected to see him dirty with his victim's blood, but his clothes and skin were spotless. She never would've known he'd just murdered seven people had she not been right beside him.
"You killed them," Weiss said simply.
"You expect me to show remorse for killing Faunus traffickers," he deadpanned.
"It would've been better to let the proper authorities deal with it."
"Mistral authority wouldn't have given a fuck. I did the world a favour."
"Is that how you solve all your problems? By murdering whoever you can get your hands on?!"
"And what would you have preferred, Schnee? For Mistral authorities to let them go so they can kidnap and sell more Faunus? I guess that would help your precious Dust Mines."
"That's absurd–!"
"If it's so absurd, how do you think rich bastards get their hands on so many Faunus slaves? My people don't willingly offer themselves to be abused by Humans, Schnee."
Winter would've found the perfect argument to prove his logic wrong, but she wasn't Winter. It terrified her how much she sympathized with his perspective.
"T-they still wouldn't have this go. I-It's not right," she argued half-heartedly.
"That hasn't stopped your family from purchasing Faunus slaves."
She couldn't bear to look at him anymore. Weiss hadn't considered where Adam and his family had come from until this point. Was he also a victim of Faunus trafficking? Or was he born after the SDC enslaved them?
The questions were on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't bring herself to ask him. It didn't feel like her place to pry.
"This must be a fun game for you," he went on coldly. "Playing mind games with the Faunus. You're even viler than I thought."
"This again?" She scoffed. "I told you, you're completely overthinking it. I'm just doing what's right."
"You expect me to buy that story? A Schnee helping the Faunus without expecting anything back? Don't patronize me."
"I could say the same thing about you, hypocrite!"
"Do you have a fucking death wish, Princess? Because that can easily be arranged if you keep this up!"
"Funny coming from the guy who saved my life! I never would've guessed a White Fang agent would ever help and collaborate with a Human, but here we are now!"
"I'd watch my fucking mouth if I were you, Schnee!"
"Then I guess it was a coincidence you didn't let those bandits catch me? Were the Faunus villagers collectively hallucinating when they saw you–!"
She backed away, nearly falling into the river when he unsheathed his sword. His blade was completely drenched in fire. Peace strung taut between them. It was surreal that only moments earlier they were crouched side by side, bouncing ideas back and forth in whispers.
"I'll say this only once, Schnee," he said tightly. "I have never stooped low enough to save a bitch like you. Don't ever try to insinuate I was your hero."
He took a step towards her. She was painfully aware of how much taller and bigger he was than her.
"I'm here for one reason and one reason only," he went on. "I'm waiting for you to grow tired of your little hero act. Once you show your true colours, I won't hesitate to strike."
Weiss raised a wall of ice between them when he swung his sword, but he wasn't aiming for her. The trees behind her exploded in a burst of fire - tree trunks cracking like bones as they snapped in half.
"I'm sparing you tonight for the sake of those prisoners," he added - his voice deceptively calm. "They're heading to Rumduol as we speak."
Weiss wanted to scream at him. How could he deliver her good news while also threatening her life in the same breath? Why couldn't he have told her in more civil terms? They didn't need to get along to speak normally to each other.
"Are they all going?" she asked instead, not wanting to provoke him further. "There were some who were reluctant…"
The fire burning just behind her was growing by the second. She refused to move.
"I convinced them all to go," he answered to her utter surprise. "I gave them some swords from that camp. They should make it there without much trouble."
Adam sheathed his sword and turned his back on her. She didn't move until he completely disappeared into the night.
Weiss crept out from behind the ice, grabbed her bag, and hiked down the river until she found another spot to camp for the night.
She couldn't catch a wink of sleep, no matter how hard she tried. All she could think about was his old tattered journal, the fire he caused further upstream, and the brief moment they got along seamlessly. It was like she knew three different versions of him.
But who was the real Adam?
Her head hurt the more she mulled over it. Weiss wanted to see him as just a heartless murderer. It would make her life so much easier. She wished he hadn't gone out of his way to save her life from the Grimm or kept her from getting caught by those bandits.
Now, she was questioning whether that sweet boy she once knew was still somewhere in his heart.
Or was she trying to see something that wasn't even there?
The next night greeted her with a heavy downpour. She found a small cave to hide in before the rain could thoroughly soak her.
Weiss finally caved into the cold and used Red Dust on a pile of twigs she collected earlier. She huddled close to the crackling fire, trying to soak in all the warmth from the dying flame. The fire was growing smaller and smaller as time went on. She worried she'd need to use more Dust to keep it from completely going out.
"You need to feed it to keep it going, idiot."
She nearly toppled over as his voice ripped through the silence.
"I don't remember asking for your opinion," she snapped, scrambling away as he invaded her cave.
He knelt by her small pile of twigs and branches. Adam didn't even react to her tensing. It was like she was invisible to him.
"Throw some Red Dust into it," he ordered.
"I'm not going to waste my supply!"
"You're welcome to freeze for the rest of the night, Princess."
Weiss cursed the rain for keeping her trapped inside with him. She reluctantly took a pinch of her Dust and sprinkled it into the active fire. The fire expanded at once. She kept her eyes locked on Adam as he added more twigs to the flame, allowing it to grow even further.
"Thanks," she grumbled once he built a large enough campfire to ward off the cold.
"Don't flatter yourself. I'm only here because of the rain." He scooted away until he was just barely lit by the fire.
"You're staying here?!"
"I didn't build a fire for you! I like spending my nights warm, unlike some people!"
"As long as you don't come near my side of the cave," she said, leaning into the shadows to hide her embarrassment.
"Get over yourself. I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole. I don't like getting my clothes dirty with scum."
So they were going to ignore the fact he pinned her against his chest? She turned her eyes back to the fire, glowering at the flames.
Weiss did not like this idea one bit. While she was certain he wouldn't do anything to her, she wasn't comfortable staying in a dark cave with him. He was still the guy who attacked Beacon and cut off Yang's arm.
He was still the guy who saved her life.
He was a fucking jerk.
"Can't you find a different hole to crawl into? I came here first," she grumbled.
"I wouldn't be anywhere near you if I had the choice. Damn rain won't stop."
"If you weren't stalking me, we wouldn't be stuck in this situation!"
"As if I would waste my time stalking a low life like you."
Weiss shot him a glare before digging into her bag for the last of her food rations. She wasn't sure what she was going to do about meals from now on. She tried looking for berries and fruits throughout the day but found nothing. She didn't want to stomach the idea of hunting a wild animal and preparing it to eat.
She pulled out the last two apples from her bag, her stomach growling greedily.
Has he eaten yet?
Weiss would've laughed at the familiarity of their situation had it not been for the bitterness in her heart.
"Here." She rolled an apple over in his direction.
He looked down at the fruit with a grimace. "I don't need your charity."
"I'm not doing this out of pity. You can starve for all I care!"
She turned her back towards him and finished her meal in silence. With some food in her belly, exhaustion took over with a vengeance, but the threat mere inches away from her kept her eyes wide open.
Weiss rested her back against the cavern wall with her sword on her lap. The tension between them was suffocating. Not even the rhythmic fall of raindrops outside could soothe the discomfort consuming the cave.
She studied him out of the corner of her eye. It was the first time she could examine him without worrying about dodging his sword. He was tall, muscles filled his shoulders and arms, and a permanent scowl rested on his face. His new personality also left much to be desired.
Weiss would never admit it out loud, but Adam's sense of fashion was nice – elegant even. The floral patterns on his blazer were popularized in Atlas, but his jacket was stylized using traditional Mistral trends. She'd never seen someone combine two fashion trends like that, and he pulled it off surprisingly well. If it weren't for the ugly Grimm mask, he was almost nice to look at.
As the night grew darker, it became increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open. Weiss kept reminding herself he would kill her in her sleep, but not even that was enough to ward off the sweet allure of sleep.
At some point, she must've succumbed to her exhaustion. She woke up the next morning with a jolt, reaching for her sword and scrambling to her feet.
She scanned the cave in a daze. Early morning rays poured in from the mouth of the cave, and birds sang outside. Adam was nowhere to be seen, along with the apple she'd offered him the night before.
The campfire warded off her hunger chills the following night. Weiss was glad she watched Adam so closely when he crashed into her cave. Tonight she managed to build and maintain a decently large campfire by mimicking what he did.
Her food situation wasn't so lucky. She found a berry bush sometime in the afternoon, but it wasn't enough to last her through the night. It didn't help that she had no idea where she was going now. Civilization could be just around the corner, or she'd already walked past it.
She groaned when another painful wave shot around her stomach. It would be a miracle for her to catch even an hour of uninterrupted sleep.
"I keep questioning how you've survived this long," he spoke up from behind her. It unnerved her how his presence no longer scared her as it should.
"Not in the mood, Adam," she snapped sharply.
His footsteps approached her. Weiss kept one hand on her sword but didn't flinch when he stopped behind her. She did jump when he dropped a bundle on her lap.
"Leftovers." He rounded to the far end of the campfire and rested against a tree.
"How do I know you didn't do anything to this?"
"If you don't want it, then give it back! I won't have some spoiled princess waste my food!"
Weiss glared at him and tossed the bag back. Her stomach groaned when he opened the pouch and ate a handful of berries right in front of her. Her face warmed when he looked at her with a knowing smirk.
"Hungry?" he taunted.
"N-no." She stubbornly hugged her aching stomach and glared at the ground. Another miserable groan cried out from her midsection.
The pouch flew over to her again, landing just shy of her feet. She gingerly took the bag and untied it. Inside was a large pile of colourful berries in all shapes and sizes.
"Are you sure I can have all of this?"
"I said they were leftovers." He crossed his arms. "And I don't like being indebted to a Human."
That was a good enough excuse for her to rip through the collection of berries. She finished her small dinner in a matter of minutes.
"Thank you. I owe you." She folded the brown pouch and held it out to him.
"Keep it. I don't want it after you touched it."
"You offered it to me!"
"I was getting even. I refuse to owe a Schnee anything."
"Hmph!" She bundled the stupid bag into a ball and threw it on the ground. "You could try being a little nicer if you're going to keep bothering me like this."
"The day I show kindness to a Human is the day the world ends."
"Then it should've ended a long time ago."
Her comment was risky considering how volatile he reacted last time, but she didn't think he would do anything to hurt her. He hadn't even touched her the last time he lost his temper. Surviving hours unconscious around him further numbed the fear of being in mortal danger.
"If you know what's good for you, you'll shut your mouth," he warned.
"It's stupid to ignore our past."
"We have nothing in common!" He jumped to his feet. "I'm done entertaining your delusions."
"I'm not done!" She leapt up when he turned his back on her. "Look, I'm sorry about the awful conditions you and your family had to live in—!"
"Don't you dare speak another word about my family!" Crimson light blazed to life in his hair.
Ice clutched her heart, but she held her head up and continued pushing.
"You were right. I should've realized what was going on sooner. I can never tell you how sorry I am. But I'm not the one who hurt you. I wasn't in charge of those working conditions. It's not fair to take your anger out on me."
"You can't tell me how I can or can't treat you!"
He stepped closer to the light. The ominous glow of his Semblance was bright as the fire between them. She rested her hand around her sword, but he made no move to draw his.
"You can stand here and pretend to care about the Faunus, but I know what you are, Schnee. I will never forgive what your family did to us!"
"I don't expect you to forgive my family. What we did to you was awful, but it isn't an excuse to hurt innocent Humans like you did in Vale."
"You've got some nerve to lecture me about hurting the innocent! Humans have been hurting us for centuries! If it weren't for Sienna, we would still be your slaves and punching bags!"
"But slaughtering people isn't going to undo those crimes! No one will be sympathetic to a crazed murderer! You're just making more enemies and innocent people!"
"And why should I care?! Humans didn't give a shit about that when they hurt us, so why the fuck should I?!"
Weiss clenched her teeth frustratingly, hating that she could follow the logic behind his madness. Winter would be so disappointed in her if she knew how she felt.
"The students in Vale were innocent." Weiss tried to level her voice. The tension was beginning to rise to dangerous levels. "The White Fang had no right to destroy the lives of so many students."
"I don't remember Humans showing us the same sentiment."
"So that makes it okay to kill random Human children?"
"I couldn't tell you how many Faunus children died because of Humans!"
"Those students did nothing wrong! Not every Human is guilty of hurting the Faunus! It's not fair to punish them for just being Human!"
"You expect me to care about some worthless Human lives?! You're laughable, Schnee."
"Then it makes you no different from the Humans who deliberately hurt the Faunus for no reason!"
"What would you know?! You're just some spoiled little brat! The worst you faced was sitting through daddy's little temper tantrums – go cry me a river, Princess!"
Weiss felt like he'd just slapped her across the face. She drew her sword and pointed it at his chest. This time, he mirrored her reaction.
"Good to know you still remember that from our past!" She wiped her eyes dry with the back of her free hand. "I hate you! I wish you lost your arm instead of Yang! I wish you died at Beacon instead of Pyrrha!"
"And your true colours finally show." He smirked arrogantly. "I knew your perfect little attitude towards the Faunus would finally break."
"This has nothing to do with you being a Faunus! NOTHING! You hurt my friend permanently, you helped destroy the school I love, and you hurt innocent students! This is so much more than stupid prejudice!
"You think you're so heroic? News flash, you're just like the Humans who hurt you! Look in the mirror, Adam! You're nothing more than a monster! I fucking hate you!"
She was breathless. Her outrage wiped the smirk completely clean off his face. Neither of them spoke for an uncomfortably long time.
"You're the biggest hypocrite I have the displeasure of knowing." The calmness in his voice sent shivers down her spine.
"You're delusional if you think I'm like you."
"Oh, it's not that." He grinned coldly. "You claim to hate monsters like me, yet you turn around and embrace that same monster in school."
"Blake's ten times the person you are!"
"Oh really? I guess my old colleague failed to inform you about the crimes she committed during her time in the White Fang," Adam mocked with a sadistic chuckle. "There's so much I could tell.
"Maybe you want to hear about the time she killed a group of Human merchants. In her defence, they treated our people horribly, but by your standards, she should've never punished them with murder."
"Shut up!" She tightened her grip around her sword, hoping to stop the tremors in her hand.
"Or maybe you want to hear about the time we sabotaged a pricey Dust shipment. If I recall correctly, that particular stunt cost your company millions. I bet that put your sweet old man in a good mood."
"S-she's not like that now!"
"Or I could tell you about the time we worked with Sienna to kill off those precious relatives of yours."
For a moment, Weiss forgot how to breathe.
"No…" Her voice came out so soft she could barely hear it.
"It was a fantastic series of hits planned by Sienna. Blake and I were personally invited to kick off the very first operation," he continued gleefully.
"S-stop it."
"I'll never forget it, Princess. I had the honour of slaying that greedy uncle of yours, Sienna took care of his oaf of a daughter, and your innocent Blake disposed of that materialistic bitch of his."
Her sword clattered on the grass. Weiss' knees buckled together, she did nothing to stop herself from collapsing. The campfire had long lost its warmth.
She found herself back at Lavender's closed-casket funeral – at the funeral of her uncle's entire household, with nothing but flames of her rage to keep her warm through that cold day.
"Y-you're lying." That was the only thing she managed to say.
"Just like when I was lying about your company's maltreatment of us?" he challenged her.
"S-she wouldn't lie about this. S-she wouldn't."
Blake did hide her criminal background from them all. She only told them about her past because it came out by accident. She's told no one about where she went after Yang lost an arm for her.
He's never tried to hide anything from her. Everything he's ever said was true. Even now.
Weiss wasn't sure if she wanted to cry, hit him, or go running back to Violet and Ash's home to forget about her current life.
Adam sheathed his sword and retreated into the shadows, not speaking another word to her.
The moment he was out of sight, she lost the last of her composure, collapsing into a ball on the ground, crying out in anguish. His words stung more than the Grimm that ripped open her torso, hurt more than the series of funerals she'd attended shortly after the slaying of Lavander's family; crushed her even more than the fall of Beacon.
Despite the agony ripping her heart to shreds, not a single Grimm ventured into her camp that night. She almost wished there had been a Grimm to take her out of her misery.
What a chapter to end on before V-day lmao. Lemme know what you guys think!
Thanks to Iwr1918, Guest reader, Biggyboi330, Yeet, StarStream2005, Eramis8, and Gleaming Onyx for the reviews!
Biggyboi330 is right about Yeet's estimate of Adam and Weiss' heights being a bit off (definitely have the right idea tho!). Canonically, Weiss stands at 4'11 with no heels and Adam is 6'4. I know these numbers by heart because uhh…reasons.
I'm also unsure what typo Guest reader is referring to? I've reread and did a ctrl f check on that chapter, but it looks correct. In that scene, Adam isn't holding her waist, he's holding onto her wrist. Idk if it's a visual bug but on both my doc files it looks fine. Still appreciate the sharp eyes tho!
I'll catch you all again next week! Have a lovely Valentine's Day/Singles Day 3