And we're back with a new chapter… not going as well as I had hoped in terms of update speed, but I hope you like this chapter regardless of the wait!
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"You can't tell anyone, especially father, that I told you this. Do you understand?" Winter started, her eyes still locked on her little sister. Weiss gulped nervously, visibly intimidated by the air around her sister, but nodded to indicate that she would. It was only then that Winter continued, "It wasn't an accident that happened with both mother and I; both times were planned attacks. And they may be planning another very soon."
"Miss Schnee?"
The gentle yet hesitant voice shook Weiss back to reality but caused her to almost cut herself with the rapier she was holding in her hands as well. Holstering her rapier, the heiress turned to the person who just entered her room.
"Yes?" Weiss asked, turning around to face the familiar woman. One look at her and Weiss couldn't help but let out a small sigh, "Did my father ask for me?"
"He did, but if you are busy—" the messenger said hastily, but was waved off as Weiss stood.
"That will not be necessary, please tell my father that I will be with him shortly," Weiss announced before watching her leave the room.
It was only when she heard the reassuring clicking sound of the closing door that Weiss slumped back down on her bed.
"So what should I do with you?" Weiss wondered out loud as she, once again, took out her rapier and gently placed it in her lap. After a second or two, Weiss couldn't help but chuckle, "Oh who am I kidding?"
Without wasting another second, in part thanks to the knowledge of her father waiting for her, Weiss holstered her rapier and left for her father's office.
It was more frigid than usual in the hallway, and Weiss found herself walking faster to get out of the cold. Before she knew it, the heiress had wrapped both arms around herself in a desperate effort to try and stay as warm as possible.
Right when Weiss could hear the chattering of her teeth echo through the otherwise serene hallway, the heiress found herself in front of her father's office. With a sigh of relief, she hurriedly knocked on the door and waited uncomfortably in both the cold and silence.
"Come in."
Not wanting to stay in the dark, cold hallway any longer than was necessary, Weiss quickly grabbed the door handle and pushed the door open.
"You wanted to see me, father?" Weiss curtsied after closing the door behind her.
"Yes, I did," Weiss' father replied, assembling a stack of papers on his desk before turning to face his daughter. It was then that his gaze slowly moved towards the sheathed rapier on Weiss' hip, and he was not one to let that go unnoticed, "Why did you bring your rapier with you?"
"Oh, this?" Weiss asked, startled as she looked at her rapier as well. With her mouth already open, the heiress was only barely able to stop herself from saying anything when Winter's voice rang through her head.
"You can't tell anyone, especially father"
"Well, Weiss?" the sound of her father's voice shook Weiss back to reality, and the heiress nearly jumped in surprise.
"I…" Weiss gulped before an idea suddenly hit her. With a new surge of confidence flooding her being, she continued, "I was practicing when you called me here, father. I must have forgotten to return it before heading here."
"I see…" came the reply from the old man as he frowned, visibly deep in thoughts.
After a short period of silence in which she waited for her father's response, Weiss was about to break the silence. That was when a chill ran down her spine, causing her to flinch as she felt the air grow colder.
'What's going on? It's almost as if an invisible hand of ice is holding me in a death grip,' Weiss thought to herself as she took an unconscious step back, 'It's as if—"
"Weiss!"
"Y-Yes!" Weis cried out on reflex, straightening her posture whilst doing so before relaxing back again once she fully took in her surroundings. Taking a deep breath, the heiress turned to her father once again, "Why did you call me again, father?"
"You should already know this, but I am saying this again if it was yet to be made clear to you," Weiss' father sighed before shifting his position into a more comfortable one. Once satisfied, he continued, "After what happened with Winter… I want you to be extra careful from today onwards, you understand? Bring your rapier with you at all times if you have to."
"I understand, father," Weiss nodded as she gently held the hilt of her rapier almost to reassure her father that she would not forget, "Then, if that is all…"
"You're excused," Weiss father waved the heiress off, and the heiress was sure that she saw the remnants of a smile leave her father's lips when she straightened her body again.
The familiar sound indicating the door having been fully closed reverberated through the room, and Weiss' father let out a sigh that he didn't know he was holding.
He was exhausted.
Before the old man knew it, his gaze landed on a worn out picture frame standing in the corner of his desk behind a pile of stacked papers. The picture showcased a smiling Winter carrying a laughing Weiss on her shoulders as the two sisters were surrounded by the falling snow. Both Schnees were a lot younger, and the state in which the frame itself was in showed that it had gone through many months.
Twenty seconds later, Weiss' father had the number already dialed in on his phone and, while waiting impatiently for the other end to pick up, found his fingers drumming the wooden desk.
"Yes?"
With one hand resting on the picture's frame, Weiss' father let out a sigh before speaking.
"I have made up my mind."
Blake, not rushing into Ruby like Yang did, was the first to notice the trembling of Ruby's figure, "Ruby, what's wrong?"
Hearing Blake's words was all it took for Yang's cheerful smile to be replaced with a worried frown as she, too, noticed the state that her sister was in.
Before Yang could speak, however, Ruby had turned around and handed her phone to them.
As Ruby was still trying to process what had happened earlier that day in the hospital, Blake was frantically trying to help Yang navigate the streets of the city of Vale.
"Crossroad incoming!" Yang yelled to her right as she continued to drive, "Which way should we go?!"
"Hold on a minute!" Blake responded frantically as her amber eyes scanned the map in her lap, "Turn left and take the second right!"
"Got it!" came the reply, only a fraction of a second before the car violently jerked to the side. Looking up, Blake saw that Yang's brow was furrowed in concentration as the blonde threw all of her weight onto the wheel.
"Yang… please…" Blake panted as she glared in said girl's direction, "Don't ever do that again."
"Yeah, we've been over this!" Ruby added from the back, the frustration clearly evident in her voice.
"Sorry about that," Yang could only chuckle at the angry stares that she was getting, and both Ruby and Blake eventually sighed in defeat. As Yang turned the corner, she turned to look at her sister through the rearview mirror, "So which one is it?"
"Three-ten…" Ruby muttered after glancing at her phone's screen again. As the three focused their attention on the numbers of the houses that they passed, Yang had unconsciously slowed down the car considerably.
"There it is!" Blake exclaimed, pointing at the house in question and grabbing the sisters' attention. Noticing this, Blake added frantically, "Yang! Eyes on the road!"
"Huh?" Yang, caught off-guard, looked to the front before knocking the wheel sideways.
"Ow… Yaaaaaang, what was that for?" Ruby's pained voice came. The sudden movement caused the brunette to fall down, and she was busy rubbing her arms while getting back on the seat.
The familiar sound of the opening and slamming shut of a door caused Ruby to look up; only to see that Yang had already exited the car and Blake was busy with trying to get out of the seatbelt.
"Blake? What happened?" Ruby asked the raven haired woman, deciding that her interest in finding out what happened was greater than chasing after her sister.
"Your sister nearly ran over a girl when she turned around to look at the houses," Blake responded coolly, her attention still focused on removing her seatbelt as the occasional grunt could be heard from her general direction.
With her gaze on something else, Blake didn't see that Ruby visibly paled at hearing that.
"Finally!" Blake huffed, having successfully gotten free after struggling for so long. While smoothening out her clothes a bit, she turned, "Come on, we should go and see if there is something that we can do. If anyone can, it's you."
"Right…" Ruby muttered as she slowly followed Blake out of the car, her mind wandering back to a scene from long ago. Desperate to keep the memory away, Ruby shook her head violently before following Blake to the front of the car.
Once there, Blake and Ruby saw that Yang was continuously apologizing to a girl with black hair and, while seemingly about the same age as Ruby, was noticeably shorter than the brunette. The girl's bangs were covering her forehead and the locks in the back reached well below her shoulder blades. She wore a white shirt with long sleeves under a black vest and a dark blue long skirt.
The girl, while appearing to be physically unharmed, seemed to be uneasy at Yang's actions.
"Ah, Rubes, just in time!" Yang called out as she saw her sister stand beside her, "I've been trying to apologize to her for nearly running her over, but she's not responding—"
"And you're surprised?" Blake muttered under her breath while shaking her head, but went unnoticed by the others.
"Help me, please!" Yang finished as she grabbed Ruby by the shoulders.
"What do you want me to do?", Ruby asked in shock, "You're the better of us in terms of talking with new people."
"You got a point there…" Yang mused as she turned back to the girl in front of her, "I just thought that she wasn't responding because she couldn't, and you know sign language, so…"
"You really think that that—" Ruby began, before noticing the hands of the girl move in a familiar way. Nodding to confirm that she understood the message, Ruby turned to Blake and a grinning Yang.
"I hate to say 'I told you so'—" Yang began cheerily before getting shut off by a firm stab in the side.
"What did she say?" Blake asked, ignoring the grunts of pain from the blonde beside her and directing her question to Ruby instead.
"She wanted us to follow her…" Ruby responded slowly, almost as if unsure whether or not she understood it correctly. To make sure, the brunette turned to the waiting girl in question, "Right?"
Instead of responding with either words or hands, the question was met with a warm and cheerful smile in response.
"I guess that confirms it," Blake muttered to herself, "But why?"
"She said that we'll find out when we get there," Ruby responded almost instantly, before adding in a soft voice, "Do you think we can trust her?"
"I think we'll be fine; worse come to worse and I'll step in," Yang replied with a grin, "Besides, I still owe her an apology and I can't really do that if she doesn't respond to me."
"I guess we have no choice, then," Blake sighed while Yang smiled at the response, "Let's get this out of the way and then go see Neo."
"Right!" Ruby nodded before turning to the mysterious girl, "Lead the way!"
With a smile and a spring in her step, the black haired girl skipped ahead of them towards one of the house before turning around cheerfully to see whether or not they were actually following her.
Much to her disappointment, Blake and Yang were lagging quite far behind.
"What do you want to show us?" Ruby asked, suddenly appearing right beside the black-haired girl. Not expecting Ruby to be beside her, the shorter girl jumped in surprise, "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
"It is all right," came the signed response, and Ruby smiled in relief when she understood what she was being told, "As for your question. You will find out once we are inside. That is if the other two would hurry up and get here."
"Yang! Blake! Come on!" Ruby called out to the two, after which they had a noticeable increase in walking speed. Before too long, the four of them had regrouped and the mysterious girl walked up to the house. It was only then that Ruby took a good look at the house that they were about to enter, "Hold on… this is three ten… does that mean?"
Blake and Yang, having stepped back to take a better look at the house, noticed this as well. A few seconds of silence followed, after which Blake, Ruby and Yang all turned to the girl in front of them.
With a smug grin on her face, the black-haired girl opened the door and beckoned the other three to follow her in. This time, none of them wasted any time to follow the mysterious girl as curiosity was driving them forward.
The inside of the house was well lit and the white walls were nearly spotless. As Ruby and Yang stood in the hall to enjoy these luxuries, Blake ushered the sisters forward impatiently after entering last.
With only one door to go through, the three of them didn't have much of a choice as to where they had to follow the girl.
Stepping through the door, the three of them found themselves in what appeared to be the living room. What surprised them the most was that the room was almost barren, the only pieces of furniture in it being a set of mismatched chairs and a small coffee table.
And on one of those chairs sat someone whom the three of them all recognized.
"Neo!"
Smiling brightly, the familiar girl with her signature tri-colored hair gestured for the three visitors to take a seat. On her lap was both the black vest that the black haired girl was wearing and what appeared to be a wig.
"That was you?" Yang asked, impressed at Neo's ability to change her appearance so well. After receiving a nod of confirmation from the younger girl, Yang added, "Why did you have to go so far to make yourself so different? No offense intended, but that look really didn't suit you all that much."
"None taken," Neo smiled as she signed her response, with Ruby acting as translator for Blake and Yang. With a sigh, the vertically challenged girl looked up and, much to the other three's surprise, there was a glint of sadness and pain in Neo's eyes as she began signing again, "You probably have a lot of questions right now… and I know that you deserve an answer for most of them, so I will try to answer them for you."
"Before that," Ruby interjected, adopting a concerned look as she turned to Blake and Yang, both sharing a similar look as the brunette, before turning back to Neo, "Why are you here? Not that I'm not happy to see you, but shouldn't you be in the hospital right now?"
"Maybe I should, shouldn't I?" Neo signed with a smug grin on her face. In an effort to allow the weight of her signed line to sink it, Neo watched contently as the expressions on Blake's face changed as the raven haired girl understood what Neo was trying to say. With a deep breath, Neo felt a gentle tremor in her throat as she, for the first time in months, talked, "But maybe it's fine for me to be here if I'm already better."
Five seconds. Five seconds of silence in which Ruby and Yang both gaped at the smirking Neo while Blake smiled, glad to have her hopes confirmed.
"Your voice! It's back! When—?! How—?! Why—?!" Ruby blurted out excitedly, struggling to form a cohesive and coherent sentence. All the while, the other three occupants of the room laughed at Ruby's excitement, "That's awesome! Why didn't you tell me?"
"It was supposed to be a surprise," Neo smiled cheerfully in response before her expression darkened again. Blake, Ruby, and Yang were all quick to pick up on this and waited patiently for Neo to continue, "It's just… I wasn't expecting this to be the way that I would be telling you guys that I had fully recovered… it was supposed to be a happy moment."
"What do you mean 'supposed to be a happy moment', Neo?" Yang asked, having picked up on the words that Neo added at the end, "There's something more going on, isn't there? That's why you send that message to Ruby and why you went beyond what was necessary to change your appearance, am I right?"
"Yes… you are…" Neo finally admitted with a deep sigh. Rummaging through her pockets, Neo took out a folded piece of paper and laid it out on the table, "I had to make sure that only the three of you heard about this and that nobody would be able to get this information off of me when I told you."
"Tell us… what, exactly?" Blake asked, now curious to find out what Neo wanted to tell them. Both Ruby and Yang were just as curious, if not more so, as their raven-haired friend.
"Haven't you heard?" Neo asked, waiting for a reaction but only receiving blank stares as a response, "There has been a multitude of attacks on people lately. And not just any people, either. All of them are either those who got power or those who are related to those with power."
"Now that you mention it…" Yang mused as she bit her lower lip while going deep in thought, "Pyrrha said something about that a while earlier as well. Said her old man was ambushed, but got away relatively safely in the end."
"And is that the reason why you wore that disguise?" Ruby asked her friend, who nodded in confirmation.
"In part, at least. I'm not sure if they're after me specifically, but I know for a fact that they were behind that day as well," Neo added, her hands balling into fists as she remembered that fateful day. And so did Ruby. Noticing this, Neo placed a gentle hand on Ruby's shoulder, "If you're still blaming yourself for what happened, please stop. We both know that it wasn't your fault; if anyone is to blame, they are."
"All right." Ruby sighed, letting this new information sink in. Neo smiled at hearing this response.
"And do you have any idea who 'they' may be?" Yang asked, but was disappointed to see that Neo shook her head.
"But that isn't the only reason why I needed to tell you this in person," Neo continued in an even more serious tone, "I wasn't the only person there on that day. It could be that I wasn't their target at all."
"So you're saying that—" Ruby exclaimed in shock but was unable to finish her sentence.
Neo nodded.
The sun was starting to set when Ruby and Yang got out of the car, the younger sister carrying a bag of take-away with her, after having dropped off Blake at her home. Both sisters were unusually quiet after their earlier visit at Neo's and simply walked the short distance from the car to their front door.
"Yang?" Ruby almost whispered, her words going almost completely unnoticed by the older sister; and they would have had Ruby not stopped walking.
"Yes, Rubes?" Yang asked in response, waiting patiently for her little sister to continue.
"Do you think that what Neo said was… true…?" Ruby asked uneasily as she played with the bag in her hands, "I mean, for someone to go that far…"
"I know what you mean, but I think she does," Yang responded after giving herself a second to think, "You should know this better than anyone, so I shouldn't have to say it, but if anybody is determined to get their goals achieved it would be Neo. If she goes so far to make sure that we know of this, then I am pretty sure that she believes that it is true."
"You're right…" Ruby sighed in defeat, "I'm just… I don't know what to do, Yang."
"Don't worry," Yang smiled as she gave Ruby a warm hug. Ruby, while not expecting to receive the hug, did not struggle against it, either. Instead, she moved into the comfort of her sister, "I'm here, Blake's here, we're all here. It's going to be fine, Ruby, trust me."
"Thanks, Yang, I needed that," Ruby smiled before pulling away from her sister's embrace. Yang smiled as well, seeing that Ruby was, indeed, seemingly feeling a lot more at ease now, "Let's get inside, I'm starving!"
"Way ahead of you!" Yang smirked as she nudged the door with her the back of her heel and allowing it to swing open.
Yang was about to enter when she heard something and froze. Ruby, already standing in the house, turned to look at her sister, "What's wrong?"
Ignoring Ruby's question, Yang spun turned around on her heel and shouted, "Whoever you are, come out! It's no use hiding anymore!"
Both sisters tensed when they heard a rustling from behind the bushes to their left and, before long, a figure came into view and slowly walked towards them with a noticeable limp in their stride. Yang, who had positioned herself in front of Ruby almost automatically, slowly eased up when she saw the state that the person was in.
She was exhausted. Her clothes had a multitude of tears in them and her hair was sticking up in many directions. While the sharp blade holstered at the woman's hip caused Yang to be worried, she realized that this woman would not be in any state to use it against them.
"Are you—?" Yang began but stopped when the woman fell forward into her. Unconscious.
It was then that Ruby saw the emblem on the woman's back.
"Weiss?"
This wraps up today's chapter. Also, as you may have noticed, I have changed the genre of "Hurt/Comfort" to "Suspense" because… I am going down a different path than what I had originally thought I would traverse… similar plot and similar end goal but a different road to get to said end goal. Hope you enjoyed it and until next time (22nd of October is what I am aiming for)! Take care!