Guess what? They do have Wi-fi in the afterlife.

In all seriousness, I apologize for the more year long gap between chapters. I was busy with other things and found a hard time finding the time and desire to write, a few lack luster attempts aside. I promise that the next chapter will be here sooner rather than later and won't end quite so sudden;y like it does here, it will also be longer, have actual violence, be less fluffy, and hopefully push some plot threads foward. I also have the first chapter of another story nearly done and another first chapter halfway done, in case you like my writing as a whole and aren't just reading this for the pairing.

Nero sat up in bed at the sound of a knock on his door, bringing him out of one of the best nights of sleep he'd had in a very long time. The part demon worked out the kinks in his limbs at stood up from his bed and walked to the door of his room. He pulled the door open to show Ruby standing in front of his doorway, dressed in her school uniform and hooded cape, hand outstretched to knock again.

Ruby stifled a blush at seeing Nero in his current state of undress, only in his jeans, she'd seen him like this before and it wasn't anything to get riled up about, and launched into a hurried speech, "Hey Nero! Me and the rest of my team, well our team now because you're part of it too now, thought you might want to get breakfast with us today so we can do the whole team bonding thing and you can meet our friends! Unless you don't want to, I'd understand and I'm sure everyone else would too, well Yang might not. She can get touchy when she decides she wants something to happen and she's told no, she might try to drag you to the cafeteria or something, but other than her I'm sure everyone would understand! I mean, I'd be disappointed, wait, no no no, I didn't say that out loud did I?"

Nero could see that the younger girl was on the verge of launching into another tirade and decided to calm her down while he had the chance, "Ruby, I'd love to have breakfast with you and everyone else, okay?" Ruby was brought out of her borderline emotional frenzy by the words, leaving her breathing hard and blushing. "Let me get dressed and we can go together." Ruby just nodded and stepped back from the door.

Waiting the few minutes Nero took to get ready was mild torture for the girl, finding it hard to stand still and not fidget with her skirt. She should have had Blake do this, she was so bad at things like this and she was going to make Nero think she didn't have normal knees! That would be catastrophic! The fidgeting and internal doom saying continued until Nero left his room in his uniform and stood in front of her, a small smile on his face.

Nero found Ruby to be incredibly adorable and disarmingly charismatic. He would be hard pressed to say no to her on anything like getting breakfast or something similarly simple. There was something just comforting about her for him, much like Blake. Like Kyrie. Currently she was obviously uncomfortable, a total one eighty from how animated the girl had been before he went to change into his uniform, and he had no idea why.

Ruby stood there staring at her feet, fidgeting, until Nero spoke up, saying what his instincts told him to, "Ruby, just so you know, I like being around you and I think you're wonderful. You don't have to be nervous around me okay?" The younger girl's eyes darted from her shoes to Nero's smiling expression, a bright red blush starting to spread out from her cheeks.

Ruby broke out into a grin and grabbed his hand to lead him to the cafeteria, chattering away with him about everything and nothing. Neither noticed Nero's devil bringer glowing a soft gold color, the two of them too engrossed in their meaningless conversation.

xXxXx

Team RWBY waited for their two missing members to arrive just outside the cafeteria, Blake engrossed in the pages of one of her books and Yang relentlessly teasing Weiss about Nero.

"I'm telling you Snow Angel, all you have to say is that you're sorry for being an icy bitch and that you really just want him to ravage you like here's no tomorrow." Yang was unable to keep her mildly creepy smile from showing as she spoke. She was having an awful lot of fun at Weiss's expense.

"Yang, please cut it out! I know what I need to do and I don't need your crude advice to do it!" Weiss smoothed out her skirt and huffed, she should have never asked for advice from Yang of all people. "I only asked for your help for this because I don't want him to hate me and I don't want to ruin things for our team."

Blake snapped the book she was holding closed, "Weiss, look at me." Weiss turned to face her teammate who continued speaking upon eye contact, "Nero won't hate you if you apologize and he's going to forgive you. Just say what you think you should and be honest." Weiss nodded and murmured a thanks.

Yang let out a giggle, "So she should say what I told her to then right?"

Before Weiss could lunge out at the blonde and begin strangling her Ruby, Nero in tow, had zipped around a corner and was headed straight for them.

When the rest of his team became visible Nero had the sudden realization that Weiss was present and felt warning bells go off in his head.

"Ruby, doesn't Weiss want to kill me?"

Ruby either didn't hear or just decided to ignore him and continued pulling him along. Nero decided not to put up a fight and assumed the younger girl knew what she was doing. When the two of them were standing in front of the others silence immediately fell.

Ruby, Yang, and Blake were looking at Weiss expectantly, Nero still not sure if him being anywhere near her was a good idea. He didn't outright hate the girl, but he didn't have much love for her and wouldn't shy away from conflict.

Weiss responded to the looks by taking a few steps towards Nero, leaving only a few feet between them, who took a step back and reflexively clenched the more demonic of his two hands. She glanced down before bringing her eyes up to Nero's, both of them feeling a spark of something run through them upon eye contact.

"Nero...I," Weiss trailed off and tried not break eye contact, suddenly feeling incredibly self conscious.

"What is it Weiss?" Nero had no idea what was going and found Weiss's current demeanor bizarre and more than a little disconcerting. Her personality had not once come off as demure and unsure of herself, leaving Nero a little wary of the complete one eighty her behavior had pulled from yesterday.

Weiss steeled herself and locked eyes with him again, "I'm sorry for the way I acted yesterday and how I've treated you in general since we met. I was being unfair and horrid to you and I'm sorry for that. I want the two of us to be teammates, even friends if you're willing." She waited a few seconds for Nero to react, to tell her he would never forget her or care about her.

Nero wasn't sure how to process Weiss apologizing to him. It was not expected. His knee jerk instinct was to reject her apology, to return the venom he'd received from her during every interaction they'd had in the couple of days since his arrival, but he quickly squashed that impulse. He wasn't a vengeful prick, despite how poorly he handled Dante and his friends during his exit, and he had no desire to become one.

Not only that, there was something about Weiss's expression that would have stopped him from hurting her in anyway had he chosen to reject her apology. She was completely vulnerable in this moment. What he said would have consequences, significant consequences. Of course, he was terrible at articulating himself in a manner that wouldn't make him seem stupid or sarcastic, his difficulty speaking to Blake in a coherent manner regarding his past yesterday was evidence enough, but he couldn't let that stop from making Weiss feel like he cared.

Weiss was about to give up hope after thirty seconds of straight silence but was stopped by Nero finally speaking, "I forgive you Weiss." The girl's eyes widened, she honestly had not expected him to say anything like that. "I actually understand why you acted the way you did. The rest of your team was being kind and accepting to some stranger that could be really dangerous. So, let's just start from the top okay?" Nero extended his hand out in front of him, the standard sign for a handshake, "I'm Nero. It's nice to meet you. I know we'll make a great team together with everyone."

Weiss was able to stop herself from gawking, but not from lightly blushing, at the boy in front of her and responded by grasping his hand. "Weiss Schnee. Likewise." The two shared a small smile before breaking their grasp, Nero suddenly feeling a mild ache on the crook of his elbow that he simply ignored.

The pleasant atmosphere between them was ruined by Blake and Ruby both grabbing Nero by the hand, a light gold color shining out when Ruby took hold of his devil bringer, and leading him into the cafeteria, blank expressions on both their faces, leaving Weiss with a confused look and Yang giggling helplessly.

"Looks like you may have gotten too good of a reaction Weiss-cream." Weiss responded to Yang by letting out a dignified 'hmph' and following after her other teammates, the giggling blonde following close behind.

xXxXx

Ozpin sat in contemplative silence, staring at the steaming cup of coffee in his hands. Ozpin was proud of his job, both of them. He was responsible for helping new Huntsmen come into their own and gain the skill necessary to vanquish the Grimm. He was also the attendant of Sparda, responsible for maintaining and preserving the legacy of his worlds savior. The man who showed the first of hunters of Remnant how to fight, to tap into their internal strength. The things he showed them led to the later discovery and mastery of Aura, to enough huntress existing that they could push the Grimm back and build lasting settlements.

Every headmaster of Beacon was trusted with the books that held the history of Sparda, as well as the knowledge that someone with power like Sparda's would return to Remnant and help end the threat of the Grimm once and for all. Ozpin was the one who witnessed this. Not only that, he had met Sparda himself. The man who put Remnant on the road to salvation was alive and present right in his own school, literally underneath his feet. Suffice to say that Ozpin was still reeling from that. And the fight between him and Nero.

He saw acrobatics and attacks at a similar level often, he ran an elite school for some of the brightest and most talented warriors in the world after all, but the impact and visible displacement of air their strikes made was something else entirely. Then there was the fact that Ozpin could tell that both of them were capable of so much more. He wasn't sure that even he could beat Nero in a fight without resorting to psychological manipulation of the young man and Sparda was so beyond anything a Faunus or Human could dream of. He knew that Nero would someday would reach the same destructive capabilities as well, Sparda had said as much and the demon had implied that team RWBY would as well somehow. And Sparda was a goddamn weirdo and a troll.

It was all a lot to take in and to be honest, he was going to need more than just coffee and introspection to handle it. It was times like these he wish had the same alcoholic foresight as Ironwood, it would make dealing with anything, especially life changing situations that make oh so little sense. Just as he downed his sixth cup of coffee in an hour, his second in command, quite possibly the last person he wanted to see in this situation, Glynda Goodwitch walked through the door.

Glynda's expression and tone made her current state of fury apparent, "Ozpin, when were you going to tell me that you enrolled the young man team RWBY claimed fell from the sky and obliterated a giant nevermore as a student and that he has some relation to the creatures in those musty books of yours? He could be incredibly dangerous is he's a demon and you took that risk without consulting any of the faculty or even notifying them! What were you thinking?"

Ozpin inwardly sighed and tried his best to maintain his normal aloof expression and wise tone, "I was wondering when you were going to ask about Nero Glynda, in fact I expected you to after he was in your class yesterday." Ozpin accentuated his aloof persona by standing from his chair and turning to look out his window.

"I wanted to be sure that he was what I thought he was. The young man doesn't have aura according to Bartholomew and our other medical experts and his arm is made of some indestructible scale like tissue that has bio-luminescent properties. Not only that he is incredibly strong, he stopped an attack from Weiss Scnhee by simply placing his palm in front of his blade and didn't move an inch. How can you let a demon be present on this campus?"

Before Ozpin could even begin to retort the sound of his office elevator stopping reached his ears, which Sparda was walking out of.

"Ozpin, could you give me directions to the nearest grocery store? Apparently all my peanut butter expired. You'd think with all the preservatives they jam into food these days that a jar or two of peanut butter could last a few hundred years but I suppose not." Sparda had gotten halfway across the room when he noticed the other person present. "Oh hello, I didn't see you there. My name is Sparda and I live in a pocket dimension that's housed in the core of the school's foundation. Who might you be?"

Glynda's response was to turn to Ozpin with a very out of character confused look on his face. The headmaster suddenly felt his desire for alcohol increase by at least three fold.

xXxXx

"So let me get this straight, your scythe is not only collapsible, it's also a high impact sniper rifle that can fire bullets infused with, what was it you called it?" Nero was currently sitting with his team at a cafeteria table, waiting for the rest of their friends to arrive. He and Ruby had gotten on the subject of their weapons and were comparing notes.

Weiss took the opportunity to interject about a subject she knew more about than anyone in the room, "Dust Nero, dust."

"Right, dust. So how in the world do you use a scythe as a gun or vice versa?"

Ruby smiled wider than Nero had ever seen her do, "Well, I'm not the biggest or strongest but you don't have to be to use a sniper scythe like Crescent Rose, all you have to know how to is ride recoil and use speed to throw you weight around. I mean, it's hard at first but my uncle Qrow was able to teach me pretty quick."

"What my sister means is that she's a prodigy and that her weapon is one of the most dangerous ever designed, for the people she's sticking it at and herself." Yang was wearing a teasing smile that Nero felt he was going to become very familiar with.

"Yaaaang! I'm not a prodigy!" Ruby had slouched into her seat and pulled up her hood to try and hide her growing blush.

Blake spoke up for the first time since they sat down, "Ruby, you skipped two years of Huntsmen training. You're only fifteen and you're a leader of a team at Beacon and you beheaded a Nevermore while up a cliff."

Nero let out a short whistle after Blake snapped her eyes back down to her book, "Up a cliff? Jeez Ruby, just how fast are you? And skipping two years of training? That's really impressive."

Ruby didn't respond and simply sunk further into her hood. Nero decided to leave the poor girl be and turned to Yang.

"So how bout you Yang? What kind of weapons do you use?" Nero had interacted with the Blonde the least out of all his new teammates and wanted to correct that.

"My fists, sort of. The bracelets I usually wear are collapsible gauntlets, that are also shotguns." Yang had added the shotgun comment almost as an afterthought, like it was something completely normal to say. Nero would be a hypocrite to call anyone out on bizarre weaponry, the swords the order used were anything but orthodox and his Red Queen was an even crazier version, but shotgun gloves weren't quite in his conceivable realm of weaponry.

Nero"Shotguns? That I have to see. Is there ever any opportunities for teams to spar outside of Goodwitch's class? I'd love to go a few rounds with someone who uses shotgun gauntlets."

"Well, we have self-directed team training sessions pretty often, so I'm sure you'll get the chance Nero." Weiss was currently sipping away at her tea, still not sure how to conduct herself around Nero and choosing only to occasionally interject when she saw fit. He was actually a very pleasant person. She returned to scrolling through the news on her scroll and her tea, rubbing at her palm witch had been strangely itchy since her handshake with Nero.

"Awesome. Maybe we can have an actual match then Weiss, baggage free." Nero was sending a small smirk that Weiss would have found absolutely infuriating yesterday, she found it rather charming now, which she returned with a smile of her own.

Ruby had finally recovered from her sister inflicted embarrassment to rejoin the conversation with a question, "It's almost the end of breakfast and Jaune and everyone hasn't shown up yet, which is strange as they're serving pancakes today. I wonder where they are?"

"What do pancakes have to do with that being strange." Nero was curious to say the least.

Yang answered, "One of their members, Nora, would probably drown her own mother in maple syrup for pancakes. Them not being here is pretty bizarre."

Before anyone could say anything the team in question arrived, Nero taking in their appearances. There was a blonde guy around his height, a Red headed girl with a circlet in it, and a boy with a pink streak in his otherwise black hair. The three of them looked absolutely exhausted when they finally sat down at the table where team RWBY already was.

"Hey guys, where's Nora?" Ruby's question was answered by the sudden, if you asked Nero he would have said she appeared out of thin air, appearance of a girl with ginger hair holding a comically large stack of pancakes on a plate in one hand and what appeared to be a gallon jug of maple syrup in the other.

"I'm right here!" Nora then plopped herself next to the black haired boy and began scarfing down the inhuman amount of food at a rate that Nero was fairly certain wasn't humanly possible.

The blonde boy let out a long yawn before speaking, "The reason we're late is because we all slept through our alarms. We were up late studying."

Ruby responded, "What were you guys studying for?"

The black haired one answered, "Finals."

"Finals?" Nero's question was met with stares from everyone. "What? I stated school here yesterday and I didn't go to a regular school, I was in a church out in the boonies for most of my childhood."

"Oh! You guys haven't met officially!" Ruby turned to Nero and made a gesture he assumed was a cue to introduce himself.

"Ugh... I'm Nero. I started here yesterday." He immediately felt out of place. Socializing wasn't really his thing, team RWBY being the only exception to that rule he could think of.

"Yeah we know! We saw you kick Weiss's butt all over the place in Goodwitch's class!" Weiss shot a glare at the ginger haired girl who had already chewed through half the colossal stack of breakfast she had arrived with. "I'm Nora!"

"Nora, don't eat your food so fast. I don't want you choking again." The black haired boy was the one had scolded Nora. He turned to look at Nero. "Lie Ren. You can call me Ren." Nero nodded in response, Ren seemed like a quiet kind of guy. Only speaking when it was needed.

"I'm Pyrrha Nikos. You were very impressive in your spar yesterday. I'd like the chance to go up against you sometime." She spoke in a confident tone, which Nero wasn't sure about. He may come off as a cocky brat, but that was to offset his opponents and to present himself in a way to discourage being approached by anyone. She didn't seem like she was full of herself, just that she was aware of what she could do and thought she knew what he could do.

The blonde boy was the last to introduce himself, "I'm Jaune Arc, It's nice to meet you Nero." Jaune seemed nice, authentic even.

"Likewise, It's nice to meet you..." Nero had trailed off when a familiar group of four students were crowded around another familiar student. It seemed he had something to stop from becoming routine. "Excuse me." Nero had stood from the table and began marching across the cafeteria, confusing his teammates and the other's he had just met.

Ren broke the confused silence, "Do you guys know what he's doing?"

Yang had been following Nero's route across the room, "I think he's walking towards team CDNL." Everyone else at the table stared at Nero, not quite sure what to do. "Should we go help him?"

Blake was the one who answered, in a tone the others didn't quite recognize, "I think he's fine. Let's just see what he does."

"Ugh, I don't know Blake. Cardin is a massive jerk and so are his teammates, you sure you're okay with him painting a target on his back like that?" Jaune's voice was laced with worry, he had bad blood with Cardin and though he'd managed to put an end to it by standing up to the bully he didn't want his friends' new teammate to go through any of what he had to.

"I think he'll be fine Jaune. He showed he's a more than capable combatant yesterday." Weiss was able to bite back a grimace from her own words, her pride was still important to her and it was difficult admitting how outclassed she had been in that situation.

Before anyone could make any further comment on the situation Nero had reached his target and grabbed Cardin Winchester by the back of his collar and ripped him into the air from his seat.

"What did I tell you yesterday? Did you think I was going to just turn a blind eye if you tried to pull this shit again?" Nero brought Cardin, who was still being held up a good foot from the ground by Nero's devil bringer and seemed visibly terrified much to the confusion of everyone watching, closer to his face. "Well?" Nero had channeled a little of his demonic energy while saying that last word, his voice becoming layered in a manner reminiscent of his devil trigger.

Cardin tried to respond, to make a smart ass remark or get his team to help him, but his team had all fled the cafeteria the second Nero had grabbed him and the only sound he could make was something reminiscent of choking.

"Now, here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna apologize to Velvet, leave this room, and never bother her or anyone else in this school ever again. Understand?" Cardin nodded. "Good. Now do you know what will happen if you do something stupid like this again?" Cardin tried to respond but only let out more choking. He had never been more terrified in his whole life. "Do you understand Cardin?"

"Y-y-y-yes! Yes, I understand!"

"I hope you do, because if you think I'm threatening now you don't want to see me when I've been made angry. I'm going to out you down now okay? Then you're going to do what I told you alright? Make sure that apologize is loud too. I want everyone here to hear it." Nero dropped the frightened bug of a man, who was just barely able to catch himself and stay standing.

Cardin turned to the bunny eared girl he had made tormenting a hobby out of and shouted at the top of his lungs, terror making the pitch of his uncharacteristically high, "I'm so sorry Velvet!" He then ran as quickly as he could out of the building, somehow only tripping once.

Silence had fallen all throughout the cafeteria, before quiet chattering picked up back into the normal dull roar present in the room during meals, most of it about what had just happened.

Velvet looked at Nero with an ashamed look, "You didn't have to do that Nero. I'm fine really."

"Bullshit Velvet. I'm smart enough to know when something has been going on for a while and to know when something need to stop. If those assholes ever try anything again don't hesitate to tell me or anyone who knows me alright?" Velvet nodded in response before she decided to leave the cafeteria and find somewhere quiet to think.

Nero returned to his team and was met with silent stares, leaving him a little disconcerted.

"What? Did I do something wrong?"