Velvet grabbed her lantern and headed into the cave, knowing not what she might find on her journey.
As she slid through the tunnels, she pondered on why she had come here at all.
Why does this need to be? She thought. I do not recall venturing to such a place as this, I must have bumped my head. I have been searching for hours in this dreary old cave, and no entrance have I found.
Then it dawned on her: she was in a dream, and there was no end until she could wake up.
Doing the only thing she could think to do, she snuffed out her own light.
"VELVET, NOOOO! DON'T LEAVE ME!" Coco wailed, cradling her fallen teammates limp body in her arms.
Yatsuhashi bowed his head in dishonor, his teammate now dead due to his mistake.
They would tell him it wasn't his fault.
It didn't matter though.
He committed seppuku the next night.
Fox tried comforting Coco, but being blind made it a hard task when his charge was a physical creature, emotions often on her face which he could not see.
He would not have to struggle much longer, as she died on a mission three weeks after her teammates.
Fox pushed on, his sorrow only relieved by his need for revenge. The Grimm had done this. They killed his team, and now they must pay.
As he fought his way through countless missions, he collected scars that he wore on his exposed arms, which he wore with both pride and shame, tokens to remember his fallen teammates by.
Friends told him to slow down. He didn't.
Teachers tried to keep him out of the mission pool. They couldn't.
Fox risked life and limb countless times to get a chance to satiate his desire for destroying Grimm, and by the third anniversary of his team's deaths, he had become a legend among the other students, who had come to believe that he was never a part of a team in the first place. He let them.
The scars that riddled his flesh were only a scratch compared to the pain he had felt after losing his team, so he let them say what they wanted. He couldn't bear correcting them.
Finally, graduation arrived. He had become that highest performing student in Beacon's history, besting Professor Port's record for most Grimm defeated in a single student by an astonishing margin, causing the old brawler to take a special interest in the young man.
After all the students were given their final recommendations for job placement, Professor Port pulled the prodigy to the side.
"Young man, I have never seen a more impressive combination of fool hardiness and skill, myself included. I know that your anger over the loss of your team has driven you down this path, and there's nothing that I can say or do to make you reconsider it. But just know that if you continue down this road, the only thing waiting for you at the end is more pain," Port's expression told the whole story, but Fox would never know that.
"I know that you have received a recommendation from every one of your teachers to go into the Seeker field, but I wish you would reconsider. I say this not from a place of ignorance, young man, and I do not take your future lightly. I have lived through the loss of my team. The only way I stand here before you today is because a wise old man told me what I am telling you: If you let your rage consume you, you are no longer the Huntsman."
Fox only turned his back on the grizzled Huntsman.
As a Seeker, Fox's job in theory was to hunt out areas of high Grimm concentration and then call for backup to help eradicate the threat. In practice, Fox simply wandered the kingdoms and their neighboring islands, looking for targets for his rage.
He had been doing this for five years since graduation, and his body showed it. The scars stretched across more of his arms than healthy skin, and he had accumulated more than his share of near misses in encounters, never once calling in backup, and never running from a fight, determined to either eradicate everything or die trying.
As he approached his next destination, a cave with reports of strange noises and lights coming from deep inside, an ominous feeling settled in over the intrepid wanderer. Fox shook it off and forged on inside, the darkness enveloping him.
Fox slinked through the tunnels, muffling his footsteps as best he could.
A soft whisper drew him in deeper to the depths, yet his keen ears were unable to make out the words being said.
What is this place? Fox thought, I have never heard of a weeping cave.
Years of combat were screaming at Fox to turn around and get out, but his feet only carried him forward.
He approached… a light.
"Fox, you have fought bravely. Now join us in peaceful dreams," Velvet beckoned, Coco and Yatsuhashi beside her.
He laid down and joined his team.