AN: So... this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better... aahahhAhahAHhah, but we love you guys! Just hang in there!

Hugs,
Defenestrator

Your teammates are dying.

The headmaster's words hung in the air like a miasma, filling the cramped room with a heavy silence. The only movement came from Pyrrha as she wrapped an arm around Nora, somehow managing to keep the shake out of her voice as she spoke. "But professor, they seemed to be improving these past couple of days."

Ozpin raised his eyebrow almost imperceptibly, allowing his students a moment to recall the hole in Lie Ren's chest. "I'm afraid the situation has... developed, somewhat. Until this evening, we had every reason to believe that the Grimm rat toxin's effects were merely physical; however, it appears that we were mistaken."

The knob for the door to the hall rattled and turned; the oak paneled door swung inwards, admitting Professor Oobleck. His green hair stood on end. He wore a half-buttoned collared shirt over what appeared to be a set of more casual clothes, and his glasses shone white in the fluorescent light as he zipped into the room, sipping from a paper cup as he did so. "Ah, everyone's here. Ozpin, Glynda," he greeted the two of them.

"Bartholemew," Ozpin nodded to him, not bothering to offer him a seat. He would stand regardless. "I trust your research has gone well?"

"Yes, well, it is what it is," Professor Oobleck shook his head, "Terrible thing, this. Just terrible. Not many well-documented cases, I'm afraid."

Sometime during this exchange, Jaune raised his hand with a question.

Professor Goodwitch's eyes drifted up from the chart in her hands she'd been studying since Ozpin began talking. "Yes, Mr. Arc?"

"I was just wondering, sir, er, ma'am. Uh," Jaune looked at Professor Oobleck, "are you a doctor?"

"..." Oobleck took another sip of his drink. "Mr. Arc, I trust you are aware that there is more than one type of 'doctor'."

"Bartholemew has made a hobby of studying the more... traditional methods of medical practice," Ozpin clarified, his words grave.

"Complete quackery, most of it. However, there are a few techniques here and there, a number of particularly fascinating applications of dust-tipped needles..." Oobleck cleared his throat. "But allow me to start at the beginning. You may or may not be aware that there is no known cure for Grimm rat poisoning."

This time Weiss's hand shot up. Without waiting to be called on, she asked, "What about the antitoxin?"

"Highly sophisticated, but ultimately experimental," Ozpin informed her. "Bartholemew, if you would care to explain?"

"Yes, well," Oobleck said, "The toxins Grimm rats secrete vary from nest to nest, and in the past we have not had the technology available that allows us to analyze and formulate anti-toxins based on individual cases. At least many had assumed this was the case, as every attempt at developing an antitoxin was met with resounding failure. Naturally, this necessitated our becoming adept at avoiding the toxin altogether, hence the dire, albeit abbreviated, warnings included in your Grimm Studies texts. Despite their effectiveness, the rats' tails are not their preferred method of attack- that being the teeth and/or claws, for reasons unknown- and besides it really is quite unheard of these days to simply stumble upon a nest without warning, as you all did." He took another sip from his cup, "In fact, I believe the most recent case of Grimm rat poisoning occurred several decades before the Great War."

"Wow. Lucky us," Jaune grimaced.

"If you had been setting out to exterminate them, you would have of course been made fully aware of the dangers. However, it is simply so outlandishly uncommon... well, you get the idea. The crux of the problem has nothing to do with whether or not one is informed of the consequences of contact with the poison, however."

Here Professor Oobleck turned to the headmaster.

Ozpin looked very tired. "Mankind once believed that the rat toxin sought to destroy not only the body, but also the soul," he motioned to the stack of reports on Glynda's clipboard, "The tests our physicians have run seem to confirm this to be the case."

"Is that..." Blake's voice halted as she tried to put the pieces together. She gripped the edges of her chair in a futile effort to ground herself. "Is that why their semblances went out of control?"

"A person's semblance is tied directly to his or her aura," Oobleck smoothed his rumpled shirt with his free hand, "An attack on one- though I admit I am shaky on the details of how exactly you would attack someone's aura- will produce an effect in the other. In most instances, the toxin's physical effects are enough to kill the victim. We believed this to be the sole difficulty to overcome, and our very capable physicians have informed me that indeed the anti-toxin succeeded in that respect, indeed they were quite certain of a smooth recovery for your classmates." He took a swallow from his cup, "However, a closer look at records of Grimm rat encounters reveals that there are a few cases... antiquated, you understand. Hardly reliable... but in the few recorded cases where the victim's body has been of a constitution strong enough to withstand the physical effects..."

"The toxin apparently seeks to extinguish the soul," Ozpin provided the words for the scattered historian. "If the body survives, and only darkness remains? Well."

He didn't have to finish the explanation.

Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, Lie Ren.

If they lost this fight, if their souls succumbed to the rats' poison, they would become like every other soulless being in Remnant.

They would become Grimm.

Jaune's mouth went dry. He looked at his teammates, at Weiss and Blake. Pyrrha's arm had tightened around Nora, who was listening intently, hanging on the professors' every word, more focused than he'd ever seen her. Weiss was still as a statue, ice blue eyes fixed on a point somewhere behind Ozpin's shoulder, while Blake seemed determined to crush her chair in a white knuckled grip. He swallowed, "So how do we fix it? I mean, if it's fighting their soul somehow, can we... you know... fight it back?"

"We're not sure," Ozpin said. A small chirrup sounded, and he drew his scroll from his pocket. His gaze flickered back up to his students, "There are several methods we have at our disposal. Professor Oobleck will inform you of the details." He rose stiffly. "If you'll excuse me."

Glynda held the door open for Ozpin, tracking his tired eyes with her own. With one last subdued glance at her students, she followed him out of the room, leaving Oobleck to handle the aftermath.

Blake stood suddenly, unable to keep still any longer. Shaking slightly, whether from anger or fear she wasn't sure, she clenched her fists and addressed the one remaining professor in the room. "Tell me what I have to do."

"First of all, please take your seats," this forestalled the others' moves to follow Blake in rising. "I understand that you all are under an astonishing amount of duress, but we must keep our heads about us if we're to do any good at all," Oobleck adjusted his glasses, stepping to the center of the room, "As far as what's to be done, I'm afraid the matter isn't particularly straightforward..."

Weiss took a deep breath. The narrow white halls and flickering monitors only contributed to the claustrophobic feeling of being several floor levels below the school. The special cases wards were buried deep in the cliffs- for the patients' safety, or that of the other students', depending on the situation. In Yang's case, the latter was certainly true. In Ruby's... Weiss took another look through the glass panel in the door, her hand resting on the doorknob.

Ruby lay very still among her rose petals, her head turned towards Ozpin, who stood at her bedside. They'd been speaking for several minutes.

Weiss stepped away from the door. She wrapped her arms around her middle. Her jacket was rumpled, and in her rush she'd just tied her hair back in a low ponytail. There was nothing for it, though. She tried to relax, but her fists clenched up as she watched her partner and the headmaster beyond the door.

Farther down the hall, Jaune and Pyrrha and Nora waited outside Ren's room. Well, Jaune and Pyrrha waited. Nora bounced.

"Ugh, what are they talking about?" She peered in through the window at Ren and Professor Port, who had arrived during Professor Oobleck's outlining of the plan. Her attention wandered to the screens displaying Ren's information, but one of the nurses urged her not to press the buttons on the monitors and the hyperactive girl went back to the window.

"Looks like it's pretty serious," Jaune cupped his hands around his eyes to better see through the glass. He drew back, swallowing, "Not that it wasn't serious before... really serious, I mean. And bad. You know what I mean. I... don't know if I even know how to do that thing the professor was talking about back there. With my aura, I mean," he shot Pyrrha a helpless look. They'd been working on his aura control for weeks, but he didn't feel like he'd improved much at all.

Pyrrha did her best to smile for Jaune. "I know what you mean." She caught a glimpse of Ren flashing a small smile to Nora through the window. "The ability to aid another's recovery through linking auras is something you learn fairly early on in aura studies. Though, normally the technique is used to speed the recovery process for physical wounds. This is the first time I've heard of using it to aid in the recovery of another aura itself." Pyrrha paused, brows furrowing. "Granted, this is the first I've heard of a toxin that attacks aura, so..." Her words trailed off as she glanced down to the very end of the hall at Blake and Professor Goodwitch.

Blake leaned against the door leading to the stairwell, eyes trained to the floor, doing her best not to listen to the conversation Professor Goodwitch was having with Yang through the door on the other side of the hall. Much to her dismay, due to her partner's uninhibited flames, they were having the conversation while standing on either side of the closed door, so it was impossible not to hear snippets of their words going back and forth.

"If the worst... that can't happen... last resort... don't hesitate... collapse the room... don't let Blake..." Blake glanced up at hearing her name, briefly catching Yang's steely gaze through the window. There was something surreal about seeing her partner calmly holding a discussion while standing in the midst of a firestorm. She didn't get to hold the gaze for long as one of the medical staff approached her then, gently ushering her into an empty room to get properly equipped with a full-bodied fireproof suit.

Glynda entered the empty room a few minutes later, just as Blake was pulling on her gloves - the last pieces of the protective suit finally in place. "Miss Belladonna, are you ready to go?"

"Yes."

Glynda crossed her arms, fixing her student with a cautionary gaze. "Your partner's case is uniquely dangerous. I trust you understand the consequences of what you are being asked to do."

Blake glanced down at her own hands for only a moment before locking eyes with her professor, expression resolute. "I'll do whatever it takes."

Piercing green studied burning amber, silent and searching. Finally, Glynda nodded. "Very well then." She stood aside. "I'll be right outside the door if you need anything."

With a nod back at her professor, Blake left the room and made her way to the stalwart barrier of metal barely holding her partner's personal inferno at bay. Taking a deep breath, she cracked open the door just enough to slip inside, wincing at the streaks of fire that shot past her into the hall before she shut the door again.

Waiting was agony. Weiss closed her eyes and attempted to focus on her breathing.

How could this be happening? How had that idiot dolt even gotten herself poisoned in the first place? They hadn't exactly exchanged war stories after the fight. It had been a little too recent. It still was, she guessed. That same fear she'd felt in the dark, in the faint glow of her rapier's blade- that her partner, her friends were dead, that she was the only one left- gripped her chest.

She took another deep breath to try to dispel the feeling, but its icy fingers clutched at her, threatening to close around her heart.

The door to Ruby's room opened. Weiss drew herself up as Ozpin held the door for her, "Are you ready?"

"Yes, Professor," the heiress said, her eyes hard as she stepped into the room.

The space was cramped, the air warm and close. The persistent antiseptic smell of the infirmary fought with the subtle, pervasive scent of the rose petals strewn across the floor. Some had been crushed underfoot by the doctors and nurses who were now absent. The petals pooled on the examination table surrounding Ruby, thick as leaves, red as blood.

Ruby herself was awake. She grinned a weak grin, petals tumbling into existence when she turned her head. "Hey, Weiss."

"Hey, Ruby," Weiss stood at her bedside, her mouth suddenly dry. Her partner looked fine. A little flushed, maybe. A little drawn. She didn't look like her soul was being attacked. Like she might be turning into a Grimm. Weiss's manner fell into an awkward and stiff mix of her formal upbringing and her terrified concern for her partner, "... how do you feel?"

Ruby's grin vanished and her silver eyes dropped away from Weiss's, "I... um..." she shifted, pain crossing her features. "I..."

"No, don't answer that," Weiss hurried to say, berating herself for asking such a stupid question.

"It's alright. I just wish I could sit up or... or do something," Ruby fell silent, shutting her eyes and trying to breathe right. There was a heavy feeling on her, like something was slowly, surely crushing her ribcage, trying to squeeze the breath out of her.

Weiss glanced over her shoulder at Ozpin, who had retrieved a folding chair from behind the door. He offered it to her, and she sat next to the makeshift bed, resting her folded arms on the thin, paper and rose-petal covered padding of the examination table. "Well... that's why I'm here, right?" Her shot at cheerfulness fell woefully flat.

Ruby smiled anyway. "Yeah."

"Did Professor Ozpin explain everything?" Weiss asked, dreading the answer.

"Yeah," Ruby's voice broke. She struggled to clear her throat. "Weiss..."

"Ruby, don't."

"Weiss, in case I... you know..."

"Seriously, don't," it was a warning this time.

The scythe-wielder gathered her strength up to speak anyway, "No, I just need to tell you. Weiss, I mmngh-!"

The heiress kept her hand over her partner's mouth.

"Don't," Weiss glared down at her. She didn't need to hear this. Not now. Not ever. But especially not now. "I've worked too hard to help you recover to let anything to happen to you." She removed her hand, sitting back in her chair and brushing her white hair back over her shoulder, "Honestly, do you have any idea of what these past couple of days have been like for me?"

Ruby made an awkward attempt at wiping her mouth with her wrist, whining, "But I had all these great last words and everything."

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Were you going to ask me to take care of Crescent Rose?"

"... mayyyyyybe..."

The heiress rolled her eyes.

"Ahem," Ozpin, standing near the corner, made his presence known. Weiss darted him a glance, a blush creeping across her features. The headmaster was a sentry awaiting the outcome, good or bad, and she'd been here just chatting. Ruby grinned sheepishly up at her.

The heiress took one of the younger girl's calloused hand in both of hers. "I'm... not entirely sure how to do this, so just tell me if it hurts, or something."

"Okay," Ruby closed her eyes, as if she were resting, or simply going to sleep.

Weiss followed suit, breathing deeply. She shut out the sounds of the machines monitoring Ruby, the faint buzz of the dim lights overhead, the shift of fabric as Headmaster Ozpin adjusted his stance.

Gradually, a delicate white light suffused the air around her, gentle and fragile as falling snow.

Weiss had been trained in aura usage. Years, she had practiced, using it to direct her semblance, focus her glyphs, augment her natural grace and poise. She was built for speed, for precision, not to take hits, and her aura reflected this. The protection it offered her in the field was brittle- a heavy blow could shatter it and leave her with a lasting injury, or even knock her unconscious, far more easily than she would have liked to admit. So she poured all of her skill into evasion, outpacing and outmaneuvering her opponents before they could so much as touch her.

Unfortunately, those skills were of little help to her at the moment. She tightened her grip on Ruby's hand. Weiss knew the idea was to heal her, to get the poison out, something. But how was she supposed to do that when she was barely capable of taking care of her own injuries? How was she supposed to do it period? Professor Oobleck's description of the technique came from a hundred-year-old record book, and it wasn't even used for this type of affliction.

"Doing okay?" she heard Ruby murmur. "I don't really feel anything..."

"Shut up. I'm trying to concentrate," Weiss grumbled back.

She worked to keep her breathing even, blindly attempting to extend whatever recovery abilities she could to Ruby. It was supposed to be more effective between people who... well... who had some form of trust for each other. Family members were ideal, but given Ruby and Yang and Ren's rapid decline, teammates and friends were the best they could do. If only Yang weren't being affected as well. Maybe she could actually do something.

Then something clicked.

It was a slow draw, like her aura was thick, sluggish like syrup, flowing down her arms and into Ruby. Weiss squinted in drowsy fascination. She couldn't move.

This... didn't feel right.

Ruby's eyes came open slowly, like she'd been asleep for a long time. Panic woke behind the silver, and something else. She tried to yank her hand away, but Weiss couldn't let go. The petals that fell following Ruby's motion flickered from red to black, and her eyes shut again. Her mouth was open like she was yelling or in pain, but Weiss couldn't hear anything but a high-pitched ringing in her ears. It intensified as her vision blurred.

The last thing she saw was Ozpin striding towards them, cane in hand.

Weiss blinked.

She was awake, standing in the middle of a city. Or she thought it was a city. It was devoid of all signs of human life. Buildings rose up around her, tall and square, but the colors were wrong and they had no windows.

Was this a dream? She was dressed in her combat gear- her boots, her white skirt and jacket, her hair up in its signature tail. All she was missing was Myrtenaster. And Ruby.

Where was Ruby? Weiss looked around. Everything within ten yards of her was frozen solid and coated in a thin dusting of snow. Outside of her ring of white, all the colors were wrong. Pale light from a white, sunless sky lit a cityscape of pastel blues and storybook greens. She was in some sort of winding street, paved with pale-orange bricks.

Odd trees with leaves that shimmered like they were made of water had pushed their way up through the cracks and were growing everywhere, even out of the sides of buildings. Blue grass crept up over the sidewalks, and road signs were patterned with meaningless symbols.

She reached out and touched one of the leaves- it dropped from the branch and splintered into shards of ice on the frozen bricks. The sound rang loud in the silence. She cringed, but nothing moved. The wind blew. The water leafed trees sparkled, and the frozen version tinkled softly like a wind chime. Her breath misted in the air.

What was this place?

Weiss's cautious footsteps crunched in the snow and frost as she left the circle of white, her gaze flickering across her unfamiliar surroundings, "Ruby?"

There was no sign of her. There was no sign of anyone at all.

As Weiss made her way down the winding, broken brick road, the trees grew larger and closer together. Buildings changed shapes, some looming high overhead, some curving almost as if they were looking down at her. The architecture was impossible. Literally impossible. The heiress resisted the urge to cover her head when she passed under the gaze of the curious skyscrapers in case chunks of building came crashing down.

Her heart raced and her senses were on all edge, as they should be in a place where the laws of physics appeared to be a bit... less connected to reality... and yet... the place was beautiful. Sort of. In a strange way, at least. She watched a cloud of pink dandelions clinging to the sill of a non-existent window drift away on the breeze.

The air was clean and crisp; the leaves shimmered and rippled overhead in the pervading light. The trunks of the trees grew in handsome whorls, the branches curving out from odd places to support their odd liquid foliage. There were no animals, though. No birds, no insects making autumn sounds. No noise other than the wind in the trees and Weiss's boots as she clambered over the roots of a particularly massive tree shoving its way up through the pavement.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered, summoning a glyph and springing to the tree limbs overhead to get a better look around. The leaves that she came into contact with ran through her hair and down her sleeves in droplets as she perched among the highest branches.

An ocean of crystal clear leaves broken only by oddly shaped buildings stretched out in every direction as far as she could see.

The silence was peaceful, but unnatural. Weiss frowned at the thought as the branches she held swayed in the slight breeze. It wasn't just the silence: everything about this place was unnatural.

The heiress dropped back to the street, shaking water from her sleeves. She had to find Ruby and get out of here.

A flicker of movement, dark and small. Weiss only caught it out of the corner of her eye before it vanished behind a tangle of crumbled rock.

The debris was different from its surroundings. It was dark- a sick, blackish green- and had a rotten smell to it. Weiss hopped down off the hill of roots to investigate.

The tumble of stones and decomposing vegetation stood out like a gash against the pale side of the building. It oozed a dark liquid, like oil or tar. Weiss inspected it, careful not to touch it.

"Hmph," she made a mental note to add this oozing bunch of rocks to her growing list of anomalies found in a city full of alien stone and weird trees. Because really.

Still, some ghost of intuition told her that the silence and the gash of stones were strange for this place. Her eyes narrowed.

Another shadow darted just around the edge of the building. Weiss snapped into action, readying a glyph as she stalked after the trace of movement.

"Ruby, if that's you, you'd better come out before I..." she rounded the corner and found herself standing on the lip of a small valley. Trees curved over the space, their roots sunk deep into the walls of buildings around the valley's edge. A stream meandered its way from a narrow alleyway on one end down into a displaced storm drain on the other. The path before Weiss sloped down, bricks giving way to a circle of bare grass and earth, patterned with the shifting shadows of the liquid leaves overhead.

A figure in a red cloak lay on its side in the center of the clearing.

"Ruby," Weiss breathed. The valley cupped her, everything curling overhead as if to protect her. Fearing that she might be too late, but remaining cautious all the same, Weiss made her way down the slope to the level floor below.

Two steps into the clearing, the ground gave out beneath her feet and she plunged knee-deep into a mire of black sludge that lay hidden beneath the dirt. She pitched forward, catching herself on her hands to keep from falling on her face.

"Ugh," she recoiled in disgust, but the muck gripped her like quicksand, pulling her deeper when she tried to right herself. She pulled one arm free, "Ruby!"

The figure in red stirred. It pushed itself up on its elbows and rose, staggering to its feet, its hood falling back over its shoulders as it turned. Weiss stared at her partner, her blood running cold

Half of Ruby's face was Grimm-black, shot with red and masked with bone. Her eyes were trained on Weiss, backed with a crimson glow. A dark scythe flickered into existence in her hands.

Weiss tried to edge backwards as her partner advanced, but she only succeeded in sinking up to her knees in the black muck. "Wait. What do you think you're doing? It's me."

The younger girl's unsteady steps stopped a few feet from the heiress. The red in her eyes ebbed as she gazed down at her, searching, expression blank. The black shifted under the bone mask half-curled across Ruby's face, crawling across her mouth. Her lips stretched back in a crooked grin, wider on the dark side of her face, exposing teeth that appeared longer, sharper than normal.

The scythe's blade- a crooked mockery of Crescent Rose's- didn't gleam when she cocked it back; it seemed to swallow the light, like a slice of unadulterated darkness.

Stifling heat assaulted Blake from every side, not unlike a steam room turned up to full blast. Though, instead of clouds of steam, all she could see were roiling flames dancing in every direction. She couldn't even find the center point of the room.

"Blake? Is that you?"

"Yang?" Blake followed the sound of her partner's voice, eventually stepping through a wall of flame to find Yang sitting cross-legged on the floor right in the center of a swirling pillar of fire.

The visibly weakened brawler looked up at Blake, eyes shining with something indescribable. "Hey partner. You're looking pretty hot in that new getup," she said with a cheeky grin.

Blake stood rooted to her spot, suddenly seething with incredulity. Here before her was someone who was facing not only death itself, but the threat of something unfathomably worse. And yet even at a time like this, her goofball of a partner was making stupid, ridiculous jokes. Anger flared in her veins, only for it to dissipate just as quickly at the sight of Yang's grin relaxing into a soft smile.

Quietly, she studied the tired face of the carefree brawler before her. This bright, shining person she'd come to trust and rely on - this person she truly could call a friend. This person she actually… cared for. Blake realized then that she would do just about anything to keep hearing those stupid jokes.

Taking the last couple of steps to close the distance between them, Blake sat right in front of Yang, mirroring her cross-legged posture with their knees practically brushing. "You already used that pun today," she said in her usual monotone, crossing her arms.

A split second look of surprise flitted across Yang's face before she laughed and rubbed the back of her head, "Heh, you caught me!"

Blake opened her mouth to speak, but quickly shut it again, unsure of what to say. She dropped her gaze to the floor as Yang dropped her arm back into her lap. They lapsed into an uneasy silence.

"Blake."

Amber eyes darted upwards to meet hardened crimson. All of Blake's senses prickled in anticipation.

"Blake, if I don't make it-"

"Yang no, don't even-"

"-I want you to take care of Ruby for me."

Blake's throat constricted painfully, all of her retorts dying instantly on her tongue. The weight of such a request was not lost on her. She knew as well as anyone how much Yang cared for her little sister. Having her partner place so much trust in her filled her with equal parts pride and terror.

Wide-eyed, she held Yang's gaze for what felt like an eternity, yet again unsure of what to say.

Worry began to creep into the brawler's crimson eyes at Blake's extended silence. Yang reached a tentative hand out between them.

"Blake, please-"

"Okay." Blake grabbed Yang's hand, glancing briefly at the flames radiating from each finger before locking eyes with her partner, willing every ounce of reassurance she could into a single look. She relaxed at the relief reflected in Yang's eyes. Neither of them spoke for a while, lapsing into another silence.

Eventually, Yang pulled her hand away. "So, Professor Goodwitch tells me you're going to do that aura-linking heal-y thing on me, huh?"

Blake nodded. "That's right."

Yang's eyes hardened. "What's that even going to do if one of the auras is compromised?" she asked, pointing to herself.

"I don't know…" Blake replied slowly, her face sliding into a frown, "but the professors seem to think it could help."

Yang sighed, unable to keep a hint of exasperation from slipping into her expression. "I guess it's worth a try at least. What do we have to do?"

Blake steeled herself, lifting one hand. "Well, firstly…I have to touch you."

Yang blinked, glancing down at her own flaming body, and then to the inferno surrounding them. The color drained from her face as realization slowly dawned on her. "Blake, no. Your hand will-"

Blake looked away. "It's fine. My aura will heal it… eventually."

Yang's eyes widened. "Blake, I incinerated the furniture in this room."

Blake scowled. "I've made up my mind."

"You can't be serious. I'm not going to let you – Blake!"

Without warning, Blake had already ripped off a glove, setting her teeth and bracing for the imminent searing pain. Eyes screwed shut, she waited.

It never came.

Confused, she cracked open one eye to see Yang staring at her with a shocked expression bordering on awe. Blake threw a curious glance down at her hand – it was uncomfortably hot and sweaty to be sure, but otherwise completely unscathed.

Slowly, Yang reached out to take her partner's uncovered hand in both of her own, gently turning it this way and that, carefully examining each finger and quietly marveling at the sight. Understanding flashed across the brawler's face and she leaned back suddenly, looking flustered.

Blake simply blinked, equally befuddled by her apparent sudden immunity to fire, as well as her partner's reaction. "Yang. What…"

Yang looked everywhere but at Blake, lifting one hand to rub the back of her neck. After a lengthy pause, she finally spoke, albeit haltingly.

"Sometimes, uh, a semblance's effects can be, selective, under... special circumstances..."

Blake continued to stare.

"You know, the only other person my semblance doesn't really burn is Ruby," the brawler continued, finally meeting Blake's questioning gaze. Yang flashed her partner a lopsided smile. "I guess what I'm trying to say is... it looks like you're part of the family now, Blake."

Yang felt her partner tense up, the hand she'd been holding suddenly seizing her fingers in a steely grip almost as unrelenting as the unreadable stare Blake had fixed her with.

After a moment of silence, Blake leaned forward slightly. "I'm going to get this... whatever it is out of you, and you're going to be fine."

A smile spread across Yang's face, and she laughed, giving her partner's hand a small squeeze. "OK then! Let's do this."

Blake leaned back again and watched Yang's eyes slide shut before slowly closing her own, allowing herself to drift off into a sea of welcoming flames.

Blake concentrated all of her energy on the hands resting atop her own, willing her aura forward through her fingertips. It was a gracelessly executed technique, brash even, to impose on another's aura so forcefully, but having learned nearly everything firsthand on the field of battle, the largely self-taught Faunus had very little formal training in "proper" aura usage outside of what she'd learned at Beacon.

Blake frowned as her thoughts drifted. Aura certainly had its uses, offensive and defensive alike, and if it meant keeping her teammates in one piece, maybe learning a bit more about it wouldn't be the worst idea, considering her literal damage-sponge of a partner. Blake's concentration faltered momentarily as she considered taking extra lessons and the work it might entail.

Her mind didn't have long to wander when a prick of heat pierced her aura - the flames in the room suddenly spiking in intensity a millisecond later, roaring loud enough for her Faunus ears to instinctually flatten in protest. The white-hot sensation traveled into her hand, slowly working its way through her veins. Assuming the heat was her partner's own aura, Blake took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. So Yang's aura was a bit on the scalding side. That was to be expected, right?

She cracked open an eye to check on Yang. Complete darkness met her. Confused amber eyes flew open, wide and searching. The darkness surrounding her now was decidedly unnatural - even her Faunus eyes were of no use. She could still hear the flames, still feel Yang's hands holding her own, but it was as if all light had vanished. An attempt to turn her head revealed her inability to move, setting the paralyzed Faunus further on edge. This was not an effect she remembered from her previous attempts at healing others.

Still, she had very little experience with using aura in this manner, so she did her best to push her rising panic aside, despite the heat in her veins practically searing her from the inside out. She could feel it languidly flowing through her arm, stopping only for a moment to change direction as it deftly skirted past her shoulder and began heading towards her chest.

Against her better judgment, Blake forced herself to relax, allowing her partner's aura whatever it needed.

Just as it reached her heart, two shining predatory eyes opened right before her face, the glowing irises flickering wildly between amethyst and crimson.

Blake had no time to react.

In an instant, the spreading heat shot through the rest of her body, up into her head, and behind her eyes, flooding her vision in blinding white.