A/N: This took longer than expected to write. All the news about RWBY and Rooster Teeth is a little crushing, and I've been really busy with finals and family.

Merry Christmas!

CHAPTER 8:

Revelations

"Shirou!"

Ruby cried out. Her hands reached forward trying to grasp onto him, but he was already gone. The particles of light he was made of, that looked so much like Dust, swirled in the air before gathering around her. Ruby stood, arm still outstretched as the light enveloped her before disappearing with a brilliant flash.

When the light finally died, Ruby breathed out fog and looked around at her lonely world. Her world filled with weapons. She was back.

"Shirou?" Ruby stared at her own hand. "I…"

She had just seen him! He was there, right in front of her. If only she had been quicker. If only she had reacted faster, she could have asked him a question. Asked him why his memories were bleeding into her dreams. Why his abilities were becoming her abilities. Why Ruby couldn't stop thinking like he did.

Why they were so similar.

In that moment, Ruby's feet crunched on the wet snow in her world, and she suddenly realised where she was standing. She knew where she was, and she was the most aware she had ever been when dreaming about her world. She could see everything, taste the cold and metallic air, smell the fresh covered grass and traces of smoke, and feel the wave of hot air that washed through it all. Snow started melting. The sky rumbled and clouds began to fly past like arrows. The sun and shattered moon flickered. And in the long distance, she swore she heard the sound of a gun hammer and the sound of gears turning.

"What is going on?" Ruby wondered. "I was just—"

"Trace, on!"

Two words. Two words in his voice, whispered in the breeze, made Ruby freeze. She'd heard them before, the first time her dreams had changed. The first time she had reached out to the weapons around her. But something was different. Like the clouds filling the sky were actually puffs of smoke from a furnace.

Something flew out of the sky right at Ruby. She yelled as she launched herself back and watched the object slam into the ground in front of her, tossing snow and small bits of earth and grass into the air. But it was small. Not as big as Ruby thought it was. No, it was smaller, and the only reason Ruby knew was because she knew everything in her world.

And yet, she didn't know anything about her world in the first place.

This was new. Ruby carefully came close to look. When she saw what had planted itself into the ground like the many weapons around her, she couldn't help but let her jaw drop just slightly. Crouching low, she picked up the butter knife she had just destroyed and stared at its pristine form.

It was wickedly sharp. As dangerous as everything around her.

Another warm wind swept past her and she quickly stood up with the knife still in hand as Ruby's gaze frantically searched the weapon-filled world around her. She remembered what had happened. She wasn't just dreaming because she was asleep. Something had happened.

"I'm a third-rate magus."

His voice continued to echo, and Ruby's alarm continued to grow. She had been with Cardin, and she had found out about his secret. About her own secret. Why did she have Magic Circuits? Cardin had called her a Magus. Shirou had been a Magus. Was she a Magus too?

So many questions. Questions she needed answers to. Answers that she felt were still completely out of reach.

"Shirou?" Ruby cried. "Hello!?"

"I'm not even good at the few spells I do know."

Ruby began to run. The hot wind was growing stronger. The snow around her was melting. The metallic taste and iron smell was invading her senses.

Spells. Magic. Shirou's voice was talking about things she knew nothing and everything about. She needed to know more.

She dropped the modified knife and let it fall back to the earth as she moved as fast as she could.

"Reinforcement, Alteration, and Structural Analysis. That's all I can do."

That hill. That lonely hill in the distance with the shining Sword of Promised Victory encasing the light of the sun within her weapon-filled world. It was her best bet. Could she learn more from them? Would they have the answers? Or would she have to wait and experience more memories before she could know more? Ruby almost started running there again, but before she could she stopped. Something at the edge of her vision caught her eye. Something white.

"...No. That's wrong. There is one thing I'm good at. But my father always told me to give up on it. He told me that there was no point in it, but I've always been the best at it."

For the first real time, she turned to look at the side of her world that was only lit by the light of the shattered Moon. Shadows stretched across the long line that wasn't a line that split her world in two, never quite dark and never quite light. Fluttering amidst hundreds of nameless weapons all leaning towards it as if subservient, and standing tall like a monument to its owner, a lonely sword was wrapped in a white and red cloak.

"Projection magecraft."

"...Mom?" Ruby whispered. Any thoughts about Shirou disappeared as Ruby gazed in shock at the sight.

"If I've seen it…"

She took a step away from the day and towards the brilliant night.

"If I learn and know its history…"

It was her sword. Ruby knew it was hers. Using the Structural Analysis she now had a name for, her Reading; She knew it was her mother's. She had seen it countless times before she had disappeared. Ruby knew its history because it was part of her own history. She would recognise it anywhere.

"Mom!" Ruby cried.

"If I replicate every instance of its creation…"

Ruby started running. The snow grew heavier with every step, and her legs sunk more and more as the Burning Rose seemed to grow further and further out of reach. She wanted to know it was real. She wanted to believe it was.

"I can make it myself."

Her mother's sword was in her world. It was in her world, and it was too far out of reach.

Ruby's hands shot out, and her inner world snapped with the crack of gunfire.

~~R o a D~~

The infirmary was silent as everyone watched Weiss attend to Ruby. A glyph utilising Ice Dust hovered constantly above Ruby, and it seemed to take all of Weiss' concentration just to maintain it at a constant level. They all wondered at the effort needed to make sure Ruby didn't continue overheating, but wasn't in danger of freezing.

Nora stood at the foot of the bed, shifting nervously on her feet, where Ren stood next to her with a hand on her back. All the while, several glares were pointed in the direction of Cardin Winchester, who watched the situation with an unusually grim look.

The only nurse on standby had long since given up trying to attend to Ruby as the only person who could really touch her at all was Weiss. In the silence, only broken by Ruby's heavy breaths and the hum of Weiss' glyph, Yang's eyes pierced Cardin the most. Her hair had long since cooled but her eyes had stayed red ever since Ruby collapsed. That wasn't to say her rage had abated, but now it had been tempered, and Yang was losing her patience.

Finally, enough was enough, and Yang grit her teeth. "Why was she with you?"

Cardin shook his head. "I can't tell you."

"Bullshit. She's my sister."

"Do you want to die?" Cardin asked. "That's what you're asking right now."

"You piece of shit—!"

Blake put a hand on her partner's shoulder. "No, Yang. He's trying to provoke you."

"I don't give a damn! He hurt her! He hurt Ruby!"

"She was hurting already." Cardin glanced down and hardly flinched as he flexed the bandages around his hands and arms. He had been treated when the nurse realised she couldn't do anything to help Ruby. "I didn't do anything."

"Liar!"

The sound of a slap cracked through the air, and Yang's eyes flickered as she held her face in shock. She turned to see Blake staring at her with a frown. As she opened her mouth to yell, Blake grabbed Yang's wrist.

"No," Blake said. "You don't get to yell. Everyone here is on edge. We're all just as worried as you are. Weiss is doing everything she can. Don't make this harder for any of us."

Yang's eyes flickered again as she looked at Blake in disbelief. "How can you say that when we both saw Cardin holding Ruby like that?!"

"I saw Cardin getting second-degree burns as he carried Ruby," Blake said. "Last I saw her, Ruby was already in a bad state. I know Cardin did something terrible—"

"He was holding Ruby up by her throat—

"—I know he did something terrible, but now isn't the time."

Yang pulled her wrist out of Blake's grip. "I'll make him suffer more."

"We don't know everything either," Jaune said weakly. He turned to look at Pyrrha who nodded, and he continued. "We heard voices. We heard Ruby apologising, you know."

"It didn't look like Ruby was fighting him," Nora whispered. "But that could mean anything."

"It's true," Pyrrha murmured. Her gaze fell back to Cardin, who still sat at the edge of his own bed watching Ruby. "Something happened between them. There's more going on here."

"I don't care," Yang growled. "I saw what I saw. He's guilty."

Cardin nodded absentmindedly, and proceeded to say something that was almost unbelievable to them. "I'm fine with being guilty…but I know why she's overheating."

At that remark, even Yang's anger sputtered as they stared at Cardin in varying levels of confusion. Weiss almost lost focus as she had actually been listening in the entire conversation, while Ren and Nora turned to look at Cardin.

Blake was the first to recover. "What do you mean? How do you know?"

He turned to look at them with a hard look in his eyes. His signature glare. But this time, Blake didn't feel the usual heat behind it. Only a hollow shadow. One she was familiar with. After all, she saw that same look in her own gaze at times. Like he knew something they didn't, and had secrets upon secrets to hide. That shadow disappeared as quickly as it had come, and he broke his gaze.

"I wasn't kidding," he said. "If you don't need to know, you might die."

Blake stilled at the comment and stared at Cardin. "Is that a threat?"

"No." Cardin shook his head. "It's the truth. If you don't know, then I can't tell you. It's not me you should be worried about. It's them."

Everyone looked at each other with a frown. Blake then asked, "Who's 'them'?"

"If you don't know, then you're better off not knowing."

Before anyone could react, Yang had rushed forward and Cardin by his shirt. She pulled him up with both hands and held him as he grunted from the impact. Having recovered from her shock, she was scowling as her eyes continued flickering red. "Tell me what you know," she whispered, "And I won't have to shove your head through 3 feet of concrete."

"Do it," said Cardin with a pained smile. "I know you want to."

Yang tipped over his chair as she shoved him into the side table and slammed him against the wall. It was enough to get Cardin to wheeze from the impact. "If you weren't kidding, then I'm not kidding either." Yang's voice was calmer than anyone had ever heard it, but it was also sharper than anything they could have ever imagined coming from Yang. She tightened her pressure on Cardin as he began to cough.

"I'll say it one more time: Tell me what's wrong with my sister."

Cardin grit his teeth as he tried to breathe. "You can't come back from this," Cardin gasped. "Once you know, you'll be in danger."

"As if we're not in enough danger as is!" Yang shouted. "Grimm could swarm and kill us at any second. I don't give a damn."

Cardin stared at Yang for a moment longer before the fight seemed to leave his body and he nodded, going limp in Yang's grip. Without so much as a warning, Yang let go and Cardin stumbled as he landed on the ground. Yang then stepped away but hovered close by while she folded her arms and glared at Cardin.

Blake found herself putting her hand on Yang's shoulder. "Are you sure about this?"

"If you don't want to know, then leave," Yang said. "I won't fault you for it. Seems like he's real serious. But I don't care."

"Yang, think this through—"

"You might be my partner, but Ruby is my sister. I won't let her get hurt on purpose again." Yang then fixed Blake with a look that made her shiver. "If you get in the way, I can't promise anything."

That silenced Blake long enough for Cardin to recompose himself. As they watched him brush himself down and glare at Yang, he folded his arms and turned to look at Ruby.

"It's all of your funerals. I won't attend." Cardin shook his head. Another moment, and he sighed. "I'm a Magus. And your sister is probably one too."

Yang was the first to express her confusion. "Magus? The hell is that?"

Cardin frowned. "I was getting to that. A Magus is someone who has Magic circuits. They can cast spells, create bounded fields, and perform mysteries."

"Wait," Ren whispered, his eyes wide as he turned to watch Cardin carefully. "Did you just say Magic?"

"Ren?" asked Nora. "Do you know what he's talking about?"

Pyrrha stared at Ren before realising what he was saying. She then looked properly at Cardin. "You know how to cast Magic?"

"I didn't say that. Are you idiots even listening?" Cardin said with gritted teeth. "I said we have Magic circuits. Magic itself is something else entirely. Mages perform magecraft, all so they can get close to something called the Root."

Jaune's face twisted in confusion. He wasn't exactly getting it, but then again, he hadn't really understood anything since starting Beacon until recently. "So what's the difference?" Jaune asked. "They sound like the same thing."

"Of course they're not, dumbass." Cardin slowly dragged his hands down his face and glared at Jaune. "Magecraft can do things that make sense. Let's say you know how to make something stronger, like your weapon. You can do that with magecraft. You want to know how something works? Either spend years learning it, or you can just use a spell and find out that way."

Yang had an epiphany at that moment. "Ruby's Reading," she said aloud. Blake nodded alongside her. "That's a type of magecraft, then. She can do that, find out things about stuff she sees."

"She told you about it." Cardin grumbled. "Of course she did. Endangering you before I even—You know what? Whatever. And yes. She was probably using Structural Analysis, one of the most basic spells."

"Okay," Blake said. "So magecraft is within the realm of possibility. What about Magic?"

"Think big," Cardin said. "I don't understand it myself. I don't want to, and don't need to. It's all stuff that doesn't make sense."

"Doesn't make sense?" Nora asked.

Ren rubbed the bridge of his nose as he mulled over the implications. A look of realisation overcame him as he looked up. "He means things that are impossible, Nora," he said quietly. "It's like that old Mistralian proverb: You can fix a clock, but you can't wind it back."

Nora blinked in confusion. "Huh? Are we talking about time again, Ren?"

Pyrrha gasped. "You can't mean…"

"Yeah," Cardin said. "Traveling through time and other worlds. Creating something from nothing. Infinite energy. Things you can't just do. That'sTrue Magic. And Mages spend their entire lives trying to reach the Root through magecraft and Magic. At any cost."

"That's crazy," Jaune whispered. "That's just…"

Blake breathed, feeling goosebumps run through her. "Dangerous. Very dangerous. Anyone that focused would be."

Cardin snapped his gaze towards Blake. "Exactly. You understand."

Yang snapped her fingers, and everyone broke out of their wonder. "So what?" Yang asked instead. Her foot tapped against the ground as she rested her fists against her hips. "What does this have to do with my sister? Mages, magecraft, Magic. So. What. We have Aura. It's basically the same thing. You haven't answered why my sister is like this."

"Yang."

Everyone nearly jumped at the first words Weiss had said the entire time. "Let him explain," Weiss continued through gritted teeth. "Stop interrupting. Wasting our time." She still hadn't let up her maintenance of her glyph, and she was almost shaking from using her Semblance for so long. That was when they all realised that Weiss was nearing her limit.

"I never thought I would say this, but thanks, Weiss," Cardin said.

"Just. Get on with it."

Cardin coughed. "Right. The reason Ruby is like this is because she's overworking her circuits. I'm guessing she just found out about them recently."

"Since we started Beacon," Yang said. "She had something like this happen the first day too."

"But nowhere near this bad, huh."

"What I don't understand is why her Aura isn't healing it," remarked Pyrrha. "As Huntsman and Huntresses, our Aura naturally heals and protects us. Why is Ruby still like this?"

Jaune blanched, Ren doubled back to glance at Ruby, and Yang's foot stopped tapping against the ground. Blake opened her mouth to say something, before frowning, and Weiss watched the troubled look that Ruby had as she continued breathing steam in her sleep.

"It's because Aura and Magic circuits come from the same place. The soul." Cardin looked once more at everyone and back at Ruby. "The same way we activate our Aura and use our Semblance, Mages use Magic circuits for their spells."

Jaune scrunched his face as he tried to understand. "Wait. Doesn't that mean—"

Ren nodded. "If her Magic circuits are what's making her overheat, then her Aura trying to heal her would only make it worse. And if that's the case…"

"A feedback loop," Blake said weakly. "Ruby's soul is basically working itself to death."

"So you're saying my little sister is killing herself without even knowing it?" Yang said. She clenched her fists and began shaking. "That…that can't be true. I—"

She stepped towards Ruby's bed and gripped the edge of her bed to the point that the metal bar began bending and Ren shooed Nora away. "I really can't do anything?"

Weiss snapped her head towards Yang with an angry look. "You're. Ruby's sister. You're doing. All you can. Shut up."

A hand squeezing her shoulder made Yang flinch. It was Blake. "Weiss is right," said Blake. "You've done everything a sister can do. You—Well, we all but interrogated Cardin. We know what's happening now. All we can do is weather it out, and hope Ruby does too."

With that, silence ensued once again, only broken by Ruby's errant whimpers and squeaks while Weiss continued syphoning Ice Dust into her glyph. They continued to watch, while Cardin sat in silence and stared at the whole commotion with conflicted emotions.

Finally, he couldn't stand the oppressive atmosphere and stood up with purpose. "I can do something to help her. I think I can shut her circuits off."

"No," Yang exclaimed immediately, shooting to her feet herself. "You're not getting near her. Not again."

Cardin raised his hands, but didn't lose ground. "Look. I get it. You think I'm dangerous to you."

"You're dangerous to all of us," Yang muttered. "Don't think I've forgotten."

"But I can help."

"No. You've helped enough."

"Yang—"

Yang shook her head. "No, Blake. I've already compromised. This is where that line ends."

"No, Yang, that's not—"

"Blake, stop trying to interfere. This is between me and—"

"For the love of Oum, Yang, LOOK AT RUBY!"

Yang watched Cardin widen his eyes at the same time Weiss screamed, and Yang whirled to see Ruby's skin pulsing with silver lines once more. The frost that had been building on her clothes instantly evaporated and Ruby began to shake as those same silver lines started glowing stronger and stronger. Seeing the danger, Nora and Ren both retreated next to Jaune and Pyrrha.

"Are those her circuits!?" Yang asked. The room was growing louder as the sound of sparking electricity and a hollow wind began to swirl in the air. "What is this?!"

"Yeah, she's using them again!" shouted Cardin, "But I don't understand! This doesn't make sense—"

Just then, Ruby's arms shot out. They broke right through Weiss' glyph and startled her off her stool. In that same moment, everyone took a step back as Ruby's eyes snapped open to reveal shining silver pools that stared at something they couldn't see, and she opened her mouth to scream.

"MOM!"

Silver lightning began arcing between Ruby's fingertips before something started forming in the space between her hands. A shape that looked like a sword, and oh so sickeningly familiar. The same shapes and lines that were tracing their way across Ruby's skin, glowed within the ethereal construct forming, and Yang widened her eyes.

Patches of Ruby's skin were starting to burn. Streaks of her hair were turning white, and her Aura flickered as everything seemed to form around the sword. Every fraction of a second that passed made it seem more and more real, as if it had never been lost in the first place.

"No…" Yang whispered, "Mom's sword? But how—"

"What the—She's starting to cannibalise her nerves!" Cardin yelled. "I don't give a shit if you're overprotective, I'm shutting her down now!"

"W-wait—!"

Yang felt helpless as she was shoved out of the way and heard the sizzle of flesh as Cardin pushed his hand against Ruby's back and shouted something she couldn't understand. Almost instantly, the growing swirl, the faint smell of iron, and the glowing lines in Ruby's skin disappeared. The steam rising from her disappeared, her Aura stopped flickering, and her eyes rolled back as she collapsed into the bed, guided by Cardin's hand.

The incomplete sword Ruby had been forming shattered into pieces. Parts that hadn't been fully formed dissipated into the air, while the rest fell onto the bed or clattered to the ground. One piece in particular, a malformed shard of hilt, slid next to Yang, and she stared at it in dumbfound disbelief.

Everyone was shaken. Weiss was lying on her back as she tried to regain all of the energy she had lost. Blake had unconsciously gone into an unarmed battle stance, and Pyrrha had pushed her team behind her.

Cardin slowly removed his hand and grimaced at his seared bandages and sighed. Yang reached for the hilt piece, picked it up, and turned it over. "This is—"

"Projection magecraft," Cardin said. "Whatever you think it is, it isn't. It's an incomplete copy, unfinished as it is. I'm surprised it's even around still."

Weiss, who had pulled herself back onto the stool and had slumped onto Ruby's bedside, grabbed a piece of her own and murmured, "This doesn't feel hollow."

"No, it's not," whispered Yang. "This is real. Real metal. The leather is the same too. I would know."

Cardin frowned. "That's impossible." He went to pick up a shard of the blade that had settled on the bed, wincing as his re-burned fingers grabbed it. As he stared at it, everyone watched his face go from sceptical to disbelieving. "No…what is this? Projection can't do this, and her mana should have been too low to even do this much. What the hell…"

His gaze returned to Ruby. "Wait, her eyes. They were glowing too, but those weren't just regular Mystic Eyes."

Just then, Ruby shifted in her bed, and they all watched her groan weakly as her eyes fluttered open once more. Where they had once been glowing, her silver eyes were back to normal, and she blinked at the ceiling a few times before turning her head to see everyone looking at her.

"Hey," said Ruby with a weak smile. "What's up?"

Her gaze then fell to Weiss who was watching her at her bedside, before it turned to Yang's conflicted face, Blake and Team JNPR's relieved looks, and finally, Cardin, whose bandages and injuries she stared at in confusion. As she looked closer, she realised where she was, saw the container of Ice Dust next to Weiss, and realised how the bandages on Cardin's hand had burned off to reveal blistering skin.

Ruby stared at Cardin. "I hurt you." Her gaze then looked at some of the pieces that had survived her incomplete projection and picked up a shard to look at it. She was confused at where they came from, and when she tried to Read it, a searing pain lanced through her brain, and she was suddenly very aware that her entire body was almost numb and she felt uncomfortably hot.

"Dumbass!" Cardin shouted. "Stop! I've sealed your circuits!"

"My…circuits?"

Ruby scrunched her face as she tried to think of what Cardin was saying. The last thing she remembered. What was it that had happened exactly, before her dream—

She widened her eyes. "Magecraft. Cardin. My dream. My dream! I saw Shirou, Yang! I saw Mom's sword! It was there, right there, in my dream world!" Ruby looked Yang in the eye and managed to sit up. She held her hands out, one still holding onto a blade shard. "I tried, Yang. I tried to get to it. It was right there! It was her sword!"

"I know, Ruby."

Ruby reeled. Yang's voice was quiet. "H-huh?"

Yang held out the piece of hilt that she was carrying. "You did something. It looked like you were making her sword out of nothing. And then Cardin stopped you. You were literally dying, Ruby."

"W-what?" Ruby asked. She looked at the projected piece of metal still in her hands. "I…made this?" Then, the second half of Yang's sentence hit Ruby and she gaped. "I what?!"

"Your Magic circuits were burning you up from the inside out," Cardin said. "Your Aura's already healing you, but I had to step in."

"You had to step in," Ruby muttered. "And I was almost dead."

"I was doing everything I could to cool you down, Ruby," Weiss said. "It was like you were a furnace. It almost hurt just standing next to you. I had to use almost all of my Aura to maintain my glyphs on you."

"Team JNPR and Yang and Weiss were looking for you after you left," Blake said.

Nora shuffled nervously, a far cry from what Ruby was used to. "We were worried, and when we saw you being held by Cardin…"

Yang frowned. "I was ready to kill him, Ruby. He saved you now, but I can't forget that."

"It was a misunderstanding, Yang," Ruby said almost offhandedly, her gaze absently turning over the metal shard in her hand. "It's between me and him. Not his fault."

"I don't believe that."

Yang blinked as Ruby met her frown with an iron stare. A stare that was almost scary, and one Yang had never seen Ruby make before. "You don't have to," Ruby said. "It's the truth. Don't bother Cardin. He's already had enough of a bad time."

"Ruby, he was holding you by the neck!" Yang argued. "It looked like he was about to kill you!"

"So?" Ruby asked. "He didn't, did he? I'm still here. Let it go."

"I can't do that, Ruby."

"Yang—"

Cardin finally stepped in before the two siblings could argue any further. "Ruby. It's fine."

Ruby looked up at Cardin and frowned. "No, it's not. She doesn't know."

"Shut up, Ruby," Cardin said. "Let Yang hate me. It's better this way. You might not be a proper magus like me, but that doesn't change what I did. I could have killed you."

"But you didn't," Ruby argued.

"It doesn't change the fact that I tried. So shut up and rest. I've hurt you enough. You hurt me back. That's it. From one Spellcaster to another, that makes us even."

"But—"

"Don't talk to me in public again," Cardin interrupted Ruby. "If you do, I'm going to pretend I still hate you." He paused, looked around at the room and added, "All of you."

He then nodded and shuffled to the door of the infirmary, bandages and all. Just before he finally stepped out under everyone's gazes, he paused and looked back at Ruby. "If you still have questions…Well, you know where to find me." He glanced at Yang, who still glared at him with hatred, and then looked at everyone one last time before shrugging. "Bye, I guess."

With that, he shuffled off, leaving the two teams to listen in silence to his footsteps disappearing.

"What. The hell." Yang clenched her fists. "What the hell, Ruby!"

"What."

"He hurt you, and you're just going to let him go?!"

"I said stop it, Yang."

"You nearly died! He could have killed you!"

"You said that already."

"I'll say it again, and I'll keep saying it! You're an idiot! You don't care about anyone but yourself! Are you going to let someone kill you just because it'll make them feel better? What about me, Ruby? How do you think I would feel!?"

Ruby opened her mouth and looked up at Yang but froze as she saw the tears streaking down her sister's cheeks. She was shaking, not in anger this time, but from fear. She could see it in Yang's eyes. The trembling of her lips. "Yang, I…"

"No, Ruby! I can't lose you! Not like we lost Mom!" She then held out the hilt piece again and shook it in Ruby's face. "When I saw this, I thought I saw a ghost, you know? I felt the same things I felt when we lost her. You have no idea how much it hurts to even have a piece of this, Ruby."

"I loved her too, Yang—"

"But not as much as me!" Yang screamed. "And she's not even my real mom! But you're my sister, and you almost died today, again! I couldn't do anything. Anything. I was helpless. And the only person who could help you was the person I thought was trying to kill you. Do you know what that did to me?"

"No, but I—"

"I felt useless. Useless, Ruby. You're a mage. Sure. You have new abilities. Sure! But if it's going to kill you, then forget it! I don't want it!"

"I'm sorry, Yang—"

"And I'm sorry too, Ruby!" Yang cried. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you. I'm sorry I was useless. I'm sorry I'm not a better sister. And I'm sorry I can't help but worry about you."

Yang wiped at her eyes and threw the hilt piece at Ruby, who instinctively caught it with her other hand. As Ruby glanced at it, she felt her stomach drop as she watched Yang turn heel and go straight for the door.

"Yang, wait! Don't go!"

"It's okay, Ruby," Yang whispered. Her voice cracked. And her following chuckle was the same—Broken, and hollow. "It's your life. Your abilities. I can't tell you what to do, right? I just can't watch you keep hurting yourself."

As Yang walked away, Ruby was left feeling like her world had just fallen apart. She knew everyone was still there, shocked at the argument Ruby had just had with Yang. She knew that everyone was reeling from the information overload. And she knew that everything that had just happened was her fault.

She knew all of this, and Ruby couldn't feel anything. She was in shock.

"Ruby…" Weiss whispered. "I have a sister too. Yang means well. A lot has happened. Give her some time."

"Y-yeah," Jaune agreed. "I have sisters too. Yang cares about you, clear as day. She'll come around—"

"Thanks, guys, I'm fine, really," Ruby said. Her eyes were wide. She could barely feel anything. All she could do was stare at the incomplete constructs she held in her hands and wonder. Wonder about what was happening to her. About magecraft. About Cardin.

About how Yang was right.

"We'll leave you be," Pyrrha said in the background. "Now that we know Ruby's fine, we don't need to be here. Right, guys?"

The rest of Team JNPR agreed. As they disappeared, Blake turned to Weiss and said, "Let me go look for Yang. I want to make sure she's alright."

Ruby could feel Weiss nod next to her, and was vaguel aware of Blake's presence disappearing from the room. It left Weiss alone sitting next to Ruby in the ever-more empty infirmary.

After some time, Ruby felt some more energy return to her and she set the two pieces of incomplete construct next to the other shards on her lap. Finally, Weiss' voice broke the silence, and Ruby looked at Weiss with distant eyes.

"Ruby?"

"…Yeah, Weiss?"

"You're an idiot."

Those simple words, combined with the passage of time and the return of feeling to Ruby's body, made Ruby begin to shake with laughter and cry. Her own cheeks became wet, and Ruby knew she looked delirious, but she couldn't help herself. She was a wreck, and she felt like she had just lost the closest person in the world to her.

"I know, Weiss," Ruby sobbed. "I know."

A/N:

I have a few things to say: I had to really try to write this chapter. Don't worry, Cardin will not be as focused on anymore as he has been here, and we will probably only see more of him once we enter the Moonlit World. As it stands, he's pretty much our expy for it.

Also, Lostbelt 7 is absolutely nuts. ORT with 11 health bars and 3 billion HP…My god. May Nasu have mercy on our souls. On the topic of F/GO: Did you know Servants are also referred to as Ghost Liners in the world of magecraft? Because I didn't. Nasu really out here dropping lore bombs on us. Anywho, I am also coping for Muramasa to come in 150 SQ and 27 tickets in the New Year. Wish me luck.

I might throw something warm together for a Christmas/Holiday special since this chapter ended on a downer. Sorry about that. It's just how the cookie crumbled. What do you think? Something short, maybe a hundred words. I spent all of my energy trying to write the ending to this chapter. I think I would actually appreciate writing something fluffy too.

For those who didn't like how the story was changed and thought it was cringe: Tough. Cringe is what powers RWBY, and Shirou Emiya is the definition of cringe lol (not actually, I think he's pretty cool, but my point stands). I mean, a superhero? Really? If you've watched RWBY or know enough about Fate to come to a Fanfiction crossover between the two, you better expect there's at least some cringe here, at least in story elements, if not the entire thing altogether. Seriously.

Sorry, no Review Corner today. But I do thank you all for leaving Reviews. Every time I lose some motivation to write for this story, I read them. So to people like Wyran who have reviewed and been here since the beginning, thank you. It's all I could ever ask for. A good enough Christmas present all the time, at least.