Ruby was on fire. Her skin, her blood, her brain, everything was aflame in the best way. She'd never felt so singularly focused on a fight before. After her first two losses to her sister she started hitting a stride— lunge in, land a few blows, back out and circle around. Keep on the move, don't get hit.

The room was heating up, the constant movement clearly starting to irk Yang. Ruby darted forward to assail her center and Yang threw a hook to intercept, but she slid under the fist and swept her leg out from under her, making her stumble. Ruby pressed her advantage, barging her shoulder into the off-kilter blonde and making her eat sand. Ruby took the brief opportunity to peek at the Aura meter. Yang's was at 51%, Ruby's was at 92% thanks to being untouched and only occasionally tapping into her Semblance. She grinned. Winning against her sister was rare, especially hand-to-hand, and rusty to boot.

The temperature flared, sand sprayed her face.

Yang was on her before she had another second to blink. Wild hooks, grabs, and kicks came from all directions as Ruby entered a trance, her Semblance kicking in as she dodged attacks at an increasing speed, sending out flurries of rose petals that burned to a crisp when any part of Yang's body touched them. Another hook came from the right, but Ruby could see it coming like it was in slow motion. She felt an idea come on.

The hook landed true, perfectly nailing Ruby in the cheek, only for the hit to plow right through a vaguely Ruby-shaped flurry of rose petals. Yang growled, misstepping as the force of the whiffed blow pulled her off balance. Coalescing once more, Ruby kicked a leg out, catching her sister in the back of the knee and sending her back to the ground.

Yang pounded both fists into the sand and launched herself back into a standing position. Her blonde hair began to glow brilliantly as her Aura flared, suffusing the entire room with intense heat. Ruby grinned. She'd stoked her anger enough, now Yang was bound to burn her own Aura out in mere minutes. She wouldn't dare take her eyes off her sister, but she estimated her own Aura was probably around 80%.

Surely 80% would be enough.


Weiss closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.

"Alright, Miss Schnee, are you familiar enough with your Aura to visualize it?" She heard Dr. Ross ask.

Weiss scoffed. "Of course I am."

"Perfect, go ahead."

Weiss nodded. The process of visualizing one's Aura was simple, but the concept was hard to grasp for a beginner. It was abstract, everyone she had talked to had a different experience. Yang said her Aura was like a campfire, but whenever she was angry it became an inferno. Blake's was more of a feeling, like relaxing on a craggy beach on a moonlit night. Ruby's was… come to think of it, she didn't remember talking to Ruby about it. Odd. Another thing to add to the list of conversations that would distract them from confronting her feelings.

Visualization was a simple procedure once achieved, she simply needed to enter a meditative state with her sole focus on the presence of her Aura. After a few long moments of controlled breathing and nothing but the black behind her eyelids, she felt herself begin to shift. Her Aura, normally imperceptible, now felt like a feather-light veil slowly thrumming over her, lazily churning within her, a constant presence, the feeling of which began to wash over her. Her body faded, all five senses giving way as the white began to stretch before her. Her Aura realized itself in her mindscape like a dream, a dream of a pure white snowfield, stretching out beyond every horizon. Pure white, unmarred save for the singular splash of color— an emerald green shrub, defiantly blooming with brilliant crimson roses. Weiss felt herself smile. Of course. Whether it was a side effect of Ruby's reckless Aura transfusion or simply her feelings for the girl made manifest, she couldn't tell.

Dr. Ross' voice came across the veil like a conversation heard through a thin wall. "Miss Schnee?"

She took a moment to respond as she tried to split her focus between maintaining the visualization and regaining control of her mouth. "I can see it." She managed.

Ross hummed. "Good. Anything missing?"

Weiss looked around, unsure as to what that would even look like. She had only ever known the endless, uninterrupted snowfield. "No?"

"Please take a closer inspection, Miss Schnee."

Weiss harrumphed, the sound carrying oddly across the vast, empty snowscape of her psyche. Nothing around her, she pushed ahead, footsteps trailing behind her in the pillowy snow. She felt the presence of her body drift even further away the further she stomped ahead. It was unsettling, akin to sleep paralysis, but she had done it before. One foot in front of the other, just focus on progression.

Small particles of snow floated from the sky, sparse at first, but increasing exponentially the further she continued. The snow came down faster, joined now by drops of frozen rain and hail, pelting her. Further. Chill seeped into her, icy wind whipped against her. How could this be in her head? The chill suffused her, more than any Atlas winter ever had. Her visualizations had never felt so real before.

Something was tipping— perhaps some instinctive reaction— she felt like she would fall if she continued on. She didn't understand the feeling, had she really never gone this deep before? The blizzard engulfed her, the wind pushing against her as if it was commanding her to stop. She couldn't see more than a foot ahead of her, but she was sure something would happen if she just trudged a little further.

"Anything?" Ross' voice was almost totally drowned out by the wind ripping across her ears.

Not yet. Weiss tried to say, but her mouth did not move. Or did she just not feel it move? She noticed the slightest vibration coming across, but whether that was her own voice or further instructions from Dr. Ross was unclear. Regardless, her only option was to continue onward.

She pushed a little further, frozen gusts threatening to lift her off her feet. She could barely trudge through the snow as it began to rise up to her hips. Biting cold dug into her skin, making her shiver as she tried to wrap her arms around herself. Was her body on the outside shivering, her teeth chattering like they were now? Would Ross be able to pull her out of this if she couldn't do it herself? She looked back, hoping that the return trip at least wouldn't be so treacherous.

A gust of wind knocked her off her feet, burying her face-up in the snow. She panicked— barely able to restrain the instinct to flail wildly. She would not immerse herself this deeply in her own psyche only to be entombed in an imaginary snowfield! Weiss pulled her limbs in close, careful not to graze the snowy walls of her would-be tomb. She breathed, inhaling and exhaling slowly to keep her nerves in check as she began to reorient herself. Slowly, without disturbing the fragile walls of snow that threatened to collapse on her, she managed to inch herself back out into that icy hell, roaring winds threatening to throw her right back in that hole. After almost being buried alive in her own subconscious, she wanted to back out, it felt like she shouldn't be going this far. What if she hurt herself, or if Ruby could feel this? She hadn't even considered how this could affect her partner. That was it. The blizzard felt like it was cutting her. She should stop. She didn't want to—

Something caught her eye. It was only a few meters ahead, but the blizzard was almost completely blinding at that range. She could just barely tell the ground ahead was darker than the rest of the snowfield. She crawled out of her would-be grave on her hands and knees, fighting against the tempest with every inch of distance. As humiliating as it was to crawl on all fours like a toddler, she imagined standing back up would only make moving more difficult with more surface area for the wind to push. At least, like this, she could actually manage a normal, if slow pace.

The spot ahead grew darker as she approached. She had at first assumed it was a patch of soil left uncovered by the snow, but it seemed much too dark and much too circular to be anything like that. No, not dirt, certainly not any kind of structure, but what else could be so perfectly circular? She squinted, the last few feet between her and her destination finally closing.

It was a pit. A great, pristine and circular hole in the ground as if a giant corer made it. She gawked. Had it looked this large from just a few meters away? It couldn't be any less than a hundred feet across!

Snow fell into the pit, both from the sky and the piles along the pit's edge collapsing and falling in. The cold, the wind, it all faded at the sight of the yawning abyss. Even the roaring cacophony around her seemed to fall into the hole, plunging her into a silence that pressed against her ears. She felt something twisting within her. This was wrong. She needed to leave.

"Miss Schnee?" She could barely hear Dr. Ross' voice, and she certainly couldn't make the conscious effort to move her mouth. Locked in her own psyche, she could only focus on the gaping hole before her. "Miss Schnee, are you alright?"

Weiss could not respond. Snow poured into the peerless black hole like a waterfall from all sides. Had it always been this small? It couldn't be more than a few feet across…

"Okay, I believe you may have gone a little deeper than anticipated but you will be okay. I imagine you've probably seen it if you've gone this far. There should be something that feels or looks wrong with your Aura, like something is missing." The words drifted over her, fading away as quickly as snowflakes.

Weiss had almost forgotten she was only in her own mindscape. The pit, it was real, so distinct that it stood out among the rest of the vaguely fuzzy snowscape. Seeing something so completely un-false in her own mind was… wrong. She felt her false reality warp. Everything about the hole was wrong. Was it moving? Not moving, no, changing. Shifting and churning, its dimensions morphing, smaller than an ant, bigger than a house, the shape itself warping but the circle somehow remaining. She could feel there was nothing in there, less than nothing. A hole. She shuddered. The pit shuddered.

There came a howl. Not the howl of the wind breaking over the hole but a cry from the hole.

A bloodcurdling scream.

Rosenwache didn't last a second.

She was falling. That haunting sound of the metal breaking, the Dust sizzling as it burned up. Metal tearing through flesh. Reaching down to stop the fall, reaching, reaching, nothing. The ground was still there but the arm was not. Her blood, her arm, she screamed. She hit the snow, blood gushing from the frayed stump, the snow staining red, melting, a steaming stream of hot blood flowing from her arm, carving through the snow, twisting towards the pit, cresting over the edge— a crimson waterfall.

Weiss found herself panting, whether from stress or exertion she couldn't tell. "No, I am not there. This is all in my head," she said from within the visualization, the feeling of sound grounding her, "I am okay. I just need to…" she felt her gaze pull itself towards the pit. Her voice echoed back to her from the abyss, I just need to…

She crawled forward, something within compelling her unbidden, singular arm pulling her to the edge of the pit. The bloodfall trickled beside her as she peered into the hole. Nothing. Dark, deep, endless black.

It was changing, the darkness. Its color shifting from black to… No, the darkness wasn't shifting, Weiss realized. Her nose crinkled. Iron, its reek permeating the air. The darkness wasn't changing, no, the pit was filling. What was once a trickle beside her became a stream, then a river, then a roaring tempest of blood pouring into the hole, it bubbled up, up, all the way to the rim of the pit before Weiss even had time to process it. She scrambled back from the edge, fear suddenly superseding curiosity like a slap to the face. Crimson bled over the rim into the white snow, staining it faster than reality should allow.

On her feet once more, she backed away, slowly at first, but it chased her, the snow beneath her very feet staining red. Tendrils of blood rose from the sickly vermillion slush, pecking at her feet and ankles. She squeaked and turned to sprint the other way— any other way— as the growing red river pursued her, bloody tendrils lashing at her heels, tugging at her clothes— warm, hot blood wrapping around her ankles and pulling her down. She fell face-first in the snow, her vision only briefly flooded with white before the red seeped in again. She cried out, pushing herself up and managing to scramble a few more feet before the blood caught up.

The snow was so thick, the blizzard had enveloped her once more, winds whipping against her as if her own subconscious wanted to throw her to the wolves, she could no longer force her way through the now hip-high piles of snow, at least not fast enough to gain any distance from her pursuer. The snow under her was turning red. It was upon her.

Tendrils rose from the bloody slush just at her heels, rearing back, ready to lash out and drag her down for the last time. Blindly, desperately, she leapt forward, hand reaching out for something, anything to save her.


Yang's fists pelted Ruby like jackhammers, her own arms barely able to block what she couldn't dodge. The room was sweltering. Waves of heat emanated from Yang, any petals from Ruby's Semblance combusted immediately upon materializing. It felt like she was standing an inch from the sun. Sweat dripped into her eyes. She needed distance. Even being near her sister was wearing her Aura down, and using her Semblance to dodge was making it drain even faster. Blocking hits tore chunks out of it. Yang threw a wild left hook and Ruby ducked under it, taking the opportunity to kick at her legs, her usual weak spot, but this time it felt like kicking a tree trunk. Yang bore down on her, but her fists only succeeded in burning away a few rose petals as Ruby used her Semblance to gain distance.

Ruby panted hard as she checked the display. The self-destructive nature of her Semblance had brought Yang's Aura down to 39%, but Ruby had taken too many hits trying to hold against her sister's fury, leaving her at a measly 44% remaining. She steadied her breath, trying to focus on formulating a plan. She could keep her distance, but Yang was crazy fast right now, like she was being propelled by pure rage. She would have to use her Semblance to keep away and try darting in and out again, but that would drain her Aura significantly. She could play defensive, letting Yang charge in and using her Semblance to sporadically phase through her attacks. That might work, but she'd already tipped her hand. Would Yang fall for it anymore? What if she just reformed directly into another punch? Could she just—

She felt the bond within her surge, but not like it usually did. There was a jolt, like usual, but what came after was not the pleasant warmth she was used to. This was something else, something… cold? Her grasp of their bond wasn't as clear as Weiss', for some reason, she could only feel that Weiss was making the connection. She tried focusing inward on the bond, but Yang had taken advantage of her momentary distraction and was already on her. She had to block a good few punches since she was caught off-guard, dropping her Aura to match her sister's at 39%. She had underestimated Yang, she realized. Ruby had expected her to become completely wild when enraged, and she was, but something was different. Her footwork was impeccable, her punches were well-timed, and her eyes were sharp, calculating, and brilliantly… lilac. Lilac? "Uh, sis?" Ruby called as she used her Semblance to gain some distance.

"What's up?" Yang shouted as she charged her sister, unwilling to let her have a single foot of distance. She barraged her with attacks again, from every angle and at a blistering speed, immediately putting her on the backfoot.

"Your eyes—" Ruby ducked under a hook, but almost took the uppercut that followed. She reeled backwards, stumbling. Yang took the opportunity to sweep her legs, sending Ruby to the sand. She tried to roll away but Yang lunged at her, sending them tumbling as she hooked her arms under Ruby's and locked her fingers together behind her neck. Ruby thrashed and flailed, but Yang's hold only got tighter, increasing the pressure on the back of Ruby's neck.

"Okay, okay!" Ruby cried as the hold became too painful, "Ow! I give up!" The Aura meter buzzed upon hearing the phrase, its display changing to congratulate Yang on another victory.

Yang whooped and released her sister. Both of them flopped onto the sand, huffing and puffing. "So," Yang said between breaths, "What were you saying?"

Ruby took a good bit longer than her sister to recover. She hadn't been pushed so hard in a while, her lungs were absolutely on fire. Rather than waste precious, life-giving air on speech, she merely pointed to her sister's eyes. "Purple," she managed, "not red."

Yang puffed out a couple breathless laughs. "Yeah, you almost got me over the edge when you pulled that vanishing stunt, but I did a lot of training with dad over the summer. A lot of it was meditative stuff, too, visualizing our Auras and emotional control, stuff like that." She wiped the sweat off her forehead. "Guess you could say I'm not as much of a hothead anymore, eh?" She nudged her sister with an elbow. "Eh? Eh?"

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Not…" she panted, "even… a joke."

Yang burst into laughter nonetheless and kipped back up onto her feet, seemingly fully recovered within the scant few seconds they'd been on the ground. "C'mon, sis, get up and let's get back to those notecards. I'll bet studying history is a way easier fight than sparring with me."

Ruby barely managed to summon enough energy to wave her off. "I'll be fine…" she huffed for a few moments, "I just don't think the notecards are working out. Plus, my body hurts." Even through the remnants of adrenaline coursing through her, she felt terrible for lying to her sister like that. She loved notecards— well, loved as much as anyone could love studying— but it just wasn't the same with Yang. Weiss made every nugget of knowledge feel important, Yang just wanted to get the facts in her brain until the test was behind her. Weiss…

Ruby felt a nudge, a jolt in her Aura. Weiss was probing their connection, wherever she was. The medical wing was halfway across the school, did it really work across such a distance? Why would she be doing that now, of all times?

"You sure, sis? Seemed like you were having a lot of trouble. We can try something else." Yang suggested.

Ruby opened her mouth to reply, but she felt another jolt. No, not a jolt, a tug. Something pulling, clawing desperately at her very soul. Panic surged through her unbidden— Weiss' panic. Weiss was in danger.

Ruby darted out of the pit without a second thought, leaving her sister behind. Bursting through the door to the rest of the gym, she sprinted between weight machines, across the floor, over the dumbbell rack. Heads turned and people scrambled out of her way as she blasted past them, but every step felt like she was walking through mud. Not fast enough. Weiss needed her.

Her legs burned, her lungs burned, it felt like her heart was going to explode out of her chest. Sparring with Yang had left her completely haggard, but Weiss needed her. All she had to do was make it through the gym, then across almost the whole school to the medical wing.

Nora appeared in front of her without warning, mid-cartwheel with dumbbells strapped— no, taped— to her wrists and ankles and cackling like a madwoman. Ruby barely managed to split herself into rose petals and zip around her, only for her dwindling Aura to flicker out just as she reformed, dumping her on the other side of Nora. Without an Aura as a buffer, the sensitive skin of her scarred arms burned as she slid across the hard tile floor, her momentum carrying her until she crashed into a stack of metal plates. Her vision flashed white as pain flared up in her side, her back, her head, everywhere. She wanted to cry out in pain, but she managed to keep it in by biting down on her lip.

She groaned and rolled onto her back, her vision swimming. At least nothing felt broken.

People gathered around her prone form. She tried to push herself up, but searing hot pain lit her whole right side ablaze. She howled and collapsed again. Someone leaned close, she barely felt cognizant but she could tell it was… Jaune? Blue eyes, shaggy blonde hair, yep, definitely Jaune. His mouth was moving, but Ruby couldn't process the sounds he was making past the pulsing in her head.

Her Aura surged again, desperate panic reaching across her bond and slicing through the fog of pain. Weiss was in danger. Ruby tried to get up, but the pain in her side alighted once more and her vision began to swim. Nausea twisted her gut. Jaune was frantically commanding the people gawking at her, taking on the stoic expression of a strong leader. He got close and said something to Ruby— probably something reassuring but she couldn't understand him— then leaned back and gave her a once-over. His eyes lingered on the webbing of scars on her arms. Had anyone else actually seen them? Come to think of it, did anyone besides that doctor know about what happened? She always wore long sleeves, unknowingly hiding her arms from everyone outside of her team, and her ever-present cloak always hid the scars on her neck. Nobody else had even asked her what happened to Weiss' arm. Did they already know? Were they scared of her? Maybe they just thought she lost it in that Grimm attack. Maybe they were just being nice…

Ruby's mind was drifting, she half-realized. Perhaps the fall had left her with a concussion, and the continued pain in her side told her she may have been incorrect to assume she didn't have anything broken.

Jaune pulled off his gloves and stretched his hands before him, his fingers gently glowing as they wrapped around her forearm. Both his eyebrows shot to his forehead as his Semblance pulsed, his Aura washing over her like a balm. Could he see the bond?

Her Aura flared back to life, her mind suddenly clear again. Weiss needed her. Every second she wasted on the floor was putting her partner in danger. Adrenaline flooded her body once more as Weiss desperately clung to their connection. She tried to get up, but Jaune's hands clamped down on her shoulders, holding her to the ground. "Ruby, you need to be calm," he gently intoned, "I think you have a concussion. Please don't move, you could hurt yourself."

Hurt herself? She'd always been the one to get hurt, she wouldn't let a little pain stop her now. She writhed, pushing herself up again, but Jaune's grip overpowered her. How much stronger had he gotten over the break? She kicked her legs out, trying to get some leverage but to no avail. Pyrrha grabbed her left leg, Nora clamped down on the other. She felt her breathing begin to quicken. She needed to get to Weiss. Didn't they understand?

Jaune, Pyrrha, and Nora suddenly stumbled forward all at once, their weight now fully bearing down on nothing but air as Ruby dematerialized, rose petals slipping between their fingers and reforming once more on the other side of the gym. They shouted after her, but she had already burst through the door, through the hallway, across the courtyard. The world blurred around her, mind racing as she ducked and weaved, every obstacle seen like it was in slow-motion, had she ever been this fast before? The air itself tore at her skin, too slow to catch up to her. The lecture hall, the Arena, the cafeteria, she could barely process where she was going.

Before she knew it, she had burst through the door to Weiss' examination room and come to an abrupt halt. Weiss was sitting up on the bed in a meditative position, her eyes closed. She didn't seem to be in danger, but her bond was screaming at her that something was terribly wrong.

"Gods!" Doctor Ross exclaimed, Scroll flying out of their hands as they jumped out of their skin.

She opened her mouth to speak, but that was when everything caught up to her. Pain. Pure, blinding pain. She would've cried out, but instead doubled over as her gut did a somersault and thrust whatever breakfast she'd eaten up and out of her mouth, splattering vomit on the white tile below her.

"Dust, Ruby," Blake muttered as she peered around the corner. Ruby had forgotten she left her there to watch Weiss and had been much too fast to notice. "What happened to you?"

Ruby cradled her stomach with one hand and shambled towards her partner, her other hand outstretched. "What—" bile crawled back up her throat, forcing itself out once more and leaving an acrid taste in her mouth.

She wiped her lips with a sleeve, and affixed Dr. Ross with whatever intensity she could still muster in a glare. "What's wrong with Weiss?"