Chapter 4 – Krescent rose

"That's a pretty sweet lance."

Blake literally sputtered out the first thing that came into her brain in a desperate attempt to control the conversation before Adam's hotheaded anti-human bias or Ilia's disgust at the gory scene they'd just exited drove them to accuse this little girl of murder. It probably made her appear as a simpleton, but Blake wasn't sure that the others would react with their brains instead of their hearts.

No matter how bad it looked, it was best to play it safe and act like they were just normal students. If this little girl was innocent, then they couldn't blow their cover and outright ask her if she'd just killed someone with that scythe of hers. If she was guilty, well…perhaps they could still maintain their cover. The others had theorized that the killer knew not of K's identities, so for now, they were just three Faunus – no, two Faunus and a human – nonchalantly looking for a relic.

And if this reaper had killed Specialist Amin, K probably didn't want to tussle with her.

Actually, yeah, it would be far better to keep her close and watch her like a hawk Faunus. If they played dumb and teamed up with her, the three of them could determine her guilt and then kill or not kill her accordingly, at their leisure.

The child looked at her weapon of war, then back at Blake. "This is…a lance? I-I-I thought it was a scythe! A sniper scyper – I mean…a sniper scythe!"

"Sorry. I didn't mean to…yeah, cool scythe. I guess."

"Oh, uh, thanks…that really butters my biscuits, I guess. Yeah, I built her myself. She's my baby. Her name is Crescent Rose, like the shape of a moon combined with the shape of a flower, which is fitting because both are smokin' hot, and so is she." She held it out like a child. "Do you want to hold–"

"No," Adam stated definitively. "Not a chance."

"Oh. Uh, sure. Sorry – I can be a bit of a weapons derp sometimes. I hope I'm not a bother."

Blake smiled and shook her head. "Not at all, uhhhhh…?"

"Yeah?"

"Um…?"

"Yes?"

"What's your name, partner?"

"Oh, right! I'm Ruby Rose! I mean, Rose Ruby! I mean – wait, shoot, I got it right the first time. Geez, this is so embarrassing. I guess I can also be a bit of a regular derp, too." Ruby Rose rubbed the back of her neck and sheepishly looked down at her own boots. Suddenly, her head snapped back up into place. "Wait, partner?"

"Yeah. Adam and Ilia have made eye contact already, and that was the rule for determining hunter partnerships. Unless…have you ran into anyone else nearby?"

Adam's dismissive demeanor remained, but he, like Blake, watched the reaper's reaction closely. It wasn't like Ruby was going to admit it if she had killed someone, but any hesitation, even for a split second, could indicate she'd encountered Marrow. Alternatively, a break in the whole 'easily flustered' act might also give her away. Ruby was clearly dialing up the dorkiness to an eleven, so a suddenly serious denial would clearly imply something was out of place.

Honestly, I don't doubt she's innocent. What assassin with a shred of self-respect would hover around near their kill and clean their weapon so obviously?

Ruby Rose looked away nervously. "Um…I…did?"

"Y-You did?"

"Ummmm…yes! I did! I ran into someone who's my partner! So…sorry. We can't be partners."

"Who?" Adam asked, a touch of menace in his voice.

Ruby didn't pick up on it, or if she did, she didn't respond. "My…um…my…"

"Where is this partner of yours, human?"

The young girl turned her head from side to side and looked out over the forest. "M-My partner is – actually, I'm still…looking for…"

Blake leaned in close and tried to push without sounding like she was pushing. "Looking for someone? Who is it?!"

"It's…it's…" Ruby's head fell. "…no one. I guess it's no one. I don't have a partner. You and me can be one. Er, two. Er, one pair. Of partners. Who are you again?"

"Blake Belladonna."

"Neat. I'm Ruby Rose." Ruby cringed and slapped a face to her hand. "And I already said that. Yeah, I'm kind of a derp. Aaaaaand I already said that, too. Can we start over?"

Adam regarded Ruby, then nodded towards a break in the trees that led to a wide open clearing. "Blake. May I have a word?"

Blake began to follow him to the glade, as did Ruby. Adam glared at her, but she continued to tag along.

Clearing his throat, he asked, "Do you mind?"

"No, not at all. Go right ahead."

"I'd prefer to speak to Blake alone. Please." The last word was practically growled, though Blake honestly thought that Adam was being relatively patient, given his usual explosive temper.

"Eeep!" Blake observed the little girl run off in the direction they'd come from.

"Why in the name of all that keeps me not insane would you suggest partnering up with that human whelp?"

"We need a fourth member for our team if we're to pass as hunters."

"Marrow–"

"–is dead. Unless you saw another Faunus during initiation, it'll have to be a human."

"While I deplore the idea of spending any time with humans, I would be willing to stomach it for a mission. I found the terrorists in the White Fang to be laughably pathetic and yet I tolerated their incompetent existence when the moment called for tolerance. What I object to is her."

"She's not that bad…"

Blake looked at the human who was currently staring directly at them while shielding her eyes from the sun with a flat hand to her brow. Caught in the act, Ruby rapidly turned around and tried to pretend like she wasn't eavesdropping, but she slammed face-first into a tree in her haste and faceplanted into the forest floor. An arm weakly raised into the air and gave them a thumbs up before dropping down again.

"Okay, she's an idiot. But that might be an act! She might be the person who killed Marrow! If so, we'd need to watch her, and there's no better way than putting her on our team. That scythe…it's not difficult to visualize it cleaving off a person's head. And she was wiping it down…"

"If it was a façade, she'd have to be a fairly ditzy assassin to just admit that she was looking for someone, and to the first people she came across, no less."

"We don't know anything about the killer other than their combat prowess. They could be an excellent fighter but unskilled at subterfuge. We're assuming that our adversary will be a cloak-and-dagger spy who can blend into any surroundings and assume any personality because that's who we are. We shouldn't prejudice ourselves."

"And if she is the killer? We want to be on her team?"

"We need to stay close to her if we're going to find out for sure. If she isn't guilty, she's nothing; a nuisance to be ignored. If she is, we find out who she's working for and how they knew about Marrow."

Adam clenched his jaw but nodded. "Fine."


Ilia had disappeared the second her name and the word partner were mentioned in the same sentence in the presence of that twit. Blake and Adam knew her well enough to know that she would be back in a few hours. The pair, or possibly trio, could get the relics. In the meantime, Ilia could check out the nearby area and see if there were any other potential murderers on the loose.

She was not so confident in her combat skills that she would engage them, but she was confident enough in her ability to remain unseen to feel that there wasn't any risk.

When Ilia had been relatively new to K, Blake had once claimed to be the better ninja of the two, and Ilia had taken offense, so they'd held a little competition. They'd been on Menagerie at the time, so Adam hid Blush in a vendor stall in the marketplace. The challenge had been to obtain and return with the scabbard without being detected by any of the White Fang members who were in on the game (this had been back when the atmosphere of the Fang was a bit more friendly and a bit less war-hardened).

In full view of a defeated Ilia, Blake had triumphantly returned Blush to Adam, who announced Blake to be the stealthiest agent in the White Fang. Of course, his proud expression quickly faded when she turned to walk away and he noticed the crude sketch of Blake labelled 'Belladoofus' taped to her back. Needless to say, Adam's newfound respect had been evident from his improved acceptance of her presence on the mission.

Catlike agility is good and all, but my Faunus trait is literally built-in camouflage. She never stood a chance.

Thankfully, that had been before her 'Win Blake's Heart At All Costs' phase. Had it not been, Ilia probably would have won by a landslide in hopes of somehow earning Blake's admiration by beating her. She'd made a lot of mistakes back then, but the most common one had always been trying to impress Blake in the most outlandish and obtuse ways and then letting resentment build up when Blake hadn't responded positively. It seemed obvious in hindsight that a straight girl like Blake (or anyone, for that matter) wouldn't see actions like pre-emptively doing Blake's missions for her or showing off her school smarts by correcting Blake as frequently as possible as a form of flirting.

They were good, though. Ilia had apologized for her actions, writing off all those stupid exploits as jealously or something, which Blake bought. She was much smarter about how she went about it now.

A̵n̵d̵ ̵b̵y̵ ̵s̵m̵a̵r̵t̵e̵r̵,̵ ̵I̵l̵i̵a̵ ̵m̵e̵a̵n̵t̵ ̵d̵e̵s̵p̵e̵r̵a̵t̵e̵l̵y̵ ̵t̵r̵y̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵t̵o̵ ̵d̵e̵n̵y̵ ̵h̵e̵r̵ ̵f̵e̵e̵l̵i̵n̵g̵s̵ ̵a̵n̵d̵ ̵m̵o̵v̵e̵ ̵o̵n̵ ̵w̵i̵t̵h̵o̵u̵t̵ ̵e̵v̵e̵r̵ ̵a̵d̵d̵r̵e̵s̵s̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵t̵h̵e̵m̵.̵

She and Adam were to be partners. That was good; some distance would be for the best. Adam was a dear friend, and although Blake's company was always preferred, it would have been torture to be her partner for who knows how long this mission would last. Partners got all up in each other's business, and there was no way Ilia would be able to keep herself and her lovesick tendencies in check if she and Blake had been together. At least Ilia hadn't been saddled with the girl, Rosie Ruby or whatever her name was.

Oh shit. If she was the murderer, I just abandoned the others to her wrath.

Well, it didn't matter now. Either Rosie was innocent and they were fine, or they were already dead and it was way too late. Ilia decided to keep at her scouting and disappeared (literally) into the treetops.

Despite what the ignorant masses believed, real chameleons' skin pigmentation changed in response to temperature fluctuations, external stimulus, and occasionally their own emotional state. It wasn't some secret ability to become transparent, just a bodily response to a lot of factors beyond their control. Thus, real chameleons weren't actually able to camouflage themselves on command.

Real chameleons could suck Ilia's dick.

Ilia's Faunus trait was so much better than those shitty little lizards that she'd supposedly inherited it from. She couldn't do anything crazy like turn completely invisible or flip flop from polka dots to zebra stripes on a whim, but as long as she focused on a single color, she would gradually switch to that shade. Anger used to be a way to access the color red, and blue for sorrow and so on, but Ilia had gotten a better handle on her psychological state since becoming a part of K, so these emotional problems didn't crop up as much. This meant that she could fade away into the dark or blend into a green forest, but she couldn't hide against something multicolored like checkerboard wallpaper very easily. Her clothing was another limiting factor, but black tended to disappear into most background ranging from faded to grayish to dark, and people's imaginations usually filled in the gaps.

As long as she clung to a branch motionlessly, gripped Lightning Lash to her hip so it wouldn't sway, and activated her semblance, she would make absolutely no noise. In the Emerald Forest, her bright green skin was leaves, and her clothing was a tree trunk. She may as well have been invisible.

The leaves rustled.

And what do we have here…

The Lady Queen of Turds herself, Weiss Schnee, slashed through the foliage, using her rapier like a machete. The most pathetic part was that the plants she was cutting apart were just innocent shrubs that she could have brushed aside with her hand instead of cutting to smithereens.

And it looks like the spoilt heiress will get to be in charge of a company of fools after all. As ifto make the repulsive scene even more perfect, she was closely followed by the crew of human chauvinists marching in formation behind her. Captain Meathead, Mohawkius, and Bronzie McBuffoon all trailed after the Schnee, each peering about the forest with fear as though a Beowolf might pop out of nowhere and snatch them away. Ilia held back her disgust in silence as the team of cretins trudged off into the wilderness and out of sight.

Good riddance, she thought. The list of suspects grows that much longer, I guess. I'll have to tell the others.

When she was sure that the quarrelsome quartet was gone, Ilia descended from her hideaway in the trees and moved on the ground level. The entire forest was too large to cover, but Ilia wasn't planning to search the entire forest. Assuming that their mysterious killer was still at large, he or she would be blindly searching the forest with a one way tracker and no idea who to kill next. When they were unable to identify K, they would inevitably obtain one of the relics at the northern end of the forest and try to continue on at Beacon until they could identify their prey.

But they don't know that we're the hunters, and they're the prey.

All Ilia had to do was survey every inch of land from here to the temple, memorize the faces of anyone she saw, and do so without being spotted once.

Easy peasy.


"Alright, human. There's a handful of Grimm over there. Please, show us what you can do."

"You got it, Mister! I'll go turn them into minced…uh, Grimm!" She scrunched up her brow. "Do they even mince Grimm, or does it only come in diced?"

While Adam had accepted the girl onto their team, he had not done so without demanding certain provisions first. The first and most important was that she prove herself and earn her spot. Ostensibly, it was because he and Blake wished to see her skill firsthand. In reality…it was the same reason, but with a very different meaning.

Hunter-grade bladed mech-shift weapons employed some manner of Dust gun so frequently that it was almost a rarity to see one without. It wasn't without reason; Dust was the workhorse of humanity (and Adam only used that word to refer to the concept of civilization as a whole, not the species itself) and provided a huge advantage over the rangeless physical attacks of most Grimm. However, run out of Dust on a prolonged mission and you were screwed…unless you had a sword or spear or whip that didn't need to be reloaded. Hence, mech-shifting was born.

Thus, having a scythe wasn't particularly odd in and of itself. However, the tearing along the specialist's neck was a very even cut. As Adam watched the scythe carve through Grimm, he couldn't help but see it in his mind's eye, lopping off a Faunus' head with ease. There was no guarantee, but the weapon was almost perfectly suited for the task.

Almost.

He'd noticed one slight oddity in the wound. A second cut, less than an inch below the severance point on the neck, could be seen in the back of the victim at an angle. He wasn't sure what to make of it, and he was hoping that he might see some technique in Rose Ruby's fighting style to explain it away.

Or perhaps I should hope to not see it. If she is the killer, am I sure we could take her?

Ilia had to be lurking about somewhere, so that was an advantage. Her true power wasn't from sheer strength like Adam or mixed combat like Blake; hidden strikes at the perfect moment were the chameleon Faunus' bread and butter. Adam was fully ready to fight, and Blake had only taken on a couple of Beowolves.

The odds had to be in K's favor. They could take her.

And I'm sure that's exactly what Marrow Amin thought when he still had more than zero heads to his name.

Rose exploded into…rose petals? Dust, the Brother Gods must have been feeling especially tasteless the day she unlocked her semblance if that was the level of wordplay they felt appropriate. In a flash, she was standing ten times the distance from the pack of Ursa, firing sniper shots with deathly precision.

"K," he whispered to Blake.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"Far too early to say. If I decide on an opinion for or against her guilt, I'll color my future interactions with the same viewpoint and bias myself."

"Those Grimm are nothing to her. She's good."

"But her attacks seem to be specifically suited for Grimm. That block she just did a few moments back, that would completely fail against a human or Faunus opponent. When I block, I never commit my sword fully. At any point in time, I might need to pull back for a variety of reasons – the attack was a feint, the opponent has a second weapon, anything. But her? She threw her entire scythe and her entire body into stopping the Ursa's paw. Perfect for a mindlessly aggressive opponent that's too stupid to be a trickster, but she wouldn't last a minute against me. I'd guess she's trained since birth by massacring local Beowolves and Ursai in her settlement, but she's never come up against a real hunter-level foe before."

Blake shook her head. "I disagree. I mean, how often did you show everything you had when we were with the White Fang? She clearly knows we're watching her."

"Fighting styles performed with the level of practice of that block are ingrained into the core of our very beings. The defensive movements she utilized were too instinctive to be falsifications."

"Don't be so sure. You're not as well versed in the arts of deception and manipulation as I am."

"Hey you guys!" called out Ruby, slicing the limbs off another Ursa. "Wasn't there a third person with you? The ponytail girl…where did she go?"

Adam refused to dignify her stupidity with a response, so he simply chose to ignore her and continue his discussion with Blake. "Did she just notice Ilia is gone?"

"I-It could all be a ruse…maybe she's lulling us into a false sense of security…"

"Blake, I may not be as practiced as you or Ilia at the more physical aspects of spywork, but I was able to hide my true intentions from the White Fang for years. I am no novice to secrecy. She, on the other hand, clearly has no talent for espionage whatsoever."

Adam looked over to Ruby once more. She'd killed all but a single Ursa, this one a Major. Carefully avoiding its thrashing paws, she dropped to the ground close to its feet, rolled between its legs, and jumped up into the air behind it. With a single flick of her blade, the beast's brains spilt on the floor. Adam looked directly down its headless neck as it began to disintegrate.

"However, in this case, I shall defer to your expertise. You think it's her, then?"

"No. Like you said, it's too early."


When she wasn't busy being suspected of manslaughter or completely failing at socialization, Ruby was actually fairly pleasant to be around, in a sweet, innocent, endearing sort of way. After her pleas to see Wilt and Blush being outright rejected, the little girl had been pacified after Blake had shown her Gambol Shroud's multiple forms.

Lightning Lash was safe from her inappropriate fondling for now; the three of them had been heading in the general direction of the relic temple for some time when Blake caught sight of Ilia hovering overhead. Blake knew that she wasn't so sloppy as to let herself be seen unintentionally, so this had to be a check in. A brief nod confirmed that Blake had seen her, and the chameleon Faunus flew past them silently. She had kind of disappeared without offering an explanation, but Blake knew that the window to root out any suspects and trail them was a limited one, so it was excusable. It didn't take a genius to figure out that her path from the crime scene to the relics would be a tortuous one, and she needed to make haste if she were to double back around and feign catching up with them and pretending she'd gotten lost.

Despite the fact that she possessed a speed semblance, Ruby was surprisingly slow to move about. Make no mistake, she could run in circles faster than a nervous cheetah Faunus on ecstasy (and damn, that guy had been such an annoying White Fang recruit), but Ruby seemed to be unable to do anything but run in circles. Some berry bush caught her eyes, and then she was back at Blake showing her what she'd found, and then she had embarrassed herself with some inane faux pas or slip of the tongue, and then was running off again in pursuit of some brightly colored bird. Despite being seventeen years of age, the short girl must have acted more like she was in the single digits.

"Ohmygoshlook!"

Blake sighed as she checked the tracker on her scroll, just in case it came back up. It was a long shot, but there wasn't much else to do right now. "What is it, Ruby?"

"That rock looks like a centipede!"

"That's real nice…"

Adam had completely checked out and looked like he was about to start internally bleeding from the brain at any moment. Blake was nearly there herself. Let's hope the relics aren't too far off.

"Ohmygoshlook!"

"What is it this time."

"The relics! In the temple! I can see them!"

"Finally," muttered Adam under his breath. He and Blake followed Ruby up the hill that she'd been standing atop, and several artificial rock formations could be seen poking over the horizon. Ruby herself ran down towards the relics before they could catch her.

"Ohmygoshlooklooklook!"

Ruby's cheer may have been infectious, or perhaps it was the impending conclusion of this mission, but Blake couldn't keep the joy out of her voice. "Did you see a relic you like?"

"No. Well, actually yeah – I want the shiny gray one that looks like a mole with a stubby nose sticking up – but that's not it. There's another Faunus up ahead."

Right on schedule. Peering over the crest of the hill, Blake greeted Ilia with a wave. She must have–

…wait.

"Adam."

"I see her."

The Faunus that Ruby casually approached was an elderly reptilian woman, hunched over and hobbling on a rickety gray cane. Her outfit was a curious mismatch of colors and styles – black and white pinstriped pants that looked like they belonged in a TV show courtroom coupled with fingerless brown gloves to allow for dexterity and a corset that should never have been worn by a woman that old. Her silvery hair was fluffed up into a mohawk that was beginning to sink near the edges.

"Hello, ma'am," Blake greeted. "Are you a professor?"

"A professah? Naw. Ain't no professah. Never could stan' the soight o' kids. Or that reekin' stench."

If the statement of denial hadn't proven she was not a local, her accent certainly would. No Valean spoke in such a rough way. Actually, come to think of it, Blake was fairly certain that no place she'd visited could boast being home to such a speech pattern.

"Wot's yah name, lil' lady?"

"Blake B–"

"Not you." The woman shoved past Blake with an unpleasant push, pointed her cane right at Ruby, and grinned a toothy grin. "You."

Her teeth were metal. Blake had to suppress a shudder as the Faunus crept closer and closer to K's charge/prisoner/new member. Her brain was telling her to be polite to this doddery old woman, but her instincts were telling her to aim for the center of mass.

"I'm Ruby Rose, madam. A-Are you aware that Beacon Academy's initiation exam is taking place in this forest?"

"That Oi am, darlin', that Oi am. Mattah o' fact, that why Oi'm 'ere. Lookin' tah see if any ah youse kids got what Oi'm after. And, roight as rain, you moight jus' be the one, eh? Bless me 'eart, Oi think you moight be the very last one."

"M-Me? You're looking for me? Are you from Vale's Child Protective Services, because I already talked to them about coming to Beacon, and the guy on the scroll said I was good since Mister Ozpin had me sign that waiver–"

The old lady tapped her cane onto the forest floor. The wooden staff fell apart into four pieces and toppled to the ground, revealing itself as little more than a casing for the polished saber within.

"Been qui'h a whoile since Oi've had me ah propah meal."

A glowing yellow sheen encompassed the woman. The toothy grin returned as she jumped forward and slashed.

Blake couldn't react in time to save Ruby.