-Weiss Schnee Notes:
-Class: Introductory Magic Artifacts
-Professor: Archer of the Rose Mercenaries
-Lecture 13: Hassan-i-Sabbah
-Subheading: Cursed Arm
/-/
"In a land lost to Remnant's history where strife and conflict still led to infighting in a world at war with the Grimm, a secret order was formed to rebel against the unjust and the heretical. A covert following of master Assassins were born."
-Thoughts: Barbaric. No better than White Fang.
"Named after the Old Man of the Mountain who founded the organization, each successive generation donned the mantle of the name Hassan."
-Thoughts: Hassan, root word tracing from Assassin? Was that where it came from? It's a bit different from the records in the Schnee library, but not everything was recorded in mankind's lost territories.
"Nineteen Hassan's existed, qualifying only after completing their own unique killing technique that would swiftly and reliably bring death on their target. Hassan of Serenity, a master of poison whose very blood and body ran dark with toxin; Hassan of the Hundred Faces, a master of disguise and infiltration; and in this case, Hassan of the Cursed Arm."
-Thoughts: Jab Ruby. Get her to ask if they still exist. Strengths and weaknesses?
"Feared for their capability, they were fiercely hunted down and killed. Those that survived were said to have faded into obscurity over time, but not all of those deaths were just. Those bearing the stigma of Assassin were ostracized and used. Cursed Arm was no exception."
-Thoughts: Do you expect pity for a murderer who killed our friends and professors? History is irrelevant. Focus on weaknesses. Solutions!
"Tasked with killing a tyrant, he returned home to find his mountain village razed to the ground, family and friends murdered, and a trap waiting for him. He died as he did living, dagger in hand, faith in Remnant's future shattered."
-Thoughts: That doesn't excuse his actions. On my name as Schnee, I'll surely put him down.
"Relatively speaking, Cursed Arm is one of the weakest of the Hassans. Speed, strength, dexterity, he lacked anything that could compare to the founder, but his killing technique is perhaps one of the most potent. As all should know, a curse is imbued in his right arm that can kill with a touch. Beyond that arm, he can be contended against with conventional means, but let me ask you all this…would an Assassin ever fight head on?"
-Thoughts: Freeze the arm with a glyph, and it's as good as won? Easy enough. The last time didn't count. She just hadn't been ready for that level of killing intent and had frozen up. It wasn't because she was scared.
"At your current levels, don't even try. There's no way any of you will fend off his cursed arm."
-Thoughts:…
A muffled scream echoed down Beacon's dormitory hall as a door was forced open. A figure immediately pounced out, but their ankles were grabbed and the person fell flat on the ground. The person tried to escape but was quickly pulled back into the room, the door slamming shut again as her nails dug into the floor in vain.
Blake squirmed and thrashed, eyes bloodshot and narrowed as she was barred from the exit again! Her back hunched into an arc, bucking and kicking as she tried to get herself free.
"Let go of me!" Blake hissed, the cat in her screaming out in frustration and panic as she worked herself back onto her feet. "I SAID LET GO OF ME!"
"Blake, you're out of your mind!" Yang yelled, bear hugging Blake from behind, and getting pissed off at the nails and hair pulling. "Do you know how far Vermillion is from here?!"
Yang's eyes were turning red. Pulling on her hair was already testing her patience, and most would have already received a punch by now, but Blake was her teammate, and her reasons were more than understandable.
"I DON'T CARE!" Blake snarled, revealing her fangs and biting down on Yang's shoulder.
"Aw- FU- you bit me?! What the hell?!" Yang recoiled, her eyes turning fully red as embers flared behind her, the temperature in the room beginning to rise rapidly.
Uncaring, Blake focused on the moment Yang's grip loosened to swing her leg upward and clock Yang over the head with one foot, and used the other to use Yang's face as a springboard to the door.
"Nora, grab her legs!"
Blake's eyes widened as another, arguably stronger pair of hands, gripped down on her ankles and cut her momentum short.
"Aye aye!" Nora said, appearing out of nowhere and immediately putting Blake in a leg lock long enough for Yang to dog pile them.
Blake wheezed under the pressure of the weight over her, but Yang was fresh out of mercy. Aura protected her from damage, but beyond the dizziness she was feeling, the foot mark smudged on her cheek was the last straw.
"Get off me!" Blake screamed, numerous expressions crossing her face before terror became the most prevalent. "I told you it's an emergency!"
"And what do you expect to do by going there now?!" Yang said back. She and Nora had been listening in on Blake's call from the moment she suddenly tensed up and Blake started yelling about putting Vermillion on lockdown to her father.
The realization that Cursed Arm was likely attacking Vermillion was inferred from how abruptly the call was cut off, and Blake had been antsy ever since. She wasn't thinking with a straight head!
Worst of all, Blake was admittedly more agile and dexterous than Yang.
Fortunately, Yang had Nora who could not afford to not be serious. The matter of Cursed Arm was personal every time Nora glanced at Jaune and saw him brooding over the lives she chose to abandon over Ren. The most she could do now was not lose anymore friends to that monster.
"It's better than sitting here twiddling my thumbs and doing nothing!" Veins popped over Blake temple as she placed her hands beneath her and tried pushing herself up. She failed. Yang and Nora, fatasses the both of them. How could they weigh so much?! That can't all be muscle.
"Give it up! It's not happening!" Nora of all people tried to be a voice of reason.
"What can you even do?!" Yang stressed.
"At least I have information!" Blake clenched her teeth, doing her best to appeal despite knowing she was speaking to air. "We've seen him, how he fights, what he does!"
"And we were useless as we are now!" Yang twisted her position to sit directly over Blake's back while Nora sat over her legs.
Blake was now thoroughly pinned, but it didn't mean she'd given up. Like a silent worm, she kept wiggling to the point Yang was considering knocking her out and running to Ozpin to let him know of the situation. They would have done that already if Yang and Nora didn't know Blake well enough to know that she'd make a break for the nearest Bullhead if they let her.
"Dammit, where's Jaune to talk reason when you need him?" Yang muttered, exhausted about the whole situation.
"You kicked the fearless leader out though?" Nora tilted her head. "Girl party, remember!"
"Ugh." Yang massaged her temples. "It was a rhetorical question! Just focus on Blake! She'll slip out like an eel."
"Tch." Blake clicked her tongue as the loosening hold Nora had over her legs tightened into vices again. "Gods dammit!"
Ring Ring.
'-And the cat came back the very next day-'
'-thought he was a goner but the cat came back-'
Ring Ring
The group of three froze all at once. Blake blushed as the familiar ringtone hit her ears, but everyone was too serious to care about being amused.
All turned in the direction of Blake's scroll that had been dropped in the scuffle across the floor. Blake made eye contact with Yang and Nora, who grudgingly let her go. However, Yang stood in front of the room's door while Nora stood in front of the room's window.
Lips thinned at Yang and Nora's actions, yet Blake still went for her Scroll before anything else.
Picking it up, she hurriedly answered upon verifying the caller ID.
"D-Daddy?" Blake said hoarsely.
"Did you hear that? 'Daddy,' she said," Yang sniggered from across the room, but Nora's heart clearly wasn't in it.
Nora shook her head, while Blake glared at Yang with her bloodshot eyes before focusing on what her father was saying.
Relief soon filled the room when it became evident that Blake was gradually losing her tension the longer the call went. However, what replaced relief was nothing else than curiosity as Yang perked her ears to the sound that was barely audible.
Would it kill Blake to put the call on speaker?
"Professor Qrow was…?" Blake muttered in astonishment.
Yang furrowed her brows at the mention of her uncle, her feet inching her closer to hear better, but as if to spite her, Blake huffed and lowered the volume.
Okay. Fair.
They did body pile her.
"Archer was there?"
Yang and Nora made sudden eye contact, and now Yang knew for sure that she had to know.
Nora approached Yang, standing beside her as the two of them crossed their arms and waited for Blake to finish her call. They had the decency to mind their manners. They weren't children.
"A-Adam did?" Blake exclaimed as if it were some big revelation.
Yang's brow twitched, while Nora sighed.
"What the heck?" Yang whispered to Nora, pointing openly at Blake. "Why does she keep cutting her sentences off?"
Nora shrugged, showing more patience than Yang, and that was because she was less anxious than Yang who'd grown an exclamation mark above her head at the mention of Archer.
Blake eventually hung up, and just stood there in silence for the longest time.
"Well, Blake? What happened?" Yang's patience was running thin as it was. Archer must have been on another mission without her. She was certain of it. "Spill!"
No answer, and this time not because Blake was being spiteful. Instead, she was being ignored because Blake was in a daze, her doleful eyes glinting, and mouth curving at the edges.
She was even doing a thing with her face that was irking Yang to no end instead of answering her.
In the end, Yang narrowed her eyes.
"Nora, grab the soap."
"Ooh, on it!"
They were going to rub that aggravatingly proud smile off that black cat's face.
Nothing was worse in a girls night than gossip one of them refused to share about a known crush.
Nightlife in Beacon wasn't quite what it used to be with students sneaking through the campus in fear of getting apprehended by Goodwitch. Instead, everyone was staying in their dorms, a heavy and subdued air constantly permeating across the academy.
Even the higher years had been quick to note the absence of several professors, and rumors were spreading. There was just no way sudden leave would be granted for three professors at once. It just didn't make sense. Only the remaining first years that had gone on the field trip to Forever Falls knew the dark truth.
Kicked out of his dorm due to his team's effort to get him to unwind, Jeanne wasn't quite feeling it. He understood that it was as much a break for him as it was for them because they'd been constantly insisting that none of what happened was his fault, but it was hard not to think about the lives he could have saved if he'd been more proactive.
What Jaune was indirectly learning was the burden of a hero.
And it was never easy.
Walking across campus, he strolled towards an inner garden area where a marble-like fountain was built at the center of an open-air park. Trees and trimmed bushes lined a circular circumference around the fountain with wooden benches spaced out across to sit on.
The soothing sound of running water tickled the ears of all who walked past the fountain, but the accompanying voices of people passing by or stopping to chat were absent.
Instead, Jaune found himself stumbling upon Ozpin of all people seated on a bench and idly drinking a cup of coffee. He was staring listless at the night sky, all manner of thoughts flickering across his aged features. After Glynda, Port, and Oobleck 'died,' the man had suddenly mellowed drastically.
Just as Jaune noticed Ozpin and paused in his steps, Ozpin noticed him.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Ozpin called out, taking a mug from who knows where and offering Jaune a cup of drink from a thermos Ozpin carried with him.
"P-Professor Ozpin, sir!" Jaune stammered at the invitation. Unsure whether to accept and accompany Ozpin, or turn the other down. Their standings were miles apart as far as Jaune was concerned, even if he was called a Hero of Mt. Glenn.
"No need to be so nervous." Ozpin seemed to see right through Jaune and offered a kind smile. "What brings you out so late?"
Jaune hesitated. Confiding in his friends was one thing, but Ozpin was another. As the Headmaster of Ozpin, Jaune felt that Ozpin had far more important things to consider than Jaune's problems.
"Take a seat." Ozpin was nonplussed.
Jaune was of particular interest due to the way Summer had described his future self, and watering a promising seed was never a wasted effort.
"No I couldn't, I'm-"
"I insist." Ozpin patted the area beside him before raising a brow in the direction of a trembling bush where a pony tail of red hair was naively sticking out. "Oh, and you too Ms. Nikos. A champion ought to have better character than to stalk someone at night."
Pyrrha slowly poked her head out of the bush, cheeks blushing at being caught in front of Jaune.
"N-No, I, ugh, you have it wrong!" She insisted, barely keeping her composure as she brushed leaves and twigs off her school uniform. "I-I was just cooling off after training and was passing by."
"In a bush?" Ozpin raised a brow.
"I-I dropped something, oh look here! A pencil!" Pyrrha waved a pencil in her hand.
Ozpin chose not to voice that he'd literally seen her pick the random pencil up from the ground in a panic. Jaune was the one who missed Pyrrha's actions as he looked at her in dumbfoundment. Evidently, he'd never noticed she'd ever been there.
"Would you like to join us or not, Ms. Nikos?" Ozpin said with sincerity. "You were just worried about Jaune, weren't you?"
"Really?" Jaune perked up.
Blushing, Pyrrha nodded her head before taking a breath and accepting Ozpin's offer.
Jaune sat next to Ozpin, and Pyrrha sat next to Jaune.
"Pleasant night, isn't it?" Ozpin said, giving his offered cup of drink to Jaune who realized it was coffee, took a sip, and made a face. It really wasn't to his taste, especially black.
Jaune obliviously passed the coffee over to Pyrrha who looked dazedly at the lip of the cup with such intensity that Ozpin had to cough to get her attention back.
"Y-Yeah," the two readily agreed, but in the end, half of Pyrrha's attention still turned back to the cup in her hand.
Jaune stared at Ozpin who went back to stargazing with a thoughtful expression on his face.
"Why are you out here, professor?" Jaune asked.
Ozpin hummed, leaning forward, forearms resting on his knees. "Likely for the same reason as you Mr. Arc. We all have our thoughts to dwell over. Things we wish could have been done better, and regrets and mistakes that are constantly on our minds."
"Yeah…" Jaune trailed off. "Does it get better?"
"No," Ozpin said frankly, shaking his head and cutting off any notion in Jaune's mind about fixing anything. "It will remain as permanent reminders. It's what you do with the memory that counts, but it's understandably difficult. Some may not be able to find their footing again, while others use vengeance as a motivator to pursue power no matter the cost. What we have to do is see beyond that and focus on hope."
Jaune listened attentively, the words penetrating into his mind.
"Hope?" He echoed.
"Hope," Ozpin nodded. "The feelings you're feeling now, self reproach, guilt, and frustration; you must not lose yourself to them. Instead, you must consolidate the feeling and remember it always. That feeling will motivate you when you are frightened, brooding, or indecisive such that you won't experience the same thing again. That is your hope that their deaths did not go in vain."
Jaune's expression drooped, his hands balling into fists at the reminder.
"I couldn't save everyone- no, the other professors too. If I'd just stepped forward, I could have done something. The shadow feared my banner's light, and Cursed Arm was restricted in it."
"You are still young Mr. Arc." Ozpin shook his head. "Your heart is in the right place, but what you must do now is direct those feelings towards growth. Cursed Arm can be beaten- will be beaten. Rest assured."
Jaune closed his mouth and just stared at Ozpin, his uncertainty practically bleeding through. How were they supposed to defeat that monster when they could hardly keep up with his strength and movements?
"You think it's impossible?" Ozpin asked, intuitively reading Jaune's thoughts as a notification sound echoed from his Scroll.
Holding Jaune's gaze, Ozpin briefly glanced down at his Scroll.
Ozpin finished skimming over the messages he'd just received, and a faint smile soon tugged at the corner of his lips.
"What if I told you we've already secured a victory?" Ozpin asked in such a way that it was clear to Jaune that he wasn't asking just for the sake of it.
Jaune opened and closed his mouth, but felt better assured as the dark cloud over Ozpin's eyebags began to lift with renewed fervor.
The message Ozpin received was definitely good news.
"I must leave it here," Ozpin suddenly stood up, grinning broadly. "There's much to plan and consider. All I can say before we part, is that you should focus on bettering yourself first before thinking of others Mr. Arc. Cursed Arm should not be an entity we balk at, but one to soon be overcome."
With his piece said, Ozpin stood up and departed, leaving Jaune to his thoughts.
At the very least, Jaune felt a slight weight lifting from his shoulders from the short talk.
"What did you think, Pyrrha?" Jaune suddenly asked, turning to his side.
'What were we talking about?'
Pyrrha froze, tongue wetting her lips as she held an empty cup near her face. She instantly flinched, coughed, and brought the cup lower, resting it on her lap.
"You finished the whole cup?" Jaune asked in surprise, staring at the empty cup in Pyrrha's hands. Oddly, there was only one lip mark on the cup, but Jaune did not connect the dots. "You must have been thirsty. I didn't know you liked coffee so much this late in the evening."
Smiling stiffly, Pyrrha glanced at her toes, butterflies in her stomach working past the coffee's foul bitterness.
"Hehe, I love it." She answered radiantly.
That much she knew for sure.
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