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The rest of the tournament was on the big stage and would be televised across Vale. Rosé wasn't slated to fight for another hour or two. It was back to waiting once more. We got lunch. Something light and easy to digest but rich in calories. A sandwich and a protein shake.

"So…" Rosé began as she was eating.

"So?" I wondered.

"About the headmistress's offer… will you at least think about it?"

I sighed. I was thinking about it. It was… it was complicated. I had my duty to hunt down my father and oppose my Mother. I couldn't do that sitting at Beacon. But it was the exact sort of good I wanted to be doing. And I really shouldn't be around children. As dangerous as I was it could be a real problem. It felt like asking for trouble. But I had managed well with Rosé. It was difficult and I was wrestling with it. Professor Goodwitch knew about my condition. You would think that would preclude me from any such offer. But in it's own way it was tempting. Of everyone in Vale she was most likely the one to be able to stop me. Being under her watchful eye might be a good thing. But could I really go back? And as a teacher? I wasn't sure. I managed with Rosé but that was just one student. It was not multiple classes.

"I'll think about it," I promised.

"You'd be an excellent teacher. You would do an amazing job."

I exhaled hard. "This isn't about that… I… I have to go to Vacuo. It's where Merlot will set up shop next. It's right out of his play book. Someone has to stop him."

"Why does it have to be you? You can take a break. Professor Strife. It has a good ring to it."

"I'm… I'm thinking about it. Alright. You see me? I'm thinking about it. Finish up. We want to watch your competition."

We were invited to the top box with the king and queen. The headmistress was there as well. I… I had some serious pondering to do.

I took my seat to watch the first match of top sixteen.

Prince Chrome came in and took a long look at me. I stared him right back down. He took his own seat on the other side of Rosé from me. The headmistress sat down beside me on my right with a flourish.

"We should be happy to hear your thoughts on the matches Mr. Strife, headmistress," the king spoke solidly. His voice was firm. Something like an order was in it but not quite.

"I'm sure the commentators will do a fine job," I readily dismissed.

"All the same. They won't be hunters. We would like you to share your observations. If you should make any."

"Of course," Goodwitch agreed.

"Very well," I decided with a half-hearted shrug.

The match opened up with a flare of the stadium plasmatron. The two competitors' faces appeared on the holographic screen. There was a girl with long green hair and startling green eyes. She was a faunus with a set of pure white wings. Her competition was a blonde haired boy with bright brown eyes.

"Alright, Blue," a commentator's voice began. "We've got the beginning match of top sixteen right here. And we've got a contestant that needs no introduction."

"You said it. She's the top seed at this tournament for sure and with good reason. Pine is a top contestant, Crimson. Let's get right down into the match."

The girl walked out onto the stadium floor confidently and in a flowing white dress with a red sash. She held a round blue shield on her right arm and a long cold silver and gold staff on her left.

Her opponent stepped out onto the floor to match her. He had two recurved single edged swords with barrels protruding from the tips.

The hologram showed their respective auras. The girl was mostly untouched from the skirmishes she had been through during the day. She was at eighty-seven percent. Well in the deep green. Her opponent was at sixty-six bordering on yellow. Sure, everyone had different amounts of aura. But based on that the girl was starting in the lead.

"Pine is coming in with a comfortable lead and she's got a decent aura pool to start with," a commentator, Blue began.

"She has so much aura left," Rosé observed.

It was true. Rosé would be lucky if she was pushing fifty after lunch and a rest.

There came a countdown on the holographic board. The crowd cheered along with the countdown.

On go, the green haired girl took off the ground with her wings spread wide. She dashed forward, leading with her small round shield. The boy started taking pot shots down the barrels of his weapons. Then he front-flipped forward and met her. He slashed at her and she blocked him with her shield. Then she met his other blade with one end of her staff and smacked him across the face with the other end of the Titania rod.

"Ouch," Crimson announced. "She's coming in strong."

She slammed him in the face with her shield and bashed him with her staff. She grabbed him by the collar and started kneeing him before she bent over backwards and threw him over her body to the ground.

He landed in a roll to his credit and he had to because the girl cast an explosive spell of fire dust right where he would have gotten up. The massive fireball held itself in place away from where he rolled.

She caught his roll anyways with her flight. She smashed him with her shield and then she twirled her staff and jumped at the same time. She caught him in some sort of multi hit. Then she juggled him again with another jumping spin of her staff.

"Here comes those combos. She's so consistent with them," Blue went on. "That's a lot of percent right there."

Then she finished with an alarmingly fast jumping kick that caught him before he could touch the ground again.

"Wow…" I heard myself murmur very softly.

"She's good," the headmistress said quietly.

"She's really good," I agreed. "Look at how she maintains her advantage state. Are you watching Rosé?"

She just nodded with her eyes forward.

The boy tried to escape the girl but she held her staff out and fired three beams of light from the tip. It caught him in the chest and the balls of light torched him. The girl gestured with her staff again and cast another fireball and forced him to dodge.

He tried to regain some balance by shooting at her with his guns but the girl blocked with her shield and hit him with several more rays of light.

"She's beating him at every range," Rosé observed.

"We call that a hard counter; sometimes you run into things you just can't beat," I nearly whispered. I usually did that to people; I just forced them to approach and ripped them to pieces. It was interesting to watch for once. Ruby used to do it to me. Pyrrha did it to Cardin's team. .

He tried to shoot her but she just absolutely vanished and reappeared right in his face in an instant. She crossed thirty meters in less than a heartbeat. She whacked him one last time across the head with her staff.

"Ooh the warp to finish things off. She didn't need to do him like that. But she did it anyways," Crimson spoke into his microphone.

"It was definitely to send a message."

He collapsed. She'd gone through his aura and a medical team was rushing the field. The girl flicked her hair back and sashayed off the stadium floor in her dress.

"Well I hope he's alright. Who knows, Cotton might do well in loser's."

"She's going to win this thing," I said. Then I looked over at Rosé. "Her or you, of course. She's the player to beat, however, don't get in your head and be intimidated."

"I don't know how I'm going to beat her," Rosé mumbled. "Look! She's walking off with more aura than she started with. He never touched her." It was true. Her indicator showed eighty-eight percent.

"Did you see her semblance?" I muttered to headmistress Goodwitch with an awed tone.

"How could I miss that? She's a teleporter. A fast one, too. Very little start up or lag on the other end. She also used dust very well. Burn and a sprinkle of light."

"Do you think she has a place in your school?" I asked the headmistress.

I caught the girl's name on the holographic screen, Pine Telimess.

"Oh, absolutely," Goodwitch answered me.

"Be very wary of her semblance if you have to fight her. It will have rules. Every semblance does. Every power has limits," I informed Rosé. "And she needs to be eliminated twice. She's still in winner's."

Rosé had eight long matches ahead of her to make it to grand finals.

"So what do I do if I have to fight her? It seems like she would beat me at every single distance."

"You gotta out play her at one of them or you've already lost. Get close with your sword and cut her up. It's your best chance, I think. I'm not sure. She proved that she can box. He tried to camp her out and she teleported on top of him. Don't try that. She can close the gap on you instantly. You won't be able to chip her down much with your rifle. Maybe just the occasional shot. But she's got ranged options dependent on dust. There's no reason she can't beat you at a distance."

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Rosé got ready for her next match. She swung her sword and dropped to one knee with her rifle held to her shoulder. As her coach I joined her in the locker room next to the big stage.

"Be calm. Think things through. Remember your strengths," I coached gently. "You have a lot of matches between you and grand finals. This will be a hell of a run if you make it."

"You think that other girl is going to win."

"Only if you don't. You can do this and you can beat her. It is doable for you. Don't let her get into your head already."

"Her semblance is awesome and she knows how to use dust very well."

"Don't get psyched out. Someone else might eliminate her."

"She's gotta go down twice."

"You're not even fighting her next. Keep your focus up. One match at a time. If you can't concentrate on your next opponent, you won't have to worry about fighting her."

Rosé breathed in deeply and exhaled hard.

"You need to nearly not get touched for the rest of the tournament. You can't take a slugfest of a match. Really focus on playing safe and defensive. You've got this."

A man in a marked t-shirt approached us in the locker room. He had a microphone around his head and his ear. "We're ready for her."

"Time to face the music," I murmured. I turned to leave and I heard Rosé release a shuddering breath. Then she marched out into the stadium.

I made my way to the sidelines to watch and wait for her rather than go back up to the box.

Her opponent was a slim girl all in grey with blonde hair and bright red eyes. Her face was shaped like an oval under a scarf. She looked lean and limber. She had a svelte body plan. In both hands were tiny knives held between her fingers.

I looked up at the holographic screen. Rosé was at forty-eight percent and this other girl was at thirty-nine. They were both fairly low and if they wanted to move forward neither could take a lot of damage. Lest they be screwed in the next round let alone the ones after that.

On go. Rosé took off towards the other girl. She was immediately hit by a throwing knife from the scarf wearing girl. It stopped her in her tracks. The small knife buffeted her but it didn't do a lot of damage. The other girl had a lot of knives to throw. She sprinted low to the ground right at Rosé. She jumped with a high kick right after she staggered Rosé with another knife. The blow knocked Rosé back and the girl dashed forward and sliced across her with the tiny knives in her hands.

For four attacks they didn't do a lot of Rosé's percent but the girl was fast and able to chain multiple attacks together. When the girl lunged at her again Rosé flung herself upward and sliced at the same time. The move caught the slender girl across the whole of her body. In that one blow Rosé did as much percent as the other girl did in four. The thin girl was a glass canon with high combo potential.

If Rosé realized this then she could win by spacing her out with her sword. She seemed to know it as well. She jumped and swung in the air and slashed the girl again before landing and slicing her with four quick cuts. Rosé had her own combo capabilities.

Rather than pursue, Rosé swapped her weapon forms and shot the girl several times.

The girl jumped and threw a knife and tried to dash in again and hit Rosé with her fists but Rosé swapped her weapon's form and slashed her once more. Rosé shouted as she jumped and cut downwards in an overhand attack. It cut the girl across the body and knocked her aura into the red.

The match was called. The slender girl regathered her knives and shook hands with Rosé. Rosé came off the pitch and back over to where I waited on the sidelines.

"Another one of those and you'll be in top eight," I told her, grinning. She sighed exasperatedly and with some frustration. She still had a lot of matches ahead of her. As in four. That was if she made it into grands. She could very easily get knocked out by those coming from the winner's bracket into loser's.

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We watched Pine Telimess demolish a brawler of a man. She summoned a pillar of light that shattered his aura using a pinch of white dust at the right time. The pillar of light was enormous.

I never used white dust though it was every bit as energetic as the kinds I usually used. It was just much more expensive than it was worth. Raven Branwen had attacked me with a blade imbued with the stuff and nearly knocked me the fuck out with it. She did something in the ballpark of seventy percent of my aura in a single shot. My aura. It had been her trump card. Weiss used pinches of it to summon balls of light and fling them away as spells. I wasn't unfamiliar with it. I just never used it myself. Though a part of me did wonder what would happen to me if I ate a little bit of it. A crystal of pure white dust would be expensive and training with it would be difficult and life threatening. That's why I hadn't done it. But the results could very well be spectacular.

The results with burn and shock were incredible for me. White dust was even more powerful. And Pine was showing off some of the things you could do with it.

She would be a menace once she graduated whatever academy she went to or however she finished her training. She could be very very good. I wasn't sure if she could one day beat me but I could see it happening.

Rosé's next match was against the boy Pine had knocked into the loser's bracket. The boy with the curved gun swords, one in each hand. Rosé took some damage but she out paced him and trapped him well. She emerged victorious with only twelve percent of her aura shaved off. She was hovering at around thirty percent. Too much more and she would be eliminated. She needed to rest and recuperate between rounds as much as she could or she would lose fairly easily to whoever would be in grand finals winner's side. Probably it would be Pine. She looked fairly unstoppable.

Rosé had another match against another boy who had been knocked out of winner's by somebody other than Pine. The boy was good, with a long spear that doubled as a rifle, but he was unprepared for the intensity of Rosé's straight forward game plan. You were going to get stabbed. You were going to get shot. It really was just a question of how long you could avoid it. Rosé was fairly linear in her approach. She was just so effective that it didn't really matter. She was shaving off the competition and those knocked out of winner's bracket barely had time to recover enough aura to be in the orange. If they couldn't recover fast enough they would be double eliminated. It was time to dig deep and push through.

The next match I watched with great interest because Pine was up against a purple haired boy with blue eyes who had made it this far with just a short sword like Rosé's training wheels blade. It might grant some insight into how Rosé would fair against Pine if both of them made it that far.

On go, he caught her with a jab and side-flipped and cut across her body with terrific speed and power. He jumped and spun in the air brining his blade around in a downwards arc. He jumped and combined her all the way across the arena in a devastating series of blows that cost her half her remaining aura. But Pine got a grip on things once she teleported away. Then she whittled down the boy with the terrific offense using her projectiles and never let him get in on her again. If she pulled out a similar strategy against Rosé then Rosé could be in trouble. She would be forced to use her marksmanship which was lacking compared to her swordsmanship.

Rosé got a bye in the last round. The person she would have been fighting never recovered enough of their aura to fight again. That left just two people in the tournament. Pine and Rosé. Just as I predicted.

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"I don't know how I'm going to beat her! I don't know how to do it! I don't think I can do it!"

"Start by calming down. You can't beat her by panicking."

"Cut me a deal."

"What?" I wondered.

"A deal. A trade."

"Okay…" I trailed with trepidation.

"If I beat her… if I win this thing… you have to come teach at Beacon."

"Rosé… there's more going on in my life than you know. I'm not sure that's a good idea for me."

"You would be so good though."

"Maybe… or I couldn't handle it at all. I don't want to make you any promises. I can't take you up on your deal. But you can win this thing. Deal or no deal."

"Just tell me why," she demanded.

"Rosé… it's very personal."

"Give me a good reason."

"Because I hurt people. Is that a good enough reason? I've killed people, I've liked it, I shouldn't be around kids."

"What about me?"

"I probably shouldn't be around you either. I'm playing a dangerous game with that. It's like toying around with fire. I'm a killer. I'm a bad guy. I shouldn't be around children. I'm a hazard. What is Goodwitch thinking? She knows. I told her how big of a threat I could be. If I snapped I could cause a lot of damage. Again. If I snapped again. And I could. I'm a big problem with no good answers and she wants me around kids. What's going through her head?"

"She sees how competent you are? She sees what a good job you've done with me?"

"That's how it starts. That's what Oscar said before I snapped the first time."

"Who's Oscar?"

"Nevermind that. That's not the point. I'm a problem. I'm a big problem."

"But you're still thinking about it."

"I am. Yes."

"Why?"

"It's the sort of good I want to do in this world before I… before I die. And I will die. I will die soon probably."

"How do you know?"

Because my Mother is the biggest, most dangerous bitch to ever do it and I'm at the top of her shit list.

"Just… I know. It's a serious problem. I can't really get into it right now. I'm sorry.."

Rosé looked up at me mutely. I sighed. Her big ol' eyes were gazing at me and pleading like a puppy dog.

"Look. You need to focus on the tournament. You've come so far. You've had a crazy loser's bracket run. You can still win this thing. But you definitely can't beat her if your head's not in the game. And we do have a lot to talk about. We can later. We will have enough time for that, at least."

"Do you promise?"

"Yeah I promise. Now get out there and beat her. I'll be right here on the sidelines cheering you on."

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-WG