Chapter 7

[Sky Lark]

"Excuse me, young man?" A voice woke Sky from his nap. He didn't recognize it, and most importantly, it wasn't a woman's voice, meaning it couldn't be his boss or anyone worth paying attention to. Having ruled out the most important possibilities, Sky tried to go back to sleep. "Young man?" he heard the voice call again.

What was their problem? Didn't they see he was busy? Sky didn't know this person, but he already disliked them plenty. Who interrupts someone trying to sleep after a long day of work?

"Ehem!" Sky decidedly ignored the calls, reckoning that if he stayed like this long enough, the person would just get tired of being a bother and wait somewhere else. Were it not for him being on thin ice with his boss, he would give this guy a piece of his mind.

Well, he wouldn't actually say it out loud if it was a huntsman, but he would certainly think about it!

"Kid, I know you are awake. Could you please stop pretending already?" a quiet sigh came from the person in front of him. As if they were the ones dealing with someone unreasonable.

With a groan, Sky decided to open his eyes and kindly direct this person to one of the other receptionists before playing with his phone again. After all this, there wasn't a chance to go back to sleep peacefully… At least until after he sent the person away.

"Listen, pal. I get ya have important business or whatevs, but I am on my break so what about you go to…one…of," Sky's voice trailed off as he spoke and his eyes readjusted to the well-lit place to look at the two people in front of him.

A teen around his age with dark hair and a magenta stripe on one of his bangs that matched the color of his eyes. Predominantly green clothes with decorations that screamed Mistrali to his sense of fashion. Said teen seemed to give him a disapproving frown, but Sky shrugged that off with practiced ease, his father had a worse look anyway.

Furthermore, he was much more interested in the other person, the one that woke him up.

Silver hair that looked almost white. Blue eyes that looked almost like ice. His masculine face was partially hidden by a trimmed full beard the same color as his hair, only stopped by the jagged scar on one side of his face that went all the way down his neck. A detail that became even more apparent in contrast with his white skin made him look like someone who has never seen sunlight, like those aristocrats from Atlas.

He was wearing a brown leather jacket over a dark gray shirt and some common navy blue jeans. In Sky's opinion, it was very old school, especially since it seemed to lack a main color motif and personal emblem to it. It clashed even more with the picture he was getting from the man though.

Because…

'What is a fucking Schnee doing here?' he couldn't help but ask in the privacy of his mind.

"What is a fucking Schnee doing here?" or apparently not. He regretted saying the words out loud even as he spoke them. It seemed that he was still not fully awake. Or maybe he was dreaming? He could only hope.

The noisy establishment, filled with mutterings and conversations, almost instantly went eerily quiet. Everyone around them who heard him stopped in their tracks and turned their attention towards Sky and the Schnee in front of him. Even the people who were too far away to hear him noticed the change and followed suit. Leave it to huntsmen to notice the shift in the mood of a room in an instant… Although to be fair, it wasn't very subtle.

Sky winced.

"Shit. I am sorry, bro. Didn't mean to-," he said feeling some guilt.

"Think nothing of it, kid. I am already quite used to this," the man responded with an air of someone who had to deal with a chore for too long and it had gotten old ages ago. Sky could sympathize with that. The man had a hand on the other teen's shoulder who looked increasingly more uncomfortable with every person that looked at them.

"Right, so what do you need? If you wanted to check the missions you can just do so at the board over there," Sky said, deciding to apologize to the man by actually helping him instead of sending him to one of the queues. "Though I guess, you already knew that?" he continued after thinking for a moment. The man practically screamed veteran huntsman, so there was no way he would need him for that after all.

For his part, the man just shook his head in the negative.

"I am not here for Huntsman work. I am opening a weapons shop and I need to acquire a dealer license to start my business. I read that this was the right place to do so?" said the man lending him some documents across the desk. One of them was an ID with his photo and the name "Silver Astra".

'Huh, not a Schnee then?' Sky thought in his mind after moving the next set of papers that detailed the ownership of a shop in the Arandelle district. He knew the place, it was one of the relatively modern districts in Vale, slightly away from the center, but within walking distance of it. It was mostly a place for young adults to gather to drink something in one of the many bars and plazas. It was how he recognized the place. After all, he had visited quite a few times.

Still, while not a main street proper, it was still a pretty busy place in the city. You would need a really big pocket to pay for the rent of such a place, adding another point to the 'Schnee undercover' theory that he had been cooking in his head.

"Right, yeah, bro. This is the right place, follow me and we can do the test thingy," Sky said as he rose from his chair waving his hand towards the two, and walked towards one of the open doors at the side of the main hall. At least something good came from this situation. He was half convinced that the thin cushions were specifically designed to be as uncomfortable as possible.

He did find it a bit odd that a huntsman who didn't look old enough for retirement would want a shop at all. Even if he was older, most of them usually saved enough money at the end of their careers to not have to work another day in their lives. A hobby perhaps?

"Let's go, Ren. I would like to go back to the hotel before nightfall. I don't want Vincent to get bored and try to sneak Nora back into the restaurant again if I can help it," Silver said to the teenager who seemed to shudder slightly and mouth "So much syrup" involuntarily.

All three of them ignored the mutters and whispers of the people around them, some of them trying to pretend to be minding their own business while sparing a glance at the big man behind them. Others just blatantly stared and pointed their scrolls toward the man, without shame.

Inwardly, Sky couldn't help but sigh.

It seemed that he would not be able to sneak out early today…

[}-o-{]

It wasn't until a few hours later that the required paperwork was finished. If Sky had to read another formulary again, he might just quit and go back to his father's lessons. Those at least weren't as mentally torturous, even if it was torture of the physical kind in his opinion.

Still, at least it was something that he knew how to do. It wasn't his first time having to give gun handling certificates, after all. It was one of the most common reasons to come to a Huntsman Outpost after all… If you weren't a huntsman, that is.

Despite the name, the place wasn't only for handling huntsmen and huntresses missions, even if it was the principal objective of it. Most permits that had to do with weapons or even Dust any grade higher than civilian had to go through and be approved in any of the Outspots spread across the kingdom.

The reason why this wasn't done in separate buildings was mostly for the simple reason that was saving space. The Kingdom population went up constantly to the point that real estate needed to be carefully planned to occupy the least amount of space possible. After the disaster that was the failed expansion of Mount Glenn, this practice became even more common.

Of course, the secondary reason for this was that the council of Vale would have to open a whole ministry to take off all this paperwork by themselves and they couldn't bother to do so. Thus they went for the easier option and dumped all the work for the huntsmen side to deal with. If they could handle killing things in the wild they would know if someone deserved to carry a gun on the streets, right? At least, that was what Dove had told him once.

Sky would have appreciated their ability to escape work while pretending that they had a good reason for it, if it wasn't that said work was dropped right on his lap.

"Right, so, all that is left is doing the practical test and we can be done with this," Sky let out a tired groan as he rubbed his eyes, already done with today. Not being able to take his afternoon nap would really kill his mood for tonight's party.

Neither of the two people in front responded with more than a grunt and nod. Making him wonder if they were somehow related to each other. Still, he could see that they were as done with this as he was.

"So, let's start with the firing range, you just need to aim and shoot the targets, and the test gets progressively harder. You don't need to ace it beyond reaching the acceptable mark, but the better you do, the more years you can have the license without having to renew it," Sky finished explaining the test as he set up the robotic targets that would get progressively faster the more advanced the test setting was. They brought this stuff right up from Atlas so they were all really high-quality bots and easy to build back even if you broke them. They were made to be disposable, after all.

"I understand, do I need to take the test again to sell different calibers of weapons or types of weapons?" asked the man after a moment of thinking things over and positioning himself at the shooting gallery in front of the assortment of weapons that were on display.

"You will use them all in the test, then the results are summed up. It won't be a problem to sell different weapons outside of your specialties unless you manage to spectacularly fuck up with one of them. Even then, it is more likely that you won't get a license at all," Sky answered as the other teen, Ren, if he remembered correctly, took his place against the wall. A look of concentration and slight excitement on his face as he looked at Silver taking position.

Sky asked for confirmation that the man was ready before starting the test. Small droids appeared soon after carrying targets and moving slightly slower than a human walking speed. Silver took aim and shot the gun in his hand… and missed the target. That was… surprising.

Before he could even say anything, however, he shot the second, third, and fourth shots and hit the outer ring of the target, and got progressively closer to the center. Until a fifth shot landed right next to the bullseye.

'What was that?' Sky could help to wonder as he blinked quickly looking at Ren who looked just as confused.

"Maybe he was nervous?" he muttered to himself. A slight grunt coming from the huntsman brought him back to the present however as he nodded to himself and slightly corrected his posture.

What followed was the sound of three rounds leaving the handgun chamber back to back. All of them hit the bullseye dead center and made the bots speed up slightly. Astra quickly lowered the handgun and grabbed a semi that was right next to it, letting out small bursts and adjusting the recoil of the weapon, sure enough, after the first burst the bullets got progressively more accurate until none of them ever missed the bullseye. Hell, some of them seemed to impact at the exact same spot over and over.

Sky, for his part, just shook his head. He wasn't getting paid to wonder about any of this, and he was already tired and wanted to go home. If there were any Semblance shenanigans involved, it wasn't his problem. Thus, Sky let out more bots and amped the difficulty.

[}-o-{]

Sure enough, after a somewhat poor initial showing with every gun, the man had proceeded to ace the rest of the test. He'd ended up reaching the adequate score to qualify for the license and then some. It wasn't a perfect score given his weird quirk of always missing the first few shots of some of the guns, for whatever reason, but it was enough to pass with flying colors.

It was during the melee weapons test, however, that the man truly shone. Sky was pretty sure he had broken records for multiple of those weapons, from maces to swords to spears. Whatever the man grabbed he seemed to be ten times deadlier than it had any right to be when in his hands. It made Sky wonder if the strange showing at the range was because he specialized in melee.

It was odd to see someone not cover all their bases in this day and age given that the invention of mechashift weapons decades ago pretty much allowed for huntsmen to bring all kinds of weapons with them without truly occupying that much space. But he guessed some people preferred the old way of doing things.

Astra certainly seemed to make it work, at least.

As such, it wasn't long after the test that Sky gave the man his license and sent them on his way. His shift had long since been over and he could see his boss giving him a proud look for staying late. For some reason, it irked him more than the hag being angry at him.

He quickly picked up his things to leave. He was already getting late to the night's party and still needed to get a shower if he wanted to score with a girl at all.

Sky quickly grabbed his scroll and put on his jacket before noting that he had two messages from Cardin.

The first one was a poorly filmed video that took him to a link for Dust-Tok. It seemed to have been taken by someone trying to be discreet about it apparently. It was a video of the man who had just left the building, Silver. At his side, Sky could recognize Ren, and if he stopped the video at the right frame, he could spot himself sitting at his desk talking with both of them. On top of the video, there was a caption saying "OMG, what is a Schnee doing in Vale?".

Quickly pressing the link to check it on the actual app, he couldn't help but open his eyes wide at the video going viral in real-time. Dozens of comments quickly became hundreds and then thousands in the span of minutes. The like counter seemed to never stop increasing.

He opened Cardin's chat again. The message was a few minutes old, "Is this the place your working at? You know this dude?" it read.

Sky hurriedly typed his response, knowing that Cardin didn't like to wait for people to answer him. "Yeah, dude. Was there, thought he was a Schnee too. Came to do some papers for a shop or whatever, lol. Took me all day so I will go late to the party smh".

He remembered that he was running late so he tried to put the phone away and finished grabbing his things. Before he could though, another ding surprised him. It was another message from Cardin.

"Rememver the place? I have some debt to setle with him and his friend."

[}-o-{]

[Ozpin]

Ozpin took a moment to gather his thoughts as he drank a sip of his hot coffee. The black tar-like liquid passed over his tongue leaving a strong taste of bitterness on his tongue that he had come to enjoy. Not like the overly sweet cocoa so many of his students rumored he was addicted to.

The light of the broken moon filtered through the ever-moving gears and glass that surrounded his personal office located at the top of Beacon Academy. It gave it a particularly mysterious feeling at those late hours of the night. Not that it mattered but a man as old as him learned to find some odd things to amuse himself across the centuries and millennia that formed his long life.

Ozpin shook his head and centered on the only other source of light in the room. The hard-light monitor was currently paused on a video that had become quite viral in the past few hours. Thousands of people had already seen it and copies of it were rapidly spreading through different media platforms across not only the Kingdom of Vale but the other three as well.

Inwardly, Ozpin marveled at the advances of technology as the years passed. The simple fact that one could share information with thousands of other people around the planet nearly instantly with the click of a button would have been considered to be extremely advanced, even during his youth, back in the days when Gods roamed the land and magic was plentiful and a common commodity.

Yet, humanity had surpassed their ancestors and produced something so wonderful and powerful with nothing but their intellect and creativity. It reminded Ozpin of why he fought, why all he and everyone else did and sacrificed was worth it.

Leaving aside his inner musings, Ozpin clicked the "replay" button of the video that was his current interest. In it, a man with very particular features seemed to be talking with a young receptionist. The words exchanged were unknown to him given that the poor quality of the video didn't allow him to read their lips.

He opened the comment section to see an avalanche of comments rain through the chat as people discussed the veracity of the video. Some of them called it fake only to be rebuffed by links and photos of the same event but from different angles. Others claimed it to be only a coincidence in appearance and nothing else, but others claimed that the receptionist called him a Schnee before apologizing for outing him.

There were no records of a member of the Schnee family that matched the apparent age of this person. The only known, living male members were Jacques Schnee and his young son Whitley, after all. However, this only sparked more conspiracy theories of the man being some kind of hidden Schnee that was disowned or born from some extramarital dalliance.

Ozpin wasn't exactly sure what was true or what wasn't, never paying much attention to the family beyond their powerful semblance and their dust imports for the betterment of Vale. It had proven to be a particularly uncooperative power to his plans, so Ozpin had barely kept up with their news just in case. He had outgrown the excitement of idle gossip quite a few centuries back, after all. There are only so many lives you could live without the act growing stale and repetitive after all.

No, what the Headmaster was much more interested in were the results of the man's test for his license. While the information was classified for mostly everyone, he was the head of Beacon Academy and by extension and technicality, the leading figure of huntsmen and huntresses in Vale. That, of course, gave him certain perks like ignoring the slow machine of bureaucracy and allowing him to receive said information to his office almost instantly.

The results at the range weaponry were strange, he had never quite seen someone score so bad initially only to get a perfect score in the subsequent shots. Ozpin idly wondered if there was some kind of Semblance assisting with his terrible aim… or maybe it was the opposite and the man had to put it under control before correcting his aim. It wouldn't be the first time that he had seen a Semblance that caused some sort of drawback to the user.

Erasing the image of a certain drunk crow from his mind, he focused on the other test, the one that tested the melee weaponry. Beyond perfect, there was no other way to describe it. There hadn't been results like this even by his most skilled huntsmen and huntresses. Save for Summer Rose and Maria Calavera, and even then it was when they were tested on their weapons of choice. Yet, the man had aced pretty much every type of weapon they had available.

He could see it through the recorded files, the way the silver-haired warrior moved with the weapons as if they were an extension of himself was beyond simple talent. It reminded him of experience, it reminded him of someone grabbing a weapon and dedicating their entire life to it and its mastery.

But above all else… It reminded Ozpin of himself.

'Until your task is complete, you will reincarnate, but in a manner that ensures you are never alone.'

The words that sealed his destiny resounded in his head.

This time, clearer than they had been in centuries.

The Headmaster reviewed and analyzed the video over and over again, looking for evidence or telltales of some kind of Semblance that could imitate that kind of experience. Yet, he had not found a single ounce of evidence for foul play. Of course, lack of evidence is not evidence of its absence though.

'Perhaps, I should visit this man. If only just to make sure-'

With a start, Ozpin was pulled from his musing by the sound of his scroll. He appeared to have lost himself in thought for quite a bit given how the minute-long video had long since ended. Ozpin took his now mildly warm coffee with one hand and the scroll with the other, accepting the call.

"Ah, yes, James. I assume you call me because of the videos?" Ozpin asked even though he knew the answer already. Taking another sip of his coffee he sighed. It seemed that he would need to heat a second pot. He could already tell this would be another long night for himself.

[}-o-{]

[Weiss Schnee]

Her hands felt slightly clammy as she watched the video for what she guessed was the tenth time in the past hour. Clicking the replay button once again she watched as… as the man stood in front of the desk. Hair almost as white as hers and she could spot his ice-like eyes… just like hers.

Hope warred against rationality inside her as she tried to calm her beating heart. She didn't want to believe it, but at the same time, she wished it was true, that… that out there she had someone else. She hoped… but didn't know what she was hoping for.

Her mind was a mess as emotions rushed and mixed within her. She didn't know what to think. She didn't know what to feel. She didn't even know why this affected her so much.

She knew the chance for it was low. That it was most likely a coincidence. But she had to make sure, she had to go to Vale and make sure that… She wasn't even sure what she had to be sure of. With a sigh, Weiss closed her scroll and lay herself on top of the quality silk of her sheets. The sound echoed across the white room with a deep echo before falling into its characteristic silence once more.

Weiss counted her breaths as she tried to put her inner turmoil to rest, to cool down the embers that grew in her chest. Nothing good would come from it, she knew. She had been burned by it plenty of times by then whenever she tried to get too close.

It was better to kill it now than find them doused by the contents of a wine bottle, slashed by sneers, or abandoned as she watched her back leave the house, the big cold hands tightening around her shoulder as she begged for her to take Weiss with her-

She took a deep breath in and counted to ten. The sting in her eyes receded, replaced by determination. The heiress rose to her feet and made herself presentable in the full-body mirror in her room.

Leaving her room behind, Weiss made her way towards her father's study. She had considered it before, but now, she was sure.

One way or another, she would make her path forward. She would not become an assistant at the SDC main branch. She would not be trained by the huntermen or huntresses under his father's payroll either.

Weiss would make her destiny. She would go to Vale and be the huntress she wanted to be, far away from her father's influence. And now, she had something else to do while at it.

[} Chapter End {]

Adrian: So, that's another chapter for Departure, guys. Anything to say, Arc?

Arc: I am sure Cardin has a master plan brewing. I can feel it.

Adrian: I'm sure that's the case. Nothing can go wrong with that. Silver is also drawing some attention. I'm sure that won't cause anything interesting to happen though.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter though.

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ