Chapter 38 – Ruby's Loyalty

Ruby said nothing. She was surrounded on all sides by foes who could and frequently had bested her in combat (also Watts), and she knew that fighting was folly.

Escape…maybe. Probably not. She might've been able to outrun Tyrian and Hazel, but this was Salem's domain, where she could summon Shadow Hands to restrain any who opposed her. No, there was no escape.

"I've long had my doubts," Salem went on, frowning. Her fingers came apart, and she began absentmindedly drawing a circle on the table with her finger. "Since shortly after you joined us here, in fact. However, recent events have laid your attempts at sabotage bare."

She glanced up at Ruby again.

Salem's head tilted slightly. "It was when you took Ruby into Mistral that I first wondered just how loyal you truly were."

So, that was her mistake. Mistral had been well over a month ago, meaning that Salem had been onto her for some time now. Honestly, if Ruby could turn back the clock and – and –

Hold on a second.

Ruby's brow furrowed, and she looked up at Salem, who was looking right back at her.

No. Not right back at her. She was looking to her left, which was the same side of the table that Ruby was on, but she wasn't looking right back at Ruby.

"You led her to the southern beaches, but the Branwens were found to be in the shadow of the northern mountains. Such a spectacular display of incompetence, from someone who was supposed to be wiser than salt."

Ruby couldn't help but notice out of her peripheral vision that the massive doors to the room were slowly closing.

"Alas, we all fail. There is no shame in admitting this, and I would be a poor leader if I could not accept the many imperfections this world has to offer. But then, in Argus, you were captured by Specialists at the Ultramarine Research Base after failing to penetrate into a vault that my hound has little to no trouble breaching. Once was a mistake, but twice was a pattern."

What?

What was…?

Was Salem saying that…?

W-What?

"And then, Tyrian reports to me that much of your gear on Mount Serathusa mysteriously goes missing, having been lost by my faithful hound. A shame that my hound knows not how to disobey, but I'm sure it was a mere misunderstanding. A troubling misunderstanding, though, as I believe it nearly caused your party to have to turn back on your attempt to claim the powers of the Summer maiden. It almost seemed like someone tipping their hand in a final, hasty attempt to impede my intentions." Salem's finger stopped moving along the surface of the table. "And now, a prisoner goes missing in Evernight, with none but us five present within the castle's borders. I'd call that damning, wouldn't you…Hazel?"

Insane.

Utterly insane.

Ruby had broken that huntsman guy out, and then Salem had somehow found that out and interpreted it as proof that Hazel was a traitor.

That was in-fucking-sane.

Ruby had to tilt her head upwards to get a good look at Hazel. His face was just as stoic as always.

"Your grace…"

"You nearly had me fooled. Truly, I'm amazed you fell for such obvious bait. You clearly were intending to keep this treachery up for some time, but I suppose in the heart of all saboteurs lies impatience."

Ruby held her breath very carefully. Salem believed that it was Hazel who was the traitor, which was great for her at the moment because it meant she wasn't going to be blamed for freeing the huntsman, but it also wasn't going to last very long when Hazel told Salem that it wasn't true.

Salem stood up from her throne. "Have you nothing to say in your –"

Hazel shrugged his shoulders, causing his coat to flutter to the floor. His bare arms and shoulders were riddled with Dust crystals that had been stabbed into his flesh. When his muscles flexed, raw power coursed through his veins, as evidenced by the glowing lines beneath his skin.

Ruby blinked.

Oh wow, I guess he really is –

Hazel was smart when it came to combat; he struck at the greatest threat first – Salem herself. With lightning speed granted to him by the hunk of Lightning Dust he'd jabbed into his jugular, he punched one fist right through her head, leaving behind only torn strands of black flesh. Then, that hand grabbed her neck, his other grabbed her legs, and her tore her in half.

"DIE, YOU MONSTER!"

Both halves of Salem were flung in opposite directions.

And despite all that, Salem didn't stop grinning.

"I can't die, Hazel. That's the problem. Rose, Tyrian, Watts – kill him!"

All three of them were momentarily lost for words, even Tyrian. Salem had gone in knowing that Hazel was a traitor, apparently, but they hadn't, so there was a brief pause before they could even ready their weapons.

Hazel seemed to have anticipated that pause and went after the second most dangerous target. Tyrian was batted out the window and sent flying down the face of a rock cliff far below.

"異端の七面鳥のように刻んでやる！" he cried, his voice fading off as he fell.

At this point, Ruby was finally able to give a reaction, and she drove her scythe into Hazel's back. It didn't go through, but it did manage to clink against a greenish Dust crystal incidentally. That seemed to cause Hazel some discomfort. He turned around, fury in his eyes, and reached for Ruby in a swift underhand motion, but she fell back and dodged his other hand, having recognized the motion as a feint from when they sparred just a few days ago.

"You nearly had me fooled," called Salem's upper half, whose head had now regenerated. "But you made one critical mistake that made me keep my eyes on you, Rainart. When you first came to me, you told me that you were only joining to get revenge against Ozpin after a Grimm killed your sister on a huntsman mission…except I control the Grimm, not Ozpin! Did you truly think that I would forget that I controlled the Grimm and not him?"

"GRRRRRR!" Hazel roared, lifting up the table and throwing it straight at Ruby's. "Damn you, monster! Ever since that day my sister died to the Grimm that I knew you controlled and not Ozpin, I've made it my life's mission to impede your efforts and undermine you from within! I'll tear down this entire castle with my bare hands if I have to!"

Ruby sliced through the projectile table with her scythe, but the sheer force with which it had been thrown forced her to lose ground. Hazel capitalized on that; crouching down, he hurled his entire body through the air and smashed down into the ground. The only reason he didn't reduce Ruby into a pile of red paste was because she managed to push herself back with her maiden powers.

"Kill him!" demanded Salem, still apart from her legs but apparently well enough to give orders. "Kill him now!"

The floor on which they were standing crumbled apart, and both Ruby and Hazel fell through onto the next level of the castle.

Ruby caught herself in the air before her legs hit the ground using her magic and used that to break her fall, while Hazel slammed headfirst down. She held her breath and slashed several blades of air his way, trying to cut or knock out as much of his Dust as she could while he was down and thus deprive him of his power, but he rose up before she could get more than three of the twenty he had.

He moved faster than she could, his hand reaching around her throat and pulling her in close. Flames lit up around his body, burning Ruby by the mere proximity of hers to his.

"I've spent the past ten years subverting Salem before she could grow too powerful, and then you show up and ruin it all! Have you any idea how much you've endangered the world by handing her the powers of the maiden?"

"Get off of me!"

Ruby slapped her fists against his face and kicked her boots into his stomach, but nothing she could do would shake him. Tyrian and Salem were down, and Watts seemed to have fled (to be fair, that was the best thing he could do in a situation like this), meaning that it was up to Ruby to fight Hazel.

It was up to Ruby to defeat the man who'd won every battle between the two of them up to this point.

But this isn't a practice spar with certain victory conditions. That means I can't tap out, but it also means I don't have to limit myself!

Ruby swept her arm to the side, and a vicious gust of wind knocked into both her and Hazel from her right. The pair was sent into a wall, and their combined mass was enough to bring it down. The structural integrity of the castle was probably already weakened from the huge hole in the floor, and the entire throne room above them collapsed down on the duo.

I can bring the entire castle down on him if I need to!

"You don't need to do this!" Hazel cried. "Salem is a destructive influence, one you can free yourself from if you so choose!" He shook off a portion of the ceiling that had landed on his shoulder and balled up a fist.

"I do have to do this!" Ruby said.

"You're better! You can be better!" In spite of his words offering a truce, Hazel continued to attack.

She blocked his punch with her scythe by stabbing its base into the floor, but he was much bigger and stronger than her, and she was thrown back in a shower of sparks. Hazel clapped his hands together, summoning a wave of fire that Ruby just barely managed to stave off by creating a partial vacuum and depriving it of air.

Fire – that was what she needed!

Not literally, but metaphorically: if she could clear her mind and burn away any distracting thoughts, she might be able to access the full depths of the maiden powers.

Forget about any distractions. Forget about Salem, about Qrow, about cope Qrow, about Ozpin – focus only on the fight in front of you and on the powers within yourself. You can do this, Ruby Rose. You are the Summer maiden, and this power is your own. All you need to do is let it out.

Ruby shut her eyes and imagined them all standing in a field of tall, dry grass. Everyone who was something to her, all congregated together in one place. A single spark ignited on the sidelines, spreading slowly at first but then expanding into a raging conflagration that consumed all of the distractions until there was nothing but the emptiness.

Her eyes opened with burning maiden fire to face Hazel down.

Except she didn't feel a whole lot stronger. Also, Hazel had disappeared while her eyes had been closed.

Wait…it was Hazel who gave me that advice. Crud.

He came at her from behind, grabbing hold of one of her legs and slamming her up and down onto the ground. This time, though, he didn't let go.

Ruby felt her aura flutter as the relentless beating continued. This was no spar; Hazel was truly trying to kill her.

Just in case…Yang. Yang Yang Yang Yang Yang. Think of Yang.

Okay, now back to the fight.

His grip on her was solid, and short of cutting off her own leg, she could imagine no easy way to break free from it. That left her with only the hard ways. Damaging Hazel enough to loosen his grip was obvious, but with that semblance of his, she would need to break his aura first. Cutting off a finger or his entire hand was possible, but that ran into the same problem of the aura.

What could make Hazel let go of me? I can't use my semblance or I'll just take him with me, and he's smarter than just letting me go if I try to trick him.

Well, there was one way.

Hazel was only trying to kill her because he thought her to be a brainwashed agent of Salem. If he knew…

No. That's too risky. Salem is just a floor above, and I'd expect she has ears everywhere in her own castle.

So, back to the hand then.

When Ruby next hit the ground, she used her powers to send an immense burst of force through her fingertips, shattering the floor into pieces and kicking up a large cloud of dust. Hazel didn't see it, so when he slammed her again, the ground broke beneath her, and she fell into the next level down. Hazel hadn't been expecting her to keep moving, and her thin leg slipped right out of his fingers.

We're three floors down. Maybe I really will be bringing down the entire castle on him.

Salem wouldn't be too happy about that, but she had ordered Ruby to kill Hazel, and that was probably the only way to do it. With her weak control of magic, there was no way for her to overpower him, and he was a sturdier combatant than her.

I don't think there's any way to asphyxiate him by sucking away all the oxygen from his lungers or to instantly kill him by boiling his blood, or the other maidens I've fought would have tried something like that. Raven, certainly. That means we're just gonna have to go at it until one of us drops.

Ruby got up and summoned a pair of fireballs for each hand. She was all set to throw them at Hazel from below when he suddenly turned his back to her for no reason.

Don't know why, but I'm not about to turn down a free shot.

Her fireballs collided with his back just as Tyrian leapt down from the first floor. Hazel caught the scorpion by the throat with one hand and reacted in time to also latch onto the tail before it stabbed into his heart.

"裏切り者！ 偽善者！ 悪魔！" he cried furiously, writhing every portion of his body like the arachnid he was based off of within Hazel's grip. "この罪には赦しはありません！"

Tyrian could carve right through Hazel's aura with that semblance of his, but unless he lucked out and scored a lethal blow, Hazel would just numb the pain, keep fighting, and heal it up afterwards. No doubt Hazel would be manually guarding his vital organs like they were made of solid gold.

But the venom…if that gets into his bloodstream, we'll win for sure.

Hazel evidently had the same thought and pulled the Faunus' tail right off in a single yank.

"ああ！ 死ね死ね死ね死ね死ね！"

"You deserve no less, you creature," Hazel spat, loudly crunching Tyrian's bones within his iron grasp. Blood dripped out of the two snapped ends of the Faunus trait as Tyrian wailed and Hazel's eyes flashed murder. "You detestable blight. You utter thing."

Ruby bounced off a wall and arrived one floor higher using her semblance, then dove right between Hazel's legs using her semblance. While he was distracted maiming Tyrian, she gripped two Dust crystals jammed into his two legs, taking one in each hand, and sent a stream of charged electrons from one side to the other. He might not feel pain, but that didn't mean his body wouldn't respond to physical damage.

The Dust was a good enough conductor for the current to flow through his lower half and interrupt electrical signals within. Hazel's legs lost their control and grew limp, causing the giant to tumble down to the lowest level of the castle that had yet been exposed in their destructive debacle of a duel.

Ruby hopped up, activated her semblance, and headbutted herself straight into Hazel's stomach. The ground beneath him gave way, and the pair of them tumbled down yet another level.

Straddling Hazel, Ruby reached her arms out in opposite directions. Her maiden powers weren't all that strong, but they were strong enough to damage the structural integrity of two more walls by blasting them out.

The entire castle creaked, and Ruby rotated her body by 90 degrees so that she now faced the few remaining walls. Hazel reached up for her, but gunfire from above forced him to instead cover and protect his face. Ruby mentally thanked Tyrian for the save as she pushed out the last pair of walls holding up this room and the three rooms above it.

Hazel punched her with a glowing fist that seemed to have more force than usual, knocking the wind out of her lungs, but she had already done her job. All that was left was ensuring that she wasn't caught in the ensuing disaster.

She kicked off of his stomach and rose into the air, but in a desperate bid to bring her down with him, Hazel let Tyrian's bullets land direct hits and grabbed Ruby by the leg. The walls were crumbling around them, and his final gambit was to ensure the powers of the maiden didn't remain within Salem's reach.

And he'll succeed. Yang Yang Yang Ya–

"女の子を放っておいてください、このふしだらな女!"

Like a missile, Tyrian flew into Hazel, hands first. His bladed weapons, the Queen's Servants, slit through Hazel's wrists and aura alike, stabbing into the muscled tissue connecting his fist to his hand. His arm torn apart from the inside out, Hazel's grip on Ruby loosened enough for her to grab the back of the Faunus' coat and fly straight up as the castle collapsed inward around them.

Coming Soon – Ruby's Damages

And now, some tips from Ruby:

Ruby's Tip #904 – Mailing a letter? I'd recommend lowercase i – it's the smallest letter so it probably costs the least for postage.

Ruby's Tip #382 – Summer weather too hot to handle? Wait for winter; it's a lot cooler then.

Author's Notes

Quite a chapter, eh? Some laughs, some tears…such fun. Anyways, on to defending my very existence. Let's get right to it, shall we?

Q0: Was this a hallucination?

A0: No. This was real.

Q1, the question everyone is asking: Why did Hazel attack Salem (basically confessing) instead of bringing up that he didn't free the huntsman that Salem set up as a trap?

A1: She already made it clear that she knew he was a traitor (which he was), and he had gone into that conference fully prepared for a fight. Salem had tons of evidence from the other missions that he had been discreetly sabotaging her missions, and it wasn't like refuting the last point was going to change her mind. Besides, he had no proof that it wasn't him, and Salem had already made up her mind.

Q2: Why did Hazel not just intentionally ruin every mission over the years or kill Ruby or Tyrian or something?

A2: He was in it for the long game. Unlike Ruby, who has a particular objective, his was just to stay with Salem and keep her from winning out of spite. He knew that if he went too far and made it too obvious, she would get rid of him entirely. Thus, his plan was to keep her from getting the maidens and take easy opportunities when they came that could be excused (not finding Raven, destroying their gear at Mount Serathusa, etc.), but that failed when Ruby snuck off on her own in the night to fight the Summer maiden before he could even stop her. Keep in mind, Hazel has been with Salem for ten years, and he's been able to keep all the maidens out of her hands for that long.

Q3: Why didn't Hazel out Ruby for having freed the huntsman?

A3: He was planning to kill her instead. Also, there was no way for him to be sure, and without proof it would sound like he was trying to deflect blame from himself.

Q4: What kind of bullshit cop-out was that, you talentless hack?

A4: The worst kind – a bait and switch. But in my defense (and there's not much I can say there), it was an obvious trap. Even Ruby saw this and pointed it out. Salem had placed it for Hazel, so when the trap was sprung, Salem didn't even bother to check who was truly responsible for it. Instead, she just assumed it had all happened like she'd been expecting. While I may have played with your emotions by leaving that cliffhanger (and having Ruby think Salem was staring at her instead of her side of the table), I feel like it's not strictly unfair that I had Salem arrive at a wrong conclusion. Also, had it not been a trickeroni, the story would have ended right then and there, so there's that too.

But yeah, I am sorry for the cliffhanger without the payoff next chapter. It's the kind of thing I don't like when I read it in other stories, but I couldn't think of any good way to merge these chapters without losing some sort of tension to the dramatic reveal. And, hey, the plot did advance, with a major character dying, Tyrian's tail getting yeeted, and the castle being destroyed, so it wasn't entirely without any payout.

Tyrian was going to be Hindi in this chapter (or was it Sanskrit?) but I made him Japanese at the request of a fan on AO3 who wanted to practice their skills.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!