Story-wide content warning for: self-harm, suicide, suicidal thoughts and actions, depersonalization, mild body horror, and major character death.

Chapter 1: From Oblivion

Adam knows oblivion. He didn't used to; for twenty-three years of life, it was a concept and nothing more.

By its very nature it is unknowable until he is, at once and without warning, exhumed from it. Sensation crashes through his spinning mind: the ground under his boots, the weight and feel of his clothes, the air rushing into his lungs when he pulls in a reflexive breath.

His remaining senses wash over him in the aftershock of abrupt existence: the oily scents of industry and garbage; the clash of steel and shouted cries; and his sight. White at first, it clears to permit him a view of the fight reaching his ears.

He's in a warehouse. Some kind of shipping hub, judging by the towering shelves full of boxes and stacked pallets. On, around, and between those shelves are swarms of people dueling in the deep shadows. Faunus. White Fang, by their clothes. Brightly dressed figures occupy the centers of the chaos.

He's been aware and taking all of this in for a mere second before he's moving. It's not his own will that guides him, not really. It's an urge. A need. He has to protect the one behind him. He has to.

And so he watches in horror as his blade carves through every White Fang member in his path. The first few don't even move. They're staring at him as he's staring at them, all of them struck dumb.

What he sees of himself explains their reactions as much as his violence does: his limbs and weapons are icy white and blue, trailing frost like smoke.

He tries to stop but his body is a machine that bucks his control. Corpses fall around him. The faunus are shouting now, screaming his name, except they're not targeting him except to slow him down. They're trying to get to the one behind him—

They cannot do that.

He moves faster. His face is carved into a snarl but it's the visage of a beast with its leg in a trap. He can't escape whatever has a hold on him. He can't let them get to her. He wants to but he can't.

He wants to close his eyes. Apologize. Order the ones who haven't already run to get away from him, from whatever puppets him. He wants to and he can't. There's a wall between his will and his flesh. He's a tool. A weapon. Nothing more.

Blood stains his blade, his hands, his face. The few Fang remaining have thrown down their weapons. Held up their hands. Fallen to their knees.

Back away, he begs himself. He steps closer.

Sheath your sword, he pleads. He raises it.

"STOP!"

He freezes. The boy he'd nearly decapitated—a teenager, no older than sixteen—looks up at him in abject fear. There's blood on his face too, the blood of all his friends Adam had just killed.

It's silent, or nearly so. The woman who'd cried for him to stop is gasping. She sinks to her knees with an audible thunk of flesh on concrete.

"How?" someone he can't see whispers. His skin crawls; he knows that voice.

"Weiss?" Another voice, less familiar.

"Who is that?" A third voice, younger than the other two.

All the speakers are behind him. All he sees are the four kids trembling at his feet. Not so long ago he would've relished their fear as a sign of his growing power. Now, it makes his stomach churn.

Blood still drips from his sword. He tries to lower it. He tries to sheath it. He tries to tell them to run. It all, again, fails. He digs ragged mental fingers into that wall.

The gasps behind him turn to disbelieving sobs. "I didn't—I wasn't—not him! I-I couldn't—"

"Breathe," the third speaker advises. "Just breathe."

He endures another round of unsteady sobs briefly interrupted by attempts at steady breathing. The wall between him and his body cracks under his mental assault; his fingers twitch. The faunus flinch.

"I-I don't know what happened. They're always difficult to c-control at first but," she hiccuped, "this was different. It—he—wouldn't listen. I wasn't even trying to summon him!"

The wall shakes. He gains control of his face.

"Run," he mouths at the faunus. They stare. Glance at each other. And then scramble to their feet and away, leaving their weapons behind in their fear.

"What—"

"Hey!"

Adam spins and levels his sword at the red-cloaked girl trying to run after them. She goes still with wide silver eyes that fix on his.

"Weiss?" she asks.

"I can't dispel him, Ruby. I'm trying!"

Dispel. Dispel him? He tightens his grip on this ghostly version of Wilt.

"Are your summons…sentient?"

"N-no. Not really. I mean, they've all been Grimm until—until now."

When Ruby next speaks, the question is directed at him: "Who are you?"

His weapon dips. Past her, he sees the blonde whose arm he severed so long ago. He sees Blake. And he finally sees the one controlling him. White hair, white skin, white clothes. Revulsion rips through him, revulsion so deep it obliterates the wall's remains and slams barefaced into the howling need to protect the Schnee.

He draws breath—

And knows no more.

The ghost of Adam Taurus breaks apart into glittering flakes of snow that just as quickly disappear. All that remains of his presence are the dozen bodies left scattered around the warehouse floor and slouched against the shelves left in disarray.

Weiss drops Myrtenaster. The ring of steel snaps them all out of their shock while she buries her face in her hands.

Blake starts rubbing Weiss's back again, but her eyes are stuck on where Adam had stood. "That…that wasn't actually him, right?"

Yang clenches her right hand into a fist. "It couldn't be. That's now how Weiss's semblance works." She's trying to convince herself and it shows in her voice. "It's not."

Ruby finally faces Weiss. She has to step over two bodies to reach her, at which point she kneels in front of her teammate and gently pulls Weiss's hands away from her tear-stained face. "It's okay, Weiss. It's over. He's gone." She takes out her scroll. Dials. Puts it to her ear with her right hand while holding Weiss's hand with her left and pretends her own hands aren't shaking as badly as her teammate's. "Uncle Qrow? We need help."

Adam knows oblivion and so he knows that this suffocating void isn't it. Within the emptiness in and of himself there is a single anchor. A point of thready white light wrapped around some concept of him.

Because of that anchor, he is. Because he is, he has to endure the dark, the silence, the nothing. He is not a body, or a mind, or anything. He is a raw fragment of soul, exposed and unprotected, and this void tears at him like freezing rain on flesh. The anchor does not shield him. If anything, it amplifies the pain.

There are, in the dark, other points. Other anchors. The creatures at their ends are soulless, locked into form without thought or feeling of their own. They, too, tear at him.

He is not enough of himself in this space to call on memory, to retreat into what was, to shut down. He is just enough of himself to suffer.