Doctor Argento was no longer a child, having walked through life full of ups and downs to witness atrocities of all kinds, especially after becoming a doctor.
The thought often occurred to him that he had seen everything from unknown diseases to terrible crimes committed between people that would make those eaten alive by the creatures of darkness be light in comparison, only to realize how naive he was.
On this day, once again, something out of the ordinary presented itself to him in the form of a boy from outside the kingdoms, being accompanied by none other than Miss Schnee. This by itself was an unusual occurrence and he could almost see the severe reactions of this young woman's father and sister when they found out about this possible relationship, but given Miss Schnee's age and the good looks of this gallant young man, Argento assumed that this was just life taking its natural course.
Two beautiful youths of opposite genders, or even the same gender these days, were bound to attract each other.
Hormones tended to have that kind of effect.
However, that didn't come close to being able to really shake him, not even the state the young Uchiha was in and his indifference to dealing with the excruciating pain of his injuries without even one kind of anesthetic. Sure, that inhuman resilience was certainly something, but it was nothing compared to what caused the damage itself.
Doctor Argento remained in the medical ward doing an analysis on something surprising, so much so that he refused to leave even after everything that occurred on this night. Not long ago there was the manifestation of a dark and extremely vast Aura, followed by the warning of an imminent attack by a horde of Grimm and their extermination at the hands of some all-powerful hero, whose identity could be known to him.
Exactly, for this reason, he ignored the evacuation and continued where he was.
The discovery made was what really shocked him after treating the young Uchiha.
That was because it was impossible not to notice the disappearance of the blood samples and those strands of hair removed.
Worst of all, it was that not even the cameras recorded what happened, only that it was all there where it should be and in a millisecond it was all gone.
The question was how and why?
Only the use of an almost impossible Semblance of stopping time or absurd teleportation could explain a speed capable of evading camera capture, that or the video was altered, which was unlikely.
The possible why was answered soon after, if his theories had a fund of truth.
While it was true that the samples were gone, not everything had been lost. In his hands was a single strand of white hair the size of a finger and hard as an unbreakable needle.
Earlier, when he was removing these threads, Argento had to change his tools to make a small incision in the young Uchiha's leg and remove this particular thread, the one lodged more deeply.
As a result, this material was placed separately from the others and coincidentally, the young Uchiha had his attention somewhere else when this happened. Therefore, a single strand of hair remained in his possession, as well as a few drops of the boy's blood on the tools used.
At first, Argento simply thought that the young man didn't want to get into unnecessary trouble and had done something with the "evidence". After deciding to analyze these genetic materials, he could understand the reason for trying to get rid of these samples.
The blood by itself was of no concern, since there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it, but only on paper. In reality, something that could not be registered on routine exams showed itself to him, a support-type Aura user, which was even reconfirmed later by a precision Aura meter.
This mere sample of remaining blood, no more than a few drops, had more Aura than a normal adult...
Again, how?
This was simply unreal!
If mere drops of blood had that much Aura, how much did that boy's body not hold? A rhetorical question, if the dark Aura that swept across the kingdom was an answer; a very worrisome one, but nowhere near from that strand of hair.
The amount of Aura emanating from this was far greater than that present in a Hunter's body at its peak!
This was truly pure insanity!
If the young Uchiha was the one to destroy the Grimm horde, as he vehemently believed him to be, who in the world, or outside of it, was the woman to whom that strand of hair belonged and was able to hurt him?
Argento didn't even know what to do with this discovery; with this more than dangerous information.
These entities of power, regardless of whether the young Uchiha had remedied the problem caused and demonstrated maternal love capable of bringing up forgotten memories of someone precious, what would happen if that previously demonstrated darkness became prevalent? What about this unknown and possibly far more powerful woman than the young Uchiha?
No matter how much he thought about it, the uneasiness in his heart only grew along with the fear.
Something needed to be done about this.
Unfortunately, he was just an old doctor with no means of doing anything on his own, but that didn't mean that his hands were tied behind his back.
Argento might not have the means, but he definitely knew who did.
As an expert on Aura and robotics, his lifelong friend, Doctor Pietro, was certainly the man to approach on this matter.
After all, Pietro even had direct contact with General Ironwood! All the information he had gathered about the young Uchiha and this mysterious woman, as well as the information and genetic samples of the two, would be in good hands with these more than qualified men concerned with the welfare of humanity.
Unfortunately, this would have to be left for later, for now, his attention was needed in the performance of his duties.
People had been injured in the chaos unleashed in the city and were being admitted to hospitals, where two critically ill patients were allocated exactly to receive his treatment, or their lives would be lost.
A young black-haired woman dressed in red and a wanted criminal and well-known Roman Torchwick.
Both seemed to be a mere thread away from their lives, but for different reasons.
The woman whose identity was still unknown was being treated as a suspect because she had been found with Roman, although she was injured, her condition was more critical due to the Aura of a vile nature corroding her from the inside out.
An Aura that he knew too well.
Roman was the same but on a lesser level. It was even strange, really. They both had this evil Aura inside, but the strength and intensity of each were very different. The one present in the woman was much more powerful than Roman's, but the corrosion process was the same.
She is strong, stronger than most, Argento would say. But not strong enough.
This vile Aura was even stronger, as was its original owner, and it would kill her soon, greatly increasing the reasons for him to contact his friend in Atlas as soon as possible.
"Don't worry, young lady, I will do my best to save you!" It didn't matter if this girl was a criminal or just someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, no woman deserved to suffer so much. This is just... sadistic.
Miss Winter also needed to be warned, for the safety of her little sister who shared a close relationship with the one behind this atrocity.
As for Roman, Argento didn't care much for the fate of this man for all the bad things he had done, but as a doctor committed to the welfare of all, he would also share in his efforts to allow him to pay for his crimes in life.
Another night on duty began and Argento had a lot to do.
What a boring night, Neo thought, regretting when she parted ways with Roman earlier and opted to have a little fun on her own with a new target...only to prove a complete disappointment. Damn notoriety.
She understood, to some extent, why Roman liked being known so much, but Neo hated it and so she did her best to remain unknown, for more than one reason.
Her targets tended to resist more and fight for their lives even when there was no hope of victory. When they knew who she was, they either ran away, which wasn't so boring, but got tedious after a while, or they simply gave up. Hell, some would even kill themselves because they knew it was a less painful way out than slowly dying at her hands.
So long live anonymity!
Unfortunately, the target that night knew about her and her fun ended before it even began.
Fucking coward. She should have known that a fucking rapist like that would end up killing himself anyway, even more so when what she had in mind was something even better than torturing him personally. Only when I wanted to be a good girl and deliver him to the nearest police station~
This kind of trash in jail had a fate worse than death, being forced to try his own medicine, and that got Neo a little too excited.
Too bad the bastard chose to blow his own head off before she could even enjoy some of that pleasure.
With her night and mood ruined, Neo decided to return to the hideout to wait for Roman to finish his first assault on the kingdom's Dust reserves.
An odd target, even more so when he preferred flashier targets and hard cash, let alone bowing his head to someone else, like that Cinder, but she didn't care. Neo would just keep following Roman wherever he went and help him with whatever he wanted because life was so much more fun with him.
After all, Roman wasn't much different from Neopolitan, her imaginary friend who turned out to be a manifestation of her inner self.
In that way, Roman was almost like a brother and family that she never had; not with that abusive father and manipulative mother.
Life had become better after those two died along with Trivia Vanille, that weak girl who needed to disappear for Neopolitan to be reborn.
Really, everything was much better now with the freedom she had always wanted, plus having someone by her side who understood what it was like to live in this rotten world with style and a smile on the face.
That's why what happened next, while she was walking through the dirty alleys of Vale towards the hideout, really scared her.
As an Aura user, Neo was naturally sensitive to emotions and that's why she enjoyed torturing her targets so much... and she hated meeting people stronger than her, as it reminded her of the life she had before she was reborn.
What befell her, however, was absurd on more levels than she could describe.
There was so much hatred that it was intoxicating, bringing out everything bad inside her; her repressed emotions about her parents and limited life by the petty expectations of those two hypocrites!
For a moment, Neo wished she had killed those two with her bare hands!
However, that changed soon after when she came to her senses with the fact that an Aura like this belonged to something powerful beyond imagination and decided to check where the hell it was coming from to run in the opposite direction.
From atop the tallest building she could find around, Neo froze as she estimated the location of this thing and felt her heart tremble with sudden fear.
Almost across town, that Aura was coming from where Roman was supposed to be conducting his robbery near the docks.
At once, she had her Scroll in hand and called her partner, almost like a personal code that meant emergency, as the two of them knew she could only communicate via messages.
To make her fear worse, no matter how many times she called or texted, he wouldn't answer!
Then there was the alarm of the impending Grimm attack to present her with pure conflict.
Neo didn't like being oppressed and feeling weak, because that's exactly what her father made her feel as a little girl.
Neo avoided confronting stronger people for exactly that reason so that she would never find herself in that kind of position again.
Trying to save Roman would be the same as confronting that thing directly, and only death would come as result.
What should she do?!
Her conflict was short-lived when that Aura disappeared from where it was and reappeared on the kingdom walls, far away, both from her and from Roman!
There was an opening!
Yet again, she hesitated.
If that thing really laid its hands on Roman, it was almost certain that he was...
No! She couldn't think like that! Roman might be an idiot but he wasn't stupid! He must have run away and let Junior's goons get the worse of it!
Yes, that was what she needed to believe! His Scroll just got lost in the escape, that's why he wasn't responding!
So, her long journey to the other side of the city began only to prove an almost impossible task with all the chaos unleashed. If things were different, Neo would love to make fun of it all and enjoy this situation as if it were an entertaining movie, however not when she shared what was being demonstrated by everyone.
Even worse, she had to stop her venture over the Vale buildings when the Aura of that thing began to change.
The hatred gave way to something pure and warm that she didn't know, which Neo refused to relate to that woman who called herself a mother.
That thing was anything but a mother!
Doing her best to ignore memories that tried to contradict her, she moved on to confirm the well-being of the only family she had.
When she arrived, the fear returned with everything as the scene presented itself.
Blood and bodies were scattered around in a scene more than familiar to her, but one whose meaning couldn't be worse.
There were authorities collecting bodies, not to bag them, but to render aid. Except for a single closed black bag, all the others, although brutalized, were alive!
Without a second thought, Neo used her Semblance to change her clothes and appearance to blend in among the authorities, going straight to check to whom that body belonged.
Under the influence of an erratic heart, she had her breathing heavily as she placed her hands on the zipper and found herself unable to open it. What would Neo do if it were Roman's cold and mutilated body inside that bag? Until this moment, she hadn't considered that possibility despite the dangerous line of work they had and problematic situations that had almost resulted in death in the past.
The weight of the possibility was what held her hand from continuing. However, if she didn't check, she wouldn't know the answer!
Closing her eyes, she clenched her teeth and opened the bag at once to reveal a nearly carbonized body.
Staggering a few steps, Neo had her eyes wide open and almost threw up as she imagined the worst, but her eyes were quick to notice the rest of the clothing worn by this corpse and feel an indescribable relief take over her.
This was also another one of Junior's henchmen!
Neo was right!
Of course she was! It was easier for Roman to roast someone than for him to become barbecue!
Still, the question remained: where was he?
The answer came to her right away.
"The critical cases, Roman Torchwick and that woman in the red dress, have already been escorted to the Vale Hospital Center," one of the frightened men in charge said, following with instructions where the others were to be moved to.
Whatever he said after that didn't matter. Neo took off running once again in a different direction.
Roman was in the hospital along with that Cinder!
The two were powerful, Cinder being a woman not to cross paths with and keep distance from or else Roman would never submit himself to work for her. Only, compared to that thing? Neo could only be thankful that Roman was still alive, as for Cinder it didn't matter if she lived or not.
Speaking of that thing, its Aura completely disappeared this time and it wasn't long before notifications on her Scroll gained her attention.
To make sure that Roman wasn't the one trying to contact her, she checked and to her annoyance, it was just a stupid internet video going viral.
None of this mattered, Neo needed to check Roman's condition and arrange for a Bullhead to leave the kingdom before that horde destroyed everything.
However, something wasn't right. As she put all her skills to the test in limitless parkour over the buildings, the entire city seemed to have gone mad for good.
Total destruction was literally knocking at the door and people decided to celebrate?
Really, fear could break one's mind.
When her breath was at its limit and sweat covered her body, almost thankful that she had decided to wear a dress on this day, Neo arrived at the hospital where Roman was.
Keeping her disguise as a policewoman, she managed to find the heavily guarded room where he was. At first, she wanted to simply kill her way and get Roman out of there, but... what if his condition really was critical? Trying to move him could be the same as killing him, and that couldn't happen. So, to be sure before taking any drastic action, she used her Semblance again to disguise herself as a nurse to enter the room.
A gentle smile and these guards even opened the door for her as if they were puppies, which was nothing more than expected of any man.
Inside the room, there was not only Roman but also Cinder and they both looked like mummies, something almost irrelevant when compared to the agony they were in.
Both Roman and Cinder were writhing on their beds and practically screaming in pain.
Roman was in more pain than ever and hatred for the thing that put him in this situation was growing inside her.
"Anesthesia really has no effect at all!" a nurse said, finding the situation beyond help. "Doctor Argento, I-I'm afraid that..."
"Quiet!" he didn't want to hear, knowing full well the odds at hand. "As long as they are breathing, there is the hope of saving them!" this is what every doctor was taught to believe! "Keep supplying me with Aura or send the next nurse in!"
"Y-yes!" the nurse replied accordingly, placing her hands on the doctor's back and letting him take her Aura with his Semblance.
Neo just watched, not knowing what to do. The doctor was giving his blood to help them both, even though he knew who Roman was. Only, that didn't seem to be enough because he was giving his efforts to two different people.
Cinder was a problem... but what could she do about it? Any action on her part could make everything worse, so Neo swallowed her anxiety and made herself invisible with her Semblance, retrieving the chart to better understand the situation.
The more she read, the more Neo hated the one responsible for Roman's condition. His injuries ranged from broken bones to internal bleeding, where that wasn't even the worst of it, but the poisonous Aura that was slowly killing him, explaining why the Aura transfer was constant.
Neo wanted to kill that thing!
As she mourned with hatred, she pondered what to do as she watched many people come in and out of the room to provide Aura for the treatment, including the guards. By the time their condition stabilized, Neo was on edge, both physically by keeping her Semblance all this time, and psychologically by having to watch helplessly.
One thing she learned in the meantime from the conversations outside the room was about the extermination of the Grimm horde.
Neo was tempted to watch that viral video and confirm the truth behind this madness, but she kept herself composed and waiting with one less weight on her back, without having to leave the kingdom anymore.
"G-good..." Argento can finally sit up, expressing a shallow smile on his tired face. "It seems their Auras are adapting to this... miasma and fighting back on their own, almost like an immune system creating antibodies." Which also meant that they were getting stronger and that could be a problem in this bandit's case. "However, I doubt they will wake up anytime soon."
"A-are they in a coma?" the last nurse to enter the room asked, almost fainting from exhaustion.
"Something like that," Argento had never seen anything like it, so it was hard to tell. "That miasma is still inside them and it has hardly weakened after all this time. This is an arduous battle that the two of them have to do on their own from here on out. This could take days, weeks, or maybe even months!" Really a unique case. "That's why it's critical to keep them under constant medical observation to avoid the worst."
"So... their lives..." the nurse didn't finish, succumbing to fatigue.
"Yes, they could die at any moment..." Argento sighed, not blaming the girl for resting when he himself was on edge. "The damage done to these two was meant to torture them to death." He stroked his face with his hand as he had more reason to go ahead and contact Atlas. "Uchiha Sasuke, what you did has no justification..." he didn't finish, being silenced by a sword at his throat devoid of Aura as the sound of glass broke inside the room. "Wh-what's the meaning of this?!"
He couldn't see his attacker, that person being someone standing behind him, but it was certainly a woman by the hand he could see placing a Scroll before his eyes.
"T-tell me everything you know about this Uchiha Sasuke or-" he read in a low voice and the threat made itself understood as blood spilled with a shallow cut on his skin. "A-all right, just calm down!" he urged and the answer was in the deepening of the blade into his flesh to draw more blood. "Y-you can find a picture of him on the internet!" Argento had no choice but to speak up, fearing for his life! "He is young, in his seventeen's, and has a Semblance manifested in his eyes as a state of heterochromia, red and purple!"
That part of the eyes made Neo's hand ease the grip of her blade and search with her scroll for someone with those characteristics, actually finding a photo as a topic of relevance just below that viral video of the hero who saved Vale and... did it all with Roman.
As the doctor had said, it was a young man with even more unique eyes than hers, with strange patterns on them, especially the left one, all purplish gray.
She showed the doctor the picture and didn't even have to ask to have him nod to confirm it.
Reading further for information, the whole thread was just girls drooling about how handsome and hot he was...
Risible, Neo was disgusted by these women without an ounce of self-respect. So what if he is handsome? It doesn't change the fact that he is a monster who needs to die!
Knowing that thing was just a teenager gave her a reason to go ahead and try her luck. He was strong, a monster and all, but he was human and could die.
I just need to catch him sleeping or stab him in the back, Neo smiled as the ideas took shape. While she didn't like to try her luck against stronger people, that only applied to direct combat, ambushes were another story. Besides, he's a teenager... I can use this.
A hormonal kid could be easily seduced and Neo had the confidence in herself to try...if he was normal and not a total monster.
Only seeing to be sure.
Soon, however, she realized that pictures were all that was on the internet, other than the video of him fighting the Grimm that she still needed to see to estimate how skilled he was, there was no other relevant information, let alone his name.
This doctor knew more than the rest of the world.
Lucky her.
"Where can I find him?" the doctor read again when the Scroll was placed before his eyes once more, and he didn't hesitate to answer this time, "He said he was going to join Beacon Academy at initiation the day after tomorrow."
That was all she needed to know.
If she wasn't mistaken, Cinder had connections with Haven Academy, so Neo needed to find those two minions and she would have a way to reach this Uchiha Sasuke.
No Weiss and Blake, ohhh.
This chapter is more of an interlude and the next one is also focused on other characters.
About Neo, just like Cinder and Roman, I intend her to be important in this story.
That's all I guess, so review, and if you want to support me and read ahead take a look at my P t r & on (slash) Bertoti
See you all at the next one on the 15th.