Blake found herself staring at a door, unsure of how she had arrived there. The door was a carved from beautiful polished wood, which Blake thought might be walnut due to the smell and dark coloring. It was decorated with swirling vines, leaves and flowers that were etched lightly into it. The door handle looked as if it was made of cast gold, its curved form shining and glimmering in the dim hallway light. She reached out for the door handle, suddenly curious about what lay on the other side of the door. Blake grabbed the handle and tensed her arm as if to turn it, but stopped before she could apply any pressure, suddenly anxious.

Why does this door make me so nervous? Blake thought. She pulled her hand away from the door handle, but the tips of her finger were still touching it gingerly. Blake stood in place as if frozen, but was merely trying to figure out what about this door was so worrying. Coming up with nothing, Blake resolved to open the door. She grasped the handle once again and twisted. It was at this point that Blake discovered the door was locked, the handle only jiggling slightly rather than actually turning as she wished. Blake put more pressure into her arm to try to force the handle, unsuccessfully.

Blake tried to turn the handle again, desperately willing it to open for her. She looked to either side of her at the other doors lining the hallway, hoping there might be an open door, or someone with a key. Her search was in vain; Blake was most definitely alone in the hallway. She finally gave up on trying to turn the handle, settling for lightly stroking her hand down the door once, feeling the intricate patterns carved into the door. "Why won't you open? What's in here?" Blake whispered to herself. "I don't want to be alone out here anymore."

Blake brought up a fist to pound on the door, hoping that somebody on the other side might open it for her. Blake moved her arm forward and-

-woke up. Blake was staring at the stone ceiling in her room, situated in the fortress. "That dream again." Blake mumbled to herself. She had been having that dream every night since they had arrived at the fortress a week earlier. The dream was nearly identical every night; she was standing in front of a door that made her uneasy. Small variations in the amount of effort she put in to open it or what she said to herself were the only changing details. And like every night for the last week, she felt the dampness in her clothes that told her she had woken up in a cold sweat.

Blake sighed to herself. Because of these night sweats, she was going through twice as many sets of night clothes with her changing halfway through every night. She was going to have to find a way to make it up to the caretakers who did all their laundry. Blake made to sit up, and instead found herself pinned to the bed. Velvet had an arm wrapped around Blake's stomach, and her other arm was firmly but loosely grasping Blake's arm.

Maybe she's the reason I've been waking up sweating. Too much body heat. Blake chuckled to herself. Velvet had her own bed opposite of Blake's, which they had dragged in their room the first night after dinner. She had yet to use it though, preferring Blake's companionship, and Blake did not mind. Blake only worried she may be the cause of some discomfort for Velvet with her nightly sweating and clothing changes, but as far as Blake could tell, Velvet had slept through it all, blissfully unaware of Blake's new nightly routine.

Blake quietly and gently worked herself out of Velvet's embrace and slipped out of the bed, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands as she worked her feet into the simple rug she had procured to protect their feet from the cold floor. She stood and walked over to the closet, picking out another white t-shirt and a pair of black shorts. Blake stripped out of her sweaty, damp clothes, throwing them into the laundry basket before wiping herself down with a towel and donning the new clothes. As Blake returned to her bed, she patted down the blanket and bed sheets where she was laying, and found them sufficiently dry. At least I'm only changing clothes and not bed sheets every night. Blake mused, silently climbing back into bed and wrapping her arms around Velvet, who curled into Blake appreciatively, as Blake returned to a now dreamless sleep.

"Very good, Weiss." Tamamo congratulated. "You're learning very quickly. How long did you spend observing each person, on average?"

"About thirty minutes at the beginning, but by the end of the week it only took a couple minutes." Weiss answered, just barely containing her pride at the praise. She had worked hard for this, after all. Weiss had thrown herself full speed into her training, constantly studying and watching her former classmates. She memorized every detail she could, and analyzed the details for information about the person. Weiss had spent her mealtimes observing everyone else in the great hall, and spent her free time in the massive library, studying books on all sorts of subjects. Psychology and behavior were her main subjects she focused on for the past week, at Tamamo's recommendation. Weiss had split her time between that and the mountains of texts on tactics and strategy supplied by Denarii.

Weiss had spent little to no time with her friends, which she regretted, but Weiss kept telling herself after their training, then after the war, there would be all the time in the world. But for now she needed to get stronger and smarter, so she trained. The only time spent with her friends was dinner each evening. This had happened after their third day at the fortress, when they discovered that all of their training schedules did not quite line up when it came to free time. The discussion that came about after this discovery resulted in the group agreeing that they would make time for dinner each night, so they could still see each other.

When they finished their lessons and training, each of the group would make their way to the kitchen to help with cooking. It usually only took a span of about half an hour for everyone to arrive and start cooking. A couple days into this arrangement, Blake suggested spending a little more time cooking so they had a good meal prepped for lunch the next day as well, which everyone heartily agreed to. They kept these extra lunches in the mini-fridges in their rooms, which could easily be reheated the following day during their respective lunchtimes.

Their dinners were spent talking about training, and what they had learned or seen that day. Weiss, only ever working with Denarii and Tamamo, got to know the other hunters serving as instructors through the stories that she heard from her friends. Pyrrha and Jaune thought that Vimentis was an eclectic mix of unbelievably lazy and absurdly powerful. According to the duo, he taught them many amazing things about using and manipulating aura, but would occasionally fall asleep during lessons. Thanks to his training, Jaune's already powerful aura was slowly but surely becoming even more powerful, and Pyrrha was quickly learning to use her aura with her semblance to make it stronger and more accurate over distances. They did both complain that they had yet to see Vimentis open his eyes, which bothered them slightly.

Blake and Velvet insisted that Cheshire was a great teacher as well, but Weiss refused to believe them. Weiss did notice that Blake did seem to carry herself more confidently once the lessons with him had started, and her muscle definition had definitely starting toning up. Nora had said nothing but praise about Kani as well, admiring her strength and skill. Out of everyone, Weiss thought that Nora had changed the most during the training. Nora rarely smiled and joked around anymore unless she was training, and contributed little to conversations without being prompted first. Weiss was worried that being alone was taking its toll on Nora, because she had been so used to being with Ren all the time. Weiss was used to being alone from her life before Beacon, so she adjusted quickly, but thought maybe she should make an effort to spend some extra time with Nora.

"I do have a little bit of unfortunate news for you today though, Weiss." Tamamo said.

"Oh?" Weiss responded, curious.

"Vimentis has sensed a herd of Grimm moving through the forest, and their path may lead them to the city to the southeast if they shift slightly. I'm taking Vimentis and Kani to deal with it soon, so I won't be giving you your combat lesson today." Tamamo explained.

"Do I have an assignment then to make up for that?" Weiss asked.

"Nope! You'll be sparring with Sunny instead." Tamamo continued. "He'll be evaluating you for me, and teaching you what he can.

Weiss raised an eyebrow incredulously. "Sun is going to teach me?"

"I realize you aren't very fond of him, but give him credit where it's due, he's an excellent fighter. And he's only gotten better since I've been training him." Tamamo laughed.

"Couldn't I shadow you instead?" Weiss pleaded. "I would love to see you and the others fight."

Tamamo sighed while checking the clock on her wall. "Hmmm…" Tamamo hummed to herself. "Fine. But you do need to fight Sunny first, at least for a short while. He's waiting for you in the fourth combat room." Tamamo stood, smoothing out her clothes. "Meet us in front of the gates in an hour. Hurry along now, get going. Try to get in as much sparring as you can with Sunny so I can see what best to work on there. We need to go get prepared. If you're late, we're leaving without you." Tamamo waved Weiss off.

Weiss bowed and rushed out of the room, hurrying down to the ground floor where the combat rooms were located. She was eager to get this over with. Finding the metal door with a large '4' written in white paint on it, Weiss barged in unceremoniously. Sun Wukong, who was lying on the floor, jumped as Weiss startled him with the noise. "Damn, that was sudden." He complained. "What's the big rush?" he asked as he stood up.

"We need to work quickly. I'm leaving with Tamamo in an hour." Weiss explained quickly.

"An hour? Oh, so you're going with her to fight the herd of Grimm?" Sun scratched his head.

"Yes, now let's get started! What're we doing?" Weiss gestured to indicate he should hurry up.

"Hold your horses, Princess." Sun held up a hand. "Rushing is just going to make you careless. Take it easy." He waited until Weiss calmed down slightly. "Great. Now, you need to warm up and stretch?" Weiss shook her head. "Alright, let's start then." Sun pulled on a pair of leather gauntlets that Weiss recognized as part of the attire he used to wear all the time, but now with metal strips running up the forearms and a metal plate over the back of his hand. There were also metal studs fitted around his knuckles, which looked like they could be removed and exchanged with other attachments. Sun slid one foot back into a fighter's stance; his weight was evenly distributed between his legs and brought his arms up to guard.

"You're not using your staff?" Weiss asked, drawing Myrtenaster from her side.

"Nope. Don't need it." Sun responded, bouncing lightly to loosen his legs.

This only infuriated Weiss, who felt that Sun was being insulting and doubting her abilities as a huntress by not using a weapon. With a glare, Weiss dashed forward, propelling herself at Sun using a spinning white glyph on the ground. Myrtenaster darted forward in her hands, aiming for Sun's chest in an attempt to get him to move backwards, possibly unbalancing himself in a panic. As the point neared, Sun stood his ground, then whipped his arm across his body and back, his armored gauntlet parrying the rapier off the his slide. Weiss only had an instant to be surprised before she noticed she had over reached in her anger and began losing her balance, falling towards Sun.

Sun, who had still not moved, brought his other hand forward with the strength and power of a piston towards Weiss' exposed stomach. Reacting on instinct and surprise, Weiss summoned a second glyph, this one black, directly in front of her as she used her momentum to spin to her right side, trying to flow around Sun before he could continue his counterattack. She heard his armored fist connect with her glyph, the spinning black symbol protecting her from his attack. With much surprise and a hint of fear, Weiss heard a crack coming from her glyph, and the sound of shattering glass as the glyph shattered and disappeared before her eyes.

As she continued past the monkey faunus, Weiss saw Sun's smirk; he was clearly satisfied with himself at having surprised Weiss so completely. Weiss made her way farther away from Sun, hoping to put some distance between them so she could more rationally approach him, this time without underestimating him. That was her plan, anyway. When she had thought she was clear and behind him, Weiss felt her foot catch on something, tripping her and causing her to spill to the floor. Spinning over on the floor and bringing Myrtenaster up to guard, she saw that Sun's prehensile tail had wrapped around her ankle as she had moved past, tripping her and keeping her from distancing herself from him.

Weiss swiped at the offending tail, causing Sun to let go and pull it back before Weiss could sever the end of it from the rest of Sun Wukong. "Hey, watch the tail!" Sun exclaimed in surprise, leaping up and away from Weiss. Weiss used the opportunity to leap to her feet, Myrtenaster held up in front of her in a guard position. "You're too hasty to close with your opponent." Sun told Weiss while he inspected his tail for damage. "You have a powerful semblance, and dust. You should use it more often." He continued. "Tamamo should be able to teach you better ways to fight with your semblance. She's really good at stuff like that."

Weiss lowered her guard, figuring that Sun wouldn't attack her while talking. "Using my semblance can take away a lot of my energy really quick. It tires me out, so I try to only use it sparingly." Weiss explained.

Sun scratched his chin. "Do you always make your glyphs the same size?"

Weiss was startled by the question. "Yes?"

"Try making that black one. The shield-y one." Sun ordered. "But make it smaller. The size of my fist." He held up his fist by his head for reference.

Weiss blinked, the thought had never occurred to her to change the size of her glyphs. They were what they were. Weiss conjured up a spinning black glyph in front of her, but it was the same size as usual.

"Smaller." Sun said.

"I'm trying!" Weiss said in annoyance. The glyph slowly began to shrink, flickering between its normal size and the size of a large dinner plate. Focusing more intently on her glyph, Weiss finally stabilized it, maintaining it at the size of Sun's closed fist. "I didn't think I could do that."

"Hooray for learning experiences." Sun chuckled. "It's probably taking a lot less energy now, right?"

Weiss stood silently, unwilling to admit that Sun was correct. This smaller glyph took far less energy to maintain than it previously larger counterpart. "But now it doesn't cover as much."

"Does it have to?" Sun asked. "If you're blocking a punch, and you can see it coming, make it the size of the punch. Save you a ton of energy. And you can hit them back, while you're at it." Sun added.

"I suppose." Weiss felt that admitting Sun was correct was not physically possible for her, and that saying vague agreements along the lines of 'I suppose' was as close as she could get.

"Why don't you practice that for the rest of the time then?" Sun suggested, putting both his hands behind his head. "I'm more than a little aware you aren't particularly fond of my company." He laughed. "And Tamamo should be pleased enough with this to teach you more tricks with your semblance."

"…I'll do that." Weiss stayed silent as Sun leisurely strolled towards the door. "Thanks."

Sun stopped midstep. "What was that?" He asked, turning his head jokingly.

"I'm not saying it again." Weiss grumbled before turning her back to Sun. She could hear the monkey laughing as he closed the door behind him. Mumbling her displeasure, Weiss spent the rest of the session practicing, creating different glyphs of different sizes.

Blake was strolling down the hallway, having just finished another lesson with Cheshire Fry. He had greatly approved of the improvements Blake had make to her fighting, and spent the day teaching Blake about increasing her less combat oriented skills, such as climbing and hiding, and other infiltration and stealth oriented skills. She had a whole list of things to practice now, and was grateful for the distraction from her dreams. Blake was brought out of her thoughts when a door a little farther down the hallway opened and Weiss exited. "Good afternoon, Weiss." Blake said.

"Hello, Blake." Weiss said as she dabbed some sweat off her forehead with a handkerchief. "Done with your lesson?"

"For today, yeah. What about you?"

"I finished early because Tamamo has to go get rid of some Grimm." Weiss' eyes brightened up. "I'm going with her, do you wanna come along?" Weiss asked. "I'm sure it'll be a great learning experience."

"Sure. When are we leaving?" Blake asked.

Weiss consulted her scroll. "Ten minutes? We're meeting by the front gate."

"We should get moving then." Blake suggested.

Ten minutes later, Tamamo led Vimentis and Kani out of the fortress to the waiting students. Vimentis was wearing what appeared to be his favorite style of clothes- grey slacks and a black businessman's overcoat. Except this time, much to Weiss' surprise, his hair was brushed and the coat was fully and correctly buttoned, hiding his white button down shirt she assumed he was wearing. He also looked a little bulkier than she remembered, probably because of the coat. Kani was wearing her leather and hide battle attire as well, but she had added some bone armor plates here and there with some metal strips similar to the ones she had seen on Denarii and Sun's armors. Weiss and Blake briefly wondered if Kani had crafted all of the armor her comrades wore.

"Bringing a friend, huh?" Tamamo asked lightheartedly as she saw Blake standing alongside Weiss.

"I hope you don't mind." Weiss said a little sheepishly.

"Not a problem." Tamamo assured her. "Some ground rules for today." She held up a finger. "First, you don't fight today. You stay behind and above us, away from the Grimm." She held up her other hand to stop any complaints. "It not that we think you can't do it. We have a… system. That, and you've probably never seen a Grimm herd, have you?"

"We've dealt with packs of beowolves before." Weiss said.

"A pack of beowolves is small, compared to a herd." Tamamo informed them. "There will be a lot more Grimm than you're used to. And bigger ones than are in the Emerald Forest at Beacon." Weiss recalled the Nevermore and Deathstalker they had fought during their initiation to Beacon, and was going to mention them, but decided against it for now. "Okay. Second, if we tell you to run, you run back here and tell Dani and Ches that we told you to run. They'll know what to do, got it?" Weiss and Blake nodded. "Good. I'll come up with other rules as we go if needed. For now, we run. Vimentis."

Vimentis, who had been nodding off sleepily against the gate, stood upright and stretched his arms. His eyes were still closed. "Southwest." He said simply. Tamamo led the way, starting at a brisk jog that eventually sped up into a moderate run. She spent most of her time leaping happily from tree branch to tree branch, running on the forest floor only when no tree branches were immediately available. Vimentis was right behind her on the ground, occasionally correcting their course through the forest when they veered too far in one direction. Blake and Weiss were side by side at a distance behind him, with Kani taking up the rear.

Blake nudged Weiss' shoulder with a finger. "You see anything strange about Vimentis?" she asked between breaths.

"His eyes are still closed." Weiss answered. Throughout their run, Weiss had noticed that despite his eyes being closed, he was still navigating the forest easily, leaping over tree roots, rocks, and gaps in the ground with ease.

"Well, that too." Blake consented. "But look at how he runs." Weiss looked forward again at Vimentis, and watched his as he ran, leaping over obstacles and ducking under others. Not noticing anything wrong at first, the more Weiss watched the more she felt like something wasn't quite right with the way Vimentis moved. Each one of his steps seemed to last for more than three of Weiss' steps, which gave off the appearance that he was running slowly. Weiss also saw that not only did he stay in the air longer with the slightest of jumps, he didn't impact the ground the same way the rest of them did when they landed. In fact, as Weiss passed a spot where Vimentis had landed after a particularly high jump, she noticed he hadn't left any footprints in the soft soil either.

"How is he doing that?" Weiss asked.

"I have no idea." Blake admitted. "And I thought I was light on my feet."

"It's his aura and semblance." they heard from behind them. The girls looked over their shoulder to see Kani running right behind them, seemingly at a leisurely pace for her. "He can move things with his mind. He uses it to support himself when he runs and jumps." She explained. "His body is actually very weak, compared to yours and mine. But the strength of his aura, which he uses to power his semblance, is beyond extraordinary. So he holds himself up in the air to run as fast as Tamamo, who's the fastest of us."

Weiss looked forward again at Vimentis, who appeared to almost be floating along with each leap, as if gravity didn't quite have the hold on him it had on the rest of them. "That's amazing." Weiss said.

"It sure is." Kani said. "His aura is also the reason he doesn't open his eyes." In response to Blake and Weiss' curious looks, she continued with an explanation. "He can sense so much with his aura, and so far away, that the sensory overload gives him terrible headaches if he opens his eyes to see. He also wears earplugs, if you couldn't see them through his mess of hair." She stopped talking as they spent the next few moments jumping and leaping through a rough patch of boulders. "And that's also why he sleeps so much. The amount of information he's processing really tires him out." Weiss and Blake suddenly had a newfound respect for the man they thought was a sleepy bum.

Ahead of them, Tamamo suddenly stopped while perching on a thick tree branch, tail flicking back and forth behind her excitedly. She held up a fist as they approached, signaling them to stop. "They're just up ahead. I can smell them." Tamamo said while sniffing the air.

Now that they had stopped running, Weiss and Blake could hear and feel the ground rumbling beneath them. "How many Grimm are there for them to shake the ground like this?" Blake asked.

Tamamo turned to Vimentis expectantly. He cocked his head to the side, as if he was listening to something. Peering closely, Weiss could see the earplug Kani had mentioned and his hair fell to the side. "One hundred and six. They'll reach the meadow ahead soon." He said after a moment. "Boarbatusks." Weiss was impressed that he could get such an accurate count.

"There's your answer." Tamamo said with a grin and a nod.

"There are four large enough to be considered alphas." Vimentis added. "Very big ones."

Tamamo looked at Kani. "Those are yours." Kani nodded, flexing her muscles in preparation. Tamamo turned her head towards Vimentis. "You can take care of stragglers and any who try to flee this time. I'll break up their formation and try to contain them. Stay between the herd and the kids." Tamamo said, nodding her head at Weiss and Blake. "And you two, never go past Vimentis. Stay up in a tree at the forest edge." Weiss and Blake nodded. "Let's move out."

The group slowly made their way forward, not wanting to alert the herd before they were closer. At the forest's edge, Weiss and Blake realized that what they had fought previously was incomparable to what they were looking at now. The group of hunters was flanking a herd of Boarbatusks ahead of them. The Grimm herd was massive. What caught their eye though were the ones that Vimentis had dubbed the alphas. The alpha Boarbatusks were gargantuan, all four of them as big or bigger than the Deathstalker that Team JNPR had defeated in their initiation. The bone plates on them looked so thick that Weiss wasn't even sure her attacks would ever reach the beasts' skin if she attacked. "We're fighting all these things?" Weiss said to herself.

The two girls felt a tap on their shoulder and turned around to see Vimentis looking down at them. Well, kind of looking; his eyes were still closed. He pointed up at the tree above him. They nodded, Blake leaping up the branches with ease while Weiss did the same with her new, smaller glyphs. Vimentis turned back to Tamamo, who nodded. He unbuttoned his coat, slipping out of it and holding it to one side. It floated up to hang itself from one of the lower tree branches. Weiss and Blake hardly noticed the floating coat though, because their eyes were drawn to what Vimentis was wearing under his coat. The previous bulkiness of his coat was explained as they looked down at his back to see two dozen thin short swords strapped to his back, crisscrossing over one another. The sight was just baffling, because having that many blades seemed wholly unnecessary and excessive, until all twenty-four blades simultaneously slid out of their sheaths and fanned out, floating in a semi circle above his head.

Tamamo turned and looked at the huntress to her other side, who was unlimbering her great axe and rolling her shoulders with a grin on her face. "Have fun!" Tamamo giggled. With Tamamo's blessing, the huntress Hauonekani Jiwe let out a might roar, and charged at the herd of Boarbatusks alone. The herd jumped at hearing the battle cry, and the smaller members of the herd edged away as the closest alpha roared its own challenge back at Kani and charged right back at her. "I guess I'll join her too." Tamamo said in a voice that sounded as if she was considering leaving the herd to Kani.

Vimentis immediately turned away from Tamamo, holding his head painfully. "Not so close, please." He complained.

Weiss and Blake weren't sure what he was talking about, but then they noticed Tamamo glowing with a bright, golden, otherworldly aura. "Sorry." She apologized with a giggle. The glow was different from the auras that the girls had seen previously; the glow around Tamamo not only surrounded her, but had tendrils trailing of it and dissipating into the air like smoke, as if she couldn't contain the sheer amount of power radiating off of her. Tamamo looked up at the girls, her emerald green eyes glowing; Weiss and Blake could've sworn they saw flames dancing behind Tamamo's eyes. "Stay safe! And remember; don't move any closer than Vimentis." Tamamo squatted down at the knees and then leapt with such force that the ground where she was standing was left as a small crater.

"I hate it when she does that near me." Vimentis complained.

"Jumping?" Blake asked.

"No. Drawing on her aura. It's too much for me when she standing close. It's like looking straight into stadium spotlights that you're standing next to." He explained.

"Ouch." Blake commented.

"An accurate assessment." He replied.

"Is her aura really that powerful?" Weiss questioned. Vimentis' answer was just to point ahead of them, where Tamamo falling towards the ground at the center of the herd. As she impacted the ground, a deafening impact threw back both the boarbatusk and dirt in a wave, like someone throwing a boulder into a pond. When the dust settled, Tamamo was standing at the center of a group of dead boarbatusks, the closest ones to her unable to survive the shockwave of energy from her landing. The glow around Tamamo intensified further, and she now appeared to be a ball of energy that just happened to look like a faunus; rather than a faunus drawing on aura. "Wow." Was all Weiss could say.

"Wow." Blake agreed.

"This will be cool for you to watch for your first time." Vimentis told the girls, pointing with a sword at Kani, who was fast approaching the charging alpha boarbatusk. The closer they got to each other, the more that Kani looked like a small toy compared to the gargantuan beast, but Weiss was sure that this was all according to plan, as nervous as she may have actually been. Her fears were assuaged as Vimentis' prediction proved correct, and the girls were amazed at what they saw.

Kani was holding her great axe down behind her as she charged, and the boarbatusk lowered its head to run down Kani with its giant tusks. Right as soon as they were in front of each other, Kani stopped dead in the middle of running, crouching and bracing with her legs. The boarbatusk had thrown its head up to tackle Kani, but because Kani had stopped, his tusks fell just a hair short and exposed the underside of his head and neck to Kani. She swung up viciously, and her powerful swing connected with the underside of the alpha boarbatusk's neck, throwing the beast up into the air onto its back, crushing some of its brethren while its throat gushed blood. Kani followed up by leaping up onto the exposed stomach of the boarbatusk as it flailed, and swung her axe like a golf club into the side of the boarbatusk's neck, cutting through to the other side, nearly beheading it in the process. Hopping off the fatally wounded monster, Kani charged at the next closest alpha.

"Wow." Weiss observed again.

"Wow." Blake agreed once more.

Tamamo had not been idle during Kani's fight. Boarbatusk corpses littered the ground around her, all showing signs of being severely burned or being struck by severe blunt trauma. As a small pack of the creatures broke off and attempted to flee, an image of a glowing Tamamo appeared in front of them, causing the smaller creatures to skid to a stop in an attempt to change directions. The short pause in movement was plenty long enough for Tamamo to take advantage of, and she thrust her hand out, throwing a ball of pulsing golden energy at the small pack of Grimm. The ball of energy exploded as it reached them, consuming them in a ball of fire that left only ash and charred ground in its wake. The illusion of Tamamo disappeared, and the real Tamamo turned to attack the rest of the herd around her. All around her individual Grimm were trying to flee, but Tamamo used her illusions to great effect, scaring them back into her direction.

The ones that did escape Tamamo found no reprieve, as Vimentis' blades found and skewered them mercilessly. Only four of the original twenty-four blades remained at the telekinetic huntsman's side, the other twenty were flitting about the battlefield, dealing death to lone boarbatusk who attempted to flee or just happened to be separated from the rest of the herd.

The battle took just over ten minutes. All the boarbatusk lay dead or dissipating, and the ones that were dying but not dead were quickly finished off by Vimentis' flying blades. Kani walked back towards Vimentis and the two girls, holding closed a wound on her left arm. Her axe had gotten stuck in one of the alphas' skull plate, and she had to finished the last one without her weapon, leading to it goring her arm before she could kill it. Seeing this, Vimentis pulled a small medkit out of his coat and opened it, revealing some simple first aid supplies. He disinfected the wound while Kani sat on a tree stump before opening up his aura and pouring a huge amount into Kani, healing her wound with the energy. Afterwards he handed her a small towel to wipe away the blood, which she used to clean her axe rather than her arm.

Tamamo was still standing in the middle of the meadow, staring at the sky as the bodies around her faded into nothing. Kani and Vimentis continued preparing to leave while Weiss and Blake hopped out of the tree to the ground level. It took them a few minutes to find their words, having been rendered speechless after watching their veterans fight. When she could finally speak again, Weiss asked "How come Tamamo is standing out there? Is she okay?" Weiss took a step towards Tamamo, but was stopped when Kani grabbed her arm. Weiss looked at Kani questioningly.

Kani just shook her head. "You don't want to go near her right now." She said.

"How come? Is something wrong?" Blake asked.

"She needs to cool down." Vimentis answered.

"Is she hot from all the fire?" Weiss asked.

"That's part of it. Her body is emitting a lot of energy at the moment, so the air around her is probably hot enough to cook with, true. But I'm talking about her mind." Vimentis answered.

Before either of the two girls could ask what he was talking about, Kani explained it to them. "She's in a bloodlust right now. She's calming herself. If you approach her now, before she calms down enough to come here on her own, she might attack you." The two girls immediately stepped back from Tamamo's direction, knowing full well that if Tamamo turned her wrath on them they would last all of two seconds.

"That's… unbelievable." Blake said with hints of both fear and awe in her voice.

"It was a hard lesson for her to learn." Kani said sadly. "She accidentally killed her family after defending them from a Grimm attack when she was young."

"That's terrible." Weiss couldn't believe their happy and cheerful leader had such a dark mark in her past.

"She's fine in most fights." Kani continued. "But if she has to draw on large amounts of aura, she can lose control. That's why she isolates herself in a fortress away from people in the middle of nowhere, and tolerates Cheshire."

Weiss, who would have gladly never heard about Cheshire ever again didn't ask further, but Blake asked instead. "Does Cheshire do the same thing?"

"Not quite." Vimentis answered this time. "His wife and daughter were killed by thieves while he was out fighting Grimm, years ago. He blames himself for not being there to defend them. What Kani meant was that Tamamo and Cheshire are similar in behavior."

"Tamamo always smiles and makes an effort to be happy because she's sad, but doesn't want others to be sad." Kani said.

"And Cheshire's multiple personalities and his madness are his shield against the pain." Vimentis finished.

Weiss looked over at Tamamo, who was now skipping gleefully towards them, apparently without a care in the world. She appeared to have calmed down to her usual self, but after hearing what they had just heard, Weiss couldn't help but be a little anxious. Weiss' fears were unfounded as Tamamo arrived with a smile and a laugh, checking on Kani to make sure her wound wouldn't have any lingering effects.

"Nothing like a good day's work, right?" Tamamo asked cheerfully. "Let's head on back for some tasty food!" Tamamo's smile and laughter were the same as Weiss and Blake remembered, but as they looked in Tamamo's eyes the flames they thought they saw before the fight were gone. Instead they both would have sworn that there was a deep pool of sadness hidden inside of her, only visible to them now that they were aware of its existence.

"We really need to train if we hope to ever be as strong as them." Blake said to Weiss.

"No kidding. I feel like a child again." Weiss said in agreement.

"Oh, don't worry about that." Tamamo said from ahead of them as they walked. "We'll make sure you're plenty close by the time you leave us. I'll just push you harder!" Tamamo said with a familiar sadistic grin. "It'll only hurt a bit."

Over the next months, her statement proved all too true.