A/N: My November 2015 MonCon Submission. Didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but I don't really know how to fix it.

Who's the loneliest of all?

In the middle of autumn, Ruby Rose stared at the grave that signified everything, the beginning of the end.

Her hand went over the grey, engraved text that spelled Weiss Schnee.

"Miss Rose, I figured you would be here."

Ruby didn't even bother to look behind her.

"Professor Ozpin, what do you want from me?"

"Nothing Miss Rose. I'm just checking up on you to make sure that you are doing well."

Ruby didn't say anything. She just stared forlornly at the slab of grey as if somehow it had a message nestled within it.

How long had she lied to herself that the world was a good place to be in? Her whole life she believed in the dream of the huntress, the person that would defend the world from the evil forces that protected. She never knew that believing in such a romanticized view came with a price.

There was no such thing as heroes. There was only people who lived and people who died. The people who lived have to keep carrying on this burden, this curse that plagues the mind until it goes insane.

"Miss Rose, Miss Schnee would not want you to be like this forever."

Ruby felt anger coursing through her veins. She turned around and yelled at her former headmaster.

"What do you know about suffering? Didn't you tell me that you had made more mistakes than any men, women, or child on this planet? Yet you still stand here lecturing me as if it wasn't a mistake you were responsible for when you made me the leader of team RWBY! It's my fault that Weiss is dead!"

"Ruby," said Ozpin dropping addressing her formally, "you were hardly responsible for what occurred during that mission-"

"Don't lie to me!" screamed Ruby. She was done with being told lies.

"Is the leader not responsible for what happens to their teammates?" asked Ruby.

Ozpin was slightly stunned by Ruby's tirade.

"Answer me! Why did you make me the leader when I was clearly not capable of being a leader at all?"

"Ruby, I made you the leader because you had the talents and skills required for the making of a good leader."

"And where are these talents? A leader doesn't let their teammates die, the people that they care about!"

"I see now that you needed to have a lot longer than a month off after the incident that claimed Miss Schnee's life."

Ruby's eyes widened with bewilderment

"What are you saying," her voice suddenly sounding shaky and nervous.

"I'm saying that you are now going to be placed on a indefinite hiatus as a certified huntress."

"No! You can't fucking do this to me!"

Ruby attempted to run at Ozpin in her rage and punch him. However her attempt was wild and unfocused and Ozpin easily grabbed her punching arm and allowed her momentum to propel herself forward face first onto the ground.

She didn't attempt to get up from the ground.

Ozpin looked at Ruby on the ground with great sadness in his demeanor.

"Ruby we will talk again in a month. For now you should rest and not worry about anything else."

Ozpin walked away, sighing. He knew that he would have to get a therapist for Ruby and make sure Miss Belladonna and Miss Xiao Long were keeping an eye on her at all times.

Ruby didn't get off the ground for hours. Time stood at a standstill for her.

Teamwork….oh how that word haunted her. It was the antithesis of what she had, what she had given to her team. If only she hadn't made the order that they should split up. It was the kind of decision that defined a person's life, for some it's deciding to drive drunk and accidently killing someone, and to Ruby it didn't feel far off from the truth.

All those years of teamwork and trust that she had built with Weiss had gone to waste when they had encountered a situation in which Ruby was not able to help her. She clawed her way ferociously through the Grimm with Crescent Rose but it was not enough for the Grimm were far too numerous and they had encircled Weiss.

If only she hadn't told Blake and Yang to search in another sector in order to track down the criminal that they were looking for in their mission, perhaps they would have been able to come sooner and stop this calamity. While she had given them her distress signal, it was far too late to save Weiss by that point.

God, she would never forget. Her eyes that perhaps earlier could have been considered innocent were now stained by that haunting image that would never leave her.

Despite the fact that Weiss's body could barely be recognized, other than the white hair that remained, she still ran to the body and held it in her arms, trying to will the body back to life with her tears. Blake and Yang managed to pry her off during her hysteria.

Teamwork means nothing when it is dead and that ultimately is the leader's fault.

What is this absurdity they call life? How long had she believed that life was one filled with happiness?

She should have seen the warning signs long ago. This was the line of the work that had killed her mother and yet she still sought for it as a child believing that it was her destiny. It was her fate to seek her own destruction.

Perhaps that is why she was so devastated when Ozpin had revoked her job for who knows how long. She kept seeking the same job like an addict, as an escape from the pain caused by that same job. It was a contradiction she could not fathom, but still it was better than remembering the incident that had happened while she laid here doing nothing.

How could she have let Weiss die? She loved Weiss or so she had told herself, not that it mattered anymore. It was meaningless to love a dead person. Thinking about it just caused more pain. She was tired of the pain. She just wanted it to all end.

Weiss, I am the loneliest of all.

I was just too naïve to see it.