The night was young when the teenager returned to the fairly decrepit building he called home. The faded red brick had cracks along its mortar, and some of the bricks were loose enough to be pushed out of their original place. It's fairly symbolic of my life, the teenager reflected, we both started life so fresh and new; it was a shining example of a luxury home, and me a respected child. Now the building's falling to pieces, and my life has been torn to tatters.

He picked up a faded photograph of a young girl, at the time no more than eight or nine years old. I wonder what you'd make of the hellhole that I call an existence. I doubt you'd be pleased. You didn't know at the time, though, so perhaps you'd excuse me for having to go as low as this to survive. He put the photograph down, hung his stuff up, and lit the fireplace. Until I work out what I'm going to need, I won't be able to buy food, so heat rather than eat it is. His stomach grumbled in protest.

He dug out a piece of chalk, and a damp tablecloth, and began sketching plans for how he was going to get the blissfully innocent blonde in wraps. An hour later, the teenager was claimed by sleep, surrounded by what an outsider would regard as deranged rambling by someone who deserved to be in a mental asylum.

When he woke up the next morning, he made a mental note of everything he had drawn, and wiped it all off the floor with the tablecloth. He then went outside, and walked over to a good friend of his - he had business to do.

Yang was in the library, writing notes to herself on even minute parts of the video footage, like the cape design, and the individual placement of each and every clip for Crescent Rose. Ruby was a stickler for detail when it came to weapons; when she was 14, she perfected the placement of her clip belt so that she could minimise reloading time for her beloved high-caliber sniper scythe. Yang's attention to detail such as this had turned up several details, like the placement of her cross clips, and the timing of the reload were nowhere near the precision that you would expect from someone with 5 years of experience wielding her weapon.

It all seemed a little strange, but it seemed her gut instinct that Ruby was innocent was correct.

But how was she going to prove all of this - to her friends? To her family? To the cour-

Yang was distracted from her thoughts by a laser beam that had appeared on the screen.

Damn you, Blake, for getting my laser pointer.

She saved her work, logged out, and went to find out why Blake wanted her badly enough to interrupt what she was doing in the library.

Having successfully gotten the blonde's attention, Blake stifled a chuckle at her sweet revenge, and waited patiently for Yang to arrive. Sure enough, the brawler knew exactly where Blake was hiding, as she was in the exact same spot Yang had been in - it was her intention to be found, so there was little point hiding somewhere else.

"It's about Ruby, isn't it?" the blonde correctly guessed.

"You've seen the footage so many times. It clearly shows Cardin getting brutally murdered by your sister, and yet you still think she's innocent. How?" the Faunus demanded, failing to keep her frustration about the pointlessness of her partner's search at bay.

"She is innocent. I've known her for her entire life. She wouldn't do such a horrible thing at knifepoint, let alone of her own free will!" the blonde countered.

Blake took a deep breath and calmed herself down. If she kept arguing like this, she'd end up fighting her partner, and the raven-haired girl knew that was an outcome that was not in her favour.

She looked Ruby's sister in the eyes, and calmly spoke the two words she could think of that might solve the issue: "Show me."

Without hesitation, the blonde-haired human lead the raven-haired Faunus back to a library computer and logged in.

It was obvious what Yang was going to do: play the video that had plagued her waking thoughts ever since she'd been in Ozpin's office. She was going to have nightmares of that damn thing for years to come.

Something tackled Cardin Winchester from behind, sending him falling face-first onto the pavement.

Blake put her hands over her eyes, not wanting to view the sickening CCTV footage again. Once was quite enough for her lifetime. Irritatingly, the blonde peeled her hands off, and looked her in the eye.

"Ruby Rose doesn't tackle people." Yang stated. It was true, tackling people as a fairly short girl like Ruby would be fairly difficult, so Blake put aside her misgivings for now. If she wanted Yang to get some rest, she didn't have a choice about watching the same video that was burned into her eyes.

He tried to get up, but was kicked forcefully in the ribs, causing several to break.

"Ruby would never do something as low as kick people in the ribs. Has she ever seemed like that to you?" Yang asked.

"No, she hasn't." the Faunus admitted. She was starting to see the blonde's point - perhaps this wasn't Ruby after all. But how? The only person who looks remotely similar to Ruby Rose is Ruby Rose.

Cardin turned round to see Crescent Rose unfolding into its seven foot tall scythe form; the Grim Reaper had arrived, disguised as a five and a half foot tall girl in a black and red combat outfit, with a fear-inducing grin on its face.

"Look at Ruby's face. I have never seen that look on her face in her entire life. It actually scares me" the alleged killer's sister said truthfully. By now, the Faunus had to admit things weren't adding up at all. It was all horribly out of character, but Blake couldn't work out why.

Cardin grabbed his mace, and barely managed to block the gleaming blade whistling toward his skull. Cardin pushed the blade away with all his might, and swung at his aggressor furiously to no avail - the girl nimbly dodged his best efforts, even getting a few shots at him while doing so.

"Ruby could fairly easily block those hits." Blake stated.

"Yes, but why didn't she just use her Semblance to dodge?" Yang countered semi-rhetorically.

It was clear that Cardin was not going to win this fight, but he was still going to try and draw blood from her.

Cardin switched to defensive, and attempted to block and dodge as much as was humanly possible - a sniper-scythe was not a particularly agile weapon, but when it hit, it hit hard. Rolling back to dodge some bullets, Cardin made a split second decision and ran as fast as he could, jumping over school benches and dodging between trees. He had to get away from that walking manifestation of Hell itself with a demonic grin on its face.

"That face is still there." Yang muttered.

Blake remembered what came next: "Uh, Yang, I'm going t-"

Tired from his burst of adrenaline, Cardin ducked behind one of the school buildings, panting furiously. A distinct snickering came from behind him, and Cardin turned around to feel the blunt end of Crescent Rose breaking his skull.

Blake's stomach emptied itself over the blonde's carefully maintained hair, and for a moment Blake thought it was going to trigger her Semblance. Surprisingly however, Yang understood - though that's not to say she wasn't unhappy.

"God dammit, it'll take forever to get your lunch out of my hair." Yang muttered accusingly.

Blake's cheeks were scarlet at having thrown up in the middle of the library and quickly rushed out of the room. with the blonde fairly close behind.

Author's note

Wow, I actually managed to get this chapter done in a reasonable timeframe. There's hope for this story yet, it seems.

To the guest who posted a review: Sorry if all my characters are somewhat OoC; this is my first fanfic, so such mistakes are to be expected. I'll nail it eventually.

Shoutout to Namejawa on Reddit for his positive feedback for this story.

EDIT: I should add for anyone who thinks Blake is being OoC for throwing up, it's my personal headcanon that while Blake did kill people during her time in the White Fang, she never killed anyone as brutally as L-I mean Ruby did, so she can't take it.

-D