Cold air blew against Blake's exposed skin. Swirling winds whipped her hair about, and sent aching chills through her body. She wrapped her arms about herself, and looked around. She was surrounded by utter blackness. Her eyes couldn't make out the faintest glimmer, or point of light. She was utterly lost in the cold and dark.

"Hello?" She called, "Anybody?"

Her voice echoed through the nothingness. She strained to hear a reply, and became aware of the thumping of her heart in her ears. Her feet were beginning to ache from the cold ground; her feet were as bare as the rest of her. She shivered from the cold.

"Yang?" She cried out to the darkness, "Yang, where are you?"

The silence that answered her filled Blake with overpowering dread. Yang wasn't here. Yang had been taken, and with her had gone all the light and warmth and good in the world. And now even the tiny piece of her Blake had held onto had faded away. Blake was alone. The darkness filled her eyes and cold pressed against her skin and Blake knew the cold and dark was all the was left. An endless void for her to suffer in, alone forever. Blake fell to her knees and wept.

"Yang..." Blake whispered, "Please... come back."

The wind blew ever harder, icy and howling, as if the darkness sought to snuff out any lingering trace of Yang. Blake fell down to the ground, squeezed her eyes shut, and waited. Waited to freeze, and die, and be taken to some merciful oblivion.

Blake?

Blake's eyes snapped open. She fought against her aching, freezing body to climb to her knees. She looked around, desperate to find the source of the faint whisper. It had been as quiet and as distant as a shout heard though miles of forest, and yet Blake had heard it. That voice. Yang. Calling out to her. She hadn't imagined it.

"Yang?" Blake called, "Where are you?"

For agonizing seconds there was only wind.

Blake?

Blake could hear voices drifting about as she woke. Doctors giving orders, nurses making announcements over the PA. The familiar sounds of the infirmary where she'd been a frequent visitor of late. But something was different. It was louder now, more hectic, and accompanied by the sounds of halls and rooms far more filled than usual. Groans of pain and cries of anguish. Blake squirmed, and opened her eyes. This time, she wasn't alone in her room. Three other gurneys had been moved into the room with her, each with an injured student laying on it. All three were unconscious, wrapped in bloodstained bandages. The infirmary must have been massively over capacity, filled with the victims of the war Blake had brought down on them. Blake shook her head, pondered the value in getting out of bed at all, then, with a groan, swung her legs over the edge of the gurney and pushed herself up from the bed.

As she stood, there was a sudden, sharp pain in her lower back. Reaching back, Blake touched the place where she'd been stabbed, weeks that seemed like months earlier. Fresh bandages. The strain of using her... "ability" must have torn the wound open. The wound should have healed enough by now that that wouldn't be a concern, but Blake had run out of the energy necessary to question things like this anymore. She walked over to the door and opened it. Outside her room, the hall was crowded. Doctors, students not too injured to walk, Altesian military, and civilians. So many civilians, most too old to be students, very few wearing combat gear. Parents. Parents of dozens of dead or injured students. Many were supporting each other, crying on each other's shoulders. Grief and guilt tore through Blake. She stepped into the hall, looked about for any sign of Ruby or Weiss, then proceeded down the hall in the direction of the exit.

As she weaved through the crowd of grieving families, she could feel their eyes on her. She could sense the recognition that everybody looked at her with. Every few steps, she would hear a whisper rise out of the hush.

"-whole attack was to get to her-"

"-killed 27 people with her mind-"

"-was all because of her that-"

"-her fault."

Blake stared at the floor, avoiding any eye contact. As she neared the entrance to the infirmary, she caught a glimpse in her periphery vision of Jaune Arc, seated on a bench against the wall. She looked up at him. He was looking exhausted, loosely holding a paper coffee cup in one hand. His tired eyes met hers. Blake attempted to say something, but her voice cracked before she could even form a sound. She fought back tears with all of her strength. Looking vacant, Jaune motioned his head towards the empty spot beside him. Blake nodded, and sat down. There was a long moment of silence before Jaune spoke.

"Ren was hurt bad, but he'll make a full recovery," He said, "Can't be said for everyone. The kids with the worst injuries were transferred to the Hospital."

"How many did we lose?" Blake asked, still staring, empty eyed, at the floor.

"43."

Blake put her hands to her face. There was no stopping the tears now. A soldier walked by. Blake caught a glimpse of the look he gave her. He was afraid.

"Military all over the school. Afraid of another attack." Jaune said, "What I hear, they're cleaning up Deumont Island as we speak."

Blake had nothing to add to this. She wiped her eyes.

"Heard you had a talk with Ochre," Jaune said.

"He-" Blake began, memories flooding back, "He's a Faunus, Jaune. Jack took his ears, just like he took mine."

Jaune looked at Blake in confusion, "Then why is he helping them?"

"Jack killed his family," She said, "Abducted him. Taught him to hate everything that he was. I knew him, Jaune. He was just a kid. Jack turned him into that monster."

Jaune ran a hand over his shaved head.

"I hope that's not going to make killing him a problem for you," Jaune said.

Blake shook her head, "No. No, he needs to die."

"That thing you did," Jaune said, thoughtfully, "That "new Semblance." Could it kill him?"

"I tried," Blake said, "It didn't work."

"Shame," Jaune said.

There was nothing more to add to this.

"I should go find Ruby and Weiss," Blake said.

"They're probably just outside the infirmary. Stayed with you as long as they could before the nurses ordered them out 'cause of the crowding."

Blake nodded. She stood. She turned to give Jaune a few parting words, but there was nothing to say. Jaune stared at the floor. He raised the coffee cup to his mouth, found it empty, and let it drop from his hand. Blake turned and walked away.

A short time later, Blake, Ruby, and Weiss sat in the Dining Hall. Blake was staring down into a cup of tea, her food untouched beside it. Weiss was across from her, chewing mechanically while staring forward. Ruby was resting her head on Weiss's shoulder, her eyes drooping. Every minute or so, Her eyes closed completely for a moment, when she would suddenly shake herself awake, her eyes widened in fear. Then, the burst of energy would take it's toll, and she would drift back into a barely conscious state. Few words had been exchanged since they'd met up outside the infirmary. There had been a brief moment when Blake and Weiss had been seated while Ruby was still in line for food. Weiss had whispered to Blake that Ruby hadn't slept since the attack. She'd spent the night in Weiss's bed, head rested on Weiss's chest, crying.

Two students walked by their table, a boy and a girl. The girl gave Blake a glance as they passed, then whispered something in the boy's ear as they walked away. Blake took a sip of tea.

"My father is demanding I leave Beacon," Weiss said, breaking the long silence, "He told me he'll have me dragged back home if need be."

Ruby's grip on Weiss's arms tightened. Blake looked at Weiss. She wanted to tell her she should go. Go home to her family, where she'd be safer.

"I won't abandon this team, or this school," Weiss said, "I don't care what he says, I'm not leaving until we finish this."

"All we were trying to do was stop the Guardians from hurting more people," Blake said, "we failed."

"We can still make them pay," Weiss said, "The few of them that are left are hiding in the city somewhere. The military is monitoring all traffic in and out. They're searching the city, but... but we could still find them."

"And what if we do?" Blake asked, "I thought revenge would bring Yang justice, and all this fight has accomplished is getting more people killed. Even if we kill them all, we can never get back what they've taken from us. This war has gained us nothing, and it never could have."

"We can't just give up, Blake," Weiss said, "Not now. If we give up now, everybody we've lost... don't we owe it to them to see this through?"

"I'm not going to be responsible for any more of our friends dying," Blake said, "I- if I..."

Blake stared down at the table, trying to find words. She thought of Yang. She glanced to her right, fully expecting to see Yang next to her at the table. Yang wasn't there. Blake squeezed her eyes shut, and rubbed her temples. She froze for a moment, holding completely still, then abruptly slammed one palm down on the table. The sudden sound caused Ruby to jolt awake. She looked at Blake in surprise. Blake stood, turned and began to walk away from the table.

"Where are you going?" Weiss asked. Blake didn't answer. She continued to march away from her team-mates.

"Hey!" Weiss yelled, jumping up from her seat and hurrying after Blake, "You can't just run off and-"

"Blake wheeled around and looked Weiss in the eye.

"Go home." Blake said.

"W-what?" Weiss asked, taken aback.

"Go home. Be with your family." Blake said, before turning to Ruby, who was rushing after Weiss, "Ruby, you go home, too. Be with your father."

"Blake, we're not leaving!" Ruby said, surprisingly angry, "You don't get to make that decision! You can't tell us we're not allowed to help you!"

"Ruby, I know you never cared about revenge," Blake said, "You've never been a vengeful person, you're better than that... better than me. I let you stay here, fighting for my own benefit, when you should have been at home, mourning Yang with your father. Please, Ruby. You should go home."

Most of the dining hall was now staring at Team RWBY. Not one of the three noticed or cared.

"And what, you're going to keep fighting alone?" Weiss demanded, "You're going to take on Jack, and all the Guardians, and Ochre by yourself?"

"Everybody they've killed, they killed to get to me," Blake said, "I'm going to put a stop to it."

Blake turned and walked, hurriedly, out of the dining hall. The small group of people who'd been standing between her and the door rushed to get out of her way. Weiss and Ruby stood there, stunned for a moment. They glanced at each other, and then Weiss took off after Blake. She burst out the door, saw Blake walking away, and ran to catch up with her.

"Blake!" Weiss said, "Blake, you stop right there!"

Blake glanced over her shoulder, but didn't slow down.

"Blake, are you... are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Blake stopped. She seemed to be considering her response carefully. She turned to Weiss.

"I'm going to go find Jack," She said, "And one way or another, this is going to end. If I don't come back, don't let anybody else get killed on my account."

"Blake..." Weiss said, "Doing this together, as a team... its what Yang would want."

Blake began a retort, but stammered, taken aback by this statement. She stared at Weiss, her eyes filled with confusion that quickly turned to anger.

"How dare you speak for her?" Blake demanded, "How dare you use her like that?!"

"You know that I-" Weiss began.

"No!" Blake said, burning with anger, "I'm not going to... I won't listen to..."

Blake was all but screaming. The pained voices of all the people she had gotten killed were screaming in her mind. But Yang was not there. Blake glared at Weiss, pain and anger burning through her. She looked around at the gathering group of people around the two of them. It suddenly struck her that they were terrified. They were slowly inching away from Blake, as if she were a bomb that would be set off by the slightest wayward movement. Nearby, one of the soldiers standing by the door of the dining hall was holding his rifle so tightly his knuckles were white. The looks of fear they were giving her pierced right through her. She sighed, and exhaled. Her grimace of anger disappeared into helpless exhaustion. Everybody seemed to relax a bit, but still looked at Blake with uncertainty.

"You're right, Weiss," Blake said, "I just... its so much..."

"I know," Weiss said, "Its okay."

"Maybe I should just get some sleep," Blake said, "I didn't really get much rest in the infirmary."

Weiss walked over to Blake and wrapped her in a hug.

"Come on," Weiss said, "I'll bring you to our room."

"...okay."

Weiss lead Blake back to Team RWBY's room. She helped tuck her into bed. Blake rested her head down onto the pillow. Her eyes stared ahead into empty space. She seemed to be deep in thought. Weiss sat down on the edge of the bed and put a hand on Blake's shoulder.

"Nobody else needs to die, Blake," Weiss whispered, "There are so few of them left. This is almost over."

"What will we do afterwards?" Blake asked, "Revenge has been the only thing on my mind since Yang died. I haven't given much thought to what to do afterwards."

"We'll just have to... learn how to be ourselves again," Weiss said, "This fight, its like its changed us. But we can still go back to who we were before. We must be able to."

Weiss stood and started towards the door. Blake closed her eyes and immediately began to drift off.

"I couldn't find her," Blake whispered.

"You couldn't find who?" Asked Weiss, curiously, "Do you mean Yang?"

"I dreamed I was alone," Blake said, "She wasn't there. It was so cold."

Weiss didn't know how to respond. Blake pulled herself into a tighter ball beneath her blankets, and was silent. Weiss leaned on the bedpost for a moment, watching Blake. Eventually, she sighed, and left the room. She quietly clicked the door shut as she left. She gave a worried glance to the door before walking away. She was starting to wonder if she'd made a terrible mistake.

Inside the room, Blake lay wrapped in her sheets, curled up tight, yet she still felt terribly cold. She waited to fall asleep, hoping that she could find Yang in her dreams. She lay for several minutes in silence, the constant commotion in the hallway reduced to a quiet murmur through the door. Blake was just starting to drift away from the world when she was quite suddenly pulled back by the shrill sound of an electronic ring. The sound of her scroll. She cracked one eye open, and looked about the room. Where was her scroll? She eventually saw it, sitting on the desk, buzzing away. Blake groaned, and pulled herself out of her bed. She walked over to the desk, rubbing her eyes and yawning. She picked up the scroll and blinked several times to let her eyes focus on the screen. She frowned in confusion. The screen showed that there was an incoming video call, from an unknown scroll. Who would that be? Perhaps that sheriff, Blake thought, what was his name? Auburn? She hadn't heard from him in some time. She tapped the "answer" button, and and a video feed appeared on the screen. Blake eyes widened.

"Adam?" She whispered.

Jaune walked down the hall of Beacon's dormitories, doing his best to avoid eye contact with the other occupants of the corridor. More security, more grieving families. Whispered conversations and heated arguments about the future of the school. Rumours spreading around that the girl with the monstrous semblance almost unleashed it in the middle of the dining hall. Jaune kept hearing fear in the voices of anybody who mentioned the Guardians. Fear of subsequent attack, fear of what further evil an enemy who would commit such an audacious attack could be capable of. Jaune knew that such fear was pointless. The Guardians were on their last legs, reduced to a few, hiding in the city, after a failed assault that cost themselves more lives than they'd taken. People spoke of the Guardians as if they were some mighty and deadly foe, but that wasn't what they were. Beacon hadn't been brought to the brink of destruction by a cunning adversary, they'd been brought there by mindless, blind, self-destructive hatred. How could a school dedicated to training fabled heroes be so vulnerable to such simple barbarism?

He turned the corner and headed down the corridor that lead to team JNPR's room. Ren and Nora were still in the infirmary, doing their best to comfort each other. Jaune had made an excuse to slip out of the room, not telling them where he was going. He knew Nora had a stash of sweets hidden under her bed. They might make her feel better, if even for just a moment. She'd said few words since the attack.

As Jaune approached the room, he caught a glimpse of somebody familiar in his peripheral vision, to his left. Glancing up, he saw Cardin Winchester walking past him. He looked a lot different from his usual appearance. Far from his usual prideful, beaming stance, he carried himself with a slouch. His eyes looked tired, and red. He was dressed in a simple pair of jeans and black hoodie. Slung over one shoulder was a duffel bag. One zipper was only partially zipped, and the sleeve of a shirt hung lazily out of it. He glanced over to Jaune as he passed, gave him a helpless shrug, and continued forward. Jaune stopped and turned, staring at him incredulously as he walked away.

"Cardin." Jaune said.

Cardin stopped walking, and looked back.

"Why aren't you wearing your armour?" Jaune demanded.

"I'm done, man," Cardin said, "I'm out."

"You're quitting?" Jaune asked, "After all of this, you're just gonna walk away from this fight?"

"I'm not- its too much, man," Cardin said, "You saw all the people we lost out there. Sky, and Dove, and... I can't deal with it."

"Nobody asked if you could deal with it, Cardin," Jaune said, "You're part of this whether you like it or not. We're Huntsmen. We don't get to just cut and run because the fight stopped going our way."

"You think I ever cared about being a Huntsman, Jaune?" Cardin asked, "My father was a warrior, and his father, and all that shit. I was just living up to my family name. I don't care about playing hero and I can't... I can't..."

Jaune sighed. He waited for Cardin to let it out.

"Sky and Dove were... I was supposed to be a leader. I thought that just meant calling the shots, making the decisions. I never considered... it never even occurred to me they could pay the price for my failure."

"You can't let yourself-"

"Bullshit! I ordered them to charge straight at that freak! Following my lead got them both killed in seconds! Don't you fucking dare tell me I shouldn't blame myself!" Cardin shouted.

"I got Pyrrha killed, Cardin." Jaune said, "I lead her into a fight we should never have been in, and she paid for it. I couldn't even bring her body back. You better believe I blamed myself for it. I still do. But quitting, running home, and wallowing in self-pity? That's not going to help me punish the son of a bitch who killed her. There'll be time to hate myself after she's avenged."

"I had to tell Russel that they were both-" Cardin cried, "And after that... no, I'm done. I'm not cut out for this, and I never was."

"Go put your fucking armour on." Jaune ordered.

"No." Cardin said, "I'm sorry."

He turned, and started to walk away. He stopped after a few paces, and looked back at Jaune.

"For what its worth," He said, "I guess you turned out to be stronger than me after all."

Cardin turned and continued walking. He didn't look back despite Jaune calling after him. He walked around the corner, and disappeared. Jaune sighed, and continued towards his room. As he approached, he saw the door to Team RWBY's room was slightly ajar. As he walked by it, he saw something through the crack that caught his attention. Approaching the door, he pushed it open slightly further, and was greeted by the sight Blake Belladonna climbing out the open window of the room, reaching for the branches of the tree just outside. She was dressed in black, had a backpack hanging on her shoulders, and a pistol hanging from her hip. She turned and her eyes met Jaune's, and she stared back at him, awkwardly. Jaune glanced over to her bed and noticed what looked like a hastily-written note laying on the pillow. Without a word, she dropped down out of view.

"Well, that's interesting," Jaune said.