"That is indeed my name." He said as he stepped forward. "And I would assume yours is Blake, is it not?"

He knew that his heart could not be playing a trick on him, not now. Not after all these years. Blake could not be alive. He had witnessed her die. And yet here she stood, right as rain.

"But assuming you are not the Blake that I know. I suppose I should introduce myself properly. I am Adam Citri and I am but a humble hermit living in these forests."

He was ready to fight if he had to, but he'd rather it not come to that.

"Are you perhaps a specter conjured up by black magic? A new Blake summoned by my guilt? Or are you something else entirely?"

...It wasn't him. It wasn't him. she told herself, forcing her eyes shut for a moment. It couldn't be him. She had killed him. Stabbed him right through the heart with the tip of his own shattered blade. This had to be a different him. The him from this world. If Cinder could exist here, then why not him? Yes, that was what it had to be. It was a far better thought than what he echoed, a ghost of the past back to haunt her.

"I'm... not... your Blake. And... you're not my Adam," she managed to force out, finally allowing her piercing amber eyes to meet his crimson. "If you are truly a hermit, then you walked a path that my Adam did not. His heart turned to darkness... nearly turned mine too..." A shaky hand held close to her chest- she could feel her heart beating rapidly. "... What happened to your Blake? Why... why are you guilty? ...Or are you just a mirage meant to terrorize me?" The tears started to stream, partially blurrying her vision.

"...I... I killed you!"

"My Blake." He said somberly. "Is dead."

"And perhaps. What you say has merit in it." He said as he walked through the streams of sunlight that made their way through the dense forest roof. "When she died, she took a piece of me with her. So you could say that she did kill me that day. But it was a death that led to a rebirth and a new path."

He stopped in his tracks, a soft smile gracing his lips.

"That was many years ago now. And though you are clearly not her. Looking at you brings me comfort. Comfort that I have not felt in a very long time. I am sorry if my presence alarms you or causes you pain. But know that it is not my intention."

He unsheathed his blade to reveal that the weapon was dull.

"I only wish to protect life, not destroy it."

Oh...

It was.. an odd feeling, really. Something like a sadness, but also distant. This Adam cared for his Blake, no doubt as much as she had cared for her Adam at first. To hear that the her in this dimension had died was... strange. She felt the sorrow any one would feel when someone they know deals with a loss, but it was made almost alien by knowing that the one who had died was another version of her. How similar were they? How different? Cinder was nothing like their Cinder. And this Adam... was nothing like hers.

The blade he wielded was dull. Blunt. A weapon not meant for cutting.

Blake silently sobbed, pulling her own sheathe off her back and running her fingers along the sharpened blade embedded in it- drops of her scarlet blood struck the forest floor. "...Adam and I... we had... we had wanted to hurt those that had hurt us... he had... he had my sheathe turned into a weapon... He... he wanted the whole world to burn. I did what I had to in order to save it... But... but I couldn't save him..." She quaked in place, half her face wreathed in the shadows of the trees.

"I was the same." He said suddenly, a somber smile on his face. "I too wanted to hurt those who hurt me. I too wanted to lash out against the world. But in the end, you did save me Blake. Even if it was another you. You made me realize how precious life was. And how much blood I had spilled."

He walked toward her, slowly at first, before quickly picking up speed.

"Fate has brought us together once more. Through the tides of time and mystery. We are on the same precipice."

He stopped mere inches away from her, looking her dead in the eyes.

"And you did save your Adam in the end. You set him free from his curse. The curse of hatred. Just . . . like I had to do with my Blake."

He had a glassy expression as he recalled that moment.

"It seems our roles were reversed."

A small gasp brought whatever air Blake had left in lungs out in the open. His story, his demeanor... it was so much like her own life. Her ledger died in red, her desire to atone. The ultimate fate of her loved one... The crimson eyes that had so often looked at her with bitterness and hate now stared at her with hope and affection.

"Adam..." The roles had reversed. The her of this world... had been just as dark, just as broken as the Adam of hers. He could understand what she had did in ways that no one else had.

She flung her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.

Adam was naturally surprised by this act and quickly pushed her away. But it was a gentle push.

"No." He said softly. "Your emotions are clouding your judgement. I am not your Adam. Your love for him is not for me."

He wiped some forming tears away from his eyes.

"Besides. One such as I is undeserving of love. There is still much I need to atone for."

Cheeks flushed pink at her little fau pa. "Y-yes," she stuttered, "It is very, ahem, improper of me to act like that." While it was true that this wasn't her Adam and that her feelings had been in some way displaced, there was one thing he said that she did not agree with.

"I'm... not as squeaky clean myself. In my world... Emerald and I acted as spies among Salem's forces during the latter part of the War. And even before then... I committed my fair share of crimes in order to help out the White Fang- the group I met my Adam in." She made sure to cover the extra definition just in case such an organization didn't exist here. This Adam lacked his bull horns, so he was not a Faunus and may not have needed to join the same group.

"I willingly made use of the darker skills I learned in the White Fang to help us in the War because I had people who needed me. People who believed me. My partner, my team leader, and her partner. The four of us have been supporting each other for years... and if they've taught me one thing... it's that no matter what you've done... if you're willing to atone, you deserve love."

While she wasn't going to kiss him again, she did pull him close, wrapping her arms around her waist in a tight embrace. She may have just met this Adam, but if he was anything like her, she knew just what he was doing to atone. How much effort he was putting in. Effort that should be recognized.

Unfortunately, their moment of closeness would not last as their confrontation had awakened the wyvern and it would have gotten a surprise attack had Lisanna not been following Blake out of worry .

She jumped into the fray and deflected one of it's talons with her cat claws. The force of its blow pushed her backwards and she landed on her feet, clearly having felt the blow quite severely.

"You're lucky I decided to follow you." She muttered.

"Always conflict. No matter the era." Adam said as he vanished and reappeared above the Wyvern. "Jaken Shiki Ryu: Rose Wind!" He said as blood red roses fluttered around him and he cleaved downward, slamming his blade into the beast's neck and sending it careening to the ground with a single blow.

"Do not interrupt a friendly conversation."

"Yep." Lisanna said. "He's the one who can match Erza all right."

Adam landed on the ground and sheathed his blade in one fluid motion before running his hand through his hair and slicking it back, causing it to take on a style reminiscent of the other him with the exception that he had a bang hanging down over his forehead.

"Where there is one, there is more. Be on your guard."

"Dammit," Blake cursed, Gambol Shroud's blake and sharpened sheathe already drawn in her slender hands. How had she missed that? She had made a promise to Ruby and the others to hone her instincts until her cat Faunus senses were practically a radar system. Had she really been that emotional with Adam to not notice an obvious threat? She couldn't even act for herself in time before Adam swept in with the grace of a fuckin dancer and beat the beast into the ground like some parent punishing a rowdy child.

It didn't exactly help that when he slicked his hair back like that her heart panged with a confused mix of attraction, hatred, disgust, and pity. Were her feelings toward her own Adam really that complex?

Blake shook the thought away. Without magic, she would have to fend for herself, in a way. She couldn't rely on her Aura to blunt blows or strengthen her cut. All she had were two finely crafted weapons and the training to use them.

Pity that she didn't know the sad fact that her blades would be useless against the draconic beast's tough magic-resistant scales.

"This is honestly such a pain." Adam muttered as he rest his blade on his shoulder, noticing that the other Wyvern had been notified and were coming their way. "I'm enjoying a reunion and all of a sudden fate doesn't want me to enjoy it. But that's how it's always been."

He stepped forward and all of a sudden a powerful wind kicked up.

"The winds of fate are constantly changing. But that's why I've learned to go with the flow."

"So it was true." Lisanna muttered. "The tales about the one-armed swordsman who rode the winds. In short, a wind mage who uses wind not to attack, but to increase his mobility."

Adam was hovering above the ground now, the wind acting as a platform for him as he adjusted his stance and prepared for battle.

"You're new to this place, are you not?" He asked the other Blake. "Then watch closely as I show you how to cut without cutting."

If Blake's feelings had not been so confused, perhaps she would have been more stunned by the way he so easily rode the wind. That style and grace was so unlike her old Adam, that perhaps it would have knocked some sense into her. But her mind was far too clouded with the emotions banging at the door to her heart.

What she felt for her Adam, what she felt for this Adam... where was the line? It made no true sense for her to feel any kinship with this man she had just met, much less should she have had the desire to kiss him, just because he looked like her ex.

But even then, what was the point of thinking about all that? She was a sitting duck in this damn forest. If Adam and Lisanna weren't there, she would have been mauled by the Wyvern without a moment's thought.

It was Adam's last command that finally broke her from her own self imposed trance. A spark of realization finally danced her eye as she shifted her gaze toward the man hovering like a leaf in the wind. To cut without cutting... All Adam cared about was cutting. This Adam... He's nothing like mine.

Maybe that's why she had kissed him. She knew he was not her Adam, but the traits he had displayed were everything she had wished her own Adam would have displayed.

Regardless of her feelings, though, he was trying to help her. Perhaps in more ways than her Adam had ever dared. It would be wise to watch and listen.

"Why do you fight?" He asked aloud. "Do you fight to win? To cut your opponents? To prove a point? To survive? Or do you fight to protect? To stand up for what you believe in?"

He pointed his blade outwards.

"These principles are what influences the weight of your blade, the weight of your swing. Your convictions. Shallow convictions will never be able to cut anything, regardless of the wound they leave."

He swung his katana downwards and slammed a Wyvern to the ground.

"With strong enough convictions, even a blunt blade . . . can cut."

A whirlwind swirled around his blade.

"Change your conviction into emotion and your emotion into magic. If your beliefs are strong enough, no shackles can contain you. Or perhaps . . . it's your beliefs that make up the shackles."

He glared at her then, but not with hatred. No, with an emotion that the other Adam could not have ever made.

Compassion.

"Unleash yourself, Blake. And stop holding back."

What was the reason that she fought? Everything around her seemed to wink out of existence, as if nothing mattered but Blake and Adam, as if nothing mattered but the words her spoke that echoed through her mind as if they were her own thoughts.

What was the reason that she fought? Was it to escape or to atone? That had been how it started, yes. When she had first broken it off with Adam and the White Fang, all she had wanted to do was make up for the suffering and discord she had spread.

But had she really done that while studying at Beacon? Did she ever try to change what had happened? No. She stood there and hid while other Faunus were bullied and hurt out in the open. She sat there and did nothing while Weiss grew more and more like certain members of her family without ever daring to step in and tell her all she knew. Sure, Weiss ended up standing by Blake in the end, but it wasn't through any risks taken on Blake's part.

She was weak. A fool who let her own worries bind her. The bow she once wore wrapped up not just her cat ears, but the fighting spirit that laid dormant within. The same spirit that had led her to joining the White Fang and pursuing justice. That same spirit that had driven her to put her ill-gotten skills to use for the side of good.

But even in the War, she still hid behind her mask. She did not wear the old red and white painted Grimm mask anymore, but its effects were still there. She still stayed quiet, she still buried all of her emotions.
As close as she was to Ruby and Yang and Weiss, as much as she would call them her family... She had never deigned to open up to them. Never told them about her past. Never told them about the nightmares she still has every so often about the lives she took.

She saw herself standing with Adam, their masks hiding their emotions as they slaughtered humans one by one... The hate emanating through the eye slits in Adam's mask still haunted her to this day.

"Unleash yourself, Blake. And stop holding back."

His words echoed through her mind with a cacophonous roar, blocking out every other thought. The image of her and Adam shattered, replaced by the gleam of pure, unbridled compassion channeled through Adam's deep red eyes.

Eyes like pools of blood, but not in the same ways as her Adam's. Her Adam had eyes like the crimson spray following the slash of a sword. This Adam's eyes looked like pools of living blood pumped through the body. Her Adam's eyes looked like Death. This Adam's eyes looked like Life.

The wyvern he had struck down rose on its haunches. The man above it was too clever, attacking him would be foolish. But the girl. She was a ripe target.

As if it was all playing out in slow motion, Blake felt more than saw the beast rise and charge at her.

What could she do? She was powerless here. her only hope was to rely on Adam or-

She had always relied on him. He taught her, he guided her, he had been the one she blamed for all the terrors they had committed. She had never taken the responsibility. Never fully.

The piece of herself that had been with him, her bloodstained past...

She had never properly accepted it.

Her past... Yes, she had hurt so many people. And yes, she wanted to atone for it. But she had never once believed she was allowed to have her own happiness. She spurned potential friends, pushed everyone away from her. And she hid what she had once held such pride in.

What was the point in that? Even after so much had changed, was she still willing to be that foolish little girl? What use was finally facing Adam if she was just going to go right back to hiding like some kind of scaredy-cat?

No. Never again.

She could see it now. The reason that she fought.

Ruby's cheeky little grin.

Yang's wide and infectious smile.

Weiss' sly little smirk.

And Adam's gaze full of compassion and hope.

That was what she fought for.

"I want to see your smiling faces again..."

In that moment, Blake's eyes burned with violet fire, a well of energy she had no idea she possessed rose up within her, coating her body in shiny purple gleam. This aura exuded such a force that her hair billowed in the winds and the ground started to crack beneath her feet.

She tossed aside Gambol Shroud. It would not be needed.

She met the wyvern's charge head on, thrusting her open palm forward at the moment before it would impact. But there would never be an impact, as the moment she thrust out, the beast was met with a whirling wall of intense winds that stopped it in its tracks.

Cocking her other fist back, she shot upward with a potent uppercut- But the beast was still several feet away. How was a close ranged attack supposed to.

The force behind her attack created a buffeting gust of wind that smacked the wyvern in the chin with enough blunt force to cut its scaly lip and send it flying high into the sky.

Adam couldn't help but smile. "You met my expectations perfectly. But did you really have to be so dramatic about it?"

Lisanna chuckled slightly. "A flair for overdramatics is kind of par for the course when it comes to being a Fairy Tail mage. She might be new, but she already fits in perfectly."

Though to be honest, Lisanna was feeling quite bad. She had been assigned to be Blake's mentor and in the end it wasn't even her who helped Blake awaken her magic. Sure, she had pointed Blake in this direction but she couldn't help but feel out of place here. Blake clearly had the potential to be stronger than her and Adam was already leagues beyond her.

Why did Cinder assign her to this role? Couldn't he have found someone better?

Lisanna was so busy mulling over her own insecurities that she failed to notice the smaller Wyvern sneaking up behind her. At least until she felt its talon piece through her, the metallic object sticking through her chest.

"Eh?" She muttered in disbelief as she looked down, a trickle of blood spilling from her mouth before the beast removed its weapon and Lisanna fell forward into a slowly growing puddle of blood.

He had just barely missed her heart, but that didn't make it any better. She was in critical condition.

She felt tears well up in her eyes as the strength left her body. Her emotions a mixture of fear and anger.

Why? She thought to herself. Why am I so damn useless? Why . . . can't I be more like Natsu? I've always been a burden. I can't . . . do anything right. Maybe it's better if I die here. Maybe this was what I deserved.

And that's when she heard his voice. It was Natsu.

'Are you going to just lay there and take it?'

It was a memory of a time when she had gotten hurt while playing outside. He had encouraged her to get up and keep going. He had filled her with the resolve to not give up.

'I'm counting on you, Lisanna. You've got my back, don't you?'

Her fingers twitched as she began to push herself upwards in spite of the pain. He was right. She had to be there for him. And for three years, she had broken that promise.

With a painful scream, she forced herself to her feet and turned around to glare at the Wyvern.

"I am a Fairy Tail Wizard." She spat out. "I won't lose to you."

She felt his courage. It was almost contagious. Natsu would never let something like this bring him down. No matter how badly he was hurt. No matter how scared he might have been.

Just then, her right fist became coated in a brilliant blue flame.

She had learned this magic because she wanted to be close to him. Because she wanted to support him.

She dashed forward and slammed her fist into the Wyvern, sending it flying backward into a few dozen trees.

"Showed you." She said before stumbling and using a tree to support herself.

"I refuse . . . to be second fiddle ever again."

Only when the light faded from her eyes did Blake realize just how much of a toll fighting like that had taken on her body. Letting out a large breath, she staggered a little toward Gambol Shroud and sheathed the weapon, merely sticking it at the ground as a means to maintain her balance for a moment.

As much as she had treated her weapon in the past s an extension of herself, she realized it wasn't that at all. Gambol Shroud was not her weapon. It was a weapon made for her, yes, but Adam had designed it and tasked her with learning to use it.

If she truly wanted to be free of her past, she needed to not just accept it. She needed to accept it and move forward. Wonder if there was a magical blacksmith who could help her turn this weapon into something more suitable to her?

Nevertheless, she found herself cracking a genuine smile at the grin Adam gave her and the chuckle from Lisanna. Seems she was going to fit in quite well.

A shame that she did not catch the Wyvern either, before it was too late. A talon straight through the chest of her friend- Such a sight didn't even seem real at first. Her senses screamed at her to move, but her body failed to respond.

No... Dammit. Move... Move! She couldn't... she couldn't let her new friend get hurt this easily! What good was her power if she couldn't protect others?

But it would seem that she shouldn't be so negative. In her moment of need, Lisanna struck on her own and fought back despite her injuries. Injuries that would have knocked a Remnantian out of the fight for a good long while.

Endless determination truly was the power of a Fairy Tail Wizard.

And that's why Blake wasn't going to just stand there either.

"Lisanna!" Her voice was a mix of awe and worry as Blake finally managed to move, stumbling toward the tree to offer her own hand. Her senses may have dulled without aura, but she had spent a fair amount of time working as field medics. She would be able to find out how much time they had left.

Blake dared to brush her pale fingers along the woman's shoulder, forcing what remained for her catlike senses to listen for her heartbeat, to follow the path of her blood. "We need... to get you some medical care."

"Adam." Uncharacteristic worry plagued Blake's visage. She broke away from his gaze to rip a length of cloth from her own shirt to aid in temporarily bandaging up the wound, applying pressure. "The wyvern nicked her heart. If we don't get her to a hospital quick..."

Adam made his way over to the injured girl and gently pushed Blake aside. "We don't have anything called hospitals here. We have medics, sure. But at the rate she's bleeding out, she'll die before we get her to one of them."

He held out an outstretched palm, the hand hovering just over Lisanna's injury. He had learned this ability from watching that young Sky Dragon Slayer fight. An ability that he didn't think he'd need to use this soon.

Gentle wisps of wind rushed around them as a green glow enveloped his hand and slowly but surely began to heal Lisanna's injury.

"Magic . . . can be used for more than just hurting things." He said softly. "It can also be used to protect. To heal. To give life, rather than steal it away."

Soon enough, the injury had been completely healed and Lisanna had fallen into Blake's embrace, sleeping peacefully.

Adam stood back and sighed with relief. "Unfortunately, I don't have much skill with that sort of magic. So it takes a lot out of me. We'd best get out of Wyvern territory before any more of them show up."

Fighting as long as she had on the battlefield, Blake almost didn't want to let go of Lisanna. She had lost one too many allies in the heat of battle because some sort of aid was not given immediately. It was only his caring gaze that prevented her from grasping the woman even tighter. Besides, he likely knew some better healing method than she did.

Blake couldn't use her aura to stabilize her like she could in Remnant. She wasn't doing anything for Lisanna just sitting there.

Though it did come as a surprise to her that Adam possessed some sort of healing ability- As odd as it sounded, she hadn't exactly realized that magic could be used to heal. It made perfect sense now that she thought about it, but she hadn't considered it when she had normally seen people blasting each other in the face or punching each other in the stomach.

Blake held her friend close, thankful that she would be okay. It felt like the weight of years of fighting had been lifted off of her. Maybe it was wrong to equate the near death of a new friend to the time she spent in the War, but it was hard to fully divorce herself from those experiences.

"Yeah... we should go. Just do one thing for me, okay, Adam? Can you teach me that healing magic? I want to be prepared next time."

She would not let anyone fall.

"On one condition." Adam said as he sheathed his blade and placed it back on his waist. "That condition being that you promise me there won't be a next time. Rather than prepare for the worst, you should fight for the best. Instead of saying, 'I'll heal my comrades.' You should say 'I'll make sure my comrades don't get hurt.' It's not you might suffer causalities, it's that you won't suffer any."

He gave her a smile.

"I don't know about the land you come from. But this place is much more of a glass half full world."

"Rather than prepare for the worst, you should fight for the best..." She muttered his words back to him, an odd indescribable look in her amber eyes. It was such an odd way to think. She had been raised under the fear that humans had for her people, under the hatred and destruction they wrought.

And then there were the Grimm. People without training feared for their lives every day. And even on the battlefield, those trained to fight and survive... the blade of a Huntsman struck not with a desire to protect, but with the fear that they would die. Perhaps it was not always common. Perhaps it was something anyone realized. But Blake was no stranger to fear and swallowing it.

Perhaps it started as a means to draw them out. Channel fear, use it to call the Grimm toward you instead of those who couldn't defend themselves. But that's just what they said to convince themselves.

"My land... We are a people controlled by fear. We let our borders be defined by the paths that Grimm take... It's... a life built on survival. Happy moments are rare and far between. A glass half full is a bit... difficult for me to accept."

Her lips curled into a small smile, one powered by a fledgling hope that made a purple flames almost dance in her eye. "But I want to accept it. I want to feel that hope again. Seeing everyone smile... it's what drove me to awaken that power. I don't think it will be possible for me to ever consider the glass half empty again."