FIVE

Each step left a deep footprint, the boots sinking into the soft snow. Her hood and her scarf helped ward off the worst of the cold, but the chill was ever-present. Snowflakes floated down like spiraling stars, flecking off the back of her hood and cloak. Ahead, the shattered moon hung high in the sky, illuminating her path.

The small warehouse was well within sight, an innocuous looking building of grays and whites, covered in snow. Her eyes drooped with weariness and her stomach growled with hunger. All the same, she kept herself upright. She strode calmly towards the warehouse, her cloak swaying in the winter breeze, the edges tattered and frayed.

In a world covered with white, her dark form stood out like a beacon.

Stealth was not the objective here.

With the soft sounds of shifting snow, they came out from all around her sides, almost popping into existence as they erupted out from beneath the surface around her. Perhaps twenty in all, they wore white vests over hooded, black bodysuits, gray, metallic masks covering everything from the nose up. They pointed guns, swords, axes, and more her way, their weapons trembling in their hands as they shivered.

How long had they lain beneath the snow to set the trap?

"R-really stupid of you," said the one in the center, a pair of horns sticking out of his head, an impressive looking rifle in his hands, "to be wearing b-b-black in the middle of w-w-winter like this. Saw y-y-you from miles out. P-p-put your h-hands up."

She complied, raising her hands out from under her cloak, revealing a pair of glossy black gloves, going well past her elbow.

"T-take him inside to s-s-see the – the boss," said the man from before, jerking his head. Behind her, someone prodded her forcefully with a shotgun and she was sent stumbling forward, but managed to adjust her step and recover in time.

She shuffled along in silence, the thug behind her prodding her every so often. Beside her, the others watched her warily, the warehouse looming into view as they approached. A gray rolling door barred their path and the Faunus in the front took out a radio, barking something into it. After a moment, the door began rolling up, letting light from within stream out to reveal the inside of the warehouse.

Even from here, she could see rows and rows of shelves, boxes of all shapes and sizes stacked on them. Her boots clicked against the grimy surface of the floor as they entered the warehouse, other thugs running back and forth and several glanced their way as they passed. It was thankfully much warmer inside here, the mechanism of the door whining as it closed behind them. Overhead lights occasionally flickered as they walked through.

The shelves were arranged mostly along the sides of the interior of the warehouse, leaving a sizeable clearing of empty space in the middle. In another corner, a pair of thugs were arguing over something, disassembling and reassembling a rifle of some kind. Draped over the walls at regular intervals were black banners, emblazoned with the image of a red Beowulf, intersected by three slashes. With all the activity going on inside here, there must have been at least a hundred people in total within this warehouse.

The group came to a halt near the center and the lead thug in the front pushed her back when she went a step too far.

"W-wait here," he snapped, standing to attention, the others doing the same. Around them, the other thugs stopped what they were doing and stood in place, looking up at something. She heard steps from overhead and looked up to see someone walking on the catwalk above, coming into view a moment later.

His white jacket had a high collar, over a black shirt. He wore what looked like black running pants, a pair of metallic bracers covering muscular arms. A tattoo wound its way around his left arm but his most distinctive feature was the mask he wore: a bone-white Grimm mask with a pair of red eyes, two streaks of crimson tracing down from beneath it like tears of blood.

Her eyes were drawn most of all to the weapon he dragged behind him, an enormous gray, chainsaw that he held onto by its pistol grip.

A few of the thugs around her kept their weapons trained on her, but most of them stood at attention, looking at the man above.

"What do we have here?" he rumbled, chuckling. "We appear to have caught a stray."

"W-we saw him from a good distance out, s-s-sir," said the thug in the front. "Was walking towards here f-f-for a while."

The masked man shifted the chainsaw from one hand to the other, looking down at her curiously. "Is that right? Why don't we see what's under that cloak of yours, stranger."

A pair of thugs on each side of her approached her, roughly taking her cloak and ripping it up and off of her head, revealing her form underneath.

The man on the catwalk took one look at her and laughed. "Not a 'he,' at all. Seems we just have a little girl to deal with."

Around her, the other thugs heckled her along with the man above. One of them tugged at the white band wrapped around her neck, just above her black, sleeveless top. She kept her arms raised but looked down slightly to examine herself. Her weapon was still firmly in place at her side, caught snug in the magnetic holster around the black stockings she wore, fading to purple as they reached her black boots. A patterned black-and-violet cloth hung about her waist, draping down behind her to reach past her knees, a golden cord wrapped around it.

Still laughing mockingly, the masked thug above said, "So, what's a cute human girl like you want with the White Fang?"

She looked back up to lock eyes with the man on the catwalk. "There's someone I'm looking for," she said tonelessly, ignoring the weapons still aimed at her. "Someone you've worked with before. You will tell me where he is."

The man in the Grimm mask chuckled again, "And whoever this 'he' is… what will you do if I refuse, miss?" he said, amusement shot through his voice.

"I'll take out everyone here, destroy everything in this building, and burn this place to the ground," she said, her voice perfectly level.

The masked man said nothing for a moment before he threw back his head and roared with laughter. Around her, the other thugs were laughing alongside him. The man shook his head, wiping away an invisible tear on his mask.

"It's been a long time since a human's made me laugh like that. For that… I think I'm going to give you something of a chance." He gestured towards the ground. "Why don't you guys take this as an opportunity to practice some of things I've taught you? We don't get live targets to play with all that often. Take your time with her."

The White Fang thugs around her leered, withdrawing weapons and slowly circling around her. More thugs around the warehouse drew closer, apparently wanting their own opportunity to get in the action. The masked man watched the events unfold, a glint of amusement in his eyes behind the mask.

"Sure you just don't want to run away and go home, little girl?" he said, teasingly.

She put a hand to the sword at her side. "I'm tired of running,"

He looked down at her almost curiously. "You know, you look a little familiar…"

One of the thugs in front of her to her stopped moving, his hands trembling. "Uh, boss…"

"Yes?" he said, still peering at her.

"That – that sword!" he stammered, backing up away slightly. "It's – it's—"

In a single, fluid movement, she unsheathed the curved sword with the scraping of steel on steel, slashing at the air in front of her and at the thug that just spoke. She was suddenly surrounded by the sound of a wailing wind, images flashing before her eyes as her destination grew within her sight almost instantaneously. Just before that, she saw the thug in her mind's eye and she hit him once across the chest with the flat of the blade just as she passed, amethyst light trailing behind the blade.

In an almost kaleidoscopic blur, she saw hundreds of others strike in unison with her, existing only for the fraction of the instant it took her to travel from her point of departure to her destination.

She landed some distance away from him, standing next to a pair of shelves, black hair swaying and the cloth around her waist fluttering. Spinning the blade once, she turned around to see the thug land face-first, his Aura gone in an instant, hundreds of welts and bruises now littered across his body.

A stunned silence greeted her.

"It's the Black Shroud!" another thug shouted and just like that, the mass of White Fang members, at least a hundred strong minus one, went into a frenzy. They struggled to get their bearings on her, several firing erratically at her as even more tried running away. In their panic, they had forgotten that they were all around her and shooting at her meant they were also shooting at each other. Several White Fang thugs yelped in pain, caught by the bullets of their own allies, and a few elected to switch to knives and axes instead.

"Kill her, kill her!" shouted the masked White Fang thug above, hefting his chainsaw in two hands as he ran back along the catwalk and out of view. "Spread out!"

She calmly parried a bout of gunfire before she looked in the direction of the exit, which was slowly re-opening, a group of fifteen or more thugs running for it. She cut at the air again, towards the amassed group. The world disappeared once more into a roaring gale, as though she was caught in the middle of a tornado. Violet light blazed with each strike of her sword and sheath, each target visible for only an instant as she struck each one once, the whole group caught within the grip of her power.

Forty individual strikes in total, between sword and sheath.

Thousands more followed at the same time.

Twenty bodies fell, unconscious, bruised, and some a little bloodied.

The White Fang thugs in the warehouse were screaming in panic and fear now and she idly teleported away from a Dust round that tore open a hole in the floor before instantly taking down another fifteen or so. Her sword had jerked as she had approached that group, almost bringing the edge rather than the flat of the blade in line with them.

She looked down at her sword curiously for a moment before looking back up.

She only stood at one spot for a fraction of an instant before she would disappear again with a swing of her sword, cutting down all in her path with hundreds to thousands of simultaneous strikes. With the sheer number of times she was attacking, a person's Aura would last for only the barest sliver of a second before disappearing.

When she was in the middle of battle like this, the only thing her enemies would see was the flash just before they were struck down. Within moments, she could clear entire rooms, filling the atmosphere with black blurs mixed with violet light, a result of her successive teleportation, too fast to catch before she was gone again. To anyone witnessing her fight, it would appear as though flashes of black smoke would pop into existence, leaving only bodies in their wake.

So they called her the 'Black Shroud.'

One group was trying to procure several rocket launchers off the shelves by the looks of it. She didn't give them a moment to prepare before she was in their midst, all ten falling unconscious and limp behind her. She had been ready to go to sleep before, but being caught in the middle of battle like this was rousing her once more.

All the same, this wasn't even a challenge. Another slash—followed by thousands more—and another twenty or so fell. The remaining thugs she could see were loosely collected near the center of the warehouse, spread out into groups of five or ten, to keep her from taking them all out at once.

It was time to finish this.

She cut at the ground, looking at a spot more than thirty feet away. Hundreds of blows struck against the floor, carving a long, ragged gouge and sending up a plume of dust, obscuring her from view just as a bullets slammed into where she was before.

Tracers blurred past her as a line of gunfire weaved through the smoke, gouging out holes in the concrete as it tracked towards her. She snapped on the black ribbon to the bottom of the sword's handle, and with a flick of her hand, the blade folded in on itself, resting atop the pistol that formed the sword's handle. She slashed out with the rectangular sheath in her other hand, plunging through the smoke and landing in the middle of several White Fang members at once, a trail of bodies in her wake.

Gunfire blazed above her head as she ducked, thrusting the transformed sword into the ground. Ensuring that the ribbon was secure, she teleported forward again using her sheath in one hand, holding onto the ribbon firmly with her other, a quartet of White Fang thugs collapsing behind her as she reached her destination. She quickly tested the ribbon again—it was taut.

The snare was set.

They didn't have any time to react before she began to teleport rapidly with each cut of her sheath, not striking directly at them, but at the air beside them. The ribbon followed her the entire time as she moved quickly in the profile of a misshapen circle, the ribbon wrapping around them, pulling them towards the center as they tripped and fell. Dragging back on the ribbon returned the folded sword to her side, and she quickly snapped out with it to extend it back to its full length. The thugs were still stunned, now in a neat pile where the sword had been before.

In a black-and-amethyst blur of howling wind, she finished them off, leaving only crumpling bodies to slump to the ground behind her.

She spun the sword at her side a couple of times before returning it to its sheath and holstered it once more at her hip, before looking back to examine her work. Bodies were littered throughout the warehouse, more than a few with broken bones, several shelves had been knocked down during the excitement, and the floor and walls were peppered with bullet holes and gouges from her sword strikes.

It had been all of twenty seconds and nearly one hundred people were downed. She must have been really sleepy for it to have taken so long this time.

After a second, there was a low rumbling noise, the ground lightly quaking. She stumbled a little, catching her balance as something walked out of another large open door at the corner of the warehouse.

It was large and bulky, at least three times her height. Powerful mechanical legs moved up and down as it advanced, the entire thing covered in white and black armor. Its arms hung at its sides, raised above its almost insectile 'head' that hung at the center.

An Atlesian Paladin.

The floor shook with each step as it came at her, guns and other weapons popping out from its arms and other compartments.

"How do you like this?" roared a voice from inside the machine. "Latest model, courtesy of Atlas! Don't think you can try the same tricks you used to take out my men!"

She simply drew her sword once again, making sure the Dust vial was set, and slashed at the air in front of her. The world blurred as her destination approached and she struck against the Paladin, but it wasn't really the sword strike she was interested in, even as thousands of others attacked with her. She landed at her intended target with a crouch, the sound of the roaring wind dying away, and she immediately heard the resounding booms of the amassed detonations behind her. Metal screeched and screamed and she turned around to see the Paladin collapsing some distance away, a line of fire between where she had started and where she was now. It dissipated as the Paladin crumpled into a heap of scrap.

"What?" screamed the voice inside, someone kicking aside the ruined covering of the cockpit, and revealing the masked thug from earlier. He staggered to his feet, jumping off just before the cockpit exploded, sending him tumbling gracelessly to the ground.

"How did you—"

Another slash of the sword and he was unconscious at her feet, his body peppered with hundreds of welts and swellings. She ripped off the mask, revealing a tanned and scarred face. Sheathing her sword, she grabbed him by the collar and dragged his unconscious body out towards the wall, propping him up against it. She kicked him between the legs and he awoke with a shout of pain, just before she drew the sword and held the edge against his throat.

He abruptly stopped making sounds at that point, his cries trailing away into a strangled gasp.

Looking down at him, she could see traces of fear in his eyes, someone caught completely out of his depth.

"As I told you before," she said in a level voice, "I'm going to put down your men, destroy everything inside, and burn this place to the ground. I've already done the first. I'll do the last two once I'm done with you. I just want a few questions answered before then."

"Heh," the White Fang thug said, sneering, the slight tremble in his voice betraying him, "you'd be an idiot to think I'd ever sell out."

"Everyone has their price," she said, pushing the sword up harder against his throat.

"W-what is it you even want to know?" he said, pressing himself against the wall, as if trying to pass right through it.

"Didn't you say you found me familiar?" she said. "Look at my face. Look carefully at my eyes."

He did just that, examining her before his eyes widened. "You! You were the one on—"

"Yes," she interrupted. "You know who I'm looking for. The same one that led your forces at Beacon."

"Look," he said, licking his lips. "Even if I did know, do you even know what they do to traitors in this organization?"

"I have an idea of it. I also don't care. I'm the problem you'd have to deal with first."

Something about that got through to him and his whole body tensed. Then he relaxed, a grin breaking across his face. "No, no, I think you're just bluffing. You wouldn't do something like that."

Her eyes narrowed. "I don't think you understand what's going on here."

"No," he said, laughing, "I understand perfectly. I've heard about you, 'Black Shroud.' You go around, hitting up any and all White Fang haunts you can find. You drift from place to place, doing nothing but chasing after us. They say you go without food and sleep for days sometimes, just trying to track us down."

"And for all that," he said, sneering, "you've never killed once. You could more than easily do it with whatever it is you do, but you don't. You could have killed everyone inside here, left us as nothing but chopped pieces, but you didn't."

He chuckled. "I mean, yeah, you put on this super badass act, but you don't actually follow up on it at all. I've heard the reports. You go out of your way to avoid hurting people for good. You didn't cross the line then, you didn't cross the line now, and you won't cross it here. So, I don't think I have anything to worry about from you."

She contemplated the blade at his throat, took in the curve of its edge. Her eyes were drooping with tiredness again and she wanted to do nothing more than curl up and take a nap. She shook her eyes awake and glanced at the sword again, a dull sheen along its length from the light. Her fingers twitched as she slightly raised a hand towards the man, before she lowered it again.

Then she slammed the man's hand down to the ground, pulling him along with it, leaving him on his stomach. He gave a yelp but she sat on top of him, holding his hand out, the sword in her other hand. He tried lifting himself with his hands, but he was still too injured from her attack before.

"What – what are you doing?" he shouted in panic.

She didn't answer him, bringing the sword to his hand, letting it rest near the knuckles.

"Wait, wait!" he pleaded from under her. "I didn't mean it, I didn't—"

The sword twitched in her hand, oddly stiff, resisting her movement for some reason. She waited for a moment, curious as to why her hand wasn't obeying her. She pressed harder and the blade pierced his skin, drawing blood. He gave off a ragged moan as she slowly dragged the edge back and forth as if carving a steak and she watched the blood spill.

She withdrew the blade slightly, before shifting it forwards up his hand. The blade trembled in her grasp again and she gripped the handle tightly until it went away. He was screaming something else as the steel approached his fingers and she found the sword twitching once again, an invisible barrier impeding her progress. After a moment, she pushed, and the thug screamed as blood flowed, the sword starting to sink into the flesh and about to enter the bone before—

A shot slammed into the wall right beside her head, sending up a small puff of concrete dust. In an instant, she drew the sword back to her side, rising to her feet and whirling around to cut down the threat that had tried to—

Her breath caught, body stiff. She stared for a moment, staying utterly still. Her fingers went slack and the sword fell from her hands, clattering against the floor. The masked thug was moaning. She didn't glance at him—she only had eyes for the figure before her.

"You missed a spot," the woman said, kicking at a thug who was on the ground, a gun a few feet away from his hands. She looked back up at her, a wide grin on her pale face as she began to approach.

"You know," the woman said in a scolding tone, "you can be a very hard person to find at times. I was about ready to start asking fortune tellers just to get a clue. Lucky I managed to track you down here abouts."

Her hips rolled with a womanly gait as she approached, her voluminous blonde hair swaying with each step, shining lightly with an unnatural radiance. She wore a black long coat, reaching past her knees, parted in the middle to reveal a white top, secured with a black-and-gold belt, and thigh-high black stockings. She held her left hand at her hip, her right sleeve limp and hanging, as though it were empty. The woman kept grinning the whole time as she came closer, as if she had just heard a really funny joke.

It didn't reach her eyes, bright lilac tinged with hints of red.

She could only observe the woman approaching, making no move to retrieve the sword on the ground. She tried to say something, but her voice caught in her throat. Coughing, she finally opened her mouth.

"Y—"

She stumbled backward, her right cheek on fire. She crashed against the wall, holding a hand to her throbbing cheek, as she stared dumbly up at the blonde, whose fist was outstretched. She had felt the force of that blow all the way through her Aura.

"That," the woman said quietly, "was for running away again and leaving everyone behind."

Her eyes blazed red. "And this…"

She could have easily stepped away. She didn't. As the blonde retracted her fist, she only closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable punch. Instead, she felt a sudden pressure around her shoulders and she opened her eyes to find herself in a crushing one-armed hug.

"And this is for still being alright," the blonde whispered.

Her hands lung limply at her sides, as she tried and failed to speak. After a second, something wet splashed down her face and onto the woman's back. She blinked, her eyes blurring. Before long, as liquid dripped and dripped, tears were streaming down her cheeks. A lump rose in her throat as she tried to speak but only a ragged sob escaped her.

She collapsed to her knees, the woman following down with her as she blubbered and bawled. There wasn't anything dignified about it—it was raw and unrestrained, making a mess of her face and the woman's shoulder.

"It's okay, it's okay," the woman said soothingly, rubbing circles with her hand on her back, as she tucked her head against hers.

After some time, her sobbing trailed off into sniffles and hiccuping coughs. She pulled back from the woman, who was teary-eyed herself, brilliant lilac eyes looking right at her, her own amber eyes reflected back.

"You've… been gone for a while. It wasn't easy for me," the blonde said quietly. "And it looks like it hasn't been easy for you either."

She laughed with a hiccup in response, wiping away tears with a hand. "How – how did you find me?"

The blonde woman poked her nose and she scowled slightly in response. "With lots and lots of hard work. You weren't exactly being subtle when you were off chasing the White Fang everywhere, Miss 'Black Shroud.'"

For the first time in months, she felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment. "It's not my fault that they don't listen when I tell them what to do."

The blonde smirked. "Sounds like an argument you've had with yourself before."

In spite of the circumstances, she found herself smiling, the old dynamic already beginning to resurface. "What about R—"

"Shh," the woman said, putting a finger to her lips. The blonde rose, holding a hand out to her. After a moment's reluctance, she took it, and was pulled back to her feet. The blonde jerked a head over to the downed White Fang thug she had been about to… interrogate.

"We've still got company," the woman said. "And I have a pretty good idea of who you've been looking for this whole time."

A flash of red sparked through the blonde's eyes. "And I'd like to have a word or two with him myself. I'm coming with you." She glared at her. "And that's not negotiable."

She looked searchingly at the blonde for a moment, who stood resolutely, as if daring her to defy her. Finally, she nodded hesitantly and the blonde relaxed.

She stooped down and picked up the sword at her feet, returning to her sheath. The woman meanwhile was turning over the thug, propping him back up against the wall with her left arm, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of them with no small amount of trepidation.

"We'll exchange stories after, alright?" the blonde muttered, looking back at her. "For now…"

She stepped in line with the blonde, gazing at the thug, the same focus from before beginning to return.

"We've got a question," the blonde said quietly, her hair beginning to glow a bright gold, fire licking at the sides.

She stepped back in surprise when she saw that the woman's empty right sleeve expanded, as what looked like inky-black smoke poured out. The smoke coalesced into the shape of a clenched fist, trapped against some invisible barrier that formed the outline of an arm and a hand, with… claws.

The blonde turned back to face the thug, bringing her shadowy fist before his wide eyes, opening it to reveal a ball of orange-red flame, the heat sweltering even from where she stood. The blonde's eyes burned red as the fire flickered.

"Where is Adam Taurus?"

—

Blake's new uniform is drawn from her second alt costume from the Henceforward fan manga, without the mask and the white strips: kumafromtaiwan DOT tumblr DOT com SLASH image SLASH 123989191881

As for Yang, beneath her long coat, she's wearing her black-and-white Hunter uniform, but with a more muted white and no purple sash.