A/N: Yes, you're reading this correctly. No, you're not crazy. Yes, you have a right to react in the manner you see fit. I have more words at the A/N at the bottom of this chapter. It'll be a lot.

The forest was winding and thick, rising tall and spread wide, covering the sky in a sea of green. The sun found little room to peak through, leaving specks of light to filter periodically in the perpetually dark space.

Branches and roots twisted together in their respective spaces, creating a complicated maze that made traversal difficult for the average traveler. Legends even spoke of a haunting that covered the length of the forest, resulting in its twisted appearance. Anyone who had dared travel was never seen again, their bodies lost to the fold of trees and overgrown grass.

Ruby Rose, however, was not an ordinary traveler. She leaped from one branch to another, using her momentum to swing from the long arms whenever needed, and exercising careful balance to keep herself aloft the tangled graveyard of below.

She used her keen eyesight to scout ahead, planning the optimal route that would result in the least noise. Her eyes caught a constriction not far out, pierced by a beam of light that reflected off into the distance.

Ruby closed the gap quickly, keeping a hand close by the sword attached to her hip. It proved useful in cutting away rotting obstacles that had taken hold of the supposed "haunted" forest. While Ruby believed the townsfolk took the legends spoken of the forest too far, she was equally glad the rumors spread as far as they did.

She approached the rotted brown landmass: a tangled web too intricate to be made naturally. It was constructed carefully, suspended high enough for the mid-afternoon sun to flash directly onto it for any casual observer to see.

Coiled deep in its roots, a mangled body was stretched, also looking as if it was crucified. Roots were dug deep into flesh, bulging the skin if not outright poking through it. Dried blood decorated the deadwood in a horrifying picture, too perfect to be left to die.

Ruby grimaced, her hand tightening around the hilt of her weapon. She found what she needed. Her free hand reached into her loose jeans.

The leaves rustled. Ruby bristled. The logs were too thick for the wind to easily pass through this deep. Something was following her, stalking her, waiting for her, and she sprung the trap.

There was a loud tear as the effigy in front of her was burst apart. Ruby barely had time to look horrified before a glistening claw lunged at her. She ducked, listened as the trunk behind her was ripped open. She popped her sword open and sliced.

The creature howled and stepped back, blood flying. Ruby chased, following blade first. It came in with another claw, freshly reddened. It screamed against the flat side of her weapon. Ruby rode it, plunging the sword deep into the neck of the Beowolf. It roared, swinging around wildly. She went with the momentum, turning it into her sword, and pulled.

The slice was clean, severing the beast at the neck. There was an audible shiver, a loud squelch, and the Beowolf fell, disintegrating before it reached the ground.

Ruby cleaned her sword of the viscous liquid, but didn't sheath it. She held it tight, hovering in front of her body. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let her aura pulse.

She heard the wind, as little as it was, the sun's rays as it struck the leaves, and the townsfolk one hundred miles out. The energy around her froze the very ground she stood on, keeping her feet in place. Finally, Ruby breathed, and she was back, nothing around her but her thoughts.

She ignored the prick in the back of her head and pulled out her scroll, keeping her sword close as she dialed the familiar number.

"Scarlet to Base, come in," she said. "Scarlet to Base, come in."

A moment of silence, coiling around her.

"I read you, Scarlet. Give me the Sitrep," came the stonewall voice of her superior.

"I found the agent, Christian," Ruby said, looking up at the remains of the effigy that was designed to trap her. "He was strung up by roots – purposeful, but the looks of it. I was attacked by a Beowolf as soon as I approached. I'm sending you my analysis."

There was a hum of confirmation. "You might be getting close."

"Or I'm being led astray."

Another hum, small this time. "Knowing Cinder, that's always a possibility."

Ruby stepped forward, scanning over the remains of the trap. There were no fresh blood splatters from the corpse, only bits of bark and limbs scattered about. The body was more of a husk than a corpse, despite having been only MIA for a week.

A week was long enough though, given the intricately designed horror attraction the scout was left in. Cinder had gotten very good at creating these attractions to lead any would-be Huntsmen and Huntresses and eventually trap them in similar states of existence, or rather non-existence.

"She's gotten detailed in her effigies," Ruby murmured.

"We've been after her for almost a decade," Christian added. "With the amount of resources we've put into finding her, well… I wish I could say otherwise."

Her commander's voice faded into the ether, leaving Ruby to stare at the remnants for a moment longer.

It was absurd, the amount of time spent "chasing a ghost," as many of the higher-ups from the Vale Bureau of Intelligence put it. To the populace at large, Cinder Fall perished 10 years ago at the Fall of Beacon, the progenitor of months of violence that resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians, Huntsmen, and Huntresses alike.

The amount of resources spent keeping Cinder's supposed existence a secret equaled, if not rivaled that of this operation in the first place.

"They're not going to like this," Christian's voice echoed sadly through the scroll.

"No, they're not. We're getting close though, we have to be," Ruby said, voice becoming strained in confidence and frustration. "It's too much of a coincidence that the legends about a cursed forest near Hirano popped up only recently."

"I'm not disagreeing with you Ruby, but the higher-ups aren't going to see it that way. They don't know your stake in this."

Ruby's heart dipped at the reminder, and it took her willpower to not drop her sword and run a hand through her matted locks, their red-tipped luster fading over the years.

"I know Chris," she paused, exhaling quietly. "If they did, I'd probably be hauled off to jail. I'm supposed to be dead too." A humorless chuckle slipped through her teeth, freezing the gum line.

A stretch of silence followed, prompting Ruby to extend her aura again to ignore the tremor in her heart.

There was a shuffle on the other end of the call, and a nearly imperceptible sigh that Ruby had learned it was Christian's way of discarding built-up stress.

"I'll convince them to give us more time." Christian's voice remained smooth like freshly compacted cement. "They know as well as we do that she can't be allowed to roam free."

Ruby murmured a concentrated affirmative, not trusting her voice on the matter.

"We'll get her," he said with conviction. "I'll analyze the data you sent me. As far as right now is concerned, your mission is over for the day. I'll contact you when I learn something new."

Ruby let a small smile form. "Thank you, Christian."

"Anytime Ruby. Base out."

The call went dead, a small hum signifying the truth buzzing in Ruby's ears. She dropped the phone back in her pocket and looked around, surveying the damage. The corpse didn't even smell rotten. It was bland, dry, nothing more than a remnant.

It was undoubtedly Cinder's forté, burning away the bones from the inside, bubbling the blood until it popped, searing the muscles from the inside. The torturous pain, throat destroying screams, hours upon hours of being Cinder's plaything.

A heavy gasp escaped Ruby, rearing around to slam her in her chest. Her head began to throb, pulsing like a war drum, trailing down her body.

A distant pain began forming in the back of her right eye, crawling inward. Her hand went to her face, resting her palm over her clenched eye. She sucked in a deep breath, letting the wave of air cool her tenses nerves. After a moment, the pain retracted, like time had reversed, before vanishing entirely.

Ruby exhaled a shaky breath, gripping her sword tighter. She closed her eyes, losing herself in the forest, in her heartbeat, as it thumped along, off to wherever, she didn't know, but she followed it anyway.

Sending one last look at the remains of yet another agent, and a fleeting thought towards his family, she turned away, heading back towards Hirano.

"Ms. Eiha!"

Ruby paused in her stride. Not two steps into Hirano, she was ambushed by a well-dressed woman, a microphone clutched tight enough in her grip that Ruby expected it to snap in half any minute. Behind her, another woman held a camera aloft on her shoulder, the reflecting lens spinning and whirling, likely trying to get a close up on her face.

"Word has it you trekked into the Haunted Hirano Forest earlier today," the lady said, beginning the opening motions of moving the mic towards the interviewee in question. "Do you have any questions about the legends surrounding this forest?"

Ruby resisted the urge to push her hair behind her ear, keeping her stance solid, save for a slight smile that the camera holder was quick to catch. "I do not, but I do continue to urge the residents of Hirano to exercise caution in regards to any legend that appears. One can never be too careful about the validity, but we must be equally sure to not let our guard down."

The reporter's face lit up in a dazzling smile as she pulled the microphone back, spinning to face the camera.

"Excellent words from our Savior of Hirano here, Ms. Scarlet Eiha, who continues to watch over us like a mother would her children!"

Ruby's stomach swirled uncomfortably. She kept her lips pursed, unwilling to comment on the analogy.

There was a momentary pause before the reporter faced Ruby again, mic once again inches from her face.

"Do you also have anything to say in regards to the suspected appearance of Team RWBY sometime soon?"

Ruby's mouth opened to reply, when the question hit her like the full speed of an Atlas train. Her mouth fell the rest of the distance, no noise coming out. All the noise that would have been expelled was swirling in her head, creating a maelstrom of incoherent thoughts, coalescing into a single, painful lightning bolt to her heart.

"What?"

Deep in the woods, Blake Belladonna scouted from her view in the trees. An ugly frown permeated her face at the entanglement of branches that spread for miles, so far that even her enhanced vision was having trouble picking out a clear path.

A noise below her drew her irritation, a small exchange of words she realized was quickly beginning to escalate. In one swift movement, Blake was on the ground again, retracing her steps through the mangled woods, the voices rising faster than the distance she had left to cover.

Blake burst through the bushes, ignoring the uncomfortable mix of hot and cold that enveloped her body

"How is it that you've always managed to get us lost?" Weiss Schnee questioned in an accusatory tone that bit the trees around them in a layer of frost.

"I find it funny you're blaming me when you said you knew the area," Yang Xiao Long snarked, and the earth trembled slightly under her feet.

"If you actually used your brain for once in your life maybe you'd understand that I don't know everything," Weiss returned, keeping her tone consistent with her glare: low and heavy.

"That's obvious. How's that job at the VBI by the way? Did they throw you out yet for your incompetence?"

The temperature dropped. Weiss was seething, her eyes narrowed into thin slits that highlighted the silver shine behind her blue eyes. Yang was nonplussed by the sudden shift in Weiss' eyes, and stepped back, her lilac orbs suddenly heavy and foggy.

Blake opted to step in, literally, slamming her foot down on a thick branch that had deteriorated over the years. The sharp snap pulled the arguing duo, as well as their male companion who stood several feet away, rubbing his shoulder.

Blake straightened her posture, leveling her stare at the two women. "I still can't find anything too far out. Recca, you think you could take point for a bit?"

The male in the back perked up, straightening his trench coat. "Of course Blake," he said, sent a small smile to the three girls, and darted off, leaving behind a trailing whistle.

She turned to Weiss, careful to not notice the flickering silver as it faded away. "Weiss, did the VBI say why Hirano's forests were so thick?"

Weiss' shoulders fell from their taut state, and she sighed, running a hand through her shoulder-length hair. Yang appeared to deflate too, hair flattening and dimming enough that the area around them fell equally in light.

"There was only a passing rumor that the forest had recently become haunted," she said, waving her hand. "Even then, that started through the population, not from any government official."

"You think this could be Cinder's doing?" Yang jumped in, eyes focused solely on Blake. She crossed her arms tight around her waist, gripping a torn red cloth that was wrapped around her heavy backpack.

Blake held up a disarming hand. "We can't be certain. For now, we should focus on reaching Hirano and going over what we know," she said, trailing her hand over towards Weiss before slowly lowering it. "Until then, we keep our ears close to the ground and our eyes out for any trouble."

Yang couldn't help the snort that escaped. "Yeah, like we can see anything in this damned place." Weiss' head snapped towards the blonde, mouth curtailing to open, when Blake slammed her foot again.

"Yang, go catch up with Recca," the Faunus ordered. "He's quick, but if this forest is haunted, we'll need to work together."

Yang and Weiss dipped into silence, the awkward temperature mix evaporating to the natural heat of the sun. Yang nodded after a moment, brushing past Blake without a spare glance back at either of them before disappearing into the brush. Blake kept her eyes locked on the flowing red cloth before it too vanished into the treeline.

Her attention snapped back to Weiss, who held her ground, leveling a glare at Blake. The air around Blake chilled, caressing her skin and eliciting a small trail of goosebumps around the length of her arm.

"Let's go," she said curtly before following Yang, legs straight with each step.

When her presence had vanished, Blake let the warmth wash over her. It did nothing to heal the pierce in her heart, having to watch two of her closest friends rail at each other's throats, and there was nothing she could do to calm either of them.

Blake didn't believe in God, but she sent out a prayer anyway, a prayer that they could find some solace in this last mission and put their heavy hearts to rest once and for all.

A/N: This has been a long time coming, it really has. It's been more than three years since I last updated this, and more than six since its initial posting. A lot has happened since then, as I'm sure all of you could guess. A few things:

1) Regarding this re-write and the original: I wasn't happy where I took it, not to mention what I wanted to do with it. Is this new first chapter everything I wanted it to be? No, not really. I'm sure I could add more; edit more; etc. etc. I deeply apologize for people who enjoyed the first iteration, but I've grown since then, and I felt like I could do better, and here's hoping I deliver an experience you can all enjoy.

2) Regarding content: This story was conceived before even volume 3, if I'm remembering correctly. To keep it in the spirit, you won't see a lot of the new things introduced in volume 3 or onward included in this, one of those being Salem. I toyed with the idea, but in the end I wasn't happy with trying to shove her into this. Screwed too many things up. You may see some other things from volume 3 and onward, or you won't. It depends.

3) Regarding my other stories: I'll be upfront: I have no idea if I plan on continuing or rewriting them either. I'm taking a huge risk with this, as it's something I truly desired to do. I love this story, not to say I don't like my other ones, but this was my baby, my shining light amidst my other ideas. I want to do this story justice, and I have no idea if I can translate that to my other stories.

4) Regarding the RWBY franchise: Throughout volume 4, I found the show difficult to watch. Not for any specific "this show sucks" type of reason, but between Monty Oum's passing and the uncertainty of my life as a whole left me at a confusing crossroads with this show. I've only just gained the desire to catch up, thus re-sparking my enjoyment and desire. That being said, I don't know about my desire to write much more RWBY. That will be dependent how this story turns out. I'll be blunt: don't get your hopes up. I tried, and that led to me being absent as long as I was.

5) Regarding me and other things: I've recently started going to college. It was a long time coming. As such, I make no promises about a publishing schedule. When it comes out, it'll come out, but I'll do my best to make a chapter once a month. If it doesn't come out in that particular month, you can expect one to come out the following month, unless stated otherwise. After this is finished, like I said, I have no idea if I'll continue writing for RWBY. I've seen a multitude of attitudes about this series, and it's cut deep one way or another.

This A/N has been long, and I apologize for taking up your guys' time, whether you're new or a veteran. This was a bit of a self-indulgent A/N. I'll probably update my profile with a more succinct version. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this re-write. I'll see you next time. :)