Midori's Home, Mistral, Anima.

"There's this guy called Peter Port teaching Grimm Studies," Lima said, sitting cross-legged on the kitchen bench. "He is an absolute beast."

"Think I've heard that name before," Sage said, knife working to cube some steak. "Can't recall where—young guy?"

"Old, he's probably somewhere in his fifties?" Lima said, "The first day of classes, he told us this story about the very first time he fought a Grimm—a Beowolf even tried to kidnap some girl from their village."

"I've seen the Grimm do some pretty strange things over the years, but abducting people is a new one," Sage said, frowning. "First-time encounter—did he have his aura unlocked?"

"Yeah, but he only had a bit of arms training from his father, so he ended up going after it with a woodcutters axe—managed to cut the thing up pretty bad, apparently," Lima said, leaning back on his hands. "Enough to drag it back to the village without it dissipating or being able to fight back, which is a pretty fine line."

"It must have thought it could still escape somehow if it played dead," Sage said, "I'm guessing it was an older Grimm—too many conflicting instincts, learned behaviours and heuristics clashing together to make it act so strange."

"That's what I figured," Lima admitted, "He runs these hunting sessions on the weekends, takes a bunch of students out into the Emerald Forest to help keep the Grimm population low."

"Perks of the landscape surrounding Beacon," Sage said, gesturing with the knife. "Couldn't pull that off here unless we could get Lionheart's go-ahead to take students on a day trip outside the city walls—which definitely isn't happening any time soon."

The name sparked his mind into high gear, with Ozpin's mission coming back to him all at once and leaving Lima with a burning urge to just tell the man everything. He barely managed to hold himself back from it, knowing that he couldn't risk Sage confronting Lionheart over it, and if he tried dropping breadcrumbs or being vague about it, the man would end up getting the whole story out of him in quick order.

"Lionheart," Lima said, closing his eyes against the mess of emotion he was feeling. "That was the headmaster at Haven Academy, wasn't it?"

"That's the one, Leonardo Lionheart," Sage said, "He's a good man and a stellar record of missions as a Huntsman under his belt—seems a bit jumpy these days, though."

Lima cracked an eye open at the words, trying to build a picture of the man he would eventually need to meet.

"Jumpy—shouldn't he be a killing machine?" Lima said, in question. "I kind of want to meet him now, if only just to see what the hell that even means."

"Lionheart's out of the city right now and won't be back for about a week, or so he says," Sage said, nodding. "I'll take you up to see the school when he gets back, and you can meet him then—I've thrown your name around a bit, so he's probably expecting it at some point."

If the guy wasn't in Mistral right now, then that made it the perfect time to get started on finding out what had happened to the three contacts that had up and vanished.

"Cool—our guy is kind of boring, honestly; he just walks around drinking hot chocolate all the time," Lima said, "He did catch me base diving off the cliff, though."

"Of course he did," Sage said, shaking his head. "I remember meeting Ozpin once; it must have been a decade ago, at least—is he still dragging that cane around with him?"

"Yeah, what's that about anyway? The guy doesn't even have a limp," Lima said, "Someone needs to put a PI on his ass—I bet he's faking it for the health insurance payout."

Sage snorted at the words.

"It might be a family heirloom," Sage said, "I know a guy who was running around with his mum's weapon half a century later—well, knew, I guess; he actually got caught out on a mission about a month ago."

Caught out on a mission because he'd let down his guard or because someone had lied about the expected level of Grimm? The direction the conversation was heading was starting to get to him again, and the urge to reveal it all crept up his neck.

"Fucking Grimm," Lima managed.

"I don't know if it's just a rough patch, but the old crowd of Huntsmen and Huntresses has been dropping like flies this past six months," Sage said like he was talking about the weather. "I mentioned it to Lionheart the other day—he reckons it's the civvies not knowing how to accurately detail a Grimm sighting, so all the missions end up being more than they can handle."

Lima's fingernails bit into the palm of his hand, two facets of his Aura rolling against one another as the force exceeded the threshold needed to bring it up.

"I've been thinking up about ways to try and deal with it, but there isn't going to be a quick fix," Sage said, "Best I've got so far is start putting together some scout groups to investigate all the reports that are coming in before a full team gets sent in—although we might be able to start some free workshops for the civvies to learn how to be more accurate about the detailing."

"How public is all of this?" Lima asked. "Mistral will see even more Grimm attacks the second the civilian population finds out."

"That's why Lionheart has been keeping it under wraps, apparently, but it's impossible to hide from the Hunters," Sage said, "Too many of us know one another, so when people start dropping off, it's pretty clear that somethings going wrong—the biggest issue is keeping their families from spreading the word."

"Sage," Lima said, voice quiet. "How bad is it?"

"I've been doing some digging about that, reaching out to everyone I can to try and ballpark the numbers, but it's not entirely clear," Sage said, frowning now. "I'll take a stab in the dark here and say Anima has lost maybe fifteen percent of its active Huntsman and Huntresses over the last year—five percent of that is probably here, in Mistral alone."

"Fucking hell," Lima managed, and then before he could help himself. "Lionheart—is he doing anything about it?"

"That's why he's been gone," Sage said, nodding. "He didn't say it outright, but the way it sounded was like he was in the process of reaching out to the frontier cities in Anima—figure he's working with the Mistral Council to try and tackle it."

Ozpin's contacts vanishing right before Lionheart sets out to start working on the problem seemed pretty fucking suspicious as far as timing went. While getting a dozen or so cities to work together to start addressing the loss of manpower wasn't a bad idea by any stretch, it did leave him with the question of why Lionheart was only starting to do it now—it also didn't address why he'd been lying to the other academy heads.

"The man is starting to look a bit ragged; honestly, the stress of the job is finally starting to get to him, and I'm starting to feel it a bit at times myself," Sage said, slowly reaching up to touch a hand to his own chest. "I mean, here we are, training kids like you into efficient killing machines, all in an effort to help protect everyone else's way of life, and then we get to sit back, watching, as one after another, you burn yourselves up—I've got to admit, there's more than a bit of regret for my part in that."

The weight of the words caused the man to sag a bit, and the unwavering aura of strength that had always wreathed him seemed to shake—Sage was old and had been old, even when they'd first met in the streets of Mistral Below, a decade and change ago. But looking at him now, Lima felt a terrible sense of disquiet as the man's sheer, unstoppable, and unflappable nature was revealed to be fading away beneath the slow erosion of time.

"Kids like me," Lima said, voice quiet. "I'd have been nothing without everything you taught me—so you better not try and apologise for something like that."

"Better not," Sage said in quiet agreement. "Couldn't justify a thing like that anyway, could I? Because with the way things have been going lately, we need all the Huntsman and Huntresses we can get."

#

Mistral Below, Mistral, Anima.

Lima felt odd, walking around the streets of Mistral after being away for so long—everything was in roughly the same place as it had been before, but now there were so many new additions that it had almost blended the known away completely. New signs, new shops, new businesses, a thousand little changes that he couldn't have ever predicted. Haven Academy, high above, looked just as much a marvel as it had back then, perched atop the twin peaks—perhaps the only thing that had remained untouched across time. The same old thought that it all might come tumbling down on their heads pulled at the edge of his mind, reminding him of a hundred sleepless nights.

The seemingly endless series of stone steps still stretched upwards, weaving around the mountain in a winding path all the way to the top, and left the city bisected in a gradient of distinct levels. The massive elevator that bridged the bottom and top halves of the city ascended as he watched some unknown contingent heading for the academy above, perhaps in search of the communication towers. He could see the change occurring, from extravagant, large, and stylish architecture adorning the Mistral Above and the more grounded, spartan, and pragmatic shining in the Mistral Below. For all of the visible divide, Mistral, as a whole, remained protected, safely hemmed in behind walls, defences—and its apparently dwindling defenders.

Lima's hand touched the empty place in his pocket, where his Scroll might have been if Ozpin's warning about its lack of security hadn't driven him to paranoia. Lionheart might have been gone from the city, but he didn't want to leave a nice easy trail for the man to follow if he did do his due diligence in looking into the whereabouts of a boy who'd come into his city from Beacon Academy. If messages were readable, then a GPS log might as well, so it was simply better not to risk it.

The first of the contact's fate was immediately clear, the very moment he stepped onto the street—or if not the man's fate precisely, but the fate of his home. A blackened mess of charcoal, burned debris and faded yellow tape turned the air thick with smells that had no place being in the middle of the city. He had no way to determine how long the mess had been left there, but it was clear that no effort had been made to clear it away. Lima reached out and snagged a young boy by the collar before he could pass out of reach—the boy's hood fell back, revealing a pair of tall, thin ears that wouldn't have looked out of place on a fox.

"Oi," The kid cried out, struggling against the hold. "Let me go, you big dummy."

"Kid," Lima said, "Tell me what happened here—and I'll give you some lien."

"Whoa," He said, impressed. "You will?"

Lima jerked his head at the burned mess of a home to direct his attention toward it and the question he'd asked.

"It burned down," The kid said, nodding once. "Give me a lot, please and thank you."

Lima smacked the kid upside the head, just a little cuff for the cheek, and let him go in the process—the kid squawked in protest and pulled his hands up in front of him like he was ready to take him on right there in the street.

"I figured out that part already, genius," Lima said, crouching down. "How'd it get burned down?"

"I heard it was the Spiders," The kid said, eyeing him from behind his still-raised guard. "They put his stove on all night—to teach him a lesson, you know?"

Lima wasn't sure whether to smack the kid again or to take him at his word and put it down as arson by the most notable crime syndicate in Anima—he had a clear enough memory of what happened to those who messed with them, even all the way out in Kuchinashi. His mother stuffing him into the manhole in the ceiling while half a dozen men smashed their meagre belongings into splinters was a hard thing to forget.

"Sounds about right," Lima said, "Know what that lesson was about—had to be pretty bad if they put it on all night."

"You bet it was," The kid said, hesitantly lowering his guard. "Red say's that guy got caught smelling their grass when he wasn't supposed to be doing it—dunno why, but that's the kinda thing that gets your stove put on round these parts."

Smelling their grass—either Ozpin's contact had some bizarre pastimes, or he was sniffing around on their turf. Which begged the question of why would the man be doing something like that? Were the Spiders working with Lionheart here, or was it just the contact getting into some shady business that was completely unrelated to the rest of it?

"No doubt about it," Lima said, trying not to wince. "They put anyone else's stove on recently—that's a hundred Lien question, so you better be quick."

"Uh," The kid said, panicking a bit. "Red told me about another guy; he kept getting whacked with the sticky end—not sure what he did to deserve it, but his house is up for sale now, so he must have got sick of it happening and moved somewhere else."

Whacked with the sticky end?

"Kid—never mind," Lima sighed, handing over the agreed-upon payment. "Just tell me which street his house was on."

#

Mistral Below, Mistral, Anima.

Mister Sticky End just so happened to be the second contact, and the crossed-out For-Sale sign, along with the half a dozen people standing around near the front door, made it pretty clear that he wasn't getting inside that one any time soon—he'd have to try and find out when the house had been first listed for sale. The third and last location, on the other hand, was neither burned nor in the process of being moved into—all of the furniture was still present, from what he could see through the crack of the drawn curtain on the front window.

Lima slipped down the side of the house and hopped the fence before turning into the back patio area. The sliding glass door at the back of the house had a curtain of its own, so he was forced to press his ear to it in an attempt to figure out if anyone was inside. A minute of listening revealed that there were no discernible sounds, so he decided to just take the risk—he pressed a finger against the handle and used his Semblance to flip the latch on the inside. Lima carefully slid it open, listened once more, and then when he was certain it was empty, he stepped inside. The door clicked as he slid it shut behind him.

He took a single step inwards before planting his feet and scanning the area—almost immediately, he noticed the signs of a fight. A dozen or so gouges in the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the top of the kitchen table, and a single deep puncture mark on the backside of the front door, which he could just see from his position. The air inside the house was stale, without any scent of blood, but there was a distinct and sharp chemical stench that seemed almost omnipresent. Lima stepped forward to stand in the liminal space between the kitchen and the lounge room.

Now that he had a better angle, he could see a large ornate dresser with a mirror backing pressed flat against the main wall. It was covered in picture frames, unlit candles in brass holders, and a million odd knick-knacks. In the middle of it sat a tiny wooden stand coated in dark lacquer; the section right at the top had a small, shaped basin, the receptacle for some kind of small orb—the item that had once sat there was entirely missing. At a glance and robbed of most of the details by the distance, the photos seemed to predominately feature a pair of women outside and in the sun. A few of them seemed to be taken indoors—perhaps in the same room house he was standing in.

He turned his attention back to the damage, slowly spinning in place in an attempt to take it all in at once—there was an odd flow to it all, with the mark at the door seeming to be the endpoint. The start of it seemed to originate from the kitchen table; a two-inch wide section of it had been sliced off and was now resting against the legs of the chair. There was a puncture mark on the seat of the chair that had been placed—at some time after the damage had been inflicted—neatly under the table as if to hide it from view. A messy oblong hole in the ceiling spoke of a foot trying to find purchase against the too-thin material and then having punched through from the force of the impact.

Lima turned towards the end of the divider wall that had a large thick chunk torn out of it, a shallow puncture mark on the floor—where the chemical smell was almost overpowering. A hole in the wall by the door, about the height of his knees, had been torn outward like someone had clawed at it with their hand. He turned towards the door, where the final puncture mark was, almost all the way through, and for a moment, Lima could almost imagine the smiling woman—Violet Rivera, the third contact and whose house he was currently sequestered within—sitting there, back against it, arm raised in an attempt to fend someone off. Lima let out a long, quiet breath in an attempt to dispel the unease pooling in his chest and turned away, eyes falling on the dresser again.

Lima carefully crossed over to it and reached down, taking hold of one of the pictures that had been taken inside the room he was standing in. Violet's bright smile twisted something in his chest, and his eyes, seeking relief, searched the dresser in the background of the image—the photo representation of the black-lacquered stand was in plain view, and atop it sat a small, bronze and silver object. An orb that appeared to have been made out of an intricate series of cogs, all interlocking in a display of careful and beautiful craftsmanship. It reminded him of the ceiling in Ozpin's office—perhaps shallowly, in that there were cogs involved in its assembly—but despite lifting his gaze and searching the dresser, he couldn't find the object anywhere in the vicinity.

It was very, very clear that something terrible had happened in this house, and recently—sometime between the day she was supposed to report to Ozpin and whenever she had sent the report before that. The locked house, all of the damage, the smell of chemicals that had most likely been used to wash away any evidence; there had been a fight here, and he had a very strong feeling that Violet hadn't come out of it alive.

He also had a suspicion that if he'd come back here a few weeks from now, he'd find the place either destroyed, sold, or otherwise without a single sign of damage—and perhaps, small Faunus boys would tell stories about a stove, a sticky end and a woman who moved away to escape it all. Lima carefully placed the picture back down on the dresser, in the exact spot he'd taken it from, gave the empty, black-lacquered stand a final lingering look, and then turned away.

Whether or not Lionheart had been involved, all three of Ozpin's contacts were gone and very likely dead.

#

Midori's Bar, Mistral, Anima.

"Not a chance, Lima," Midori smiled.

"I'm seventeen," Lima tried, "If I'm old enough to go out and fight to the death against savage, man-eating monsters, I should be allowed to drink something."

"Nope," Midori said, her hair flipping about at the sheer assuredness of her head shake. "I've heard it all before, most especially from the boys up at Haven Academy; you're not breaking any new ground here, trust me."

It wasn't like he'd never gotten drunk before—Midori had been the one who'd caught him raiding Sage's stash at twelve years old and had then been the one to console him when he spent the next hour throwing up everything he'd had the audacity to consume. But he was seventeen now, practically a man—nay, he was a man—he'd done things most civilian men couldn't have dreamed of, but somehow, he couldn't even convince her to let him sneak a sip. It was ludicrous. Lima let out a long, loud, and tortured moan, doing his level best to make sure she understood just how hard done by he was—the volume of it brought the noise to all corners of the bar and drew more than a bit of attention from the patrons. Midori flapped her hand at him in embarrassment, attempting to get him to quiet down.

"Oh my god, Lima, everyone is looking at you now," Midori said before raising her voice to address the titters. "I'm sorry, everyone, he's my little brother—please ignore him."

"I'm so sad," Lima said, at the same increased volume making as much of a scene as he could manage in an attempt to bully her into giving in. "Can't you hear how sad I am?"

"Stop being so loud," Midori said as she leaned over the bar to smack him on the back of the head. "I'll tell you what, next year—after your birthday—I'll take you out to all the best spots in Mistral Below."

"But Midori, your bar is the best spot, and I'm already here," Lima said, trying hard to keep the one-sided debate alive. "A year is an entire lifetime away, and I'll be an entirely different person then—I might even have a beard."

"You haven't even got a scrap of stubble yet," Midori said without mercy. "It's going to be at least three or four years before you'll need to start shaving."

There were more titters from the table filled with old Huntsmen who were closest to the bar, overtly listening in on the argument.

"That's totally not true," Lima managed, pained. "You'll see, I'm going to have the best-looking beard in all of Mistral—Midori, you're laughing at me—"

The Huntsmen were laughing at him too now, and Lima spun around on his stool to give them a warning look—but all that did was set the rest of the table off.

"Bastards," Lima accused before spinning back around. "I see how it is."

"I'm sorry, Lima," Midori said, giggling now. "I'm sure you'll have a lovely beard."

"Whatever," Lima complained, "What's this about boys from Haven Academy? They better not be trying to chat you up."

"A few of them have definitely tried," Midori said, "I just tell them to come back in a few years—that's usually enough to shut them down."

"What?" Lima said, alarmed. "You're giving them hope, and that's the last thing those nasty little degenerates need—you need to make it absolutely clear."

"Oh really?" Midori said, smiling. "How do I go about doing that?"

"I'll buy you a gun," Lima decided. "That should be enough to get the message across."

#

Grounds, Haven Academy, Anima.

Haven Academy was large, expansive, and beyond all else, beautiful. The buildings were tall, and the ceilings were so high that Lima was left to wonder if they shouldn't just get rid of them entirely. There was, in fact, a forest up on top of the mountain, although calling it a forest was far too generous and didn't quite describe the artificial and man-made nature of it. No more than a thick strip of trees, carefully planted and kept well clear of any Grimm that may have tried to slip inside—not that the monsters would have much luck climbing all the way up the mountain, to begin with.

In the centre of the academy sat a large quad, framed by the looming threat of the CCTS Towers, staring ceaselessly at one another from opposite ends of the courtyard. The building that could only be the Grand Hall stretched across the peaks of both mountaintops, a singularly massive building that dominated the area and cast a thick shadow upon the rest of the campus—it was just as magnificent as Beacon Academy, albeit rendered with an architectural brush that was objectively different.

"So I'm fine to just run in and call my team," Lima said, "I'm not going to have to fight through the security or anything?

"You've got my lanyard; just flash it to the receptionist and tell her who you are—I already mentioned you were coming in, anyway," Sage said, waving him off. "I'll be in my office doing those forms I was telling you about—come find me when you're finished."

"I will," Lima agreed, "Thanks for this, Sage."

"You can thank me by working as my intern for the day," Sage said, rubbing his hands together. "You've been lazing around since you got here—get ready for the pain."

"Bastard," Lima accused. "That wasn't part of the deal—hey—"

Sage tossed a wave over his shoulder as he left, apparently content to ignore his complaints as he strode off in the direction of the Grand Hall without another word. Lima scrunched his face up at the trickery of it and then turned back towards the nearest of the two towers. He immediately caught sight of a pair of older girls on the other side of the quad, standing close to one another and staring in his direction, watching him. Considering they were all up here during the middle of the break, they could only have been the Noras and Rens of Haven Academy. The uniform was interesting enough, grey-black in colour, with a checked skirt that he probably could have learned to appreciate.

They tracked his progress all the way to the entrance of the tower, his age and complete lack of uniform probably the cause of the increased attention, singling him out as either a rule breaker or someone who'd come up from Mistral. The doors slid open on his approach, and he felt the conditioned air pass over his skin as he stepped inside—he cut a straight line towards the elevator, slipped inside, and used the guide to pick out the correct floor. For all that the outside of the building looked different, the structure of the inside seemed almost universal across the CCTS towers. Stepping out on his chosen floor, he approached the counter at the lobby, lanyard dangling from his hand.

"Hi, my name's Lima Morta," Lima said, "I'm here to make a call to the tower in Vale."

"Sage's son," The receptionist said in greeting. "It's nice to meet you, Lima; please go ahead—the terminals marked with the sign are already configured with a Vale connection."

He didn't correct her about the whole guardianship situation, instead just smiling in thanks before setting off towards the indicated area and dropping down into one of the terminals closest to the window. He spent a moment flipping through the menu until it asked for the identification of the person he was attempting to contact, and then he settled in to wait for the other side to make a connection. Three minutes later, the black screen flashed and revealed Teak fidgeting in front of the screen.

"What have they been doing to you?" Lima said in greeting. "My poor, sweet boy—tell me everything."

Teak's too-pretty face seemed to light up—and Lima found himself relaxing at the sight of it. For all that he'd pretended to be unfazed, Lima had been more than a little bit worried that the time apart had punctured the dynamic they'd built up.

"It's nice to hear your voice again, Lima," Teak said, smiling. "They haven't done anything to me—although I'm not quite sure who you're referring to."

Lima just nodded at the confusion.

"How was the big lunch with everyone's families?" Lima asked.

"It went really well," Teak said, leaning forward a bit and then checking over his shoulder as if to make sure nobody was listening. "Lux was kind of nervous about it; I've never seen her so quiet."

"I heard a little bit about that from Claire," Lima said, "Is your mother doing alright?"

Teak eyed him for a moment, apparently trying to determine if he had any kind of ulterior motive, but Lima just smiled.

"She's really happy that I'm back, but I think she's been lonely," Teak said, glancing down at his lap for a moment. "I'm going to try and come down more often, so I can see her when everything starts up again."

"Sounds like a good idea," Lima said in agreement. "What did she think about the other two?"

"She likes them a lot—she actually keeps inviting them to stay over," Teak said, sounding a bit embarrassed. "We had a big sleepover two nights ago, and we stayed up most of the night watching horror movies."

"Damn, that sounds pretty awesome," Lima said, raising a hand into view and then wiggling his pinky finger. "I wonder if I should go down when I get back and—"

"You're not having a sleepover with my mother," Teak said, scrunching his face up. "Stop wiggling it, idiot."

"Worth a try," Lima laughed. "I've been telling Midori and Sage about you guys—they both want to meet you."

"Really?" Teak said, shifting a bit at the words. "Are they doing okay?"

The memory of Sage's face, looking wrinkled and stressed, appeared in his mind—Lima reached up to touch a hand against the back of his neck and then pulled a bigger smile onto his face.

"They're doing great," Lima said before clearing his throat. "The little shits from up here keep going down to the bar and hitting on Midori, so I've decided to buy her a weapon—I was thinking something like Nora's grenade launcher might do the trick."

"Oh no, I don't think she's allowed something like that," Teak said, covering his mouth in an attempt to hide his smile. "How is the raid on Haven Academy going?"

"I infiltrated the building during the bright of day to make sure they knew exactly who they were messing with," Lima said, thumbing his nose. "They haven't even mustered up the courage to try and repel me yet—cowards, the lot of them."

"Try not to get into any fights," Teak said before hesitating. "How have you been doing, Lima?"

Lima's reflex to blow straight on past it with a surface-level answer almost won out—then he forced himself to stop and actually consider the question because Teak deserved better than that.

"I felt like absolute garbage during the first week," Lima admitted, "It's kind of hard to get used to suddenly being on my own after we spent so much time together—I got to spend some time with Jaune and Pyrrha though, so it wasn't all bad."

"I'm sorry," Teak murmured as if it was somehow his fault that Lima had decided to take the trip to Mistral. "I've been feeling really bad whenever I think about you being on your own—we're all here—it's—"

"What are you saying sorry for, Teak? You didn't stuff me into the train by force; I made the choice," Lima said, "You don't need to worry so much about me—"

"I am worried about you," Teak managed, looking down at his lap again. "I—you're my friend—maybe my first real one, and I don't like the idea of you being all alone."

Lima had to kind of brace himself against the pang the words caused—and when Teak reached up to brush a hand across his eyes, he swallowed.

"Thanks, man, I'm worried about you too," Lima said after he'd gathered himself. "Next time, I'll make sure to bring you with me."

"Sorry," Teak said again, scrubbing at his face. "I just—you said you got to see Jaune and Pyrrha?"

"Teak," Lima said, leaning forward. "Jaune pulled the most ludicrous line out on Pyrrha—I almost fell in love with him, and it wasn't even directed at me."

"He did?" Teak said, eyes bright once more. "What did he say?"

#

Haven Tower, Haven Academy, Anima.

"Lux," Lima said with great interest. "What was this about you hiding under the covers like a scared little girl?"

"Shut the hell up," Lux managed, flushing at the words. "I wasn't hiding—I just don't like those kinds of movies very much."

"That's not what Teak said," Lima said, flashing her a superior smile. "He even told me you tried to hold his hand like some smitten—"

"Those were at two completely separate times—and I wasn't even holding his hand," Lux said, narrowing her eyes. "I was trying to pull him in front of me after his mum hugged me."

That did match the story he'd been told way more closely, but his own interpretation of the tale was way funnier.

"Teak made it sound way different; seriously, it was like hearing him narrate a scene from Ninja's In Love," Lima hedged, "Heavy breathing, moaning, the first touch—he even had this little tremble in his voice—"

"You're such a liar," Lux said, blowing out an explosive breath, "He never said any of that."

"Bet he was thinking about it, though," Lima said, grinning. "I've heard about the lunch date with everyone from both of the others—you want a chance to defend yourself?"

Lux picked at the front of her shirt for a moment in consideration before speaking up.

"I've gone to plenty of dinner parties, but they weren't like, people I had to bother with—they were there for my parents, not me," Lux said, slumping down a bit. "You said I was supposed to look after them, so I was trying to make a good impression—and this was way different than the other times."

"Because you actually care about them?" Lima said, in understanding. "That's pretty sweet of you, Lux—"

"Shut up," Lux managed.

"—but Claire and Teak invited you along while knowing exactly what you were like," Lima said, ignoring the interruption. "That means they wanted their families to meet the normal Lux—the one who says exactly what she thinks and isn't scared of anything."

"I know that now, idiot," Lux muttered, still plucking at her shirt. "Claire explained it already."

"She totally stole my thunder," Lima complained.

"Have you fought anyone at Haven Academy yet?" Lux asked, clearly trying to escape from the topic. "Well?"

"Not yet, but Sage keeps telling me about this one first year he wants me to beat up—or get beaten up by, I suppose," Lima said, "No idea if she's any good yet."

"Are you stupid?" Lux said. "You should have called after you fought her."

"That's how it is, huh? Well, how about this," Lima said, "Take a guess what I spent the entire trip to Mistral doing?"

"Playing with your dick, probably," Lux said, "Like a complete loser."

"Fuck you," Lima said, on reflex. "The answer is actually—sparring with Pyrrha Nikos and Jaune Arc."

"Fuck you," Lux accused. "Like hell you did."

"They were headed to Argus, so we ended up sharing a cabin until I got to Mistral," Lima said, pleased. "We must have fought dozens of times—she's insatiable, really—even Jaune got in on the action."

"You're so full of shit," Lux insisted.

"I mean, you could ask either of our two teammates for confirmation," Lima said, studying his fingernails. "Teak heard some of it a few minutes ago—and I sent Claire a message about them before I even made land in Anima."

"You're the worst," Lux said with a groan of frustration. "You should have taken me with you—"

#

Haven Tower, Haven Academy, Anima.

The chair was still spinning when Claire finally stepped into the frame, and he watched as she caught it by the back, then dropped down into it—there was something different about her hair. Once she'd stopped moving, he got a better look at it; she had distinct bangs now, and it was cut about an inch shorter than when he'd last seen her, hanging around her chin in a feathered, silvery mess.

"Lima—" Claire said.

Claire seemed to grow flustered, glancing down at her hands for a moment as she struggled to find the words—then she vanished, activating her Semblance to remove herself entirely from view. Lima almost laughed out loud at the unexpectedness of it.

"New hair, huh? It looks really pretty on you," Lima said as if she hadn't just vanished. "Unfortunately, I was thinking about getting the exact same one—so you should probably go back and get them to put it all back on."

"That's stupid," Claire managed, still invisible. "It wouldn't even match the shape of your face."

Like that was the problem with what he'd just said.

"What the heck?" Lima said in protest, "What's going on here—are you nervous?"

There was a long pause, in which he continued to study the chair, and then Claire seemed to find her voice again.

"I'm embarrassed—and it's your fault," Claire said, the chair shifting oddly for a moment. "Do something to fix it."

It was probably both of their faults, considering some of the messages they'd been sending back and forth since he'd made it to Mistral proper, but he didn't particularly want to spend the entire call studying the folds of the chair.

"It has come to my attention that you have conveniently forgotten to mention a very notable event, an event that may or may not have occurred on the very same night as the horror movie marathon," Lima said, folding his hands in front of his face. "But my sources have told me a great many things in the last half hour—enquiry; did you really wet the bed? Because that's totally lame."

Claire washed into existence, her legs were bunched up on the chair now, and her chin was pressed against her knees—her face was visibly flushed, but rather than embarrassed, she seemed far more indignant at the accusation.

"I did not—who said that?" Claire demanded. "It was Lux, wasn't it? Don't believe anything she says."

"I'm afraid it's been corroborated by both of my unnamed sources and then substantiated by a little bit of—I made it the heck up," Lima said in agreement. "When did you get your hair cut anyway? Because you didn't say anything about it in your last message."

Claire slipped her arms around the front of her legs, pulling them tight against her chest and glaring at him from behind her knees.

"Don't make up stupid lies, or I'll hit you when you get back," Claire said in a clear warning. "I went and had it done this morning—shut up, it's not whatever you're thinking."

The timing of it was a little too convenient for him to have believed that it had nothing to do with the scheduled call—but it was possible that it just lined up by way of coincidence.

"I'm going to proceed as if it is what I'm thinking because the idea of you cutting your hair for me is adorable," Lima said, aiming for a state of unaffected confidence that he didn't at all feel. "It's nice being able to actually see you—don't get me wrong, the messages are super fun, but this is way better."

Claire flapped a hand at the monitor in a kind of panicked shushing gesture that was a clear sign for him to halt all mention of the messages in question, and he laughed this time for real.

"It's not funny," Claire said, searching the monitor for a moment. "At least we don't have to deal with the delay any more; having to wait so long for a single response was frustrating."

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

He agreed completely because it was a complete pain in the ass, and by the time he'd actually had a chance to read through the things that she'd planned to do, all of the events had already occurred—he'd started writing the messages from a kind of proto-future perspective, to try and get a head of it, but it never really worked out.

"Well, I kind of liked the thought of you nervously checking your Scroll every couple of minutes," Lima said, looking up for a moment. "Did he message me? Not yet? How long do I have to wait?"

Claire flushed again, but this time she seemed to get a bit of a foothold against it.

"Is that what you think I sound like?" Claire scoffed, visibly trying to play it off. "I think you're just—stop smirking at me."

Lima covered his mouth with the back of his hand, fighting hard but failing to keep the smile off his face. Claire seemed to watch him closely for a moment, no doubt trying to make sure that he'd actually shut it down completely—then she sat up a bit, her face fully visible from behind her knees for the first time.

"Now that you've actually seen what Haven Academy has to offer, do you regret coming to Vale?" Claire said, reaching up to play with the tip of her bang. "More importantly, should I start expecting you to accidentally miss the train back?"

The words came out as something of a joke, but she wasn't quite looking at the monitor anymore.

"Well, I was super hyped about coming back right up until I saw some fourth-year girls in a uniform, so now I'm just waiting for them to approve my transfer request," Lima said before smiling. "Claire, it's just a bunch of big empty buildings, and none of you guys are here; like hell I regret it—were you really worried about that?"

"No—or maybe a little bit," Claire said, turning her head away slightly. "I've just been thinking about what Teak said before you left, so you can blame him for putting the idea in my head."

"I could never blame him," Lima said, rejecting the idea out of hand. "Hey, I'm really glad I got to see you today—even if you tried to hide."

"Idiot," Claire managed, "I'm glad too."

#

Sage's Office, Haven Academy, Anima.

Sage's office looked as if it could have eaten one of the lecture halls back at Beacon Academy and still had room left over for seconds—the longer Lima spent here, the more he realised how ridiculously large the place really was.

"Why are you still smiling like a schoolgirl?" Sage said, peering over his reading glasses. "You're not still thinking about your little girlfriend, are you? Do you need me to find you somewhere private to crank one out?"

"What the heck?" Lima said in alarm. "I'm not cranking one out at Haven—and I don't even know if she's my girlfriend or not yet, jackass."

"You've brought her up four times in the last two hours," Sage said, "You spoke to her earlier, didn't you—why didn't you ask her, you little pansy?"

"I haven't spoken to them in weeks, so I'm allowed to talk about them now that I have," Lima grunted, "Also, doing something like that over a call is totally lame."

"So you're going to do it in person?" Sage wondered.

"Undecided," Lima said, smacking his hand flat against the table for emphasis. "I might do it over a message, so it's way less embarrassing if she says no."

"Uhuh," Sage said, amused. "That's way less pathetic."

"Get off my case, you old bastard," Lima complained, pulling the next form across the desk. "Ugh—you know what? Maybe going to Vale was a mistake."

"Is that right?" Sage said.

Lima searched the page for any sign of missing information; Sanctum Combat School, Beacon Academy and Haven Academy all seemed to have the same problem—none of the students knew how to fill out a goddamn form, which must have meant it was something like a universal trait. Still, it gave him a chance to get eyes on some of the competitors who were coming to participate in the Vytal Festival Tournament—which was probably why Sage had asked him to help.

"When I'm in Vale, I miss you and Midori, but when I'm here, I miss my team," Lima said, slumping down in his chair for a moment. "I've trapped myself in a situation where I'm always feeling bad—it totally sucks."

"I remember the first time I split off from my team," Sage admitted, "It was a long time ago now, but I'm pretty sure I was feeling about the same as you are now."

Lima spotted a missing section before he moved to slip it into the pile with all of the missing genders—perhaps the easiest mistake to fix; he just had to ask Sage to confirm it with what their entry in the system had.

"Right, but I don't understand how I got so close to them so quickly; well, I know it's because we're all living in the same room together, but it still feels so—so—I don't know," Lima said, with an explosive sigh. "I keep thinking that if I'd just come to Mistral, I wouldn't have to deal with it—"

"But then you start to think about a future where you never had the chance to meet your teammates," Sage said, tapping the end of his pen against the desk. "You've put yourself in a tough spot, Lima."

Lima dropped his pen down onto the next form without even taking a moment to look at the image attached to it.

"Exactly," Lima said, "What the hell am I supposed to do about it?"

Sage patiently continued his work on his own stack in something like a thoughtful silence—and Lima didn't have nearly as much skill in the game of waiting. He fidgeted with the edge of the desk, unwilling to allow the untouched form to drag him back into the soul-crushing work.

"I think you already know what you have to do," Sage said, "You want me to say it for you?"

"Yes," Lima said, "At least then I can blame you instead of myself."

"Sounds about right," Sage said, amused. "Lima, the answer is simple—be miserable."

Lima sunk further down in his chair at the words, having half expected the answer to be something like that.

"You're supposed to miss us, and you're supposed to miss them," Sage said, marking something off the sheet in front of him. "So you'll be miserable, and when it becomes unbearable, you know where we are, and you know where your team will be."

"Why does it feel," Lima complained. "Like I'm going to spend all of my time travelling in the future?"

"Buy an airship," Sage suggested.

Lima grunted at the comment, not sure he could dismiss it entirely out of hand considering the distances involved and his growing weariness for long-form travelling by train. He slapped a hand down on the sheet and used the contact with the desk to pull himself back up—he found himself looking down at an incredibly familiar face. The eyes may have been the wrong colour, and the hair was completely black instead of half-and-half, but it was unmistakably the exact same girl.

"Huh," Lima said, dragging the blunt end of the pen around to circle the picture. "Huh?"

"I didn't break you, did I?" Sage wondered. "What's the problem?"

Lima frowned at the image, trying to understand the mechanics behind it; if this girl was a second-year student of Haven Academy, in the Kingdom of Mistral, on the continent of Anima. Then how could she have been sitting at a café in the Kingdom of Vale, on the continent of Sanus, during the middle of the school year—eating tiny cakes with a purple vegetable named Aubergine?

"These are the Vytal Festival Tournament forms," Lima restated, already knowing the answer. "As in, students from Haven Academy who will be travelling to Vale to fight in the tournament.

"Yes, Lima," Sage said, turning to look at him with a strange look. "I told you that the moment you sat down—didn't I?"

Lima peeled the page up off the table, scanning the entire form for her information—Nori, Tan. Eighteen years old. A second-year student of Haven Academy. Team name; CNEM or Team Cinnamon. Each of her teammates was listed in the correct box, and she even had a passport listed as well. Lima reached over to the pile of unsorted forms, making a mess of them as he searched through the names of each of her teammates. Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai, Cinder Fall; all second-year students. Each form was meticulously filled out, with not a single missing piece of information—clearly the most suspicious part of it all—and all written in the same handwriting. They'd clearly designated one of the four to fill out all the forms and then dumped the task on them.

"Do you know this girl?" Lima asked, slapping it down. "Nori Tan—second year."

Sage, clearly interested in whatever had tipped him off balance, snagged it for a moment and frowned at the picture.

"Black hair, green eyes—she looks quite a bit like you, doesn't she?" Sage said, raising an eyebrow. "I only deal with the first-years, though, so she's not in any of my classes."

"Ever seen her around the school before?" Lima wondered.

"There are hundreds of kids here, Lima, and more than a fourth of them have black hair," Sage said, handing the page back. "You think she's some distant relative? Your old man might have sowed a few stray oats around, I suppose."

Lima snatched it back with a frown, immensely disliking the direction the conversation had just shifted towards and then losing basically all interest in the mystery in turn.

"I doubt it," Lima muttered. "Forget it."

#

Grand Hall, Haven Academy, Anima.

From the outside, the Grand Hall had felt almost like an ornamental topping for the mountains it rested upon, but walking inside of it made him feel about as small as an ant. Beyond that, he was beginning to feel as if he'd stepped into some giant's lair, and the absolutely massive statue only worked to enhance that feeling of foreboding. The statue itself was a work of art, a monstrously tall woman with her hands raised up high, almost as if she was keeping the sky from falling down on their heads. Golden chains trailed away from her wrists, and a belt made from the very same chain looped around her waist, hinting at a fate that was all but free.

"Damn," Lima said, impressed. "Everything's big at Haven, huh?"

The crude comment didn't even cause Sage to miss a step; the man was more than used to that kind of talk—and the primary source of where Lima himself had learned it from.

"Sure you don't need some alone time?" Sage said as they began to ascend the stairs behind the statue in question. "It's just a statue, so I'm sure your girlfriend will understand."

"Fuck you," Lima said, scrunching his face up. "You already made that joke—get some new material."

Sage gave a bark of a laugh at the cursing and clapped him on the back hard enough to send him tripping up the final few stairs. Lima caught himself with his hands before he could end up sprawled on the floor and then turned, ready to attempt to kick the bastard down the entire flight of stairs in punishment—but there was a girl standing a few feet away by the banister, watching them.

"Sir," The girl said just as Sage crested the stairs. "I didn't realise you were back already."

"Ahah, I was hoping I'd run into you while we were up here," Sage said, clapping his hands. "Lima, this is Arslan Altan."

The girl in question was roughly the same height as Lima was, dark-skinned, and with a tuft of wavy platinum blonde hair framing her head—the contrast was striking enough that he kind of got caught staring a bit.

"Lima," Arslan said, eyeing him. "That would make you Professor Jett's son."

That was the second time that someone had called him Sage's son today. For as long as he'd been in Sage's care, neither of them had so much as used a single instance of the word father or son when speaking to one another. For Sage, it was always 'boy,' 'the kid,' or simply 'Lima.' In Lima's case, it was the man's name, or when speaking to someone else, referring to the man as his guardian. The idea that Sage was actually talking about him like that to other people, and in what sounded like a pretty common way, kind of caught him off guard a bit.

"That's me," Lima said, scratching his cheek for a moment. "Whatever he's told you about me is a complete lie, though, seriously, you can't trust anything that comes out of this guy's mouth—"

Lima reached up to cradle the back of his head in the aftermath of Sage smacking him one with his open palm—it wasn't even hard enough to register against his aura, but Lima made sure to make a big show out of holding his head in an effort to make him look bad in front of his student.

"Ignore him; he spent a lot of time falling on his head as a kid," Sage said, "We're actually on our way to see Lionheart, but if you're still interested in that spar we were talking about, an hour from now would be a good bet."

Arslan turned to give him another look of consideration.

"Of course, sir," Arslan said, "I was actually about to go find Bolin and Reese—would you object if I brought them along?"

"Bring as many as you want," Sage said with a resounding clap of satisfaction. "Who else is up here right now—Shiko?"

"No sir, I believe he's returning in three days' time," The girl said, brushing a hand over her checked skirt in an attempt to flatten it down, "I did see Sun and Neptune earlier."

Lima glanced between the two at the absolute deluge of name drops—he was pretty sure he'd seen some of their pictures on the forms he'd sorted out earlier, but it was kind of a hassle to remember who was who without looking at them.

"Wukong's a bit flighty, so you'll probably have some trouble roping him into anything," Sage said, scratching at his chin. "Eh, tell them it's for extra credit, and see if they'll go for it—don't bother bringing any weapons or gear."

"I understand," Arslan said, bowing her head a few inches. "Excuse me, sir; I had best start looking."

Sage waved her off, and they watched the girl start down the stairs they'd just come up. Lima tugged on his ear for a moment, considering her unrushed and steady descent—she carried herself well, and judging by what he could see of her well-developed musculature, she looked dangerous enough.

"You're supposed to be helping your son win the Vytal Festival Tournament," Lima said, "Why are you giving them a heads up on the competition?"

"You got a look at those forms earlier, didn't you?" Sage said, already moving again. "Besides, a spar goes both ways, so you'll get to see some of what they can do—you can't tell me you aren't a little bit excited."

"You're confusing me with my teammate—or maybe Pyrrha Nikos," Lima said in complete rejection. "If I wanted to beat up all your students, then I would have enrolled in your dinky little school."

Sage barked out a laugh as they came to a stop outside of a massive ornate door—engraved in the wood was a spread of lines that might have represented a set of wings—or perhaps a tuft of grass, he wasn't quite sure—but it was impressive, whatever the heck it was.

"I wouldn't say that in front of Lionheart," Sage said, knocking on the door. "He's pretty proud of this place, so he might end up giving you a lecture."

They heard a muffled voice call out, and although the words weren't exactly decipherable, the tone was enough to recognise that they were being granted entry—Lima's mind, however, was locked on the idea that he was about to come face to face with the person Ozpin had specifically warned him about. There was some wariness there, but the fact that Sage was standing next to him made it a lot less daunting than he might have been expecting. Whether he was ready or not, Sage had already moved to open the door, and the room beyond came into view.

The headmaster's office was surprisingly less spacious than Ozpin's had been back at Beacon, which was odd considering just how wasteful the rest of Haven Academy's architecture seemed to be. A series of tall, thin windows kept the room bright, and a large wooden desk sat directly across from the door. Above it sat an odd platform, held aloft by two pillars, stacked high with hundreds of books, boxes and pictures.

The headmaster sat behind his desk, eyebrows raised in what looked like pleasant surprise. Even sitting down, it was clear that the man was tall and with broad shoulders. His head was covered in a neat mane of brown hair that was slowly edging into the territory of grey as the years seemed to be nibbling away at him. Lima had spent the trip to Mistral building up a dark, foreboding, and perhaps villainous figure to represent the man in his mind, but looking upon him now, Leonardo Lionheart looked almost ordinary.

"Damn," Lima said, impressed. "That's the best beard I've ever seen."

Lionheart looked entirely amused by the comment, but he never got an opportunity to respond to it as Lima stumbled forward with a squawk as Sage pushed him fully into the room. By the time he'd righted himself, the door had clicked shut behind them.

"Stop pushing me over, you old bastard," Lima insisted, stabbing a finger at him. "The next time you do it, I'm going to kick your ass—hey—"

Sage strode past him without acknowledgement, and Lima scrunched his face up as he turned to follow.

"Lionheart, sorry to burst in on you," Sage said, "I've been giving the kid here a tour, and I thought I'd bring him up to see you—not every day you get to meet the headmaster of Haven Academy, you know?"

"I haven't been back nearly long enough to rebury myself under all of the work that must be done—so I'm happy for a chance to prolong it," Lionheart said with a good-natured smile. "Lima Morta, it's a pleasure to meet you—Sage certainly seems to believe that we suffered a great loss when you chose Beacon Academy."

Lima scratched at the back of his head as he approached the man's desk, coming to stand directly beside Sage. While he was more than aware that you couldn't just take everything at surface value, the man in front of him almost seemed to radiate harmlessness—it made him wonder, for a moment, if Ozpin could have been wrong, and that this was all some kind of bizarre misunderstanding.

"Yeah, I kind of ran away for a bit there," Lima admitted, looking around at the bookshelves. "I like your office better than Ozpin's—too many moving things there; I kept thinking everything was going to come crashing down on my head."

Lionheart raised an eyebrow at the comment, although Sage was the one to speak.

"I shouldn't be surprised that you know what Ozpin's office looks like already," Sage said, rolling his eyes. "What did you do to get called in there?"

It occurred to him that he probably shouldn't have mentioned Ozpin at all, and Lima gave an awkward laugh when he realised he'd drawn so much attention to it.

"There was a kid in our year that was bullying everyone, and I caught him yanking on a Faunus girl's rabbit ears," Lima said, "I might have kicked the crap out of him, and they might have put me in detention for a whole month."

"Same as usual then," Sage said. "Seems like we've got the same problems everywhere, huh?"

Lionheart looked a bit troubled at the story, and Lima wondered which side of the Faunus divide the man actually sat on—was he one of the elitists or one of those who pushed against it?

"I'm afraid so," Lionheart said with a sigh. "It's always hard to hear about the unfortunate state of relations between Human and Faunus—I've spent far too many years dealing with that myself."

He hadn't realised Lionheart was a Faunus, and though Lima gave him another look over—this time with far more care—he couldn't see any kind of discernible feature that might have given him away.

"Beacon's nowhere near as bad as Sanctum was," Lima said, "What's it like here?"

"There are a few bad eggs here, but I haven't caught any amongst the first years yet," Sage said, punching his hand into his palm. "I reckon some motivated training should be more than enough to sort them out."

Sage's openness on the topic seemed to catch Lionheart off guard, and the man quickly spoke up to address the question.

"Yes, well, we have a zero-tolerance policy for racism at Haven Academy, and the students are encouraged to report any incidents to the staff if they occur," Lionheart said, clearing his throat. "I make sure to deal with these incidents personally when they come up, but there have been far fewer in recent years."

Lima wasn't exactly sure which one was the better approach or if either of them would work to really change things. Almost all of them seemed to pick it all up from their older family members, so even if they got punished for it at school, the second they returned to the environment that spawned the behaviour, it would get reinforced all over again.

"I caught sight of the Invincible Girl at the train station when I went to pick this one up," Sage said, nodding down at Lima. "Turns out she ended up going to Beacon in the end."

"Yes, I expected as much—I attempted to reach out to her mother at the start of the year when I realised I hadn't seen her enrolment pass over my desk, but we seem fated to miss one another," Lionheart said with a sigh, "Pyrrha Nikos has managed to acquire an impressively large amount of fame amongst the populace of Anima—a lot of people were very disappointed that she chose to take her talents elsewhere."

Lionheart actually looked a bit weary at the topic, and Lima couldn't help but wonder if he'd received some backlash for that—a Faunus headmaster in Mistral must have made him pretty unpopular amongst a lot of the older families.

"Yeah, she's in my class," Lima said, "It's pretty hilarious seeing her beat everyone else up during Combat Studies—they've got her fighting three people at once right now in an effort to keep the duels even—"

Lima's eyes settled on a too-familiar object, wedged between a paperweight and the raised-up divider that portioned off some of the man's desk—bronze and silver glinted in the light flooding in from the windows, the series of intricately placed gears, cogs, and glass refracting it into a sparkling mess.

"Yes, I imagine it's quite the spectacle," Lionheart said, nodding in understanding. "I've made sure to watch the regional tournaments to keep an eye out for unexpected talent, so I've seen firsthand the striking level of skill she possesses."

The smile on Lima's face suddenly felt hollow, almost as if he was holding up a sheet of paper with the word 'happy' stamped across it in vibrant red ink and expecting the world to ignore the way it was bleeding down the page. Sage's voice caught his ears, but the words were muffled like he'd spoken them underwater, and Lima found his eyes locked on the—

"Mister Morta?" Lionheart asked.

When Lima managed to lift his gaze back up, he found that Lionheart had followed his line of sight and was now staring at the orb with an odd expression on his face. A thrill of unease washed through him, and rather than let things spiral out of control, Lima did what he always did when he was feeling pressured.

"What the heck is that thing?" Lima asked, leaning forward over the man's desk. "It's almost like a pocket watch banged a marble."

It was more than clear to everyone present that he was referring to the sparkling clockwork orb—Lionheart opened his mouth for a moment, paused, and then tried again.

"I picked it up in Argus, actually, about three days ago," Lionheart said, smiling now. "It was sitting on a shelf in a store."

There was a moment of terrible dissonance as he experienced somebody outright lying to his face—without any kind of tell or even the faintest hint of remorse—while simultaneously knowing that Lionheart had, in fact, taken it from a small, black-lacquered stand in Mistral Below.

"My teammate has a little gear necklace that's almost the same colour," Lima said, impressed. "Can I get a shop name—I think Pyrrha is still in Argus, so I can probably bully her into picking one up for me."

It occurred to him, about the exact second in which he'd committed to the comment, that he'd accidentally put Lionheart in an impossible spot. The shop didn't exist, and if he made up a fake one, then it would become obvious through Pyrrha's inability to locate it.

"Talking about your not-girlfriend again?" Sage said, with a laugh, "Kid, you're in way too deep."

Lima managed to muster up a strangled note of frustration that he couldn't really feel, with all of his attention locked onto the murderer still sitting behind the desk. He forced himself to turn back and found himself fighting against that same absurd dissonance as he realised that there was a smile on the man's face.

"I'm afraid I didn't even think to take note of the name," Lionheart admitted, reaching over to pick up the orb before rolling it around between his fingertips. "I'm not quite sure why I even decided to pick it up if I'm being completely honest—here."

Lionheart's smile changed slightly as he spoke, a shade of something almost sad bleeding into it, before he flicked the orb up into the air—Lima snatched it out of pure reflex, almost before he'd even realised what had happened.

"You may keep it," Lionheart said, "I'm sure it will find a far more befitting use as a tool of courtship than by sitting on my desk without purpose."

Lionheart somehow looked relieved, almost as if passing off what could only be described as a trophy of murder to a teenager had lifted some great burden from his shoulders—Lima found himself stunned by the sheer audacity possessed by the smiling monster sitting behind the desk.

"Sir," Lima managed, not even sure of what he might say. "I—"

"Careful, Lima," Sage said, speaking up. "I don't want to get any calls about you knocking some girl up—teammate or not."

The words washed over him, and Lima found himself working harder than ever to generate the indignant mess that should have been rising up in his chest. After a long moment of struggle, he managed it, crying aloud in entirely feigned outrage—and through it all, Lionheart just smiled.

#

The Pit, Haven Academy, Anima.

Lima felt sick, or perhaps so beset by a visceral disgust that it was twisting something inside his stomach that felt close enough to count. Violet's smiling face was stuck in his mind, unable to be dispelled so long as the clockwork orb burned a hole in his pocket. The unsettling contradiction of seeing such a polite, pleasant, and generous man sitting in that well-lit office and knowing that it was a facade served to make his skin crawl. He wanted to pull Sage aside, shake the man, and then do his best to convince him to—Lima didn't even know what he wanted to convince him of at this point.

He didn't even understand the full extent of the headmaster's crimes to even make any type of call on it. The orb was proof that Lionheart had been in Violet Rivera's house and that he'd stolen from her—for Lima, it was a very, very slight step towards concluding that he'd murdered her and then vanished the body. From there, it was an even smaller step to accepting that Ozpin's suspicions of Lionheart's nature were, in fact, all true, something which meant that he was playing some part in the systematic killing—through mislabelled missions—of Huntsmen and Huntresses all across Anima.

Sage had stood in that room as the clockwork orb had exchanged hands—and at that moment, it became clear to Lima—that unparalleled strength of body did nothing to reveal hidden knowledge. Sage didn't have access to Ozpin's suspicions or an understanding of what the clockwork orb really was. Sage didn't know that Ozpin's contacts had each met some indeterminate but likely unpleasant end—by the Spiders, at best, or Lionheart himself, at worst. So when Leonardo Lionheart had told Sage that he was working on solutions to the widespread problem, the man had taken him at his word, and rightfully so, because he was the headmaster at Haven Academy, an institution built with the express intention of saving the greatest amount of lives. But the reality was different from the perception, and whatever Leonardo Lionheart was doing, it wasn't saving lives.

Ozpin's warning rang in his mind, and Lima knew that if he peeled back the layer of obfuscation that Lionheart had weaved around his guardian, then the entire situation would explode. Sage would confront the man head-on, and in doing so, any chance of Lionheart spending the rest of his life rotting away in a cell would disappear. The only proof he had of anything was the clockwork orb, and the only person who would really understand what it meant was Ozpin himself.

Lionheart—while a Faunus in what might be the most racist continent on Remnant—was still one of the most important and powerful people on the planet. The clockwork orb wouldn't bury him, and the very moment he figured out that Lima wasn't just some kid who'd come to Mistral to see his family over the break, then any chance of ever finding more substantive evidence would vanish—yet even knowing all of that, when Sage clapped a hand on his shoulder, Lima almost told him anyway.

"You told me about the Amphitheatre—this is pretty much our version of that, and it's most affectionately called the Pit," Sage said, pushing him forward into the room. "Looks like we've got a few interested parties after all—let's go do some introductions."

Despite there being a set of benches against all five walls, they all seemed to have universally decided to sit on the floor. Arslan was closest to the door, her legs tucked up beside her and the skirt of her uniform splayed out. Beside her sat a boy he'd definitely seen mixed in amongst the forms, the bright blue hair making it hard to forget. Directly beside him was the only other person he'd seen who wasn't following the dress code—a muscular but lean boy with short, shaggy blond hair. Instead of a uniform, he wore a white, high-collared shirt that was notably unbuttoned, and a pair of light blue jeans rolled halfway up his shins—a golden furred tail swung out from behind him, placing him as a Faunus of some kind. Further down, a tall, broad-shouldered boy sat cross-legged, thick dark hair hanging down to his neck. The last member of the group was a girl with bright green hair, styled short in a pixie cut, with a long fringe that swept down past her chin—interestingly enough, she had a pair of tattoos lining her face, two thick black bars bisecting her cheeks.

"From left to right, Arslan Altan, who you've already met, Neptune Vasilias, Sun Wukong, Bolin Hori, and Reese Chloris," Sage said, gesturing to each in turn. "I'm surprised you actually came, Wukong."

"Arslan said we get extra credit if we beat up some kid," Sun said, impressed. "Is this our victim?"

"Right in one," Sage said, smiling. "But you're going to have to wait your turn—Arslan, ready to go?"

Arslan was already halfway to her feet, apparently expecting to be the first one to be called—Lima, on the other hand, had just about dismissed them all, hand still inside his pocket, feeling out all of the edges on the clockwork orb.

"Yes sir, I believe I am," Arslan said, "Shall we?"

"Hey," Lima said in warning. "Just so we're clear, this was his idea."

"Making excuses already?" Reese said, lips pulling up on one side. "Sounds like you already know how this is going to play out."

Lima shrugged at the words, making an effort to dump everything in his pockets out on the floor to avoid anything getting broken—the orb he left wedged between his wallet and scroll, feeling uneasy about letting it out of his sight for even a moment.

"If you do not wish to engage in a spar today," Arslan said, "I'm quite willing to wait until a more convenient time."

"Rejected," Sage said, speaking for him. "He's just cranky because he hasn't had a nap today—"

"Fuck you old man," Lima said, on reflex. "I don't even take naps."

Neptune started choking on his water which Sun immediately tried to deal with by smacking him on the back hard enough to almost knock the boy over. The rest of them seemed startled at him mouthing off to their instructor and expectant of some kind of reprimand, but Sage simply jerked his head at the slightly raised platform in the middle of the room—it was only about two feet off the ground, but more than large enough that it dominated the room. Lima kicked his shoes off to add to the pile and then stepped up onto the platform. Arslan followed him up a moment later, rotating around until she'd taken up position opposite him.

"Full contact, aura depletion at fifty percent, surrender, or ring out; I'll call it since he's not registered on the system," Sage said, "No weapons, equipment, aura strikes or Semblance use—none of your cuddling shit either, Lima."

Lima grunted at the absolute besmirchment of his fighting style but said nothing in response—after a decade in the man's care, he was more than accustomed to his rules.

"Aura strikes," Neptune said, "Was that a warning for Arslan or the new guy?"

"Better question," Sun said, sticking his hand up in the air. "What's all this about cuddling?"

The questions went entirely ignored by all parties as Sage moved to stand a bit closer to the platform. Arslan settled into place, eyes sharp as she rolled her shoulders around in an attempt to loosen herself up. Lima did his best to push all of his spiralling thoughts away and focus on the person in front of him.

"Ready," Sage said, giving them a few seconds to do just that, "Start."

Arslan remained in place, one arm held out in front of her, with her legs planted shoulder-width apart. Lima waited all of five seconds before he decided she wasn't going to move, and then he started forward, keeping to a walking pace as he shrunk the distance between them—he slipped to the side as she burst forward, her palm striking past his face in an arc. He tracked her wrist as she started to pull it back and barely managed to stop himself from latching onto it out of reflex. Arslan drew her arm back in, spun, and then swept her hand up into an arc above her head, gathering speed as she went—she struck out in a second attack, the entire motion, circular, continuous and smooth. Lima stepped backwards, glancing down at her feet as she shifted in a way that made it obvious she was going to continue the assault.

The third and fourth windmill strikes came next, each one faster than the last—her footwork shifted out of the pattern, and Lima worked his way backwards with a couple of quick steps. Arslan's foot cut past his face, the blistering roundhouse cashing in all of her generated momentum in an attack that probably would have sent him clear of the boundary if it had hit. Arslan brought her leg back down, twisted until she had good contact with the ground, and then surged forward again. The more she attacked, the more fluid she became, and it was pretty clear that her style made use of a tight set of combinations that each generated increasing momentum towards a final, much stronger hit.

Lima skipped backwards again, forcing her to break off the chain during the third strike, and this time, when she reached him, he met her on the first strike—because that's where she was weakest. Skirting the edges of the 'no cuddling' ruling, he moved into the arc of her palm strike, catching her wrist and shutting down any attempt to convert it into greater momentum. In the same movement, he crashed into her, forearm against her chest, a few inches above her breasts, and then hooked his heel behind her own. Arslan attempted to retrieve her trapped arm, and he let it go, using the moment of unbalance in which she pulled and found no resistance to deepen his position. Arslan fell backwards, unable to pull her foot back to catch herself, and he fought back on the almost overpowering urge to follow her down.

The moment her back hit the ground, he struck downwards from a weak standing position. The first hit sent her aura flaring into existence; the second made it bright—and then her foot crashed into his leg. Lima twisted with the motion, planting his hand flat against the floor and then coming back to his feet on the other side. He started forward again, reaching her just as she made it back to her feet. Arslan was forced to abandon the arcing chain of attacks she'd favoured, the distance too short for it to be effective, and instead attempted more conventional palm strikes, targeting his face and chest.

Lima worked through them all and then caught hold of her collar, twisting the material upwards until it pulled taut against her throat—she attempted to bring her hand up inside the grab, maybe to try and bring her elbow down to break it, but the moment she committed to it, he snaked a strike through her open guard, turning her face to the side—the moment she wasn't looking at him, he stepped out wide, using his grip on her collar as a point of leverage to shunt her sideways before kicking her in the back of the knee hard enough to drop her. He let her go as she fell, and then watched as Arslan managed to scramble back to her feet, the girl turning and backtracking to reenter her favoured range of attack.

It was clear that she was strongest when approached from the front, at a slight angle from the right—and in turn, weakest when approached from the left-hand side, where her back most often appeared unguarded at the start of each chain. Whether she knew those things about her style or not, she would instinctively feel more comfortable attacking from the front and at an angle. He kept moving, deliberately going wide and skirting the edge of that favoured zone. Just as he was approaching her effective striking range, she shifted slightly, muscle groups aligning to receive him.

Arslan shot forward just as he stepped into the critical spot, hand arcing high in the starting motion of her chain—and his foot smashed into her neck as he preemptively targeted the spot she was moving into. Arslan fell, her aura surging up in response to the massive impact, and Lima lifted his foot up, before driving it down—

"Match," Sage said.

Lima managed to shift his attempted stomp to the side at the last second, accidentally stepping on her shoulder and upper arm in the process. Arslan kind of stared up at him from under the dubious protection of her raised guard, looking ruffled but not yet ready to give up the fight.

"What the heck is going on right now?" Reese said, alarmed. "You're not a victim at all."

#

Sage's Workshop, Mistral, Anima.

"There are two things I can see that would make it more effective," Sage said, flipping the gauntlet over. "The first is to give it a permanent, quick, manual release—that gives you some new options."

"Like what?" Lima frowned.

"Using the cable as a whip without having to fire it first is the main one," Sage said, unspooling the cable. "It's a high-quality material, it's rated to withstand heavy impacts, and most of all—it's thin enough to deal some serious damage."

"That's not a bad idea," Lima said, frowning. "I should have thought of that already—damn it."

"Tunnel vision," Sage offered. "You were thinking about using it as a tool for mobility, not as a weapon."

"Yeah, that's probably it," Lima said, "What was the second thing?"

Sage reached down beside the bench and hefted the black quiver box up onto it before sliding out one of the spikes.

"You've been relying on the gravity dust to recover your ammunition, which means everything that's downstream from that is affected," Sage said, "You need to pull back on your use of force so they don't end up out of range, and you need to aim at angles that give you a backstop, or they keep on going until they do finally hit something."

"Yeah," Lima said, tilting his head. "I lost a few spikes to the ocean during the train ride to Vale—which was super annoying to replace."

"Then what you can do, is give yourself the option of selectively assigning a maximum range to them, and you can do that, by putting a quick-connect calliper on the end of each spike, and on the tip of the cable, before the grapple mechanism." Sage said, "Then when you're in a situation with no backstop, you can hook the spike to the tip of the cable and then fire it at full force—or at least a force below what the cable is rated to withstand."

"You are a god damned genius," Lima said, staring at the spike. "Damn—where is the nearest store that sells those?"

"There's a crate full of the standard ones up at the school," Sage said in answer. "I'll raid it in the morning, and you can use those—how many of these have you got?"

"Thirty-six in the quiver," Lima said, "I've got three bandoliers with a dozen in each one as well, but I never really wear it."

"You bring them all here?" Sage wondered.

"Just the quiver; the rest are at Beacon," Lima admitted, "But I can do those ones on my own when I get back, so I need thirty-seven to cover the spikes and the cable itself—are you sure you can take that many?"

"I'll put in a requisition order for replacements while I'm there," Sage said without a care. "Don't even think about trying to pay me back, you little shit."

Lima closed his mouth with a clack.

"You sure?" Lima said, a bit uncomfortable. "You already paid for my train ride."

"I've got a lifetime's worth of Lien saved up, and now that Midori's pretty much set up, it's sitting around doing nothing," Sage said, flipping the spike around in his hand. "You ever thought about detachable tips so you can start adding offensive dust rounds to your arsenal?"

"You might be made of Lien, old man, but I can't maintain something like that, not when the tips explode along with the dust—hell, I had to negotiate a deal with Weiss Schnee just to replace my gravity dust," Lima said shaking his head, "Either way, I'm not shooting money at those fucking monsters, not when a simple spike does the same job."

"That's all they deserve, huh? Don't worry about it, kid; I'll pick some up for you as well," Sage said, twirling the spike in his fingers until it was a blurring mass of black lines. "Keep a few of them in your quiver for just-in-case moments—never use them if you want, but at least they're on hand when you do."

"Stop throwing money at me," Lima said, scrunching his face up. "I'm not one of your escorts."

Sage laughed out loud at the jab, and there was a minute of comfortable silence between them—that same miserable feeling was beginning to surface once more as the break started to come to a close, and he was forced to deal with leaving them behind in Mistral. For probably the hundredth time since Lionheart had given him the orb, Lima found himself on the edge of giving Sage some kind of cryptic warning, and for the hundredth time, he managed to overcome it. Ozpin knew what he was doing, and that meant trusting him to use what little information he'd managed to gather to push Lionheart's shit in. After that, he could tell Sage everything—

"You know," Sage said into the silence. "I didn't bring your old man up the other day for no reason, Lima."

The worries, concerns and anxiety vanished in an instant, the topic powerful enough to ruin even something as dire as the fate of Anima and the lives that had been lost there. Lima glanced up from where he was taking apart the first of the spikes in preparation for eventually adding the callipers.

"I had a few friends come back from Kuchinashi a couple of months back," Sage said, taking note of the expression, "There have been some rumours about a man called Danube running around; he seems to be wrapped up in the Spiders business."

"So nothing changed," Lima said. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Figured that it was better for you to know that he's still around and kicking," Sage said, flipping the spike up into the air and then snatching it out of the spin without effort. "You can use that information, or you can ignore it, but at least you've got the option now, you know?"

Sage had always been big on giving him options, at least for the important things. The man had never forced him to do anything he hadn't agreed to do, even if Lima got his own kicks out of complaining the entire time—still, this was perhaps the one time Lima could reject the goodwill right out of hand.

"I doubt he's spent a single moment of his life thinking about me, so I'm not going to waste my time thinking about him," Lima said with complete certainty. "I've got a dad already, and it's not some loser in Kuchinashi."

The spike came to a halt at the words, now pinched between two of his fingers, before Sage reached over and dropped a hand on top of his head—he allowed the man to mess his hair up without protest, keeping his eyes locked on his own task.

"Spending all that time in Vale has turned you into a bit of a sap, huh?" Sage said, "You're a good kid, Lima."

"Whatever," Lima muttered.

#

Midori's Bar, Mistral, Anima.

Lima twisted on his palm, catching his foot with his hand, and extended his leg into an awkward pose. Having never attempted to hold himself in such a bizarre position, he ended up overbalancing and then crashed down onto his back with a yelp—there were some titters from the patrons who'd come in early, but he ignored them all as he climbed back to his feet.

"Lima, I don't think that's the kind of dancing they'll be doing," Midori giggled, waving her hand at him in an attempt to get him to stop. "It's far more likely to be one where your feet stay on the floor."

"Lame," Lima complained. "I have no idea how to dance, but at least I could fake the acrobatic stuff—maybe."

"It's really not that complicated," Midori said, "Come here, and I'll show you some basics."

Midori slipped out from behind the bar and directed him to come toward her. Lima was bullied into facing the rest of the bar and scrunched his face up as one of the older Huntsmen tilted a drink toward him.

"Relax, you were throwing yourself around a second ago," Midori said, squeezing his shoulders, "Don't tell me you're embarrassed now."

"I'm not," Lima huffed. "Just—tell me what I'm supposed to do."

Midori laughed again and moved to stand beside him, the two of them now facing the same way. Lima glanced down as she patted the front of her jeans, indicating that he should take note of how she was standing.

"This is about as basic as it gets; it's called the box step," Midori said, gesturing to her leading foot. "Think of it as literally drawing a box with your feet—watch."

Midori stepped backwards with her right leg and then followed it with her left before sweeping it out to the side and pausing. Lima copied the movement, a simple 'L' shape that left him standing with his weight on his left foot before he resettled his balance.

"Perfect," Midori said, smiling, "Now keep your weight on your right foot, step forward with your left, and then sweep back into your original position."

Lima tracked the movement of her body like he was doing discovery on an opponent's fighting style, burning the simple movement into his mind. He stepped forward with her, planted his foot, and then drew his right foot forward and to the right, sliding it across the ground. Midori brought both of her feet back together again before settling her weight down onto her left foot.

"Do you need me to do it again?" Midori asked.

Lima followed in step with her as she did it again, but the movement was simple enough that he had no trouble keeping up. Midori stopped after the third repetition and then turned to watch him. Lima continued, doing it three more times before he came to a stop.

"Alright," Lima said, "I've got it."

"Perfect—that was actually the partner's step, but you'll most likely be leading," Midori said, demonstrating. "So your job is to follow that exact pattern but mirrored."

Lima watched her go through it once before jumping in to follow, moving forward, dropping his weight onto his leading foot before sweeping to the side. Midori had been right; it was bizarrely simple, just a simple series of weight changes and some basic footwork in a repeating pattern.

"Huh," Lima said, "Do you think this is the one they'll use?"

"I'm not certain exactly what kind of dance is most common in Vale, but the principles of this should be enough to carry you through it," Midori said, holding out her right hand to him. "Come here—we can practice doing it now so you can step on my feet instead of your girlfriends."

"Sage is a filthy liar," Lima said, blowing a breath out of his nose. "I haven't even asked her yet."

"Dad didn't say anything to me about a girlfriend," Midori said, smiling. "Your left hand, please, not the right."

Lima scrunched his face up at the words, feeling more than a little bit flustered at the comment. Midori directed him to put his right hand on her back, just under her shoulder, and then she rested her left arm on top of his own, hand on his shoulder.

"Like this?" Lima wondered. "I'm going forward, right?"

"Exactly, the same pattern as before," Midori said, squeezing his hand. "We can start at half speed."

Lima stepped towards her as she stepped backwards, a wash of reflex flicking at the edge of his mind as he found himself thinking about all the ways he could disrupt her footing. He swept his foot to the side, sliding it across the ground before drawing his feet together again. A few rotations in, a couple of the patrons started clapping and carrying on, and Midori laughed again.

"You really haven't done this before?" Midori said, smiling.

"I'm a kinaesthetic genius, the likes of which this world has never seen," Lima bragged, mind fully concentrated on the task. "I'll have this whole dancing thing mastered before lunchtime."

#

Sparkling Delights, Mistral, Anima.

"You should have seen him, Midori," Sage said, shaking his head. "Mouthing off in Lionheart's office like he was kicking it with his buddies—the little shit doesn't have a filter."

Lima grunted at the comment, too busy chewing to respond.

"Is that right?" Midori giggled. "What did the headmaster have to say—he wasn't upset, was he?"

"He seemed to find the whole thing funny," Sage said, "The man's probably happy Ozpin has to deal with all the trouble and not him."

Lima glared at him before swallowing the piece of chicken in his mouth, valiantly keeping himself from rising to the bait. The mention of Lionheart only worked to make him uneasy again, a constant reminder of the secret he'd been holding onto.

"Speaking of trouble, some little Faunus kid almost knocked me down when I was walking around Mistral Below the other day," Lima said, tapping his fork against his plate. "He kept mixing up what he was saying, but I think he was trying to say that a house got burned down by the Spiders—you guys hear anything about that?"

"That was a few months ago, but I've heard two different stories, actually," Midori said, frowning a bit. "The first was that a stove was left on all night; the second was that the Spiders burned it down with the occupant inside."

That matched up closely with what the kid had been saying, and now he had corroboration from a far more discerning source.

"Any idea which of those is real?" Lima wondered.

"I've heard nothing since the week after it happened, and I'm not really sure," Midori admitted, "If there was an investigation, it wasn't made public—so all we really have is rumours to go on."

Lima listened as Midori recounted a different story about a scuffle between a couple of retired Huntsman and the Spiders that happened earlier in the year, but it didn't really have anything to do with Ozpin's contact. Sage was also eyeing him a bit at his sudden interest in the Spiders, which made him drop the topic completely. He grew increasingly restless as the break whittled away, his anxiety at leaving Midori and Sage behind and his growing desire to see his team clashing. As soon as the Mistral Limited left the city, he'd quickly find himself in an informational blackout again, unable to instantly receive and send messages, a problem that would grow worse until the delay was measured in days. Eight days spent in a cabin without anyone he knew—not even Pyrrha and Jaune because their schedules weren't going to line up so well this time—it was going to be a nightmare. By the time he'd pulled himself out of his spiralling thoughts, the topic of their discussion had changed once again.

"More of the first years are going than I expected, too." Sage grumbled, "My class is going to be a ghost town until the Vytal Festival is done."

"I'm sure you'll find something to do with all that free time," Midori said, smiling. "The ones who do stay will appreciate the attention, I'm sure."

"I'm not sure about that, but they'll be getting it regardless," Sage admitted before barking out a laugh. "Lima, I don't know what you said to that Wukong kid, but you're a bad influence—from what I've heard, he's already on his way to Vale."

"The madman actually did it?" Lima said, impressed. "How did he end up going—airship?"

"According to Vasilias, he stowed away on some cargo ship headed for Vale sometime in the last week," Sage said, shaking his head. "He must be at least halfway there by now, the little shit—he dipped out early on a test as well."

"Why are you a bad influence?" Midori said, looking curious. "Did you tell him to leave?"

"We got into an argument about which academy was better," Lima said, scratching his cheek. "So I sent him this fake article about Beacon Academy—that no one in their right mind would ever believe was true—and now he thinks the skirts at Beacon are three inches shorter."

Midori snorted, almost spilling her drink down the front of her dress in the process before she tried to catch the liquid in the palm of her hand.

"Yeah?" Sage said, barking out a laugh. "What are you going to do when he gets there before you do and steals your girlfriend out from under you?"

"God damn it, Sage," Lima cried in anguish. "I don't have a—"

#

Central Train Station, Mistral, Anima.

"It won't be until the end of the school year," Lima said, "But maybe I can convince them to come with me."

"That sounds fun," Midori said, squeezing his shoulder. "Make sure you tell them I'm looking forward to meeting them."

"The fighter girl," Sage said, scratching his chin. "She any good?"

"She's strong, fast, and seems to learn pretty quickly, but she's also straightforward," Lima said, thinking about it. "I can also promise you that she will hound you day and night to keep fighting her."

"Can't fault her enthusiasm," Sage said, nodding. "You could learn something from that."

"I used to be bright-eyed and enthusiastic, just like her," Lima said, grinning. "Then I met you."

Sage barked out a laugh at the words and opened his mouth to respond in kind, but Midori beat him to it.

"Behave, the both of you," Midori said, "We've only got a few minutes left—don't waste them bickering."

"Sorry," Lima said, clapping his hands together in apology. "I'll make sure to call you guys when I get back to Beacon—if I don't die of boredom along the way."

"A week in a tin can," Sage said, shaking his head. "Glad it's you and not me—maybe I'll look into picking up an airship after all; I can probably wrangle someone into getting me a discount."

"It's your money," Lima hedged, "But if you save me from another eight days of travel at the end of the year, I promise I won't complain—for a little while."

"A brief reprieve," Sage said, amused. "Lima, make sure you spend your time well—not everyone lives as long and rich a life as I have."

Spend your time well—the man had said that to him half a dozen times over the last decade, and he'd always done his best to make sure he did just that. This time wouldn't be any different.

"I'll beat whatever your high score ends up being, you old fossil; you can count on that," Lima said with certainty. "Now hurry up and give me a hug while nobody is looking—it's embarrassing to be seen with either of you."

"That's a lie," Midori said. "You love us."

"I do," Lima admitted.

Sage pulled him into a one-armed hug and made sure to mess up his hair before he could escape—something that probably would have pissed him off if he'd bothered to brush it that morning. Midori leant in for her own hug next, longer, and with far less hair messing involved. He pulled back when the final call for the train departure came in and then slipped through the door before they could close. The doors of the Mistral Limited slid shut, a foot in front of his face, and he stepped to the side to look through the window.

Sage and Midori stood on the platform, still waving at him, and he swallowed when he realised that Midori was crying now. That same pain in his chest that he'd felt when he'd left his team behind arced through his chest, and he took a deep breath to steady himself against it. Lima reached up and placed his hand against the glass; fingers splayed in a wave as the train began to crawl forward out of the station. Sage's wrinkled, smiling face passed behind a pillar, and then they were gone, leaving him staring out at Mistral as the city slipped past the window. He stayed there for a long time, standing by the door with his hand on the glass, and when Mistral fell away entirely, he finally managed to turn away.

Sage was right; he needed to get his hands on an airship and fast—because being miserable sucked.

End Volume 1