Hey guys, I hope you guys enjoyed the last chapter! I'll be the first to admit that writing this particular version of my longest running story (chapter number wise at least) has alot different of a feel to it. I think maybe because it's requiring me to to put more thought into what to write.. i don't know lol. I'll do my best with story pacing this chapter. If you haven't caught it yet, there was a pretty big bombshell about Qrow revelaed last chapter. The reason he keeps his relationship with dark elves a secret will be revealed at some point during the course of this story.
After some extensive thinking, I realized that there are some things I am going to change for this story compared to the original Flame and Crimson story on here. So the overall story will stay the same, but some of the events and character interactions will be different. Most notably as you guys have guessed and seen... Weiss is the main love interest for Odyn this time around, so that.. changes some things within the story that played out when Ruby was the main love interest for him. I may change it just because Ruby and Yang are step siblings, but maybe you guys can help me out with this one:
Which of the Rwby female characters should Roy be paired with this time?
I. Ruby
II. Blake
III. Yang
IV. Pyrrha
V. Velvet
VI. Emerald
VII. Cinder(Reformed/ Hero route)
Which of the male Characters should Sarai be with?
1. Jaune
2. Ren
3. Cardin(Reformed/ Hero route)
4. Sun
5. Neptune
6. Yatsuhashi
7. Daikon
8. Beat
9. Giblet
10. Shallot
11. Baron
12. Oscar
13. Mercury (Hero Route)
Who should Khanna be with this time?
1. Yatsuhashi
2. Jaune
3. Sun
4. Oscar
5. Baron
6. Giblet
7. Shallot
8. Neptune
9. Beat
10. Stay with Mercury(hero route)
11. Cardin(Hero route)
12. Daikon
Pairing for Hailfire: Who should it be?
A: Sun
B: Neptune
C: Oscar
D: Roy
E: Yatsuhashi
F: Beat
G: Giblet
H: Shallot
I: Daikon
J: Cardin(Hero Route)
K: Mercury (Hero Route)
L: Ren
Let me guys know what you think in terms of these Character polls.
Disclaimer: I don't own Black Clover, The Tales of Series, Dragon Ball, or Rwby and their characters. I only own the oc's who appear in this story. The aforementioned series and characters belong to their respective creators and owners.
Opening theme:
Opening: Alive by ReoNa (Arknights: Prelude to Dawn- anime opening 1)
Visuals: Replace the Arknights Characters with the characters in this story, same for the world.
CHAPTER II — Tragedy and Separation; Death in the Family
Location: Schnee Manor, Noble District
Continent: Solitas — Kingdom of Atlas
There is a unique brand of quiet that settles over an estate in the days following a monumental event. It's a peace born less of a true absence of noise and more of a collective, held breath—as if the very walls are standing still, waiting to see what the future will bring.
In the wake of the Albanar family's visit, Schnee Manor breathed that exact kind of suspended silence.
Jacques Schnee spent his hours away at the company offices, exactly where he always was. Whitley remained sequestered with his private tutors. Willow moved through her daily rituals with the practiced, mechanical grace of a woman who had long since turned routine into armor.
And Weiss? Weiss trained.
It was the one anchor she had left, the sole discipline capable of transforming the restless, jittery energy in her chest into purposeful motion. She and Winter commandeered an empty practice room on the manor's east wing—a high-ceilinged space with tall, bright windows and plenty of polished floor space where a rapier could arc freely without snagging on furniture. A modest rack of practice blades lined one wall, alongside several mounted shields serving as targets for footwork drills.
On this particular morning, however, the footwork was not cooperating.
Weiss stood dead center on the wooden floor, holding her rapier in a guard position that Winter had already corrected three times. Yet, the form still felt entirely wrong—her posture tilted slightly, her weight improperly distributed, and her mind wandering miles away from the room.
Winter watched her with the patient, knowing gaze of an instructor who had already diagnosed the root of the problem.
She didn't offer a reprimand. She simply waited.
Weiss attempted the advance-and-lunge drill they had been practicing all week. Her lead foot landed a half-step off mark, the blade dipped prematurely on the extension, and she cut her movement short before completing the follow-through. She straightened up sharply, exhaled a frustrated breath, and lowered the tip of her rapier.
"Again," she muttered to herself, the word falling softer and more defeated than she intended.
She reset her stance. Tried again. The lunge came out cleaner—her foot placement improved—but her arm hesitated midway through the extension, completely killing her forward momentum.
"Weiss."
She spun around. Standing quietly in the doorway was their grandfather.
Nicolas Schnee II hadn't announced his arrival. He rarely did, navigating the vast halls of the manor with the unhurried ease of a man completely at home in his own skin, possessing an uncanny knack for appearing precisely when he was needed most. Dressed down by his usual standards—a pale grey waistcoat layered over a crisp white shirt, dark trousers, and carrying an ornate silver cane more out of tactile habit than physical necessity—he offered her a warm, knowing smile.
It was the expression of someone who could see right through a person's wandering mind and understood the cause without ever needing to ask.
Weiss immediately straightened her posture out of instinct. Then, she relaxed, because this was Grandfather, and performing for him had never been necessary.
"Grandfather?" She lowered her weapon entirely. "What brings you here?"
"Checking in on my favorite granddaughters," he replied warmly, casting a fond nod toward Winter before stepping further into the room. He walked with a steady, unhurried pace, coming to a stop near Weiss. He studied her face for a long moment. "How are you holding up, little one?"
"Fine," she offered automatically. Then, with a flicker of honesty: "...Alright, I suppose."
He crouched down—his knees popping with a soft protest that he completely ignored with absolute dignity—until he was at eye level with her. A warm, steady hand settled gently on top of her head. He looked at her with that unique, reassuring expression she had never quite managed to put into words: the one that promised I see you, and I am not going anywhere.
"You miss him," he stated, leaving no room for debate. "Odyn."
She dropped her gaze to the wooden floorboards. Her fingers tightened around the leather-wrapped grip of the rapier before loosening again.
"I know it's silly," she whispered. "It's only been a few days."
"It isn't silly at all." He gently caught her chin, tilting her face up to meet his. "Missing someone who matters to you is one of the most honest things a human being can do." He pushed himself back up to a stand. "As it happens, I came to speak with you regarding a matter of some importance. Something concerning both yourself and that young elf." A pause hung in the air. "But first—perhaps you can show me where your training is faltering. I might have a few insights to share."
Her expression shifted instantly, her self-doubt giving way to bright, focused curiosity. "You know swordsmanship, Grandfather?"
"I know a great many things." His eyes crinkled with quiet amusement. "Show me."
Winter had quietly slipped over to close the heavy door, peeking out into the hallway before returning to lean against the wall with her arms crossed. It was a precaution she exercised with utmost care: Jacques rarely returned before late afternoon, but Whitley—eleven years old, fiercely ambitious, and desperate to prove his usefulness to their father—was a variable she never left unchecked. A quick glance down the east wing confirmed Klein was the only other soul nearby, and Klein was, as always, completely trustworthy.
Winter offered her grandfather a subtle nod. We are clear.
Nicolas watched quietly as Weiss ran through the advance-and-lunge sequence twice—first silently observing, and the second time with his complete focus locked onto her mechanics. He spotted the issue instantly: her hesitation on the extension wasn't a flaw in her technical training. Her fundamentals were solid. The hesitation stemmed entirely from a distracted mind, a heart caught somewhere outside the training room walls.
He voiced this observation gently, watching as Weiss cycled through surprise, self-recognition, and finally a self-aware, rueful twist of her lips.
For the next twenty minutes, he worked with her—adjusting her weight distribution during the guard stance, teaching her how to time her breathing with the lunge so the extension felt natural rather than forced, and correcting the subtle angle of her wrist. True to his word, he knew a great many things. He had fenced competitively in his youth, and over six decades, he had made it his personal mission to understand how the people he loved moved through the world.
When Weiss finally executed the sequence cleanly—fluid, complete, the blade striking its mark with absolute confidence and zero hesitation—she stood at the end of it with her chest heaving, wearing a look of profound satisfaction mixed with sheer astonishment.
"There," Nicolas said, pouring more genuine warmth into the single word than any professional fencing instructor ever would. "That is what happens when your mind and your body finally decide to inhabit the same room."
From her post by the wall, Winter offered a soft, approving smile.
Nicolas settled heavily into the practice room's lone wooden chair—a battered piece of furniture dragged in years prior and never removed—and rested his hands over the silver head of his cane.
"Now then," he murmured. "Sit with me for a moment."
Weiss crossed her legs, sitting directly on the practice mat in front of him with the rapier laid flat across her knees. She looked up with the total, undivided attention of a child who knew whatever came next was worth listening to.
"Weiss," he began smoothly, "you and Odyn have grown quite close, haven't you?"
"We've known each other since we were very little," she answered honestly, adding after a brief beat: "He's my best friend."
"Indeed." Nicolas fell silent for a moment, weighing his words with the careful precision of a man who understood that how you deliver news shapes how it is received. "His family—Lord Berethon and the Duchess—have proposed an alliance of considerable value to our company. New trade routes, cutting-edge technology never before seen in Atlas." He paused, watching her eyes widen slightly. "They asked for only one condition in return."
Weiss's brow furrowed. Her mind raced ahead—Nicolas could practically see the gears turning. If there's a condition, it involves Odyn. If it involves Odyn, it involves me.
"What condition?" she asked, her voice dropping an octave.
"That you and Odyn, upon reaching the age of maturity, enter into a formal betrothal."
The words hung suspended in the air. Weiss froze completely.
Then, her face went through a breathtaking sequence of expressions in the span of four seconds: sheer confusion, sudden shock, and a violent, spreading flush that started at the tips of her ears and rushed down to flood her cheeks, culminating in a desperate, failing attempt to maintain her composure.
"A—a betrothal?" Her voice squeaked upward before she violently cleared her throat. "That would mean... that Odyn would be my..."
"Your fiancé," Winter supplied smoothly from across the room, carrying the careful tone of someone trying very hard not to crack a smile. "And eventually, your husband. You would be joined together, much like Father and Mother—only with Odyn."
If possible, the crimson shade of Weiss's face deepened. She stared hard at her own lap. Her free hand automatically reached up, a finger catching a lock of silver hair and twisting it relentlessly—an entirely unconscious nervous habit.
"I..." She stopped. Restarted. "I've never thought about it like that—I mean, he's my friend, he's always been my friend, and I do—of course I like him, but that's just because we've known each other for so long and—does he know?"
"He was the one who agreed to it," Winter noted.
Something shifted inside Weiss at that revelation. The flustered panic melted away, replaced by something much quieter, much more genuine—a radiant warmth she was still too young to know how to hide.
"Oh," she whispered softly. Her thumb traced the metal guard of the rapier. Lifting her gaze to meet her grandfather's, her expression settled into a profound, undeniable certainty—not the rehearsed poise she often faked, but the real kind born of a heart discovering what it truly wanted.
"I don't mind," she admitted quietly. "Becoming... Odyn's fiancée. I don't mind at all."
Nicolas threw his head back and laughed—a rich, booming sound of pure, unadulterated delight that he reserved only for the people he loved most.
"Splendid!" He reached forward and gave her hair an affectionate tousle, which she bore with remarkable, dignified restraint. "I shall ensure his family receives our formal acceptance." He stood up, tapping his cane against the floorboards. "We shall celebrate this properly the next time they visit." He paused at the doorway, turning back to offer her a parting smile with a permanent, heartwarming depth. "I am very proud of you, little one. Never forget that."
Weiss watched him exit the room. Then, she looked down at the practice sword resting in her lap, feeling the lingering, comforting warmth blooming in her chest.
"Winter," she murmured.
"Mm."
"You are not allowed to say a single word about my face just now."
"I have absolute zero commentary regarding your facial expressions," Winter replied evenly, sounding entirely like someone suppressing an entire encyclopedia of teasing remarks. "Shall we run the sequence from the top?"
An hour later, Klein intercepted her in the east corridor as she strolled toward the gardens with the dazed, luminous expression of someone processing a piece of news so good they were still afraid to wake up from it.
"Young Miss." He offered a silver tray polished to a mirror shine. Resting upon it was a single white envelope, sealed neatly with crimson wax. "A letter has arrived for you."
Weiss's eyebrows shot up. She scooped up the envelope, recognized the neat script scrawled across the front, and felt a sudden, rushing wave of warmth wash over her.
"Thank you, Klein."
She carried it straight to her favorite garden bench—tucked near the dormant rose hedge where the winter wind died down and the pale sunlight offered a bit of comfort—and sat down, holding the unopened letter in both hands for a long, quiet moment.
Dear Princess,
How are you holding up? Things here have been... alright, I suppose. Which is to say, not entirely bad and not entirely easy, which is usually how things go.
By the time this reaches your hands, you'll already know what was decided between our families. I won't pretend I haven't been thinking about it—I have. Quite a bit, actually. Just in case you're wondering where I stand: I meant what I said. I don't mind it at all. In fact, if I'm being completely honest, I'm glad.
There is something else I need to tell you, and I want to be straight about it because you deserve the truth: I have a bad feeling about all of this. I can't quite put my finger on the exact reason, but it's there. Your father... I don't know what his ultimate plans are, but whatever they are, I don't think they're good. I don't understand why he hates us. I don't know what we ever did to him. But my gut tells me he's plotting something, and I'd rather you be prepared than left in the dark.
You don't need to bring this up to your grandfather—I'm certain he already senses your father's attitude toward us. And I've heard through a few different channels that your grandfather's health hasn't been entirely steady these past few months. I don't want to give him anything extra to worry about. So please, don't worry about me worrying. I just wanted you to know.
We'll meet again soon. I promise.
Sincerely — your fiancé,
Odyn Albanar
Weiss slowly folded the letter along its crisp creases, cradling it in her lap.
The gardens around her were bitterly cold. The dormant rose bushes stood bare and skeletal against the stone walls, and the central fountain had been drained weeks ago to protect it from the hard Atlas freeze. It was profoundly quiet—that heavy, suffocating silence typical of Atlas, feeling more like atmospheric pressure than actual peace.
She replayed Odyn's warning in her mind: Your father is planning something.
She thought back to the look Jacques had worn during the family visit—that cold, flinty glare and the undisguised disdain he hadn't bothered to hide. She remembered the blinding flash of Lylah's blade and how the entire room had instantly locked down in mortal stillness.
I hope you're wrong, she thought, directing her silent plea toward whatever corner of Solitas Odyn currently called home. I hope we're both wrong.
Summoning Klein, she requested pen and paper. Sitting alone on the freezing stone bench, she poured her heart out into a reply—careful, deliberate, packing every single thought, worry, and affection she had carried since their parting into the lines of ink, realizing only as she finished that even a full sheet of paper wasn't nearly enough space.
She folded it, sealed it, and handed it back to Klein with quiet, explicit instructions to ensure her father never caught wind of the exchange.
Klein accepted the missive with the solemn dedication of a man ready to move mountains to protect her wishes, bowed low, and quietly withdrew.
Weiss lingered on the bench a little longer. The winter sunlight remained thin and pale against the frosted stones. High above the slate roofline of the manor, a lonely bird cried out once before fading into absolute stillness.
She thought of a frosty grassy hill, a pinky promise sealed under the open sky, and the comforting weight of two arms wrapped securely around her shoulders.
I hope we meet again soon, she thought, meaning it with the absolute, unshakable conviction of a child who knows something is true long before she has the vocabulary to explain it.
Narration — Weiss (Older):
I was blissfully unaware, sitting in that quiet, freezing garden, of what the coming weeks would bring. I had his letter. I had my letter waiting to go to him. I had the comforting warmth of a monumental decision that felt far more like pure recognition than mere resolution—like discovering a vital piece of myself I hadn't known was already certain.
What a foolishly fortunate child I was, lingering in those last peaceful hours before everything changed forever.
If I had known then what my father was truly doing—what unspeakable wheels he had already set in motion—perhaps I could have stopped him. Perhaps not. I have spent nine agonizing years turning that question over in my mind, and I still haven't found an answer I can live with.
Before I was ready, another two weeks slipped through my fingers.
Weiss received the news on a crisp Thursday morning.
She was halfway to the east wing practice room when she nearly collided with Winter at the corridor junction. The look frozen on her older sister's face stopped her dead in her tracks as effectively as a physical barricade.
Winter was the very definition of composed. She was always composed. But beneath that familiar veneer today lay something fractured—a microscopic fault line running deep through stone.
"Weiss." Her voice remained level, though it carried an unnatural weight. "Come with me."
The rest of the devastating reality unspooled in sharp, agonizing fragments: Klein's voice, hushed and trembling; the word negotiations; the word attacked; the phrase grievous wounds; and, underlying every single syllable like a low, discordant note, the unspoken truth that none of them dared name aloud.
She ran.
Weiss didn't even realize she was sprinting until she was halfway down the corridor toward the east wing stairs, her boots hammering frantically against the polished marble as the fractured pieces in her chest reassembled themselves into a nightmare she refused to acknowledge.
Grandfather. Please. Please.
She burst through the heavy mahogany doors of his bedchamber.
He was there, resting beneath heavy linens. The room was crowded—Winter, Willow, the estate physician, and two solemn attendants stood in a semicircle, all turning toward her with that universal, heavy expression people wear when they have braced themselves for a tragedy that has finally arrived.
Her eyes locked instantly onto his face.
He was entirely still. A dark cloth lay across his midsection. His weathered hands were folded peacefully over his chest. His eyes were closed.
Impossibly, he looked as though he were simply sleeping.
"No." The denial tore out of her throat, sounding nothing like her own voice. It belonged to someone much smaller, much younger. "No—no, no, no—"
She crossed the room before her brain registered the movement, dropping hard to her knees beside the bed, her small hands clutching the edge of the coverlet.
"Grandfather—please—please wake up—"
Winter's arms wrapped securely around her from behind—not to drag her away, but simply to anchor her. Her older sister's face was buried in the back of her silver hair, and Winter's shoulders were shaking violently. In that awful moment, Weiss understood that this was a grief too massive for composure to ever conquer.
"Weiss." Her sister's voice was barely a breath. "It's too late. He's... he's gone."
The word gone shattered the last invisible barrier holding her shock at bay. Weiss pressed her face directly into the coverlet of her grandfather's bed and let the grief completely tear her apart.
Standing near the doorway, half-shadowed by the frame, was Jacques Schnee.
He was speaking—she could hear the timbre of his voice filtering through the roaring waves of her own sobs, sounding as distant as if she were underwater. Something about the Faunus. Something about an ambush. Something about those ungrateful animals getting precisely what they deserved. His voice carried a distinct tonal quality that she was far too devastated in that moment to properly identify.
She would recognize it later. Alone, in the dark of her bedroom, in the dead of night.
It was pure, unadulterated satisfaction.
Narration — Weiss:
A piece of me died inside that room. A part of my soul that was young, fiercely certain, and utterly unafraid of the world—the kind of fearlessness only grandfathers can instill, because as long as they stand beside you, you believe there is always someone older, wiser, and infinitely stronger who sees you, loves you, and will never let the dark touch you.
When Nicolas Schnee II died, that absolute certainty died right along with him.
What followed was swift and merciless: the Dark Elves, who had already scraped by at the absolute margins of Atlesian tolerance, suddenly found themselves shoved violently to the center of a horrific narrative they had never written. The public swung hard against them, seizing a convenient scapegoat for a tragedy no one bothered to investigate too closely. Prejudices that had always simmered beneath the surface were fanned into roaring flames. It took very little effort to transform them into monsters in the eyes of Atlas.
They were systematically driven out of Solitas within weeks. There wasn't a single dark elf left in the noble district by the end of the month. Soon, they vanished from Atlas entirely. They fled—or were violently driven—into the unknown dark. I didn't know where they went. I doubt anyone with the power to protect them ever bothered to ask.
I cried until my chest felt hollow and dry. Then I sat by my bedroom window, staring blankly up at the cold moon for hours. And when the night grew too biting, I finally pulled the shutters closed and stepped back inside.
Waiting on her nightstand lay an envelope.
She almost missed it entirely. She had returned to her room with the sole intention of curling into a tight ball with her knees pulled to her chest, shutting out the entire world. But as she turned her head, the crisp white paper caught the dim lamplight.
It was a sealed envelope, bearing handwriting she would have recognized anywhere in the universe.
Her hands shook uncontrollably as she picked it up, snapping the crimson wax seal with trembling fingers.
Hey, Princess.
I heard what happened. I want you to know—there are no words adequate enough to express how sorry I am. I know how much you loved him, and I know the cruel weight of having someone ripped away before the world is ready to let them go.
I also have to tell you something I desperately wish I didn't have to write, but you deserve the truth: things have become impossible for us here. The vile things people are saying about my people... you can only imagine. We are no longer permitted the basic freedoms we once held. My family, my entire tribe—we are being hunted out of our homes. What I warned you about before, about having to move away? This is what it has come to. We are migrating to a safer sanctuary. I don't know our exact destination yet, but we have no choice. We have to go.
Please, I am begging you not to carry this as your fault. I know your heart—I know you're already trying to blame yourself somehow, and I am telling you now: stop. You never saw us the way the rest of this cruel world did, and we always knew that. Whatever happens to us, that truth will never change.
When we meet again—and we will—remember the promise we locked in. Don't you dare forget it. Until that day comes, know that we are watching over you from wherever the road takes us.
Sincerely yours,
Odyn Albanar
Weiss read the letter twice. The tears that fell this time were completely silent—not the desperate, wracking sobs of the deathbed chamber, but a slow, heavy sorrow that soaked deep into her bones, leaving behind a profound, permanent gravity.
She pressed the paper flat against her chest, feeling the texture of the ink, imagining the lingering warmth of the hands that had written it.
"Thank you," she whispered into the empty, echoing room, addressing someone far beyond her reach. "Thank you, Odyn."
She sat motionless with the letter for a long while. Then, slowly, she stood up.
It was not a sudden, dramatic awakening. There was no theatrical spark of vengeance lighting up her face like a torch. It was a much slower, much quieter transformation—the kind of quiet resolve that doesn't need to announce itself because its foundation is absolute. It simply settled deep into her skeleton, a stark new understanding of how much weight a single person could be forced to carry.
She opened the small locked box resting inside her desk drawer and placed Odyn's letter gently inside, right beside the very first one he had ever sent her.
Then, she walked over to the window, picked up her rapier from its polished stand, and walked out the door to find the practice room.
The years that followed were not kind ones.
Jacques Schnee stepped into the vacuum left by his father-in-law's death with the cold, unyielding efficiency of a man who had spent decades waiting for a single door to open. He seized full control of the Schnee Dust Company. He justified it under the guise of due diligence and sacred family obligation. He sprinkled his speeches with words like stewardship and stability, and if the executives in the boardroom noticed that his eyes were far too bright with triumphant ambition for the occasion, they were far too disciplined to say a word.
Willow retreated. That remains the most honest way to describe it—she slowly withdrew, room by room, year by year, until her presence in the manor was reduced to the ghost of a person who simply hadn't packed her bags. The warmth that had illuminated her face on the day of the Albanar family's visit—the quiet humanity that had murmured I was not always like this—grew nearly impossible to find. Eventually, Weiss stopped searching for it in the grand, open spaces of the house, discovering it instead in quiet, hidden mercies: a glass of warm milk left silently outside her door during grueling study nights, or the fleeting, feather-light touch of Willow's hand resting on her hair in passing.
Winter graduated from Atlas Academy and immediately enlisted in the military. Jacques vehemently objected. Winter enlisted anyway. In all the ways that truly counted, she was her grandfather's true heir.
Whitley stayed behind. Whitley learned. He figured out, early and thoroughly, how power shifted and operated under Jacques's new regime, and he engineered himself to be useful to it. Weiss never blamed him; if anything, looking at her younger brother, she mostly felt a deep, aching pity.
And Weiss? Weiss trained. She studied. She mastered the inner workings of the global company whether Jacques realized she was learning them or not. She kept Odyn's letters locked securely inside the velvet box in her desk. She and Khanna maintained a steady correspondence—sometimes exchanging multiple letters a month—and through those pages, Weiss kept alive her only remaining thread to the world she had lost, to people who had known her before her grandfather died and the manor's halls grew bitterly cold.
The betrothal was never spoken of again beneath Jacques's roof. Jacques remained entirely ignorant of it. Weiss ensured he never found out, applying the same quiet, meticulous cunning to protecting that secret as she did to everything else worth saving.
Had he discovered the truth, she knew without a doubt he would have moved heaven and earth to sever it. So she never gave him the opportunity.
Nine long years passed.
The little girl who had kissed a dark elf boy on the cheek and boldly called him her prince had grown into a poised, formidable young woman of seventeen. She wore a rapier at her hip and carried the heavy title of Heiress in every social circle she traversed. She was precise, academically brilliant, occasionally icy to outsiders who hadn't earned her trust, and fiercely, stubbornly herself in every core aspect of her character.
She still kept his letters.
She still thought of him every single day.
And now, she was leaving for Beacon.
The morning of her departure, the sky over Atlas wore the distinct, heavy grey of a stubborn winter refusing to yield to spring. Klein stood waiting at the manor's grand front entrance, her luggage already loaded into the transport—because Klein always anticipated every need and never required a direct order.
She paused near the top of the stone steps.
She looked back at the sprawling estate. At the towering windows. At the frost-bitten garden wall just visible around the east wing's corner. At the quiet bench where she had once sat in the freezing air, reading a handwritten letter and feeling the trajectory of her entire life snap into place.
"Do take care of yourself out there, Milady."
Klein's voice was smooth, warm, and precise—the tone of a man who had watched a motherless child weather a storm and considered the proud result a life well-spent.
She turned to face him. There were a thousand things she could have said in that moment. She realized, with a sudden pang, that she had never properly thanked him—for what he had meant during the darkest years, for simply being the one steady person in that cavernous house who was unequivocally on her side.
Instead, she offered a soft, steady smile: "Of course I will, Klein."
He bowed deeply. She turned and descended the steps toward the waiting aircraft, her luggage secured, her rapier balanced at her hip, her posture the picture of resolute grace.
At the very bottom of the stairs, she halted.
She tilted her head up. The Atlesian sky was vast, grey, and pale. Somewhere out there in the sprawling expanse of Remnant—somewhere beyond maps and borders—lived a young man who held her promise, a locked box full of her ink-stained words, and a name she hadn't stopped whispering in her heart for nearly a decade.
Odyn.
She pressed a gloved hand briefly to her chest, right over the spot where the warmth of all those old letters seemed to linger like a heartbeat. If you're out there... watch over me. And...
I think it's almost time.
She stepped onto the aircraft ramp. The engines hummed to life. Beneath her, the grand Schnee Manor shrank into miniature, the geometric grey-white grid of Atlas spread out below, until a thick bank of clouds rose up to swallow everything whole.
She turned her gaze straight ahead.
She was going to Beacon.
To Be Continued
Next Time: Chapter 3 — Reunion at Beacon; Nine Years Later.
Ending theme: Reincarnated as a Sword ending song 1
Visuals: Replace Fran with Weiss in her home. Weiss then looks skyward and runs across a field before stopping and seeing Odyn as a child. The children stare at each other before it transitions to them as adults(young adults/teenagers) running towards each other from different perspectives. The song ends as the two are seen to be walking towards each other with Odyn smiling and reaching out his hand towards Weiss. Weiss turns away and blushes for a second before accepting the hand. The two hold hands as they walk towards the distance in a freeze frame.
Hey guys I hope you enjoyed the chapter. A little shorter i know. Sorry in advance if I skipped over some details, but I wanted this to be more of a weiss themed setup chapter for the story as it goes towards where the story will start. Next chapter will start from Odyn's perspective before he and the others head towards Beacon Academy. Alot of the story will stay the same, but as I said: Since Weiss is the main love interest this time, certain events will play out differently.
Before we go, here's a poll concerning our favorite hyperactive cookie lover, Ruby:
Should Ruby fall in love with Roy?
1. Yes
2. No
If no, then who should Ruby's (crush) love interest be?
1. Baron
2. Giblet
3. Shallot
4. Daikon
5. Sun
6. Jaune
7. Beat
8. Oscar
9. Other (write in suggestion)
Which Male Character should Yang's love interest be?
1. Giblet
2. Shallot
3. Roy
4. Valvahdern
5. Jaune
6. Beat
7. Daikon
8. Cardin
9. Other (write in male suggestion)
Who should Blake be with?
1. Giblet
2. Baron
3. Shallot
4. Sun
5. Roy
6. Jaune
7. Daikon
8. Beat
9. Other male write in
That's really it for now! I'll see you guys in the next chapter!