The cold Fall breeze rushing past the terminal felt refreshing against Tsutsumi's face.
Morning sunlight crested over the horizon, painting the clouds in soft colors as the central promenade leading into the school slowly filled with life.
Nearby, airport workers directed passengers in and out of the terminal, keeping the daily flow between the city and Beacon moving smoothly.
Team TNPR's transport was scheduled to begin boarding at exactly nine.
Tsutsumi sat on a metal bench near the terminal entrance, one leg crossed over the other, gaze fixed forward.
"Excited, Tsutsumi?"
The voice came from his left.
He tilted his head slightly as Pyrrha came into view, pulling her luggage behind her. She adjusted her grip, then smoothed out her skirt before sitting down beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost brushed.
"What makes you say that?" he asked.
"Ohh~," Pyrrha hummed, leaning back slightly. "I think I'm starting to learn how you express yourself."
She leaned back a little, hands resting on her knees. "You always wear this tiny grin when something interests you. It's really subtle, but it's there."
Tsutsumi blinked. "I do?"
He honestly didn't remember doing that. But thinking about it for a moment, it did sound like something he'd unconsciously do.
Pyrrha giggled. "Gotcha~!"
He stared at her for a second. "...Oh, you're very funny, Pyrrha."
She beamed.
"As punishment," he continued dryly, "let's break up."
Pyrrha didn't miss a beat. She stuck her tongue out and crossed her index fingers into an X. "Nope."
Tsutsumi sighed and shook his head.
She was adapting fast. Faster than he expected. Pyrrha was learning how to deal with him, how to talk to him, when to push and when not to. It was almost unsettling.
Tsutsumi sighed and shook his head. "If only people actually knew what you're really like."
"Then it's a good thing only you do," Pyrrha replied, winking again.
He glanced at her. "Careful."
"About what?"
"Or you'll end up crashing into another pole."
She froze mid-breath. Her smile vanished, and her cheeks immediately flushed. "I-I thought you'd never bring that up again."
Tsutsumi grinned. "You thought wrong."
"That's not fair!" she protested, lightly bumping his shoulder.
"When do I ever play by the rules?" he shot back.
She opened her mouth. "Tsutsumi, you-"
"HEY, YOU TWO!"
Nora's voice echoed across the terminal.
They both turned just in time to see Nora waving energetically, Ren standing beside her, calm as ever. Behind them, Team RWBY approached as well, Ruby leading the way with her usual bounce.
"Quit your flirting!" Nora shouted. "And look! Ruby and her team came to see us off!"
The two of them froze.
Pyrrha's face went completely red, matching her hair almost perfectly. She quickly turned her head away, pretending to be very interested in absolutely nothing. Tsutsumi, on the other hand, just stared at her reaction.
Nora's comment didn't really affect him.
Pyrrha, however, despite acting bold and unhinged most of the time, was still painfully inexperienced when it came to this sort of thing.
Tsutsumi leaned back slightly, his expression flattening.
That realization annoyed him more than he liked.
If Pyrrha's feelings came from inexperience, then this whole relationship was built on unstable ground. It could fade the moment she met someone she genuinely loved. Or worse, that this forced arrangement could actually become real.
Both possibilities sat uncomfortably in his chest.
He wanted to experience love. He really did.
But he didn't want to watch someone he cared about die again.
Pyrrha finally glanced back at him, noticing his silence. "...You okay?"
He looked at her for a moment, then away.
"Yeah," he said. "Just thinking."
She smiled softly. "Try not to think too hard. You're bad at relaxing."
He huffed. "That's not true."
She laughed quietly. "It really is."
"Heyyy! Pyrrha!"
Ruby's voice rang out as she sprinted toward the terminal gate, waving one arm in the air. "We got here just in time!"
"Good morning, Ruby," Pyrrha greeted with a smile, lifting a hand in return.
Ruby slowed to a stop, catching her breath, then narrowed her silver eyes toward Tsutsumi. He had already turned his head away, clearly uninterested in acknowledging them.
"Tee-hehe…" Ruby laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head. "Um, Tsutsumi… sorry about how I acted the past few days."
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
"Heh?" Tsutsumi said flatly. "I'm not invisible anymore?"
Ruby flinched. "I-I didn't mean it like that. I just… didn't know how to react."
"Oh," he replied, tone dry. "So I exist now."
She winced. "I said I was sorry…"
Tsutsumi stared at her for a second, then shrugged. "Eh. I've been ignored worse."
Panicking slightly, Ruby immediately pointed behind her. "It was all Weiss's idea!"
"RUBY!" Weiss shouted, just as she noticed Tsutsumi looking straight at her.
She crossed her arms defensively. "W-What? Don't tell me you're thinking something weird!"
Tsutsumi didn't respond verbally.
Instead, he reached out calmly, brushed his thumb under Weiss's eye, right through the makeup, and then turned and dragged that same thumb across Ruby's red cloak, leaving a long, very visible streak of pale powder behind.
Everyone: "..."
Silence fell.
All eyes shifted to the long makeup smear on Ruby's cloak. Then, slowly, they all turned toward Weiss.
Weiss stiffened immediately. "H-Hey! Why are you all looking at me like that?!"
Before anyone could say anything, Tsutsumi spoke again.
"So," he asked casually, "who's the unlucky guy that caught the Ice Queen's attention?"
Weiss froze.
Her face heated up instantly. "T-That's not-!"
Flustered and annoyed, she blurted out without thinking. "It's because of you that I have to wear makeup!"
Pyrrha: "..."
Tsutsumi immediately regretted opening his mouth.
He didn't know that Weiss was covering up the two black eyes she got from the balls he'd accidentally launched into her face.
Pyrrha tilted her head slightly, still smiling.
"Weiss…" she said gently. "Is that a challenge?"
A noticeable chill passed through the group.
Yang blinked. "Whoa."
Tsutsumi rubbed his temples. "This can't be happening..."
Realizing just how bad that sounded, Weiss's eyes widened in horror.
"W-Wait! I didn't mean it like that!" she rushed out. "I mean, because of the accident! The balls! The-!"
"Damn," Yang cut in, grinning. "Didn't know you were secretly crushing on him."
"What?!" Weiss snapped. "No!"
"So you were after him?" Ruby said, her voice suddenly hurt. "Was this your plan all along? To mess up his relationship and mine?"
"No! Not you too!" Weiss shouted.
"No! Not you too!" Tsutsumi said at the exact same time.
They both paused.
Slowly turned toward each other.
Then frowned.
They clearly wanted nothing to do with each other, which somehow only made the situation worse.
"This is getting uncomfortable," Nora muttered. "Uh, Weiss? You know Pyrrha and our leader are dating, right?"
"I am fully aware!" Weiss snapped. "And fully against!"
Blake, who had been quietly observing, finally spoke up.
"Judging by how the Schnee Dust Company usually operates," she said calmly, "I'm not surprised their heiress would try something underhanded."
That poured gasoline directly onto the fire.
She and Weiss still have their arguments about whether or not Tsutsumi's view on Faunus and Humans was right or wrong.
"Uaghhh!"
Backed into the corner with too many eyes on her, Weiss finally snapped.
She pulled out Myrtenaster and swung straight at Tsutsumi, the sudden movement catching everyone off guard.
"Weiss, wait!" Ruby blurted out, seeing things had suddenly escalated way too far.
"Heh?"
Tsutsumi tilted his head and casually stepped aside. The blade passed where his neck had been a second earlier. Weiss didn't stop, swinging again with more force.
Tsutsumi dodged the second slash just as easily, then hopped back, putting a few meters between them.
"Are you serious right now?" Yang muttered.
Weiss didn't answer.
She planted her foot and summoned a Glyph beneath her boots. The platform flared to life and launched her forward.
Form Ride: Weiss Schnee!
A brief flash of white light enveloped Tsutsumi.
Then, Weiss finds herself clashing blades with another version of her, dressed in the same clothes and having the same face. The only difference was the expression. While Weiss was clearly furious, the other version looked calm, almost uninterested.
She twisted her wrist and swept Myrtenaster downward, aiming for the legs.
The other Weiss mirrored her movement perfectly, blocking the strike with the same precise motion she'd practiced countless times.
She thrust her blade forward, and he parried, knocking her back.
Weiss spun and summoned several Glyphs in the air, hopping between them. She used one to launch herself forward, then stacked another beneath her feet, boosting her speed and power.
Tsutsumi, still in her form, naturally has all of her current and future skills, as he simply stabbed his Myrtenaster on the ground, creating a massive Time Dilation Glyph underneath his feet as it quickly expanded outward.
Her rapier halted inches from Tsutsumi's face. Her body hovered awkwardly, eyes wide, completely immobilized by the Glyph's effect.
His Time Dilation Glyph can create a large area of effect, then instantly freezes the time inside that zone. This, of course, also affects the caster standing inside, so Tsutsumi just counters this by placing another Time Dilation Glyph on himself that negates the effect of the first one, which lets him move freely from within the frozen time zone.
Tsutsumi stepped forward. He walked past Weiss, hands relaxed.
"You know," he said flatly, "this would be way easier if you just said what you were thinking."
As the Glyph faded, Weiss dropped. She hit the ground face-first with a solid thud.
Their team instinctively rushed forward, then stopped. They weren't worried about Tsutsumi. They were worried Weiss might not survive another exchange.
"Why…" she muttered.
Tsutsumi shifted his gaze back toward Weiss, still wearing her face, her expression, her voice. "Huh?"
"Why does someone like you have to be here?" she said. Weiss remained on the ground, fists clenched tightly, teeth grinding as she spoke. "Why?"
She let out a shaky breath before continuing. "Why does someone like you even exist in the first place!?"
Weiss slowly pushed herself up, her arms trembling slightly as she forced herself to stand. Her glare locked onto him, sharp and angry, though her eyes betrayed her as a few drops of tears slipped free. Staring back at him felt like staring into a mirror she never asked for.
"You follow no rules but your own," Weiss snapped. "You just do whatever you want."
Tsutsumi didn't interrupt. He only listened.
"You get to team up with Pyrrha Nikos," she continued. "The most wanted, admired girl in all of Beacon. Everyone looks up to her. Many listen to her."
Her voice grew faster as the words piled up.
"And somehow you charm multiple girls without even trying. You figure out people's secrets like it's nothing. You understand them. You help them deal with their problems like it's easy." She let out a bitter laugh. "You can master things people spend years training for in seconds."
She clenched her fists again. "And on top of all that, you're strong. Ridiculously strong."
The more Weiss spoke, the clearer it became that this wasn't just anger. It was envy, raw and unfiltered.
"With just that second confrontation with Team CRDL," she went on, "you managed to shake the entire school's way of thinking about Faunus and the White Fang."
Weiss looked away briefly before forcing herself to look back at him.
"The White Fang are terrorists. Criminals. While they're Faunus. That doesn't mean all Faunus are like them." Her voice hardened. "Blaming an entire race for the actions of a group is no different from admitting you're just as bad as them."
She swallowed. "And you made people see that. Just by talking."
That ability, forcing change, making others rethink themselves, was something Weiss desperately wanted.
She hadn't come to Beacon just to become a Huntress. She wanted to carve her own path. To fix the Schnee Dust Company's name. To prove she wasn't her father. To somehow fix what was broken in her family.
"Damn you, Tsutsumi," Weiss said quietly, then louder, "Why does someone like you even exist!? It's not fair!"
She glared at him, waiting for something, anger, denial, anything.
Tsutsumi simply stared back.
He understood. More than she knew.
In a way, he wasn't supposed to exist at all.
The Tsutsumi Ryoko of this world had been nothing special. Half-baked talent. Good at hacking, corrupting data, and getting into systems, but terrible at fighting, aura control, studying, and just about everything else. Mentally unstable. Incomplete.
Until he appeared and replaced him.
Around them, the others hesitated. Team RWBY watched in silence. Even Blake, who still clashed with Weiss more often than not, looked worried.
No one stepped in.
Partly because they had never seen Weiss like this.
Partly because, as Nora had said before, Tsutsumi was good at this, helping people face things they didn't want to.
Tsutsumi finally spoke.
"You want to change them, do you?"
Weiss stiffened. She knew exactly who he meant.
Her family.
Her father. Her mother. Her sister. Even her brother.
Her eyes widened just a little, a flicker of hope sneaking through before she could stop it.
"Then fight," Tsutsumi said calmly.
Weiss blinked. "What?"
"If you don't fight to change and improve yourself first," he continued, "then you won't have the power to change any of them."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a card, flipping it over. The image showed a single golden wing.
Cold snow began to fall.
Freezing wind spiraled outward, wrapping around the two of them as the sounds of the outside world faded away. The rest of Beacon vanished, leaving only Weiss and Tsutsumi standing in the middle of a growing snowstorm.
"You can't expect others to change just because you want them to," Tsutsumi said, stepping forward. "Become someone they can't ignore. Someone they can't brush aside."
He placed the card into his Driver.
Form Ride:
The wind intensified.
Survive!
The snow exploded outward, swirling around Tsutsumi's body. When it finally settled, the figure standing there was no longer just Weiss.
It was her, but older.
More composed.
Dressed in a white military-style outfit with a matching cap, accented by black gloves that ran up her arms, knee-length boots, and neatly strapped belts. Golden outlines traced the edges of the uniform. Even Myrtenaster had changed, evolved into something sharper, more refined, yet still unmistakably hers.
The older Weiss looked down at her.
"Try to become the best version of yourself," she said calmly. "Do what you can. Improve where you can."
She smile.
"And when you look back," the older Weiss continued, "at least you'll be able to tell yourself…"
"I did my best."