He woke with his body heavy and his mind louder than it had any right to be.
For a few breaths, he didn't move. He let the ballroom's dim quiet press against him, sleeping bags, distant shuffling, the soft creak of Beacon settling like a living thing. If I stay still long enough, maybe I'll wake up somewhere else.
But the air was wrong for a dream.
Too sharp. Too cold. Too real.
His throat tightened anyway.
Lucius…
The thought arrived like a bruise you only felt once you touched it. Kaiser rolled onto his side and stared at the floor, trying to swallow it back down, trying to keep the surface smooth.
It didn't hold.
Something hot slid down his cheek.
He lifted a hand, startled by the wetness, and then more followed. Silent. Relentless. Humiliating.
Tears.
His chest hitched once, and that was all it took. The fragile thing he'd kept assembled, poise, logic, distance, began to crack along its seams.
"Pathetic," he whispered, though there was no bite in it. Just exhaustion.
He wiped his face hard with his sleeve, as if force could erase proof. It only smeared warmth across his skin.
He forced himself upright, feet finding the floor. The pendant at his neck, amethyst, cold against his collarbone, shifted as he moved. He caught it in his fingers before it could swing.
A grounding point.
A reminder.
Not a fix.
Kaiser slipped out into the corridor before anyone could notice.
The hall was quieter than the ballroom, lit in pale stripes by early light through tall windows. The silence here wasn't comforting. It felt like a pause before something decided to move.
He leaned his shoulder against the wall and stared at nothing.
If only you were here.
Not to save him. Lucius would've laughed at that. He would've offered an arm and a stupid comment, something that made the air feel less heavy.
Instead, Kaiser had this corridor, and his own breath, and a world that didn't include Lucius at all.
"Are you alright?"
The voice was calm, steady enough that it didn't startle Kaiser so much as it caught him.
He looked up.
Vibrant pink eyes. Dark hair. A quiet stillness in the way he stood, like he was present without demanding space.
Ren.
Kaiser blinked once, slowly. "I… what?"
Ren's gaze flicked to Kaiser's face, then away, politely. "You're crying."
Heat rose in Kaiser's cheeks. Instinct urged denial.
"It's just—" He swallowed. "Allergies."
Ren didn't argue. He simply reached into a pocket and offered a small pack of tissues.
"Here."
Kaiser hesitated, then took them. His hands shook just enough to make him angry with himself.
"Thanks."
He dabbed at his face, careful and controlled, until the worst of it was gone. Then he exhaled and slid down the wall to sit—because standing felt like pretending.
Ren sat beside him without crowding, leaving a respectful space between their shoulders.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
It shouldn't have helped.
It did.
"Why aren't you… heading out?" Kaiser asked, voice rough.
"I'm waiting for Nora, my friend. She's in the bathroom," he explained. "But I also wanted to make sure you were okay. If you need someone to talk to... I'm here."
He didn't push. He just offered space. And maybe that's exactly what I needed.
Kaiser's fingers closed around the pendant again. "If you woke up somewhere you didn't understand," he said quietly, "and everything familiar was gone… what would you do?"
Ren's expression didn't change much, but something softened behind his eyes.
"I would look for the next thing I can control," he said. "My breathing. My steps. My decisions." His gaze flicked to the tissues in Kaiser's hand. "Small things become anchors."
Anchors.
Kaiser swallowed. "And if the person who used to be your anchor was… gone?"
Ren didn't rush the answer.
"I'm sorry," he said at last, simple and direct. "Loss doesn't become smaller just because the world is different."
The words landed cleanly. No speech. No philosophy. Just understanding.
Kaiser's throat burned.
"Yeah," he murmured. "That's… accurate."
Ren nodded once, like that was enough.
Then, gently: "What's your name?"
"Kaiser," he said.
"Lie Ren," Ren replied with a small dip of his head. "It's good to meet you."
"It's good to meet you too."
Ren studied him for a heartbeat, not prying, just present. "If you want to say why you were crying… I'll listen. If not, I won't push."
Kaiser stared at the floor.
"I'm tired," he admitted. "And I miss someone I shouldn't be relying on anymore."
Ren's voice stayed quiet. "Missing someone isn't reliance. It's memory."
That tightened Kaiser's chest all over again.
Before he could respond, the hallway exploded with motion.
"REN!"
A girl with wild orange hair barreled toward them like gravity was optional. She skidded to a stop, bright-eyed and smiling like the world had never hurt her once in her life.
"Who's this?" she demanded, leaning in with zero concept of personal space.
Ren didn't flinch. "Nora. This is Kaiser."
"Kaiser!" she repeated, as if tasting the name. "I'm Nora! Hi! Nice to meet you!"
"Nice to meet you," Kaiser said and meant it, even if her energy hit like a flashbang.
Nora's grin widened. "Any friend of Ren's is a friend of mine!"
"A friend," Kaiser echoed before he could stop himself.
Ren's mouth twitched. "You can interpret it that way."
Nora took that as permission to grab Kaiser's arm and spin him—
The world lurched.
"Wait—" Kaiser started.
Too late.
His stomach staged a rebellion. "I'm—gonna—"
Ren gently pried her away with practiced ease. "Nora."
"Oops!" she chirped, laughing. "Sorry! I got excited!"
Kaiser held his stomach, breathing through it. "That came across."
Ren's quiet chuckle surprised him.
"Initiation's soon," Ren said. "We should get to the lockers."
"YES!" Nora declared, hooking her arm around Kaiser's again, less violently this time. "Come on, Kaiser! Tell me everything!"
"Everything?" Kaiser repeated.
"Your story!" Nora said. "Why Beacon? Why Huntsman stuff? Do you have a cool weapon? Are you secretly famous? Do you like pancakes?"
"That's… a lot," Kaiser said.
"That's Nora," Ren replied.
They walked.
And for a few minutes, Nora narrating the universe, Ren existing like a steady pulse beside her, the weight on Kaiser's ribs loosened. Not gone. Not healed. Just less crushing.
Still, when Nora asked, "So why'd you come to Beacon?" Kaiser felt his mind hesitate.
The truth is a wound.
So he reached for something close enough to wear like a mask.
"It's complicated," he said. "My parents… wanted it. They had expectations."
Nora slowed just a little, eyes turning curious rather than loud. "What did you want?"
The question landed harder than it should have.
"I don't know," Kaiser admitted. "I wanted them to be proud. I wanted to be… enough."
Ren's brows drew together faintly. "Being a Huntsman is dangerous. Why would they force that?"
Kaiser's mouth moved before his caution caught up. "I'm not here to follow a script." The words came out truer than he intended. "I'm here because I need to figure out who I am. Something that's mine."
Ren nodded once. "Trying counts."
"It does," Kaiser said.
And then the thought he didn't want crept in anyway, quiet and cutting.
Even my lie is just my old life in different clothing.
The locker room was loud, metal clanging, voices overlapping, nerves disguised as jokes.
Ren and Nora peeled off toward their lockers.
"See you out there!" Nora called.
"Good luck," Ren added.
For some reason, that meant more than it should have.
Kaiser watched them go, then forced himself to breathe and focus.
Familiar faces gathered: Ruby, Weiss, Yang, Jaune, Pyrrha, people he'd once watched from behind glass.
People who were now… simply here.
He didn't have time to stare.
A voice behind him cut through the noise.
"Hey."
He turned.
Yang approached with her usual easy confidence, but her expression was more sincere than last night's heat. Ruby trailed a step behind her, hands clasped in front like she wasn't sure whether to hide or help.
"I wanted to apologize," Yang said. "About last night."
"It's fine," Kaiser replied, and it wasn't a lie. "I could've explained sooner."
Yang rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah. I… get protective. Sometimes too fast." She offered a hand. "Start over?"
Kaiser took it. "Sure. Kaiser."
Yang's grin returned in full. "Yang. And this—" she gave Ruby a playful shove forward, "—is my little sister, Ruby."
"Yang!" Ruby yelped, rubbing her back before flashing me a sheepish smile. "Okay, okay—I'm Ruby Rose."
"It's nice to meet you both," Kaiser said, and felt the last of the tension fade like mist.
For a moment, it even felt… normal.
Then Kaiser's eyes caught Pyrrha.
She stood with poised confidence that didn't feel arrogant, more like armor worn out of habit. People looked at her as if she were an answer rather than a person. She smiled anyway.
Kaiser understood that kind of cage.
He moved closer before he could talk himself out of it.
"Pyrrha Nikos," he said, and watched her blink in surprise. "It's an honor."
Her smile warmed. "You don't need to—"
"I do," Kaiser said gently. "But… I also hope people let you breathe here."
Something flickered in her eyes, soft, grateful, and quickly hidden.
"Thank you," Pyrrha said. "And you are?"
"Kaiser."
"I'm glad to meet you, Kaiser."
So was he.
Then the intercom blared, snapping the room into motion.
"All first-year students, report to Beacon Cliff for initiation."
The air changed instantly. The jokes thinned. The laughter sharpened into nerves.
Kaiser followed the tide out of the locker room with the rest of them.
Outside, Beacon's air tasted like salt and ozone, storm and sea braided together. A massive airship waited, low and humming, its engines a quiet threat.
They boarded.
Vale fell away beneath them as they lifted, shrinking into rooftops and roads like a map you could fold and hide.
Kaiser gripped the railing, knuckles whitening, and didn't let himself imagine Lucius standing beside him.
Take the step, he heard anyway, memory wearing the shape of a command. Don't let the world decide for you.
The ship set down near the cliffside. Students filed out into the wind, which snapped at their coats and stole warmth from their skin.
They landed on a narrow ledge carved into the cliff face. Professor Glynda formed a line and shepherded them forward like sheep to a precipice.
The cliffside opened into a vast throat of sky below them. The drop looked endless—a grey maw that swallowed sound and made every heartbeat thunder in Kaiser's ears.
Glynda guided them onto individual launch platforms: small slabs of metal, each set a hair's breadth from the void. The platforms hummed, stabilizers fluttering like insect wings.
Wind tore at Kaiser's coat and snagged his hair into his mouth. It bit his cheeks raw, leaving them stinging.
He stepped onto his platform and felt the metal shiver underfoot as if it understood his smallness.
The Emerald Forest stretched out before them like a wild, living thing, and they were about to be thrown straight into its jaws.
I've watched this before. The thought came with a sick twist. But it doesn't feel like a scene. It feels like a sentence.
Ozpin's voice carried over the wind, calm and measured. He spoke of evaluation, of the Emerald Forest, of what they would be tested on.
Glynda's instructions followed, partners formed by first eye contact after landing, the trek north, the relics at the temple, and the return.
Kaiser listened, but his mind sprinted ahead anyway.
Partner.Team.Butterfly effects.If I change one thing—
Students launched one by one. Some shouted. Some laughed too loudly. Some went silent.
Jaune went before him, with nervous questions and a too-brave posture. Ozpin's blunt reply didn't ease his panic. Jaune shot forward with all the grace of a tossed bag and vanished into open air.
Kaiser almost smiled.
He's going to live. Somehow. He always does.
The platform jolted.
The world ripped out from under Kaiser's feet.
Wind roared in his ears. His stomach dropped. The cliff vanished behind him like it had never existed.
No Aura he could control.
No weapon in his hands.
Just gravity and a forest rushing up too fast.
His mind snapped into cold, brutal math.
Loose limbs. Don't stiffen. Don't land spine-first.
He aimed for branches. Pain spread out was better than one clean end.
The canopy caught him like a violent hand.
Branches whipped his shoulder, his ribs, his thigh, impact after impact, tearing fabric, stinging skin, knocking breath out of him in pieces.
Then the ground.
He hit hard, rolled, and stopped face down in damp leaves.
For a moment, he couldn't breathe.
When air returned, it came as a wheeze.
He stayed still long enough to take inventory.
Nothing felt broken.
That mattered.
Kaiser pushed onto his elbows, shaking, and spat dirt from his mouth. His shoulder throbbed. His ribs protested every inhale.
Alive.
Barely.
He hauled himself upright, using a tree for support, and stumbled forward.
The forest closed in, towering trunks, shadowed undergrowth, a quiet that felt like being watched.
He took three steps.
A growl rolled through the trees.
Low.
Close.
Kaiser stopped breathing.
Leaves shifted to his left, not the wind. Weight.
Then it stepped into view.
White bone mask.
Black fur.
Red eyes that didn't blink.
A Beowolf.
It didn't rush. It studied him.
Kaiser took one slow step back.
It mirrored him.
Predator.
His next move was instinct.
A shift of weight.
The Beowolf lunged.
Kaiser threw himself sideways as claws tore through the air where his chest had been. Bark burst behind him. Splinters stung across his cheek.
He hit the ground, rolled, and forced himself up.
Run.
Branches slapped his face. Roots grabbed at his boots. The Beowolf crashed through brush behind him like the forest belonged to it.
He cut between two narrow trees.
It followed—
And slammed its skull into the trunk hard enough to crack wood.
It staggered. Not stunned. Just furious.
It shook itself and charged again.
Kaiser snatched up a fallen branch and swung.
The wood snapped against its jaw and exploded into splinters.
Useless.
The Beowolf swiped.
Pain flared across Kaiser's upper arm, fabric tearing, warmth following.
Blood.
His vision narrowed for a beat.
No weapon.
No Aura, he understood.
No advantage.
The Beowolf lowered its body, muscles coiling.
Kaiser bolted again, and his heel caught a root.
He hit the ground hard enough to knock what little breath he had left out of him.
The Beowolf leapt.
Time slowed into a sick, crystalline clarity.
Kaiser raised both arms, not bravery, not skill, just refusal.
Something inside his chest answered.
A thin shimmer snapped over his skin.
Muted violet, threaded with thin silver fractures, like moonlight trapped in cracked glass.
The claws struck—
And slid.
The impact still drove him into the dirt, but the tearing pain didn't come the way it should have. The shimmer flickered violently, unstable, protesting the strain.
The Beowolf landed, confused for half a heartbeat.
That half-second saved him.
Kaiser shoved forward with both palms against its chest.
The amethyst aura flared, silver threads flashing, just long enough to make the Grimm recoil a step.
It snarled and lunged again.
Kaiser ducked under the swipe, but the aura thinned, not strong enough to fully absorb everything. Something sharp raked across his back, pain blooming fast.
His breath turned ragged.
The shimmer dimmed, not gone but weakening.
It's not stable.It's not trained.It's just instinct.
The Beowolf slammed into him.
They crashed through the underbrush together. Weight crushed the air from Kaiser's lungs. Jaws snapped too close to his throat.
The aura flickered, silver veins pulsing erratically.
Kaiser could feel it draining, like a battery he didn't know how to recharge.
If it fails—
Its teeth grazed his collarbone.
I'm dead!
The aura sparked and held, barely.
Kaiser jammed his knee upward. It didn't do much.
He grabbed a fist-sized stone and drove it into the side of the mask.
Once.
Twice.
On the third hit, the Beowolf recoiled, not injured, just annoyed.
It swiped again.
Kaiser tried to roll—
Too slow.
Claws clipped his thigh. The aura flashed, absorbed most of the damage, but the force spun him sideways into a tree.
His head rang. His vision swam.
The shimmer dimmed further, thin as fog.
The Beowolf stalked toward him now, slow and certain.
It knew he was weakening.
Kaiser's breathing hitched. His limbs felt heavy.
He should've been terrified.
Instead, something else cut through the fear, cold, sharp focus.
Think.
The Beowolf lunged again.
Kaiser didn't retreat.
He stepped forward, into reach, because the distance was killing him anyway.
The claw came down—
Kaiser caught its forearm with both hands.
The aura flared, silver fractures brightening as if stress cracked the "glass" wider. The impact jolted through his bones. His knees buckled.
But he held for half a second.
Then he twisted, not strong enough to overpower, just enough to unbalance.
The Beowolf stumbled sideways.
Kaiser surged forward with everything he had left and drove his shoulder into its chest.
The aura snapped outward in a tight, sharp pulse.
The sound wasn't an explosion. It was a crack, like thin ice breaking.
The Beowolf reeled.
Kaiser didn't give it time.
He stepped in again and punched the mask.
The aura flared once more, concentrated and desperate.
The Grimms' form wavered, edges unraveling as black smoke began to peel away.
It swiped one last time.
Kaiser leaned inside the motion and drove his fist into its chest, pouring every flicker of silver-threaded violet into that strike.
For a heartbeat, the aura brightened, moonlight through fractured crystal.
Then—
The Beowolf unraveled.
Black smoke bled away into the air and vanished.
Silence swallowed the forest.
Kaiser stayed standing for exactly two seconds longer than his body allowed.
Then his legs gave out.
He slid down the tree behind him, chest heaving, arm bleeding, back burning.
But beneath it all, a faint warmth pulsed under his skin, steadying, knitting small hurts in small increments.
Aura.
He pressed a hand to his mouth.
He was smiling.
That startled him more than the fight.
Not pride.
Not relief.
Something sharper.
Something electric.
Excitement.
He'd almost died. He should have died. And yet that fight had pulled something out of him he didn't know existed. For the first time in a long time, he felt real, unshackled, present.
Alive.
He sat there while the forest held its breath. He should've been shaken.
Instead, his hands still buzzed, his heart still beat with a rhythm that whispered: You did it.
Then reality crept back in.
The others. The test. The objective. How long had that fight taken? How far behind was he?
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Kaiser pushed himself up, winced, and steadied his breathing.
Sunlight filtered through the trees in thin, pale beams. He narrowed his eyes into it and started walking.
A nagging thought tugged at him as he moved forward.
How long will it take me to catch up to them? They're built for this. I'm… not.
But he wasn't dead.
And he had something now.
Not just Aura.
A reason he wasn't trying to survive anymore.
He wanted to see what else this world had to offer for himself.