The Wilted Rose

Chapter 61: Demon (Vol. 3 Prologue)

Vale

1:14 PM

77 Hours to the Fall

Y/n Pov

I walked through the city aimlessly. I didn't have anything to do on account of having hauled ass away after Ozpin remembered the whole Performance thing. I never did it.... And he made sure that I was going to give it to him. He put me in the fucking tournament. I'm slated to be apart of "extra matchs", completely separate from the main bouts.

I was not happy about this because its being broadcast across Remnant. That was notoriety that I didn't need. When I brought that up, Ozpin replied with, and I quote "You wear a mask and have been listed as dead for the last ten years. No one is going to make that connection." Now that may be a sound argument, but at the same time, it's not impossible for it to happen. 

I think this is just Ozpins way of fucking with me. He has done this type of stuff before, my initiation being a prime example. Whatever the case, I stormed off campus. The last five months have been quiet. Too quiet. No White Fang. No Cinder, though I think after I put Mercury in the hospital with a broken nose and cheekbone, that one being a happy accident from our sparring match, they've gotten the message that I was willing at anytime and anywhere. 

With nowhere I really needed to be, I headed to Juniors. He's closed at this time but I'm sure he'd be fine letting me hang around for a bit. I wanted to check up on Neo anyway. She's been depressed ever since Torchwick was caught. I still haven't been able to find out where he's being held. I attempted to hack in but that ended when I got caught and received a visit from Ironwood at three in the morning. Fun time, that was.

The best I could figure was that he was in one of the ships that have been parked just outside of Vale. Which one would be a guessing game and I didn't like my odds of guessing correctly. Until I got something concrete, Torchwick was stuck and there was nothing I could do. Walking down the alley to get to the back door of Juniors bar, I turned the corner and found Neo sitting alone just outside the door. 

I didn't need to guess why. It wasn't the first time I've caught her out here like this. I sighed and walked over to her slowly, trying not to startle her before sitting down beside her. Neo barely spared me a glance. We sat there for a few minutes, neither of us speaking, or in Neos case, writing or signing. 

Five minutes passed. Then ten before Neo slowly reached for her scroll. She started to type something out before deleting it and trying again. I waited patiently for her to find her words. Seeing Neo like this was upsetting, especially since she's been like this for months. Torchwicks imprisonment has been a strain on her. With Torchwick gone, she had to resort to petty crimes to survive, at least until Junior told me and I started giving her twenty-five percent of what I was getting from Junior. 

Anything to try and keep her out of Torchwicks position because Atlas wouldn't think twice about taking her to the brave cave. For anyone who doesn't know, it's a room that the police use to beat the shit out of witnesses for crimes they don't want getting out. It's obviously corrupt under the table kind of stuff. 

When I caught it, I sent everything I could find to Ozpin. Lets just say the police are having a staffing issue now and Vale is out almost three million Lein in settlements after a couple hundred people came forward. Funny how after all this time, I didn't need to even wire tap the police to find out what they were doing that made them so much money. 

The biggest suspect turned out to be the deputy chief of police, who just so happened to be a Councilmans son. That Councilman was paying internal investigations and the chief bribes to keep his son out of prison. After getting caught, the Councilor was very quick to try and cover it up. If I didn't have a target on my back before, I certainly did now because they know where the information came from.