86 Ch 1: Cutting Loose

"Hey, Ray." Blake called as she opened the door to his room to ask him something. "Huh? He isn't here."

"Really?" Ruby asked, poking her head in behind Blake. "He said he was leaving with Jaune early in the morning, so I wonder where he is."

"Oh, who knows." Yang said with a shrug. "He's probably gone out to hunt and stretch his legs now that we don't have a curfew for school. Don't worry. If he said he'd be leaving in the morning, he'll be back before we head out."

"Yeah." Ruby nodded her head in agreement as Blake closed the door to Ray's room with a *hmmm*.

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A few miles away in the mountain forest just outside of Vale, *MMMMMMMmmmmm ah* Ray moaned and stretched as he walked through the dark forest, Wraith's dark robes billowing behind him as he walked. [Now then, usually I would do this quietly and efficiently. But after being cooped up in Beacon for so long and not being able to really cut loose on any of my missions since Glynda has always been keeping an eye on me. I think I'll go a little crazy tonight.] Beneath his mask, Wraith's face split into a sinister bloodthirsty grin as he stopped on top of a cliff overlooking a large campsite concealed in the forest below.

[Sucks to be you guys. If you want to curse someone, curse your leader for daring to mess with my woman!] Wraith leapt from the cliff and descended like a shadow upon the unsuspecting White Fang members below. In the center of the camp, he saw his target, a bull Faunus with bright red hair, Adam Taurus. He would incapacitate him first. Then, after he stretched his muscles and got warmed up by going crazy on his men, he could take his time to play with him.

"Wha-" *BAM* Like a bolt of black lightning, Wraith fell upon the unsuspecting man, grabbed him by his face, and slammed him into the ground hard enough to shatter the rock beneath him.

"Wh-" Before the burly chainsaw-wielding Faunus standing next to him that Adam had been talking to moments before could react, Wraith's black and blue sword pistols jumped into his hands and unfurled into glistening lethal blades.

*Snick Snick* Wraith severed his hand holding his weapon from his arm and his head from his shoulders.

"E-Ene-" *Bang* Another White Fang member tried to sound the alarm, but before he could get the words out, Wraith pointed his gun over his shoulder at him and pulled the trigger. His head exploded in a shower of red mush like a watermelon. But his death had not been in vain, for the sound of the shot had alerted all the White Fang members in the camp of Wraith's presence.

However, that was precisely what he wanted. With all his foes so willingly throwing themselves at him, he wouldn't have to waste his energy hunting them all down one by one.

Six Grimm masked Faunus, who had been patrolling nearby, rushed over at the sound and charged at him. Their blades raised high. They encircled him and swung their weapon down, not leaving him any room to escape. As Wraith stood their uncaring of their attacks, red blood spurted into the air, splattering crimson blood across his black robes. The six Faunus sunk to the ground, their own weapons empaled through their chests from where they had stabbed themselves.

"Be careful!" One of the newly arrived Faunus fighters shouted as his comrades' bodies fell, revealing the monster they had encircled. "That's the bounty hunter Wraith. His semblance has something to do with mind control!"

*Heh* Wraith snorted and disappeared from where he was standing with a burst of speed. [The nail that sticks out, Gets Hammered!] He reappeared behind the brave Faunus who had shouted the warning to his brethren and dropped an ax kick onto his head, flattening it into a pancake and driving his body into the ground.

"Don't let him get close!" One of the officers shouted as he rallied over a dozen Faunus armed with guns together to unleash a coordinated, sustained barrage on him.

*ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta*

*Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding*

As the bullets rained down upon him, Wraith stood there unwavering before the storm and swung his right sword in front of him. It was a blur of motion, invisible to the naked eye as he deflected the entire barrage with only one hand, not moving an inch. He defended himself with his right blade and threw his left in a spinning arc at the shooters.

Engrossed by the terrifying sight of their bullets doing nothing to the living nightmare in front of them, none of them noticed the silently approaching blade until it was too late.

*swiiiiiiiiish* like a scythe reaping ears of corn, the blade sliced through all of their necks, beheading them where they knelt with their guns raised. The only one to avoid this fate was the officer who had called for the attack. He lept to his feet and backward as he saw the spinning blade approaching at the last second but was unable to escape and was stabbed through the center of the chest, the sword impaling him to the tree behind him.

Seeing their opponent throw away one of his weapons, several burly Faunus armed with two-handed weapons charged over, hoping to use this opportunity to overwhelm him.

*Whish* spinning quickly to the side, Wraith dodged the heavy overhand broadsword strike from one of them. He turned into the attack and to his side. As he passed, he gripped the man's arm just below the shoulder and pulled.

*Squrrriiip* *AAAAAAAHHHHHHH* With a wet ripping sound, he tore the man's arm off. Maintaining the momentum of his spin, Wraith spun to place his back against the back of the man he had just disarmed and thrust the severed arm he was holding forward to impale another of his comrades through the chest with it.

The one-armed Faunus howled in pain like a wounded animal as he turned around. Even through his Grimm mask, Wraith could see the crazed light in his bloodshot eyes. But it meant nothing to him. With a carefully controlled palm strike, he struck the crazed man's chin with enough force to send his head flying off his shoulders and into the face of one of his friends, reducing both skulls to a bloody pulp upon impact.

In the stunned silence that followed, only the dripping of blood and the moaning of the Faunus nailed to the tree could be heard. It had been less than a minute, and already over two dozen of their men had died in the most brutal of fashions. Nobody was willing to step forward and be the next to die.

*snap* *Bang* All the Faunus flinched and cowered at the sound of the gunshot, but the shot hit none of them. With a snap of his fingers, the pistol-sword Wraith had nailed the Faunus officer to the tree with had fired, blowing a gaping hole in the chest of the man and sending itself flipping through the air back to its wait master's hand.

*ah AH AAAAAHHHHHHH* *swish* one of the White Fang members couldn't take it anymore and turned around screaming as he tried to run away. But Wraith vanished from where he was standing and reappeared in front of the fleeing man before he had gone more than a single step. He swung his blade down in a shining arc and bisected the man from crown to groin.

"Run and die like animals or fight and die like men." Wraith's cold metallic voice sent shivers down the listening freedom fighters' backs as the two halves of their friend fell to either side of him.

*gulp* They all swallowed hard as they gripped their weapons with clammy hands and looked at each other. Then, coming to a silent mutual understanding, they all nodded.

*Ahhhh* With a strangled battle cry filled with fear and tears streaming down from beneath their Grimm masked, they steeled the last of their resolve and courage and attacked the monster in front of them. They had dedicated their lives to proving through their might that they were men and worthy of the same respect due to any human, and they would be damned if they just let themselves die like a bunch of animals.

It was a complete blood bath. A one-sided merciless slaughter. Within minutes what had once been a fierce militia camp was reduced to the site of a gory massacre where only two hearts still beat. One within the chest of a masked and black-robed man, idly twirling the red bladed katana he had taken off the other man who still lay unconscious on the ground even as his brethren had been slaughtered around him as he waited for him to awaken.

*Ugh groan* The cause of this festival of blood and death groaned in pain as he held his head and slowly tried to climb to his feet.

"You're awake." A cold, unfamiliar metallic voice sounded to his right. Adam tried to hastily scramble to his feet as he grasped for his weapon, Wilt and Blush, that would be at his side, but his hand met only empty air, and his vision swam around him, unable to focus from how fast he had gotten up.

"Who, who are you?" He asked has he fell back against a stack of crates behind him for support. "Wha-" leaning against the wooden boxes, he felt something sticky and wet against his gloved hand. Raising it in front of his slowly steadying vision Adam saw, it was blood. Fresh crimson blood. The sight shocked him so much that his vision instantly snapped into focus.

More blood. It was everywhere. The blood and scattered body parts of his followers were scattered across their once secure camp. He had thought that together they would change the world. Get revenge on the humans that had dared hold them down. Instead, all of them laid dead on the ground. Not one of them permitted to die with a complete corpse.

"You bas-" *Gah* Adam rushed towards the black-robed man in a rage, but his scream was cut short by the sudden appearance of his steel-tipped boot in his gut. He collapsed to all fours coughing up bile from the pain.

"Shad up." The cold voice sneered as he loomed over the retching man. "If it weren't for the fact that your life belonged to another, you would already be dead along with the rest of them. Be thankful you still have some usefulness left in your worthless hide." If he didn't have his mask on, Wraith would have spat on him, but instead, he settled for driving his boot once more into his gut, knocking him over onto his side as he clenched his abdomen in pain.

"Wh-Why?" the proud Faunus freedom fighter gasped out around the pain.

"You don't need to know." Wraith said dismissively as he reached down and grasped him by his throat. He lifted him bodily into the air till his feet dangled off the ground. Adam tried to fight back. Clawing at the arm of the hand choking him and kicking with his feet. But with his vision rapidly going black from a lack of oxygen, his desperate struggles were worthless against the shorter man.

"Since I can't kill you, I guess I'll introduce you to the Art of Shiro." the sadistic malice dripping from the metallic voice pulled Adam's consciousness back from the brink. His struggling grew fiercer as he grappled with the man holding him in the air like an animal for slaughter.

*Hmph* Wraith grunted in amusement at his futile resistance and, with one hand, tossed him into the air.

*Gahhhaaaaa* As he flew into the air, Adam took a deep gasp of fresh air, clarity returning to his mind. However, the relief was short-lived.

Holding the red-bladed katana, Wilt, that he had been playing with this whole time in a reverse grip by the base of the blade, Wraith lept into the air after Adam. Coating the pommel with a bit of his Aura, he thrust up at Adam's descending rear.

*Ga uu* And pierced clean through his pants, lodging the handle of his sword firmly in his ass. His lower hole already penetrated by his most trusted partner, it became jammed all the way in when he fell to the ground. The blade that had pierced through so many of his foes sinking into the dirt and pushing its handle deeper into him. Holding him up by his new third leg. Adam gaped like a fish and hung there, his mouth flapping uselessly as the pain and humiliation penetrated through the very core of his being. His mind was unable and unwilling to process what had just happened to him. Deep down, Adam was ashamed to admit he was glad all his comrades lay dead around him so that none of them could bear witness to his disgrace.

"Hmm, you don't seem to be enjoying yourself." Wraith's darkly amused voice resounded in Adam's ears. "Perhaps, you would prefer the Art of Kuro?"

Adam frantically shook his head, he had no idea what the Art of Shiro or the Art of Kuro meant, but he knew what wanted nothing more to do with this madman.

"I'll take that as a yes." Wraith hissed. He placed his hand on Adam's crotch and held it there for a minute, letting the suspense build as two pairs of eyes stared through their respective masks into each other. Adam shook his head even faster and opened his mouth to beg for mercy, but before he could get the words out.

*Squwrrriiip* Wraith clenched his hand into a fist and yanked. Ripping Adam's little brother and family jewels clean off and leaving only a bloody hole where his once most precious bits had been. The pain was greater than anything Adam had ever imagined. As the waves of shock and pain washed over him, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his body fell limply backward, now supported only by his artificial third leg as drool dripped out of his hanging mouth.

After shaking the blood of his gloved hand with a look of disgust on his face under his mask, Wraith stood there for a while, chuckling darkly to himself. Admiring his work till deciding he had had enough fun, and he left. Still chuckling to himself like he had just told the funniest joke ever.