Soundless Red

EARLY RELEASE FOR HIGH-PLEDGING PATRONS!

Commission for lichanikan, who asked for post-volume 3 Neo angst as she deals with Roman's absence. This story is very dark, almost horror-themed, so I'm releasing it on Halloween!

WARNING: Rated T+ for descriptions of gore, violence, and suicidal themes.

Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY.

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														Soundless Red

The very last time she saw him was still engraved in the back of her mind.

He had been standing not too far away from her, atop that airship with the winds blasting, Griffons screeching, and red rose petals swirling.

They had been fighting that little red huntress together.

Two against one. It should have been an easy win for them.

And it almost had been.

If not for her own idiocy.

Neo hated herself.

A burning, almost acidic kind of fury, disgust, and helplessness heaved in her stomach whenever her thoughts wandered back to that dark day, when the sky had been blocked out by black smoke and wings.

. . .

It was partially her fault, and she knew it.

It was her fault he was gone.

Because she could've knocked that girl over the side of the airship.

She should've smashed her pointed heel into the helpless little fingers as she'd clutched onto the side of the ship, dangling thousands of feet above the ground.

She should've done it.

If she had, none of this would've happened.

Neo blamed herself, and she knew she always would.

That little red huntress had bested her, sent her flying on a gust of wind to be suspended, vulnerable for what felt like hours. She been an easy target for the hungry Grimm, especially with so much fear, anger, and dread pulsing off of her at the time.

She'd only barely managed to avoid certain death by utilizing the currents of the wind to her advantage.

Dumb luck. Luck she didn't deserve.

She should've just let them swallow her whole.

She'd later find out that would've been most appropriate.

As she'd made her agonizingly slow descent to the world below, Neo drowned herself in her own mistakes.

She should have been faster, more decisive-

-less merciful.

After she'd landed, she'd stumbled, trying to allow her legs to get used to supporting her weight once again. She'd heard many sounds on the way down, several of which had been the unmistakable sounds of air ships going down and crashing.

She didn't know if his had been one of them.

She'd searched for him for hours, dodging the ravenous beasts and vengeful huntsman as she did so.

She'd searched.

Even long after the sky had flashed white with an ominous glow. The world seemed to have paused in that isolated, eerie instance.

But not her.

She'd kept moving, kept searching.

Not even the earth-shaking roar of the distant dragon could stop her.

She'd used her illusions to conceal herself as best she could, and she just searched.

Searched.

Searched.

Every broken building and pile of rubble.

Every downed airship and uncontrolled fire.

She'd toiled countless hours away just wandering, checking every body, fearing it would be his. She was always relieved to discover none of them were.

But in the end, she'd never found him.

All she'd managed to find was the ship she'd last seen him on.

It had plummeted, crashed into several buildings, destroying every piece of every structure. Experience told her he would've been tactful enough to escape somehow, that he might've been injured somewhere nearby, but certainly nothing worse than that.

This brought her to the dreadful present.

And so now she searched, scoured every inch of the area, cleared the chunks of metal and steel with her bare hands, frantically looking for any sign of him. Any at all.

And she came away with nothing.

Just... nothing.

He would have escaped something like this. But only if it had been in any way possible.

If he hadn't escaped, that could only mean one thing.

One end result that Neo absolutely refused to acknowledge.

She lifted another piece of rubble, scraping her cracked, bloodied nails on it as she hurled it aside, searching, searching, for any sign of him.

He was still alive.

He was here somewhere.

She had to believe that.

She had to.

But when the enemy's huntsman and huntresses started to convene on the area, like a cornered rat, Neo had no other options other than to flee.

She slipped away undetected, and ran until she found herself in some light-less forest.

There, she fell. Hard enough to tear bigger holes into her shredded clothes, enough to make all the little wounds start bleeding again. Lost and broken, she fell to her knees, screaming out silent sobs for no one to hear.

She never saw him again.

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She wandered aimlessly for an undetermined amount of time.

It wasn't that she wasn't sure how to keep track now since the sun was blotted out by black clouds. It was simply the fact that she didn't care.

She didn't care.

Not about time, not about herself, not about anything.

Once, she paused and bowed her head, new tears dripping down over the sticky, dried trails of the old ones.

Much like the rest of herself, her wrists were covered in dirt, grime, and scrapes.

She wondered what it would be like to tear them open, until red was all she saw, and all she felt.

Time and her own life were now the same in the sense that neither of them mattered without him in it.

She tightened her grip on her weapon, the long, sharp point of her blade chipped from the battle, but still sturdy enough to pierce skin.

For a long, long while, she stood there, telling herself to do it.

She could be with him again if she did. She wanted to be with him again. More than anything.

Red had been the color to take him away from her.

But maybe it could bring him back to her as well.

But the thought of seeing more of that color physically sickened her to the point of vomiting. She dropped to her knees and retched, and even some of that was red.

Red.

The color of the girl who had taken him from her.

Neo loathed that color with every inch of herself, every fiber of her soul. She didn't want to see that color ever again.

Unless it was on that huntress girl.

But that would be for another time.

For now, she trembled as she moved the tip of her blade away from her own wrists, sparing the delicate veins inside, if only to save herself the image of more red.

She couldn't do this to herself – not now.

Because what if he was still out there, somewhere, somehow...? She couldn't just give up so quickly, so easily.

And besides, if she ended it all here and now, who would get revenge for him if he really was gone forever?

She decided that was her final job, her duty to him.

That was her last mission.

She wouldn't rest until she'd fulfilled it.

With a snarl, she stabbed her parasol into the ground and shoved herself back up to her feet, staggering as another wave of nausea smashed into her, as his ship had smashed into the world below.

She didn't know where she was going. But she knew she needed to go somewhere.

She wandered, limped, stumbled, collapsed, and stood again, repeating the process no fewer than a hundred times.

Until she couldn't move anymore.

There was no strength left in her body.

But there was just enough left in her mind.

"Neo."

He called out her name, and she felt like she'd finally returned home again, after a lifelong journey of pain and sorrow.

She looked up, and he was there. Grinning down at her, cigar poking out to one side of his mouth, hat tipped askew as he leaned one hand on his cane. The other hand, he offered down to her.

A silent whimper fell from her lips, followed by a stream of more tears.

She reached up for him-

-and her fingers passed right through.

She fell onto her hands and knees once again, and the illusion vanished. The last of her energy was sapped from her body as she collapsed into the dirt like a wounded beast.

Even though she'd just vowed to avenge him, that vengeance would be her new purpose in life... She wouldn't have minded dying right here and now.

Maybe that was for the better...

She didn't know.

And she didn't care.

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When she next opened her eyes, she was surprised she could still manage such a feat at all.

It was dark, but not as dark as the last place she'd been, and there was something beneath her that was much softer than dirt and pebbles. She could faintly recognize this place as one of their old hideouts.

A familiar face looked down at her now, but it wasn't the one she'd been searching for.

"Yeesh," Emerald rasped. "You still look like shit."

Neo wanted to retort, but found she couldn't lift her arms to communicate, nor could she twist her face into a venomous expression. But she stopped trying to when she heard Mercury's response from somewhere nearby.

"Well, at least she's better off than Torchwick."

"Yeah..." Emerald sighed. "Even if he was a moron, I never thought he'd go that way."

A poignant anger flared inside Neo. She shot up from the couch she'd been lying on and snatched Emerald around the throat, a wrathful fire blazing in her eyes.

/Don't talk about him like that!/

"Hey, whoa!" Mercury stepped in to pry her off as Emerald spat curses.

"After I went through all that trouble to bring you back here, this is the thanks I get? Bitch."

"Hey. Shut it." Mercury pulled her away and pushed Neo back. "Cinder's not gonna be happy about this if she finds out. Why don't you go check on her, Em?"

Emerald scoffed but got to her feet, mumbling under her breath. But she didn't leave without one last declaration, her rust-red eyes glaring spitefully at Neo.

"And just in case you weren't sure, Torchwick's dead. Plain and simple. You've only got yourself to blame for that."

And with that, she was gone. Mercury didn't hesitate to follow her, calling out her name in agitation.

But Neo didn't care about them.

She fell back, a pang shooting through her head and ringing like some inaudible bell, echoing. A stifling dissonance clogged her chest, and she couldn't swallow.

She wished she'd never known.

She wished no one had ever told her.

Even if she'd known it all along, it would've been better just to assume that maybe, some way, somehow, somewhere, he might still be alive.

She wished she could've kept believing.

But now, his demise was finite.

She'd never be able to consider any other possibility, not even in an effort to fool herself. Her worst fears were confirmed, and there was no going back now.

Even if she tried to force herself to forget, that knowledge, that truth, would always be with her.

A lifetime of being by his side...

Gone.

It had started in a cold, wet alleyway, where the tang of liquor and cigarette smoke had been a constant scent in her lungs, and the world had left her for dead.

Enough trauma had accumulated inside of her to leave her voiceless, and the world deemed her better off that way.

No opinions, no remarks, no words of defense. Simply a doll for anyone else's pleasure.

She'd wanted to die then, too.

But that cold, unforgiving night had ended with a sunrise.

He'd found her there, and he'd offered her many things.

A pitying grin, a warm hand, and a new life.

She'd never forget him.

Years of faithfully staying at his side, had made her strong and confident, things she'd never thought she could feel without her voice.

He'd changed her, given her a reason to live, to move forward.

But now that he was gone... what purpose did she have...?

Her thoughts warred one another for hours that night as she teetered between consciousness and its alternative.

She should die so she could see him again.

She should live so she could avenge him.

Ultimately she would need to make a decision and keep to it.

But if she didn't wake up tomorrow, she wouldn't complain.

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She discovered Cinder had been injured, badly enough to turn her as voiceless as Neo herself was.

Her eye was gone, and she was weak and frail, a drastic contrast to the woman she'd once been.

Emerald and Mercury tended to her, and Neo heard of their plans to visit Salem as soon as possible. She didn't know if she'd be tagging along or not. She didn't know if she'd be alive long enough to.

The guilt of his death weighed heavily upon her, until she felt her shoulders and back and neck might break from it.

She'd never even recovered any of his things - not his hat or his cane, not his ascot or even his cigar.

Anything would've sufficed.

Anything at all.

And she had nothing.

Not even a piece of fabric from his shirt, let alone a body to bury.

She'd never even be able to lay him to rest or put flowers on his gravestone.

She'd never be able to visit him or talk to him or wonder if he could understand how grateful she was to him.

The guilt was crushing, debilitating.

It made her weak, made her want to give up, to end it all.

At one point, she picked up her parasol and balanced the blade on her wrist for close to an hour.

For a long time, she had his image sit there beside her, had him talk to her, simply so she could hear his voice, even if it was all in her head.

She had him touch her hand, sometimes to help her move the blade over her skin, and sometimes to put it aside.

He gave her his hat, smiled, and then faded.

And when she reached up, there was nothing on her head.

It just reminded her she was only fooling herself. That he wasn't really there with her.

She grit her teeth and tightened her grip on the blade. But she still hadn't made her own decision yet, when someone else made it for her.

Mercury walked in to find her like that. He growled and cursed and grabbed the weapon, took it away.

After that, Neo started to use her own body against herself.

She bit at her wrists, sinking her teeth in until the skin tore. She'd bite as much as she could until someone came in to stop her.

It was all her fault.

She was the one to blame for his death.

She should die, too.

She should suffer.

She was worthless.

She was weak.

For a time, she believed all of those things.

But somewhere along the lines, the guilt made way for something else.

Something equally as heavy, but with a weight that made her strong, rather than weak.

Anger.

Fury.

Rage.

She came to believe it wasn't her fault at all.

It was that little red huntress' fault.

Ruby Rose.

He was dead because of that girl.

He was dead and he was never coming back.

The only way Neo would ever get to see him again would be in her dreams or in her illusions.

It was all Ruby Rose's fault.

She began to draw strength from that rage, imagining what it would've felt like to have crushed her hand and sent her falling to her death. She could've watched her plummet, screaming pitifully, and then splatter like an egg.

That image was one of her favorites.

It played through her mind many times as she traveled on her way with Cinder and the others.

But though Neo might've missed out on seeing Ruby Rose's demise for herself in the past, that just meant there were so many other ways she could kill her in the future.

She considered everything. Every single possibility imaginable.

She thought about wrapping her fingers around the girl's throat as she slept, thinking she were safe in her bed. She thought about pressing her knee to her chest and pushing down until her ribs snapped one by one, all the while suffocating her with the most excruciating slowness.

She thought about torturing her, tying her up and piercing her a million times over, never to kill her, but only to make her bleed.

She thought about feeding her to creatures of Grimm, dropping her weaponless into a swarm of beasts to watch her get shredded, mangled, and eaten alive.

She thought about drowning her, burning her, cutting her.

She thought about making her watch all of her precious little friends die first, one by one, letting her wallow in her grief and distress until it killed her, or at the very least drove her mad.

She thought about gauging her eyes out, then letting her wander the world in darkness and fear, lashing out at her from behind, forcing her to run until she couldn't run any longer.

She wanted to kill her, but she didn't want it to be quick.

She wanted to watch her die a slow and agonizing death a million times over.

She wanted to see what color her insides were, wanted to slice her open and pull the organs and entrails out one by one, wanted to show her each of them as she did so.

She wanted to drink her blood and taste her final moments.

She wouldn't rest until she'd done that.

Until Ruby Rose was dead by her own hands.

Only then could Neo allow herself to face him again.

She made this vow deep within Salem's haunting territory, while Cinder and the others were absent for the moment.

Neo conjured up her semblance and formed his image one last time. She vowed this would be the last time she did so; the next time she saw him, it would be after death.

He opened his arms and called out her name.

And she rushed to him, and then passed through.

Something surged through her in that moment. She almost felt it was really him, some part of himself that had been left behind for her, and her alone.

She took it with her, whatever it was. And she'd keep it until she could give it back to him herself.

Until then, she would live for her sanguine revenge.

For the day when she could make crimson roses bloated with blood.

For the day she would carve every last ounce of her scarlet anger and guilt into that huntress' corpse.

For the day when all of her senses were painted with soundless red.

And then she'd find him, and sleep forever.

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A/N: I wanted to go for a dark/horror kind of genre, where Neo's guilt and anger makes her so set on killing Ruby that it very nearly drives her mad. Since we don't have any canon material about just how close Neo and Roman were at this point, I like to think they were very close partners, and that'd she'd go insane to get revenge for him if she had to.

Happy Halloween!