The alley swallowed Roman Torchwick and his men whole before spitting them back out onto the street, the glow of his cigar cutting a small ember through the dark as civilians stepped quickly out of his path. He didn't hurry. He never hurried. The sign for From Dust Till Dawn glowed ahead of them, and he pushed through the door like he owned the place because for the next few minutes, he did.
Inside, a girl in a red hood sat in the corner with a weapons catalogue open across her knees, a pair of headphones settled over her ears. Beside her, leaning against the wall with his arms folded and his own headphones in, was a white-haired boy with a dark cloth blindfold wrapped across his eyes, head tilted slightly — not asleep, just somewhere else entirely, in the way that people with very little to worry about often were.
The henchmen spread out. Dust crystals caught the light in their cases. Roman approached the shopkeeper with the unhurried ease of a man on a schedule only he knew about.
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a Dust shop open this late?"
A gun came up. The shopkeeper's hands went higher.
"Please just take my Lien and leave!"
Roman flicked his cigar. "Shhh, shhh, shhh. Calm down. We're not here for your money." He glanced sideways. "Grab the Dust."
The cases came open. The cylinders came down. One henchman moved toward another tube along the wall and stopped. Faintly, muffled beneath a pair of headphones, something was playing from the girl's direction. He crossed the floor and tapped her on the shoulder.
Nothing.
He tapped harder.
Still nothing.
He grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her around. The hood dropped. Ruby Rose blinked up at him, startled, and lowered her headphones.
"Yes?"
"I said hands in the air. Now."
Ruby looked at him. Then she looked at the rest of the shop. Then she said, with genuine curiosity: "Are you… robbing us?"
From beside her, without moving from the wall: "Well no. Clearly they're robbing someone else." Kaito jerked a thumb toward the shopkeeper. "Isn't that right?"
The henchman turned. "No, we're actually robbing everyone."
Ruby blinked. "Ohhh."
Kaito's mouth curved slightly at the corner. "Well. Prove me wrong, I guess."
Roman was still waiting by the door when the sound of a short scuffle was followed by one of his men sailing past him at considerable speed. He watched the man land, then looked back at the girl in the red hood with measured, unhurried reassessment.
He gestured. Another henchman raised his gun.
The window did not survive what happened next.
Outside, Ruby unfolded Crescent Rose into its full scythe form, planted it in the ground, and turned off her headphones. The remaining henchmen came through the door and kept coming — until they didn't. She moved through them with the clean, practised efficiency of someone who had been training for this far longer than most people her age had been doing anything, and by the time Roman's last man landed at his feet, the street was quiet.
Roman looked down at his fallen henchman.
"You were worth every cent. Truly, you were."
He dropped his cigar, pressed it flat with his cane, and raised it the bottom opening to reveal a rifle as police sirens began their distant approach.
"Well, Red I think we can all say it's been an eventful evening. And as much as I'd love to stick around…" He levelled it. "…I'm afraid this is where we part ways."
The blast came fast and red and wide.
Kaito stepped in front of it.
It hit him squarely and simply did not. The energy dispersed around him like water meeting stone that refused to be moved, and he stood in the aftermath brushing nothing in particular off his jacket.
Roman made the roof. Ruby was right behind him. Kaito arrived a half-step after, hands in his pockets, entirely unbothered by the climb.
"Hey!" Ruby called.
"Yo." Kaito tilted his head. "It's a little funny that you're running. Are you actually that pressed right now?"
Roman stopped at the edge and looked back first at Ruby, then at Kaito, with the particular expression of a man filing something away for later.
"Persistent." He let the word sit. Then, to Kaito specifically: "I'm not running from you. I simply don't have the time. But I'll be watching and that arrogance of yours?" A thin smile. "I'll enjoy watching it leave you."
Ruby readied Crescent Rose. Roman's getaway Bullhead rose from below, hatch opening.
"End of the line, Red." He held up a red Dust gem then looked at Kaito. "And White."
He threw it, fired, and the roof came apart in a column of fire and smoke.
When it cleared, Glynda Goodwitch stood at the centre of it, a circle of her own making quiet around her, wand raised. She watched the Bullhead take fire from her conjured storm, ice splitting the hull, arrows of gathered debris circling the craft — until the woman in red at the back destroyed them one burst at a time and the jet pulled away into the dark.
Ruby stared after it, rifle half-raised.
"Kaito." Her voice was flat in the specific way it got when she was trying very hard not to sound worried. "That's not funny. I know you're not hurt."
"Well." He considered. "They were disappointing." A pause. "And really, Ruby did you have to ruin my fun?" He raised one hand, fingers arranged into the reverse sign, and held it toward the retreating Bullhead. "I could still hit that from here. Easy. Should I?"
He let the moment sit.
Then he dropped his hand.
"…I won't."
Ruby stared at him for a long moment.
"You're lucky you're cute," she muttered, mostly to herself.
The room was dark except for the light directly above the table, which was doing its level best to make everything feel more serious than it perhaps needed to. Glynda Goodwitch paced, tablet in hand, while Ruby sat beneath the beam looking appropriately chastened.
Kaito sat beside her, arms folded, head resting back against the chair, apparently somewhere between bored and asleep.
"I hope you both understand," Glynda said, "that your actions tonight will not be taken lightly. You put yourselves and others in considerable danger."
"They started it!"
"Eh." Kaito didn't open his eyes. "It's fine. Nothing I didn't want touching me got within range anyway."
Glynda stopped pacing and looked at him for a long moment — at the dark blindfold, the white hair, the complete and total absence of remorse.
"What?" he said. "I know I'm handsome. You don't have to stare." He leaned slightly toward Ruby. "Hide me, Rubes."
Ruby put her face in her hands. "Kaito. You're going to get us in more trouble."
"If it were up to me," Glynda continued, with considerable restraint, "you'd both be sent home with a pat on the back ,Ruby smiled. "and a slap on the wrist." The crop came down; Ruby yelped and barely cleared it. "But. There is someone here who would like to meet you."
The door opened. Professor Ozpin came through it carrying a mug and a plate of cookies, and looked at Ruby for a long moment.
"Ruby Rose." He leaned in slightly. "You have silver eyes."
Ruby opened her mouth, closed it, and managed: "Um."
"So." He straightened, gesturing at the tablet footage. "Where did you learn to do this?"
What followed was a full accounting of Signal Academy, Uncle Qrow, the preferred applications of a war scythe, and Ruby's personal ambitions for the future delivered at increasing speed and decreasing composure, accompanied by a brief demonstration of what Ozpin could only describe as karate noises, and concluding with the declaration that Huntresses were simply more romantic and exciting and cool than regular careers, you know?
Ozpin studied her.
Then he looked at Kaito, who had been silent throughout.
"And you, Mr. Gojo?"
"Where she goes, I go," Kaito said. "We're a package deal."
Ozpin considered this. Glynda expressed her opinion of it with a short exhale through her nose.
"Ruby Rose. Mr. Gojo." Ozpin set his cup down. "Would you like to come to my school?"
"More than anything," Ruby said immediately.
"Sure." Kaito pushed his chair back. "Are we nearly done here, though? I'm bored."
Ozpin exchanged a glance with Glynda. Glynda's expression communicated an entire paragraph. Ozpin turned back to the table.
"…Well. Okay."
Ruby's smile could have lit the room.
"Sweet," said Kaito.
Yang Xiao Long located her sister and Kaito within approximately six seconds of boarding and closed the distance at a speed that left no room for evasion.
"Oh, I cannot believe my baby sister and her friend are heading to Beacon with me!"
"Please stop," Ruby wheezed.
"Yeah, please," Kaito managed, " or I am formally revoking hugging rights."
Yang released them, beaming. "I'm so proud of you both."
"It was nothing," Ruby said.
"It really was," Kaito agreed.
"What do you mean, nothing? It was incredible!" Yang pointed at Ruby. "Everyone at Beacon is going to think you're the bee's knees." Then she turned to Kaito and deadpanned: "You, on the other hand, are going to annoy everyone within five minutes with the way you look at people."
Kaito deflated approximately two inches. "Yang. So mean. Fine. Whatever."
"I don't want to be the bee's knees," Ruby was saying. "I don't want to be any kind of knees! I just want to be a normal girl with normal knees."
"But you are special."
Ruby looked out the window, quiet for a moment.
"Don't worry," Kaito said, and it came out simply, without performance. "I'll be next to you. Always."
Ruby glanced at him. He was already looking out the window, expression unreadable behind the blindfold.
She smiled anyway.
The airship moved. Beacon rose across the water ahead of them, and somewhere toward the back of the cabin, a fellow passenger introduced himself to the floor in the most memorable way possible.
"Gross," said Yang.
"Get away from me!" Ruby fled in the opposite direction.
"Hahahaha," said Kaito's voice, over the sound of both of them.