(Sorry , I most likely will not finish this mission arc in the next chapter . Maybe with two or three more chapters but it's hard to say . I honestly don't want to cut off content that I think supports world building .)
Pov 3 person
" What about him ? "
Asks Ash looking at the departing Kurumi . Kurumi herself after hearing Ash turned to look at him when he simply pointed to her with a nod at the guy whose leg was crushed under the dust crate .
Kurumi silently looked at the guy who, with a pale face, looked on in horror at what had just happened to his accomplices . All the while lying quietly trying not to draw anyone's attention . Apparently fear had made him stop screaming in pain or simply because of blood loss he was no longer able to make a sound .
" I know what you're thinking but it's better not to risk it . No possible survivors".
Said Ash walking slowly to the man .
" I will take care of him , go secure the spider in the trap . "
Said Kurumi passing Ash who squinted slightly then wordlessly walked away with Neo towards the open gate at the loading dock . Seeing the hasty departure of her two partners Kurumi looked into the eyes of the barely alive man .
" The only reason I am doing this now is that I may not have a better opportunity to do it . And this is something I need to know as soon as possible "
Said Kurumi directly revealing to the dying man that what is going to happen now is just to satisfy her curiosity . After these words Kurumi's shadow stretched unnaturally absorbing the man's shadow within . Then a pale hands slowly slid out of this shadow grabbing the fighting man , covering his eyes in the proces . The next thing the thug felt was an indescribable pain spreading through some parts of his body .
At that time Kurumi watched as many clones appeared from her shadow stretched unnaturally around the man , biting into his flesh through his clothes . While at this time the pale hands drove their nails into the soft tissues squeezing the blood from them like a sponge .
The unnatural force of the hands and clones nailed the struggling man whose screams were stopped by a hand tearing his cheeks apart while catching his tongue, leaving him only to moan in excruciating pain. During the horrible scene , the man tried to make another sound but the clone near his neck ended his attempts by biting deep into it .
Looking at the gruesome scene of clones devouring someone alive, Kurumi did not even blink her eye . Slowly the half-formed clones began dragging the " dead " man with them into the shadows only to disappear leaving behind only the bloody floor . Immediately after Kurumi's shadow returned to its normal shape her eyes widened for a moment as her red and black aura covered her body .
" At least now I know why no living creature never came back from my shadow . However, I have never felt this way ? Was it because of the size or the fact that they were animals not people ? "
Kurumi says with realization on her face and at the same time she seemed to be asking herself more internal questions .
" Smething has changed . But I don't know what , perhaps I felt more alive for a while ? No that's not the word . Younger , no that's not it either . Energetic . I felt completely like I was on adrenaline . I don't know honestly if I should like that feeling ? It seems rather inappropriate . "
Says Kurumi giggling under her breath completely as if what happened was somehow funny . However, what she did not realize was that the pointer in her eye for the first time changed position , moving the time as much as five hours and thirty minutes forward .
( I know it may be a bit too exaggerated but when I think of the ability to devour someone's time it pops into my head . I know it's a bit macabre but it somehow strangely fits the name " nightmare ".Of course Kurumi won't be any kind of cannibal it's only her " incomplete " shadow clones that have this ability. Besides this will not be the only way Kurumi can do it , once she unlocks her full powers , Zafkiel will also be able to do it on a larger scale . And as for how it works , it will be explained . )
Pov Lapis
Life never takes the path we want it to, unfortunately I only realised this in my twenties . When I turned nineteen the grimms destroyed the whole village in which I lived. My whole life my family had worked themselves to death to buy a piece of land for a shop. When I was six years old my father fell off the roof of the illegal construction site he was working on . My grandmother died two years later , this woman never had a break . Every day until the day she died she took on the role of caretaker in the village taking care of the children for a fee . During this she always had time to bake various things for sale .
My mother died three years after that , through an illness she never told anyone about . She knew it was incurable and prolonging her life was very expensive . At that time my elder sister still had one year of shool left . After my mother's death she was the only one left . And strangely enough there was enough money from her side job to survive and save . Only because of this I still believed in the world .
When I was older after school or in the holidays I took on extra smaller jobs to help out . After finishing school I managed with my sister to buy an old building in the village . It was there that we set up a shop in which I worked alone so that my sister could keep her job . And for a year everything was going well until someone broke my sister's back and then took advantage of her.
That's how I was left alone with a disabled , mentaly broken elder sister . I was left alone with a disabled, broken older sister in a shop whose income barely allowed me to afford anything. Despite all this adversity I bought medicines , specialist equipment for her , food and everything I or she needed . In addition, I kept the shop running and even managed to renovate it myself. But the worst came when the grimms destroyed everything I had.
The only thing I saved was my sister, who I ran away with on my back. I had nothing but her , she was the reason I could go on . Eventually when I was twenty years old due to overpopulation in the village we fled to I was stuck in a musty refugee flat . That was also when my worst hell started . We only got food , medicine and other necessities for the first month .
After that due to budget cuts there was no money . Most of the people in the village had already settled with distant relatives or simply found help elsewhere. I was the only one left with no job, no family, no future. But I had someone to support, my only family, my sister. Of course I had a job, but none of them were for me. Not because I didn't want to work but because since I was a child I was more of a mental person than a power person . Every job I was given was hard physical work that I couldn't handle. But I still had to grit my teeth and work.
However, even when I work in the end it was not worth it . I was more tired by the day until I ended up damaging the joints in my body while working . I couldn't even buy medication for myself because of my sister .I could feel how this pain was slowly killing me but still I had to work . I had no options than to become a whore , fortunately or unluckily before I made this mistake I met a woman with a vision and her own ambition Mrs Malachite .
I honestly didn't even think at the time why I was chosen or why I agreed at all. To this day I don't know, but perhaps because I had no other choice. As to why I was chosen, well, over the following years I found that out for myself. What was important then wos that ..... she needed trusted people and I needed a job.
I was working for a gang , a spider syndicate which at the time had changed leadership . That leader was Mrs Malachite who took on the syndicate . Honestly even when I found this out I didn't care, my job was to check the flow of money . Mrs Malchite was worried about the money disappearing . Apparently someone was taking some of it for themselves. Hence my job ,a third person unknown to anyone with the task of checking and counting monet for Mrs Malachite .
As I have done all my life , I worked hard and I don't even know when I went from being a third party to being a full member of the spider with the merit of catching thieves . Of course by this time I had already guessed that I was always on target but apparently Mrs Malachite loved my loyalty and work so she kept me . Of course Mrs Malachite satisfied with my work and talent assigned me higher in the hierarchy .
And here it started to get dangerous . I was no longer just quietly counting illegal transfers , bills and that sort of thing . I was given the task of selling , be it stolen dust , drugs , weapons of course not like a dealer of which we had many . I was the only one who took to it like a shop sale , I did it in bulk . I think that's what Mrs Malchite saw in me , I was born with a talent for devising sales strategies . I could push guns to drug addicts and drugs to mercenaries .
In the end, Mrs Malachite assigned me to be the leader of one of the smaller groups and, despite her reluctance to have close contact with anyone, I was one of the few people who had the closest contact with her.
However , despite how well things might go , as I said earlier life does not take the course we want . I lost my sister to a hostile gang who thought they could destroy a spider . My last family went through the same nightmare again and then she wos drowned in the river as a sign to me , the main logistics of the syndicate .
Of course Mrs Malchite destroyed them and I was personally given the honour of dealing with those who did this to my sister . I think it was then that I lost my respect to human life . In the world we live in , human life can be valued with money . It is money that gives many people power just like the Schnee family . This world is made of money for the money, we live for money and we are dying for money .
Without money , without strength , without talent you are a mere commodity to be exploited . From the moment I realised this, I began to live for spider . Mrs Malchite gave me the chance to get money , it is because of her my sister and I were able to live without worrying abou anything . But again when after years of cooperation, I was about to become her right hand . Roman appeared .
I do not know what he has that makes him so special ? This red-headed cockroach whose idiotic plans only work because of his luck . At the time I had the impression that he may have seduced Mrs Malachite but I could see his disgust to her . He had no respect for her yet she kept him by her side for four years .
Before I was able to do anything about him the idea of expansion to the Vale came . I myself don't know if it was Mrs Malachite who came up with it or Roman gave her this idea . But the plan was good , very good , we just needed someone there to keep an eye on things . I volunteered ..... and that was probably the biggest mistake of my life .
No , it was a mistake not to stick to the plan . However on site , I had suspicions that a third party was hindering the smuggling of dust in Vale . And I am not talking about Xiong rather someone who helps them . Then by a stroke of fate an opportunity presented itself to confirm them . Even if it was not confirmed I would have an ace up my sleeve . Trivia Vanille daughter of the manager of this filthy town .
Needless to say that after painstakingly buying , organising and planning information it turned out that this very city manager and Mr Xiong had many meetings . And for some reason his daughter ran away from home and then robbed my people . Apart from the loss of image, it was no big deal.
A few drugs and money which she stole . Compared to the town manager's daughter which she wos herself is nothing. As for the spider image, I cut off the hand of a homeless man and everything wos back on track. We managed to catch her despite her sembelance and partner who was a pain in my ass . And Immediately after her capture at the same day I received a message from my trusted informant . Roman fucked things up at Parrot & Mouse , a club operated by the Parrot gang . He even took the two daughters of Mrs Malchita there .
( Yes I know in Roman Holiday the Malachite Twins were thirteen years old at the time . Which after mathematical calculations would mean that they now will have 21 during RWBY volume one , not about 23 as wiki says . I don't know if it bothers anyone at all but it's really hard to count everything perfectly .)
I was furious that he had so endangered the only daughters of Mrs Lil' Miss whom she herself had entrusted to him . Not even to mention that no one even I had a chance to look after them . And he got this honour , this chance and yet he led them to the hideout of an enemy gang . Of course, inside I was happy because I knew that my success was near, I just didn't see the slightest chance that he would get out of it.
I was so happy that I didn't even beat up the young lady Vanille who had been caught , even when in the middle of a conversation with her I got information about a rather bigger shootout in which we were involved . As for the shooting it was nothing serious but I had to call to investigate the situation .However I never expected that this girl and her partner single-handedly destroy everything I had built up over years of work .
I had everything , looks , status , money , but after this debacle , all my money has gone to the backup plan and my status has been swept into the mud . A year of action , thousands of Lien in dust and weapons was destroyed by two girls . Not to mention the museum that burned down and which we used a lot of contacts and money to get access .
And I had to explain it all to Mrs Malachite with that scar on my face that took away even my beauty . One reason why I am alive is that Miss and I have known each other for so many years it was I who helped to keep her stable after she take over the syndicate . So now I have fallen only to serve as a disposable pawn . But if Miss Malachite succeeds in taking over Vale with my help I will be able to live free .
Yet here we go again , my life is falling apart again . Thinking of the past I feel the familiar sensation of warm blood on my face . Out of the corner of my eye I see my sweet cat bodyguard who I just had sex with . Now with dead eyes his head lies leaning against the side window stained with blood as a rusty screwdriver dirty with blood sticks out of his carotid artery .