Senti's POV
Vale was too bright during the day.
Too loud. Too alive.
But when the sun went down, it became something else — a city that hummed in a different language.
The alleys were mine now.
I worked the docks and backstreets, guarding shipments, chasing off petty thieves, doing the kind of jobs people didn't ask names for.
It kept me moving.
It kept the voices quiet — sometimes.
The White Fang was still here, just hiding behind new paint and new slogans. I saw their symbols scrawled on warehouse walls. Smaller now. Meaner. They were spreading, but like a sickness, not a movement.
Blake's absence hadn't killed the Fang. It had made it worse.
And me?
I'd become a ghost with red eyes and a wolf's shadow.
I slept in a loft above a machine shop near the southern rail lines. The owner, an older Faunus named Joren, didn't ask questions after the first week.
"Rent's due every fifth day," he said once.
"I pay early," I answered.
He grinned. "I like you already."
He didn't know I spent my nights cleaning up his problems before they reached the door — thieves, debt collectors, a Fang recruit who thought "taxes" meant robbery.
Joren called it luck.
I called it practice.
The city whispered through its wires. Every night, news of another Fang cell, another clash, another failure. I followed those trails like a hound — unseen, unheard, cleaning up what I could before it reached the innocent.
That was how the rumors started.
They called me the wolf under Vale.
I didn't deny it.
Better to be a story than a witness.
One night, a courier I knew — a short girl named Lina with fox ears and a temper — handed me a sealed packet.
"From someone high up," she said. "Didn't say who. Just said give it to the red-eyed one."
"Flattering," I said, taking it.
"Creepy, more like," she muttered. "Be careful, Senti. You've been in the papers again."
I frowned. "Which ones?"
"The kind that call you 'a rogue operative.'"
"Let them."
Lina left fast. Smart girl.
Inside the packet was a photograph.
Blake.
Standing at a dock, boarding a transport marked with Beacon's emblem.
The image was grainy, but her face was clear — same golden eyes, same calm defiance.
Alive.
I felt something split in my chest — relief first, then something darker.
I should have smiled. Instead, I laughed once, sharp and empty.
"Of course you did it," I whispered. "You actually left the world."
She left you, Cruelty murmured.
"She lived," Logic countered.
Alive without you, Charm teased.
Joy only laughed.
I pressed the photo flat against my knee until it bent. "Quiet."
They didn't.
Two nights later, I went hunting again.
A small Fang cell had been hitting Dust shipments on the east side. Too sloppy. Too loud.
Someone would notice soon — someone Atlas wouldn't forgive.
I found them behind a warehouse, trying to pry open a locked crate. They froze when I stepped into the light.
The leader — a tiger Faunus with bandaged hands — snarled. "Who are you supposed to be?"
I didn't answer.
One of them recognized me anyway. "That's her — the wolf!"
The rest panicked.
They reached for weapons.
I sighed. "Bad choice."
The fight was quick. It always was. I moved through them like I'd been born for it. Blades flashing silver under the moon, tail snapping for balance, red eyes tracking every motion.
I didn't kill anyone. Not yet.
When the last one hit the ground, I leaned against the crate, catching my breath.
"You're not Fang," the leader groaned, clutching his ribs.
"Not anymore," I said.
"Then what are you?"
I looked down at him. "A problem you don't want."
He passed out before I finished.
By morning, the papers said Another Failed Robbery – Fang Members Arrested by Vale Authorities.
They didn't mention the woman with red eyes who left them tied up for the patrols.
That was fine.
Stories don't need names.
I went back to the loft. Joren was there, fixing a motor.
"You look worse than yesterday," he said.
"I'm better than I look."
"That's not saying much."
He tossed me a tin of tea. "You keep this up, you're going to make enemies who don't forget faces."
"They'll have to find mine first," I said, pulling my hood up.
He grunted. "Fair enough. Just don't bring the war here."
"Not my plan."
"Good. I hate cleaning blood off gears."
That night, I stared at the photograph again.
Beacon. A school for Huntsmen — protectors, fighters, dreamers.
A place where she could finally breathe without running.
I wanted to believe that was enough.
But the world doesn't leave people like me in peace.
The White Fang wouldn't.
Atlas wouldn't.
And eventually, the war I kept at arm's length would find its way to her doorstep.
When it did, I'd be there.
Not as a savior.
Not as a hero.
Just as the shadow waiting under her light.