The second exchange

Ozpin can be said to have experienced one of his most stressful and eventful half a year in a long time, all of that due to the sudden appearance of a wildcard that has thrown most of his plans off course and forced him to almost completely rethink his aproach towards the shadow war in order to account for this new variable.

It all started at the end of the last exchange. Ozpin didn't live so long and amassed so much knowledge and experience just to be gullible enough to accept a proposal without looking deeper into it, especially one that was giving him so many advantages at such little cost. Even if the two sharing a common goal is true, it would be normal for the other party to protect their own interests so he's perplexed with him having such low demands.

But despite his suspicions, he followed through with his promise and maintained Cypher's identity a complete secret from others, sometimes he would invite Atlas technicians to try and search the CCT Network for any signs of tempering but he maintained a tight lip as to why.

So he had to do most of the search on his own using whatever contacts and agents he had at his disposition. It was admittedly, quite a fun and thrilling mental exercise that allowed him to shake off a bit of the rust built up from the monotony of being a headmaster and Salem's recent lack of any activity. But other than that, it had no results since Cypher didn't leave a trail for him to follow after he wiped it along with their last conversation.

The next measure that he took was that following being informed of a potential traitor in his inner circle, he hasn't had a meeting or informed anyone of his plans since. He hasn't jumped on the gun and started to investigate his allies one by one since he still has no proof other than someone's words but he has preferred to remain in a cautious stance.

But the most pressing issue that he had faced in the meantime is without a doubt Summer's safety, he repeatedly tried to prevent her from going out on missions following Cypher's warning until he got a better grasp on the situation but she was not having it.

Summer is a workaholic that takes her job as a huntress very seriously and combined with her natural altruism and desire to help others has made not even marrying and having children be able to make her settle down. Even when he threatened to revoke her huntsman licence if she didn't settle down for a while she remained defiant and said that she would continue saving people even without it.

That has remained true even after he explained to her the danger she was currently facing and the possibility of her being targeted by the queen's forces as she replied him with:

"Ozpin, I'm a huntress. I already knew that I would be putting myself in danger from the start and I won't start hiding myself in fear or stop doing my duty just because of this. You say that one of them might be a trap but what if it isn't? Do you really expect me to just ignore them and leave those people to die?"

So seeing no other option, Ozpin had to contact Qrow and Taiyang in order to inform them of the situation and request their help. In the end of the day, the two of them managed to get her to stay at Patch and Ozpin also temporarily revoked her licence and blacklisted her from any airplane or boat leaving the island for good measure.

Summer didn't like the arrangement one bit and will probably hold a small grudge against him for a while, but he's not willing to see her, someone with such a bright and selfless dream, sacrificing herself and destroying her own family. So he'll gladly bear her resentment if it is what's necessary to keep her alive, her husband and her teammate seem to also agree with me in the matter.

After succeeding in effectively 'grounding' his ex-student, he had finally managed to decrease some of his worries and he could now much more calmly look into the situation and try to look for the culprit.

And the first thing he had to look for, was the mission that was supposed to be the cover for the ambush. The mission they must have chosen for it must be one that they're sure would only be taken by her and it must take place far enough away from civilization that she'd be incapable of asking for rescue. As long as he found it, he would receive a few hints to the identity of the traitor.

And eventually, after almost 2 months of keeping his eyes peeled for any mission that might fit the criteria he finally found one that was promising. It was the distress signal of a bullhead that had crashed far into the wilds accompanied by a video from a supposed survivor from the crash.

Such types of missions are usually avoided by huntsman in general considering how low the likelihood of them surviving the local grimm until rescue is, especially considering all the negative emotions that the survivor will feel, the chances of survival are so abysmally low it might as well be listed as corpse retrieval and most huntsman aren't willing to venture so far from civilization and into Grimm territory for someone that's as good as dead.

But Summer in the other hand would gladly throw herself into danger for just the tiny chance that she'll be able to rescue them, the audio transmission from the survivor would also be further incentive for someone as compassionate as her.

So while Summer was confined in patch, I saw fit to send a few scouts to survey the area and after waiting for a week they finally brought me some news.

The first is that their Scrolls got suddenly jammed as they aproached the area the signal was coming from, so they followed the instructions I gave them and only surveyed the edges of the area without getting close, the second is that the concentration of Grimm is especially high, that in itself would not be strange considering all the negative emotions surviving a crash landing would bring, but they were too spread out and not really converging into the source like usual if there was one and the last one is that they were able to find faint signs of human presence, the person that left them is certainly a great hunter by how well they concealed their tracks but so is the team that I used thanks to them specializing in scouting.

So after receiving this information, I decided to order them to return and not aproach the area the signal was coming from since they would be putting themselves into great danger since they aren't really trained for direct combat and the intel he got was more than enough to prove that the information that he had been given was accurate.

With this, all his doubts were dispelled and despite having already come with his own hypothesis on who the traitor might be, hearing directly from Cypher may confirm his doubts.

In the end of the day, his meeting with this mysterious hacker brought him more benefits than he initially thought as he became aware of a great vulnerability in their systems and have since upgraded their defenses and he is now aware that the queen is making her move and has become much more alert.

So after half a year had passed, Ozpin had finally decided to call him once again and get what he was promised and maybe even strike another deal.

...

|Jaune's P.O.V|

The message from the headmaster was certainly a surprise but overall a pleasant one, he had already expected Ozpin to take some time to contact him again since he would without a doubt try to distinguish the validity of the information he was given.

To be honest, if he had taken one more week to enter in contact then I would have probably tried to contact him on my own, since each day that passes I could be to late to stop the next attack. That wouldn't be ideal since it would mess up the power dynamic I'm trying to build and Ozpin would start thinking that I need him and not the other way around.

So with a little hesitation, he took a deep breath and prepared himself for another mental spar and sent out a reply.

[Cypher: So, you have finally decided to answer me after so long? I was starting to think that you had already forgotten our agreement]

[Ozpin: I certainly did not, now can we discuss our previous agreement?]

It seems that my tactic was quite effective since you could feel the desperation and eagerness by just reading the message.

[Cypher: Fine, have you upheld your end of our agreement?]

[Ozpin: No one else other than me has been made aware of your existence]

[Cypher: Excellent! And just for curiosity sake, how is Summer?]

I send feeling some genuine concern for her wellbeing and some curiosity as to how did Ozpin aproached this.

[Ozpin: Stranded in Patch and not too happy about it, but otherwise she's fine. Now, you said that you would give me the identity of the traitor]

That relieves my worries as this arrangement not only keeps her momentarily safe but also her family remains safe from retaliation with three huntsman in the same island. But he'll probably need to think of a more permanent solution later.

[Cypher: So now you believe me? I'm happy to hear it, I'm sending you a folder with the evidence I gathered, make your own conclusions from what you'll see]

I then take all the evidence that I had been collecting about the culprit and present it to Ozpin.

[Cypher: (dowload) folder_evidence...]

[Ozpin: ...]

[Cypher: You probably had already some suspicions after finding who is the one that presented the mission but now I can assure you, Leonardo Lionheart is a traitor and the one that has been feeding Salem with information]

[Ozpin: I already had some suspicions when he presented me with the distress signal claiming that his huntsman were overdrafted and he couldn't spare one to investigate, he also asked me directly about Summer's situation and if she was available for the mission after it. But why? Why would he do this?]

[Cypher: Lionheart is a coward, he has betrayed you because he was worried that fighting on your side would cost him his skin, so he went to Salem out of his own volition in order to strike a deal]

[Ozpun: I will immediately seize him and get everything he knows out of him]

[Cypher: Don't be so hasty, he's just a pawn, I doubt he will have any useful information but on the other hand keeping him close can bring various benefits]

[Ozpin: And how having a traitor at my side is supposed to help me?]

[Cypher: Firstly, if you reveal one spy than the queen will just plant another in its place so as long as you exclude him from your real meetings and instead hold fake meetings and feed him misinformation he'll be mostly harmless now that he's exposed,]

[Cypher: And secondly, the queen knows that he's a selfish coward so she'll never suspect that he's trying to fool her since it would result in him being hunted down by both factions, so as long as you feed him misinformation then you can relay any information you want to the queen. I don't think I need to tell you how advantageous that would be]

[Ozpin: You really must have thought this through. Very well I'll do as you've suggested]

[Cypher: Now, why don't we make use of this opportunity and move on to a new exchange?]

[Ozpin: I'm listening]

[Cypher: My offer this time is the identity of one of the queen's lieutenants: name, appearance, semblance etc...Are you interested?]

[Ozpin: Present your condition and I'll do the best in my power to meet them]

[Cypher:There's a village in Anima called Kuroyuri, it is an overall unremarkable place except for the fact that it'll be soon attacked by Grimm and destroyed. I want you to prevent all those villagers from being killed and the village destroyed]

[Ozpin: Sounds simple enough, I'll prepare a team of huntsman to clear the area around the village of Grimm]

[Cypher: There's just a tiny detail, it'll not be any Grimm horde that will attack the village, but a Nucklelavee and a pretty old one at that, so just any average huntsman team won't suffice]

[Ozpin: Hmmm, that makes things difficult. A Nucklelavee on its own is already enough to pose a threat to an entire huntsman team, but when it has the support from the other Grimm nearby that'll come after being attracted by the negativity of the villagers than its danger increases by several fold. I would be quite difficult to isolate it and take it down]

[Cypher: Then I'll be entrusting you with this task, I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors]

[Ozpin: Just answer me this then, Why are you so intent on saving this village? Does it mean something to you? Do you know someone in it?]

And just like that Ozpin reveals his scheming side and tries to find out my weakness, but unfortunately for him I have no ties to the village nor do I know anyone that lives in it, so it doesn't matter how many villagers he questions in search for my identity it'll yield nothing.

[Cypher: I'm just someone that's showing some basic compassion towards a village that's about to get slaughtered. I don't think I need any reason other than that]

[Cypher: Goodbye Ozpin, and may our exchange be fruitful]

I then turn off my Scroll and prepare to go to bed.

'Ren, Nora I hope that destiny can be kinder towards you this time around'