Cinder Fall

**Cinder Fall** is one of the main antagonists of *RWBY* and the primary antagonist of the Beacon Arc. She is a member of Salem's Faction as well as the leader of her own. She is also the current host of the Fall Maiden's powers. Her machinations are the driving force behind the events of the first three volumes of RWBY.

Cinder used a special Grimm glove to steal half of the Fall Maiden's powers from Amber. During the Fall of Beacon, she gained the other half and killed Ozpin in battle.

When Beacon fell, Ruby Rose unleashed the power of her silver eyes, putting Cinder into a state of near death. It is later revealed that she lost her left eye, had massive scarring over that side of her face and for a time had incredible difficulty speaking. Later it is revealed that her entire left arm had been completely replaced with that of a Grimm.

## Statistics

* **Name**: Cinder Fall, Fall Maiden
* **Origin**: RWBY
* **Gender**: Female
* **Age**: 20s
* **Birthday**: September 12
* **Classification**: Human (1/4 Grimm), Fall Maiden
* **Blood Type**: A
* **Height**: 180 cm (5'10.9") in heels
* **Weight**: 51 kg (112 lbs)
* **Skin Color**: Light
* **Eye Color**: Amber
* **Hair Color**: Ashen-Black
* **Alignment**: Bad
* **Status**: Active
* **Class**: **SS-Class**
* **Notable Attacks/Techniques**: Maiden's Flame, Fallen Arrow, Burning Sword Slash, Lava Burst, Shards of Despair, Hyper Maiden's Flame, Maiden’s Inferno
* **Voice Actor**: Yūko Kaida

## Appearance

Cinder has short ashen-black hair and bright amber eyes, while her fingernails are painted dark red. She wears a black mask that appears to be made of black glass over her missing left eye, and the scarring from said injury extends into a slight x-shape over the bridge of her nose, as well as having deformed and degraded the tissue of her left ear. She wears a long, dark red dress with one long, wide sleeve hiding her left arm. The edges of the collar and the opening for the right arm are gold-colored, and the upper chest and left sleeve are decorated with golden designs.

The right side of her dress is open from the hip down with two gold-colored straps made up of interwoven ropes connecting the front half to the back half of her thigh. Under the dress, she appears to wear black pantyhose. On the right hip, the dress has a black rhombus-shaped gem set in a gold-colored metal of the same shape, with feathers of varying shades of blue extending from the bottom of it. On her right arm, she wears a long, gray glove, the top of which has a gold-colored metal ring with curvy branching extensions going up her arm. Her right ear has a new, ring-shaped earring higher up than the dangling black gem earring.

## Personality

Cinder is ruthless and cruel, as demonstrated when she delivers a killing blow to a clearly defeated Pyrrha Nikos at point-blank range and later throws a spear at a defenseless Weiss Schnee. Relentless in her imperious pursuit of power, Cinder demonstrates a cunning that shows in her successful manipulation of events throughout the first three volumes. Usually, she maintains a calm and collected demeanor and is willing to take over a fight if necessary.

Cinder relishes in dominance and gloating. She is strict with her subordinates and displays shameless pleasure in the misery she has caused others. Although she refers to her partnership with Roman as "cooperation", it is obvious she has the upper hand, for she very quickly makes an implicit, and not very subtle, threat to Roman by conjuring a fireball in her hand. Cinder also seems to be ambitious and demanding in this role. Often, she is very direct on the matter at hand, as shown when she quickly jumps to Roman's failure of robbing a cargo hold of Dust. When Jaune gets the slight upper hand in a fight, Cinder's lack of dominance leads her to show how superior she thinks of herself, calling him "a failure with a deathwish".

Cinder expects her subordinates to execute exactly as she wishes with what little she gives them. She does not seem to tolerate failure, seen with Roman, preferring for her goals to be successful regardless of the situation. Cinder prefers that such problems be solved quickly, is seen to give very direct orders and keeps Roman on a strict need-to-know basis.

After the Fall of Beacon, Cinder is utterly humiliated from her encounter with Ruby atop Beacon Tower. She no longer displays her usual confidence, instead appearing sullen and taking insults from the other members of Salem's Faction without reply due to her inability to speak and thus relying on her subordinates. Later, in "Taking Control", she is visibly horrified by watching Tyrian Callows maniacally massacre a Beowolf. In "No Safe Haven", Cinder is shown to have a deep desire for vengeance against Ruby, going as far as to have Emerald create a hallucination of Ruby in a submissive state for Cinder to imagine burning alive. However, Arthur Watts notes that her desire for revenge against Ruby affects her judgment, shown when she negotiates a deal with Raven that would allow the latter to betray her by stealing the Relic from Haven Academy.

Cinder is overconfident, so new conflict elements do not faze her. Despite this, however, in the rare occurrence in which she is caught off guard, Cinder's monumental temper surfaces, showing her immense shock and outrage. This is most notable when Jaune Arc nicks the edge of her mask during the battle at Haven Academy and when Raven bests her in Haven's Vault. The explosive response to even the slightest attack on her shows Cinder's utter disdain to the fallibility and weaknesses of her humanity, especially in response to having them exploited by a perceived inferior foe.

Despite Cinder's continuous descent into megalomania and the lengths she has gone to obtain power, she apparently detests being called out on it as shown when Raven cites Cinder's choice to take the arm of a Grimm. Cinder retorts angrily, showing she sees herself as being beyond judgment or the moral codes of others. This shows just how little she thinks of others, feeling that none have the right to pass judgment on a superior being such as herself, indicating that she is amoral, seeing no point to limiting oneself or ambitions based on a code of ethics. In this way, Cinder proves that she is willing to do anything to achieve power, even forsaking her own humanity, seeing herself already as being beyond Human.

However, Cinder's detesting of fear leads her to react poorly when others see her feel it, including Jaune Arc during their fight, Raven in the antechamber outside the Vault of the Spring Maiden, and most notably by Salem during her training. Cinder seeks to be feared and therefore detests being made to feel fear by both her enemies and her superiors alike.

Cinder's arrogant and confident demeanor also brings out a tendency of hers to gloat in the face of her enemies. However, this tendency of hers is known to backfire, for it distracts her at the Fall of Beacon from the imminent threat that Ruby poses, catching her off guard. Of Cinder's many personality traits, her compulsion to bask in her enemies' defeats and her own triumphs often proves to be her undoing.

## Abilities and Equipment

**Scorching Caress**: Cinder has used her Semblance to super heat powders such as sand and dust into glass and hurl them at enemies as well as alter her clothes. She is also able to use this ability to heat and reform broken objects such as her glass weapons and arrows. Cinder is first seen using her Semblance in “Ruby Rose” when she causes the ground underneath Ruby Rose and Glynda Goodwitch to explode. Cinder is also shown to directly channel her Aura into her hand and use her Semblance to superheat them, as seen where she was able to easily melt the floor as her palm slid through it and directly burn her opponents body by grappling them with her heated hands.

**Magic**: As one of the four Maidens representing the season of Fall, she holds one fourth of the powers the Wizard had carried, including his powerful control over True Magic. As such, she is able to preform various supernatural feats without the use of Dust, such as changing the weather, controlling the elements, flying, creating forcefields, and drastically increasing her strength and durability. Before aquiring the other half of the power formerly held by Amber, this was weakened appropriately.

* **Cinder's Weapons**: After gaining the full Fall Maiden powers and spending time training under Salem, Cinder learned to create fire glass weapons that appear glass on the outside, but have a flaming core on the inside. She is capable of forming them out of seemingly nothing and transform them rapidly to suit any needs to have such control over the shape of her weapons, creating a number of shapes for different situations like swords (both regular and explosive upon contact), daggers, a spear, and a bow that bears a strong resemblance to her original weapon, **Midnight**.
	+ **Fallen Arrow**: Cinder creates a fire glass bow, firing a volley of arrows at her opponents.
	+ **Burning Sword Slash**: Cinder creates a glass broadsword with a fiery core that brutally slashes her opponent, causing an explosion upon impact.
* **Maiden's Flame**: Cinder shoots a large fireball generated from her palm at her opponent.
	+ **Hyper Maiden's Flame**: A stronger variation of the original Maiden's Flame, Cinder forms a much larger ball of fire from both hands that explodes on contact.
* **Lava Burst**: Cinder causes the ground below her to erupt, releasing a burst of lava at her opponent.
* **Shards of Despair**: Forming several shards of ice behind her, Cinder sends them flying at the opponent to inflict piercing damage with the added effect of minor frostbite.
* **Maiden's Inferno**: Impaling her opponent with an exploding arrow shot from her bow, Cinder creates a circlet of fire underneath her before shooting it as a wave of fire that burns the opponent. To finish, Cinder generates wings and raises a giant fireball into the air and slams it to the ground, incinerating her opponent in a gigantic explosion.

**Shadow Hand**: During the Fall of Beacon, Cinder becomes injured by Ruby's Silver-Eye powers. Her left arm is replaced with a Grimm limb known as a "Shadow Hand". It's implied that the arm itself possesses some sort of sentience, as Salem instructed her to make her new limb respect and fear her. The arm is capable of stretching out somewhat of a long distance, and has been shown to be capable of extracting the Maiden power as seen in her fight with Raven.

## Weaknesses

Continual use of her Aura will cause it to decay to the point where she can be left open to more significant damage.

Her Grimm Arm does not gain protection from Aura, and is very weak to Silver Eyes.