Edit: Line thingies now replace the page breakers.

The Night Unfurls

Chapter 1

Hunter's Dream

Blake felt horrible. She wasn't sure why she felt horrible. The only thing she was completely sure of was the fact that her everything hurt like hell. It felt like she had a drunken fist fight with an Ursa Major and then proceeded to have a brawl with Yang without any Aura left. Needless to say, she was having a bad day.

Trying to use her Aura to stabilize her throbbing head, she concentrated on its healing capabilities. To her surprise it didn't work. 'I'm probably running on fumes now. But why? I don't remember… Anything...'

Images of memories flowed through her. She was at Vale going back to Beacon just after she bought the newest edition of Ninjas of Love. After that there was static. Then she woke up in some sickroom in a decrepit city. The citizens attacked her, then there was that thing.

It was just a blob of blackness in her memory but she knows what it was. How it loathed humans. How it manifested itself as an evil amalgamation. How it looked at her. Just knowing this, it felt like she was a bit enlightened. Just a tad bit…

Insightful.

...

'I should have died…'

Memories of falling came next. The immense pain she felt -is still feeling. The darkness overcoming her. The feeling of regret and guilt.

'How..? How am I not dead?'

Pain slowly dissipating as her senses came together. Her face felt cold as the stone floor slowly transferred its heat onto her face. Stone floor? Was she still on the streets of the decrepit city?

Eyes cracking open to the moonlight of the shattered moon. She was in a garden filled with nothing but white lilies -bar of course the gravestones that accompanied the ivory flowers. What is with all of the stupid gravestones and gardens?

Cat ears twitching as she heard footsteps drawing closer. The slight breeze that she felt wash over her head indicated that she wasn't wearing her bow. A slight pang of panic overcame her but she willed herself to calm down. These people already saw what she is. 'There's no use hiding what I am to whoever these are...'

Craning her head slightly -wincing at the pain that ran across her neck- to look at whoever was coming to greet her.

It was two people.

...

Blinking the fatigue out of her eyes, she saw two women.

The taller of the two was pale. As impossibly pale as the purest of marble. She wore a quaint maroon dress. The dress itself was obscured by a maroon cloak that had quite the exquisite embroidery. Her hair was mostly covered by a dark red bonnet. A silver braid hung loosely on her shoulder as quicksilver eyes darted to and from Blake and their companion. Hands hanging loosely to her side as white sleeves and red fingerless gloves finished the outfit. Her hands were…

'They look like an antique doll's hands… Probably cybernetics? But why would anyone model it to quite an antiquated aesthetic?'

She turned her gaze towards the shorter person. They were at least a head shorter than the one dressed in maroon. Short blonde hair pulled back. Blue hardened eyes hid behind thick rimmed glasses. A black long coat hanging loosely on her shoulders covered most of the white dress shirt and dark trouser she wore. What she wore was more practical -more fitting since this person stood her ground like a seasoned Huntress. The comparison to Miss Goodwitch or a hardened Jaune was not lost.

The katana and the holstered antique pistol made her muscles tense. She doesn't have the Aura or energy to fight. No, she couldn't fight. Not in this state.

The grip on the katana loosened and Blake could only sigh in relief as she sensed the tension in the air die down. Noticing the slight limp on the shorter one's steps, the taller one snaked her hand down the shorter one's waist as to support them.

'Guess it's time to stop wallowing on the dirt now…'

"Uggh..." As she was trying to prop herself up, her hands caved in and she fell face first onto the stone floor. Again.

'Welp, that was lame.'

Sighing as loud as she can, she closed her eyes again and hoped that these people would help her.

"Perhaps we should help her?"

The Hunter stared dryly to her companion. Her hand slowly letting go of the Doll's waist. "Yes. That would be great."

The Doll, quickly nodding, hurried to the dark haired beast girl's side. Taking the girl's hand and slinging it onto her own shoulder, she propped the girl up. Bright yellow orbs met with the Hunter's own blue ones. Chapped lips slowly opening as if to say somethi-

"Jaune?"

"Pardon?"

The dark haired beast girl blinked rapidly, "Oh. I'm sorry. You looked like someone I know." Cat ears laying flat as if in shame. Why was that?

"Doll, bring her inside the Workshop." Sighing and scratching the back of her head, she turned and looked towards the Workshop, "The shock of dying in the waking world probably hasn't worn off yet."

Gripping the sheathed katana, she used it as a makeshift cane as she limped towards the Workshop entrance. Her steps slow but sure. Squaring her shoulders as if to convey a sense of superiority to her first student.

'This gonna be the hardest part. She's confused and still in shock. How would I explain things to her? Will I do this to all the potential Hunter recruits?'

Sighing, she slowly stopped walking as she's still in deep thought. 'There's no use complaining now. This was my decision to be a teacher to all who came by the Dream.'

The Doll passed by her with the beast girl leaning towards the Doll's shoulder. The Doll's gaze went towards the Hunter for a quick moment before nodding in agreement to her previous command.

Gehrman's Workshop -her Workshop now- stood proudly in the Dream. A small mansion amidst an endless sea of white lilies and small creeks. The last time she saw the Workshop in all its glory, among the stone steps and the gravestones of her predecessors, it was burning. Burned by Gehrman's hatred towards the Dream.

Shaking the thoughts of her old mentor away, her gaze went back to the Workshop.

It was quaint and old but it was hers.

Blake was now lying on some sort of couch inside the small mansion. As the taller one dragged her hobbling form earlier, she forcefully made herself scan every nook and cranny of the quaint Workshop. There were guns and melee weapons in every gothic shape imaginable mounted on a lot of the walls or even just lazily lying on the floor. Rapiers, swords, spears, muskets, pistols, zweihanders, a massive pizza cutter thing, and a naval cannon of all things greeted her.

'I can totally see Ruby drooling just from looking at all these weapons. She'll have a field day if she was here…'

She already missed her team even though it only felt like she was only away for a day. Team RWBY was her family that always welcomed her with warm, open arms. They were the only family she's ever had. And now she misses them dearly.

Turning to her side, she saw the tall woman tending to her. Her cold, porcelain like hands securing Blake onto the couch. Attempting to make the Faunus as comfortable as possible. Well, as comfortable as someone with a aching pains all over her body.

"W-water… Please..." Blake gasped out the words. Her throat more dry than she would have expected.

Quicksilver eyes glanced over at Blake then darted around the room. Acquiring her target on the shorter one's hand -when did she get here?

The shorter woman handed the glass of water to the taller one. A porcelain hand grasped it and moved the glass near Blake's mouth. Hastily grabbing the glass and gulping the water in mere moments, her throat felt relieved. Gasping out a "thank you" as she asked for more.

After having her fill of the heavenly liquid, she felt the need to get some answers. She needed to feed her curiosity. She was far too confused for her own liking.

Before she could ever say anything, she felt a slight sting on her leg. Glancing down towards her leg, she saw the taller woman injecting a small vial of red viscous liquid into her. Before she could protest however, the pain that invaded throughout her body quickly left as the last of the liquid was emptied into her.

She felt good; energized even. Fatigue was now replaced with renewed energy. A quick mental check on her Aura told her that it wasn't even back to a third of its maximum capacity. This was odd to her. Dust infused injections were quite common in the Grimm Hunting business. They were used to stimulate and even accelerate the Aura's healing capabilities; a side effect of these injections were also accelerating the recovery of lost Aura. If it wasn't a Dust injection then what was it?

She propped herself up in a sitting position. It was now time to ask questions, but first-

"What was that? The stuff you injected me? That felt good. It took away the aches and my splitting migraine."

"It was blood, Young Hunter." It was the taller woman that answered. She now stood beside the shorter woman, acting as support to her.

'But surely it wasn't blood. That doesn't make any Dust damn sense!'

"Why would blood-"

The shorter woman cut her off with a gesture with her hand. "I'm sure we can play twenty questions, but first..." she smiled faintly and offered her hand to Blake. "Let us introduce ourselves. My name is Eleanor de la Albertine. You can call me Eleanor. And this here..." she gestured towards the taller woman who bowed deeply, "well… She doesn't have name -wouldn't take one even, but I call her Doll. So who are you?"

"Blake. Blake Belladonna."

"Well then Blake. Now what-"

Blake cut off Eleanor with the same gesture that she used against her. "Well if we're playing twenty questions, I believe it's my turn now." Blake could only smirk as she used Weiss Schnee Interrupt version five, using the opposing person's words against them. "Now… Why would blood help me heal?"

...

Eleanor could only stare flatly, as if the answer was the most obvious thing in Remnant. The Doll stifled her giggles as she tried to compose herself. Blake could only puff her cheeks in annoyance and use Ruby Rose Pout version two.

"Ahem. Moving on…" Shrugging the distracting pout, Eleanor still held the dry stare directed towards Blake.

"The blood here in Yharnam has... Strange properties. As you've seen, the blood heals us. Some.." Eleanor gestured to both Blake and her, "...are even sustained by it. Hunters even drink the blood of their fallen prey to heal themselves while out on a hunt. As for myself, I can live off of the blood alone. I do not need to drink, eat, and only sleep occasionally. The blood even is… Intoxicating to most people. I, myself, am guilty of getting high off the blood shed on a hunt." Eleanor's hand trembled a bit but it stopped as the Doll's hand intertwined as they both found comfort with each other's presence.

"Intoxicating… Intoxicating..." Ignoring the blatant display of affection, Blake could only parrot the word repeatedly. Her short contact with the blood already resonated with her. Should it be disturbing? Surely it had to be.

'Sustained by blood? I should be disgusted but why…? Why does this feel so… natural to me?'

"Yes. Quite intoxicating… Continuing on… I believe it's my turn to ask a question." Combing her hand through her blond hair in embarrassment, she gestured towards Blake's ears -her cat ears. The obvious Goliath in the room.

"What are you?"

"Oh. That." Blake could only shuffle on the couch uncomfortably. "I-I… I'm… a Faunus."

…

A "What now?" and a "Gazuntite." were the only response she got from the Doll and Eleanor respectively.

"A Faunus? You know… Humans with animal features…? Don't you have any Faunus here?" Blake shuffled uncomfortably again as she tried to compose herself.

It was the Doll who broke the silence. "I thought you were infected with another strain of the Beast Plague."

Cat ears and yellow eyes could only twitch in annoyance with the Doll's remark. Before she could react however it was Eleanor who broke the tension in the room.

"I apologize on Doll's behalf. She's a bit naive and… to be honest, she doesn't know better." This response earned Eleanor a slap at the back of her head and a "Hmph" from the person in question.

"Well… I can explain most of it. But we'll be here for a while." Blake gestured towards the spot on the couch beside her. Eleanor promptly plopped down while the Doll merely took a nearby chair for her.

'This is gonna take a while.'

It indeed took a while for Belladonna to explain everything. She told Eleanor and Doll everything she could about the Faunus. Their history, their culture, their mistreatment, and how the world viewed them. They were treated as slaves in the majority of their history. Doll could only gasp out in disgust as Belladonna continued on talking about the oppression her kind has endured. They were misunderstood and treated harshly because they were different from everyone else.

There were rebellions of course. Belladonna was a part of one of them. She called them the White Fang. A peaceful movement during its early days but slowly and gradually turned into a violent terrorist group that had the blood of innocents on its hands. Belladonna resented them and ran away, trying to forge her own destiny with her own hands instead.

This struck a cord in Eleanor's heart. She was a descendant of one of the noble bloodlines of Cainhurst. People resented her whenever she passed by a village that wasn't affiliated with Cainhurst. The looks and jeers people gave. People treated her and her kind differently as well just because of the quality of her blood. Vileblood. That's what they called her and her kind. It didn't matter if she had the purest of hearts, all they ever saw was the Vileblood that she was.

Sadly, she and a handful of others are the last of their kind. She was still a babe when it happened. She was too young to actually comprehend what had happened, but as she grew older, she slowly uncovered the truth. Yharnam's Church Hunters were sent to wipe out every last one of them. The Vilebloods naturally retaliated but it was all for naught. It was genocide.

Shaking the thoughts of her kind away from her mind, Eleanor urged Blake to continue on with their conversation.

They talked about the Beasts and monsters that roam and own the streets of Yharnam. How the beasts' only real purpose was to hunt, maim, and kill human beings. Belladonna likened it to Grimm. The creatures that plagued her homeland -or homeworld. They already came to that conclusion -but Eleanor actively opted out any information about the Old Ones- after all, the Dream itself and the various nightmares that plagued Yharnam were small worlds created as playgrounds for the Old Ones. How likely was it that there was a world that mirrored her own but was also completely alien? With the Old Ones? Highly likely.

Eleanor kept the knowledge of the Old Ones away from Belladonna. She didn't need to know godly beings that pulled the strings of fate. She was far too young to know any of the horrors of the cosmos.

Their conversation led to another similarity between their cultures; Hunters, or in their world, Huntsmen and Huntresses. Their methods for war were different -spirit energy she called Aura and the blood flows endlessly in the nightly hunts- but their goal was the same. To cull and slay the beasts that threaten humanity.

Eleanor assured the Huntress-in-training that she would find a way to bring her back to homeworld. If the Dream was able to drag Belladonna away from a different realm, surely it had the same capabilities, right? Gehrman must have had this knowledge lying around somewhere. All she needed to do was uncover it somewhere in the Workshop. She was sure the answer resided here. Her instincts told her as much. And if it wasn't here, then it should be somewhere that was associated with the Yharnam Church. They're people who spent their every sane moment studying the cosmos afterall!

When the lengthy conversation finished, Doll ushered and forced Belladonna to the baths, giving her some of the clothes that Hunter recruits usually wore. The Workshop was filled with those clothes. Maybe Gehrman was expecting more recruits other than Eleanor? It doesn't matter, everything was hers now.

Blake got out of the baths wearing what the Doll provided except the facemask was left hanging loosely on her neck like a scarf. The bow fabric she tied on her arm now in its proper place; hiding her cat ears. She left the tricorn hat behind. It looked too ridiculous to wear. She was far too embarrassed to wear it.

As she turned to corner towards the foyer, her hidden cat ears twitched as she picked up Eleanor and the Doll's conversation.

"Do you think it's time to pop the question to Belladonna now?"

"I think it would be best, Good Hunter."

There was loud clanging sounds as Eleanor shuffled around the room. Then there was a loud thud as a lot of clanging sounds came and, from what Blake could assume, the weapons mounted on one of the walls fell everywhere. When Blake came into the Doll and Eleanor's view she could only sigh as Eleanor was lying flat on her butt as the Doll tried to help her up. Various weapons strewn around her.

"I found it!" Eleanor was swinging around a sword. It had two blades intertwined like a double helix.

'I think it's time to make my presence known.'

"Ahem, excuse me? What's with all this mess?"

Eleanor quickly hid the sword behind her as she stood weakly, wobbling around until the Doll held her and offered her the sheathed katana she used as a cane.

"Ohh.. Uhh… Something special. Belladonna, why don't you come here?"

Blake made her way towards the blonde woman hesitantly. They were acting too suspicious. "So…" Blake hesitated as she chose her words. "What do you need of me?" Even though they were suspicious, Blake was still quite curious.

The blonde squared her shoulder and composed herself. A mask of professionalism washed over her and overtook her face. She took the sword out of it's not so great hiding place, took her pistol out of her holster. She offered Both things to the Faunus.

The Doll took out a small journal with an odd symbol on it. It looked like a man hanging upside down. She also offered it to Blake.

Pushing her glasses up, Eleanor coughed lightly and she willed herself into a stance that could only be described as being similar to the one Glynda Goodwitch usually took. Form rigid and stern.

"My Workshop has one purpose; and that one purpose is to produce fine Hunters to cull the beast plague and to collect any knowledge that was lost in Yharnam. The Dream does not choose lightly, Belladonna. It has chosen you for a reason. It will be horrifying. You can lose your grip on the world. You can succumb to the intoxicating bloodlust. You will die, and die, and die, and die until you can no longer continue. You can very well lose your sanity." Eleanor paused to let the words she spoke sink in.

"So I ask this of you; will you be this Workshop's and this crippled Hunter's first student?"

Blake could only smirk as she took the items that was offered to her. As her grip on the blade tightened, it's name was etched onto her mind.

The Blade of Mercy.

She took a deep breath and a moment later flashed a feral grin.

"Tonight, Blake Belladonna joins the hunt."

Author's Notes:

Some fluff because we definitely need it.

I'll be taking a few liberties with the story. Like, for example, the state of the world right now is in a New Game+. The Hunter took the "Honoring Wishes" ending and has replaced Gehrman as the Old Hunter Mentor. And because of this Blake has now taken the seat of Player Character and will go through the "modified" state of Yharnam.

The Hunter's Dream to me feels like it should much, much larger than in the base game. I mean, in game terms, it makes sense for it to be that size since it's only a hub area. But, realistically since it trained hunters, shouldn't it be like at least the size of a small mansion instead of a cabin? And, of course, since it's in a dream shouldn't it be like an endless sea of something?

And I would like to think that since Hunters bound to the Dream can die and resurrect willy-nilly, wouldn't eating and drinking be beyond them? The Dream already sustains them. I know the whole die-rez thing is gameplay thing but I'm trying to make sense of what things are; in a story perspective that is.

The Hunter here is somewhat based on the bloodtinge build that I was running for a while. Chikage hype is best hype.

At this point what Blake has right now is a modified Yharnam Hunter Set. Don't really know when she should get a new set or even if should have a new outfit.

The Team RWBY mannerisms (Weiss Schnee Interrupt, Ruby Rose Pout, and so on) will mostly be less prevalent but Blake would occasionally use them since I think it's adorable if Blake picked up her team's quirks.

Ohh and Blake has essentially inherited The Hunter's weapons and equipment. We really don't want to see her grind blood vials now, do we?

See you in chapter two.