While i don't have a lot of experience writing works on this site, I am both incredibly surprised and grateful for the attention and support this work is receiving. Seeing as how this work is already completed, I hope that it will play out in a way that does not disappoint.

Usual disclaimer, I do not own any characters created and owned by Rooster Teeth.

Lastly, enjoy.

Take it Back – Chapter 4

It was now the start of the second semester of the third year for Team RWBY. Ruby, Weiss, and Yang had pulled off an incredible transformation over summer break of their second year. The three of them had become as close as family, seemingly over night. Over the few months that made up the first semester of their third year, all of them progressed at astounding rates, claiming the number one positions in a number of ranked divisions. Yang climbed to the top of the leader board for the solo division surpassing even Pyrrha Nikos, Ruby and Weiss became the reining champions of the doubles division with a record of all victories and no defeats, and Team RWBY as a whole had jumped up a number of ranks in the teams division. Team RWBY was currently on par with several of the midlevel teams of the year ahead of them.

All this progress started with a confession on a rooftop that occurred during the first semester of the second year. That confession marked the start of the fall of Team RWBY, but also sparked its rebirth.

Blake Belladonna has lead a very rough life, the life of a Faunus is never easy, let alone if a they were present during the tainting and corruption of the White Fang and its transition from peaceful protests to extreme interventions. To uphold such a righteous cause and watch as every effort is disregarded and thrown away like trash is a suffering few can imagine and fewer still can withstand. To fight against the ever stoic and unforgiving standards of society is a battle few have ever won, and fewer see their efforts making a difference through history. Some are incapable of maintaining such pure motives and many eventually succumb to the corruption of hatred. From this hatred brews animosity, and from this animosity springs forth the desire to do harm, to make yourself be heard by force if necessary. Those who succeeded the leadership of the White Fang already had this animosity and anger festering within their hearts, thus when the focus of the previously docile protestors took on a more criminal approach, many were simply swept along by the current of change. Blake Belladonna was one such innocent that lost herself in the cause. The mistakes of her past are ones she would never be able to rectify, her only hope at redemption was to atone for her sins by making the world a place where the innocence of children, both human and Faunus, remained in tact; and where blood shed is never an intentional outcome. Beacon academy was a literal beacon of hope to the young, scarred Faunus. Here she had hoped to forge a life for herself, one that was not built upon the suffering of others. She desperately wanted to experience a normal life, one that did not hinge on whether her teammates accepted her Faunus heritage. When her team had come to accept her for who she was and not focus on her line of origin, Blake was elated. Here she had found a group of people who would fight along side her without the thought of her heritage causing a wrinkle in their relationship.

Blake shares many happy memories with her team, but with the good comes the bad. Blake still remembers the heart stopping fear that coursed through her veins and all but halted her beating heart when her teammates discovered her involvement with the White Fang, and thus her heritage. But that memory was quickly fading, a newer and fresher mistake was taking its place. Just over one year ago, Blake made the biggest mistake she would ever come to regret, rejecting Ruby.

To Blake, whom had come to distrust those around her, and especially distrust those who held leadership positions, it was difficult for her to accept such a young and inexperienced girl as her team leader. However, years of playing the silent soldier in the White Fang forced her to grow accustomed to remaining silent when a situation did not agree with her preference, thus she gave no outward sign of discontent with Ruby being made team leader. Over the course of their first year at Beacon Academy, Ruby proved to Blake time and time again that she was just as deserving of her position as any within the school, and Blake had eventually come to accept Ruby as her teammate, and as her team leader. It was around this time of when Ruby had sprung forth her courageous confession to the older girl, and in the eyes of Blake, this act simply reset Blake's perception of Ruby. What she saw before her on that roof was not the fearless leader that had lead them through thick and thin without batting an eyelash, but a fragile, innocent, little girl who had no place on the battlefield. To see such a vulnerable side of this young girl who Blake had come to admire frustrated the raven-haired girl to no end.

If Blake was being completely honest with herself, she had come to look up to Ruby. Ruby was nearly two years younger than her, and still had been accepted to the most prestigious Hunter-Training academy in all of Remnant. That same girl wielded an incredibly unconventional weapon with such lithe and ease that Blake was often mesmerized in her movements whenever Ruby was participated in a match, although few among the audience would not be captivated by Ruby when she was in combat. Blake looked at Ruby and saw a pure soul, untainted by the darkness, but she also saw that that same pure soul dared to stare at the ugly side of the world and strive to see the good in all things, even if the only 'good' to be had was the lesser of two evils. To Blake, Ruby had become a new beacon of hope that motivated her to better herself so that she could support her in the future. But the confession destroyed all of that. Blake was frustrated at her own naivety for even thinking that such a pure soul could ever burn, unblemished, in the cruelty of the real world without harboring ulterior motives. She berated herself for imagining such grand fairy tales, and for falling into the false sense of security that they provide. And so, Blake rejected Ruby's feelings.

In hindsight, Blake hates how she handled the situation on the roof. She took the anger and loathing she felt for herself out on Ruby, spewing venomous words at the fragile girl. It was never Blake's intention to drive the young girl to get herself injured in heartbreak, and she had every intention on making things right with Ruby after that night. When Blake learned that Ruby had been admitted into the infirmary for injuries related to a grim attack, her innate admiration for the younger girl motivated her to fix her mistake, to let the girl know how much she looks up to her, and to let her down gently rather than crushing her heart with harsh words filled with malice. But a cheap excuse made by the receptionist of the infirmary prevented Blake from rectifying her mistake from earlier that day. Blake is an incredibly intelligent individual, she knew that the infirmary had no such policy, but stayed away because she could read Ruby's message very clearly, "don't come see me, I don't want to see you." So Blake made a silent promise to both herself and to Ruby that she would fix her mistake, whenever the first opportunity arose.

Unfortunately, Blake's opportunity never came. After Ruby had been discharged from the infirmary and given a very firm lecture from Ozpin about safety and caution, the young girl retreated into herself. Only maintaining a presence when it was absolutely necessary such as class, exams, and mandatory skirmishes. The young, heartbroken teen skipped out on every single optional activity, including their own private practices that they had been in the habit of holding three times a week. What exactly Ruby was doing when she was not at one of the three mandatory events, no one knew. Blake had tried to tail her once, but failed when Ruby noticed she was being followed, the younger girl's speed semblance simply could not be matched. This, however, did not discourage Blake, instead she scoured the entirety of Beacon to find where exactly the withdrawn teen hid herself from the world. Eventually, after weeks of searching, Blake found out where Ruby had been staying on her off time, the roof where Blake ruthlessly crushed her heart. Blake had a sneaking suspicion that Ruby was hiding here, but had hoped that she would never want to come here to relive the pain of rejection.

On the actual day when Blake found Ruby on this rooftop, it was lunchtime and Blake had forgone eating for the sake of having extra time to search for Ruby. When she found the younger girl, her heart clenched painfully and tripled in rate simultaneously, sending shooting pains through Blake's chest and a disturbing tingle down her left arm. There sat, teetering on the edge of the roof, a sobbing Ruby. Blake's immediate reaction was to lunge for the girl, in the hopes that she could pull her from the edge and prevent a fall that would surely kill her. But she stopped, she knew that if Ruby heard her coming, she would kick into Fight-or-Flight mode and thus increase the risk of her falling from the roof. The thought of Ruby falling over the edge and the mental image that followed that featured a mangled and blood corpse that resembled Ruby, lying motionless on the pavement several tens of flights down, caused a wave of nausea and hot flashed the wrack Blake's body. Which was actually the worst possible thing that could have happened. With a new sensation stirring within her stomach she instantly became aware of the fact that she was extremely famished. This overwhelming sense of hunger manifested itself in a surprisingly loud rumble from the onyx haired girl. Blake froze; she had been spying on Ruby from just within the door to the roof, crouched down at the top of the stairs and peeking through a gap between the door and doorframe. The silence that followed Blake's stomach growl instantly alerted Blake that her cover was blown, Blake's eye's snapped back to Ruby. The girl was no longer looking out over the edge of the roof, but had her head turned just enough for one of her eyes to fixate on the door. A lone shimmering pool of mercury wavered as it connected with Blake's own golden irises. For a brief instant neither of them moved, until Blake slowly began to stand. The slow motion was instantly recognized by Ruby as Blake about to approach her, which caused Ruby to activate her semblance and vault off the roof. From the ground a red streak could be seen sailing through the air between two buildings, before it ducked into an open window on the adjacent building several stories below the roof.

This pattern of Blake finding Ruby and Ruby persistently fleeing, continued until Blake lost all drive to seek the younger girl out, which was after nearly a month of trying to talk to her. Blake, realizing that trying to force communication would not work, elected to wait until Ruby was ready to talk to her. Unfortunately, this tactic failed to succeed either, Ruby took the space Blake had granted her and extended it to all of her friends and classmates. Ruby began to sit in a different seat each class, always choosing the one furthest from Blake and her team. She somehow managed to get her hands on a doctor's note to excuse her from all physical lessons and practical exams for the semester, and she coerced the professors to allow her to take her exams at times different than the rest of the class. This essentially resulted in the degradation of Team RWBY to a three-woman team that was in complete disarray and on the verge of dissolving.

Blake had never realized just how much Ruby had been balancing them all out. With no one else to criticize, Weiss began to chastise Blake and Yang for even the most miniscule mistakes, something that she used to subject Ruby to but the younger girl's chipper attitude would quickly dissuade the heiress of trying to bring her down. This constant criticism strained the relationships within the team, causing discord that manifested in the team's communication as well as their synchronization. Yang's headstrong approach proved to be nearly impossible to cooperate with, the blonde was extensively accustomed to being the brawler in a fight, which allowed Blake and Weiss little opportunity to provide support. Again, Ruby's life-long experience of being with Yang had taught her exactly how to fight with the brutish blonde, which in turn gave Weiss and Blake small but discernable cues as to when to jump in engage in the fight. Blake's standoff-ish attitude and approach to a fight was nearly the exact opposite of teamwork. The raven-haired Faunus was used to playing the role as a silent assassin and running covert operations for the White Fang. As a result, when it came to teamwork, the raven-haired girl was nearly clueless without proper instructions. Ruby had an excellent battle sense and could instantly evaluate both sides in a fight and make the best choice of combinations and formations. Without Ruby constantly issuing orders through their encoded vocal callouts, Blake had difficulty acclimating to the approaches of her other two teammates. This also extended to both Weiss and Yang, without Ruby calling the shots their teamwork was non-existent and their formations were in complete disarray.

The physical loss of Ruby within their team was one that was impossible to replace. The younger girl was truly an astounding fighter that was key in almost every situation. Ruby's speed semblance, when combined with the recoil of her high-caliber rifle and her strength that developed from swinging such a large and heavy weapon, allowed her to play the role of the ever dynamic all-rounder who could just as easily hold the front lines, maintain a line of defense through mid-ranged battle, or provide strategic long-range support with pinpoint accuracy. Ruby truly was a prodigy. Her innate skills when combined with her mastery of a highly unconventional weapon made her a force to be reckoned with, one that was essential to the smooth running of Team RWBY.

Weiss and Yang, for reasons unknown to Blake, did not seem to notice Ruby's absence. When Blake once brought up Ruby's behavior to Yang, the blonde responded by staring at the faunus-girl with a pained expression that bordered on tears. The bloodshot eyes cupped with sagging bags clearly indicated that the blonde had not been sleeping well, and certainly did not help the blonde's approachability. Blake thus elected to not mention Ruby to Yang for the next few days. When Blake mentioned Ruby's behavior to Weiss, the heiress launched into a heated rant that, in Blake's mind, went way to far in terms of insulting and degrading the missing, younger girl. Blake nearly slapped the heiress when a string of curses intermingled with extremely colorful language passed through Weiss's lips, all in regards to their young team leader, but she didn't. Blake feared what would happen to their already strained relationship if she struck her.

With no one left to talk to Blake began to reflect within herself. Looking back on the past and her brief but deeply rooted history with the young team leader. Blake thought of every greeting she got when she returned to the dorm after extra practice, Ruby would always drop what she was doing whether it was studying, playing games, or cleaning Crescent Rose, to come up and greet Blake and welcome her back to the dorm. Blake thought fondly back on this particular memory, after having returning to the dorm many times since then and not even been giving the slightest of acknowledgements, the raven-haired girl had come to miss Ruby's enthusiastic greetings.

Another memory that shimmered on the surface of Blake's mind was Ruby's constant attempts to plan activities for the team. While this may seem like a simple idea, Ruby always made sure to pick some sort of activity that everyone would enjoy. Once, Ruby decided on the weekend that they would all be going to see a movie that contained action – for Yang, graceful and high-end actors – for Weiss, and was based on a book – for Blake. While the movie was second rate at best, the attempt to appease everyone on her team was a gesture that did not go unnoticed by Blake.

Ruby also once took them to the arcade in town, Yang had somehow managed to convince Weiss to challenge her in a fighting game which lit the fire of Weiss' competitive spirit, the two of them disappeared into the arcade and were not seen until they exhausted all of Weiss' incredibly deep pockets of spending money. Ruby, on the other hand had chosen to play only a handful of games, one racing game, one fighting game and one attempt at the claw machine. She then slowly walked over to Blake, who was sitting down on a bench by the restrooms, looking bored and uninterested at all the arcade had to offer. The younger girl, without uttering a single word, grabbed Blake's hand and led her out of the arcade and to the building right next door. Much the Blake's surprise this new location had turned out to be a rather well hidden bookstore that contained a large number of incredibly rare and hard to find books and series. In hindsight, Blake noted that the time that she and Ruby spent in that bookstore, which was a couple of hours, could very easily constitute as a date. Blake had half a mind to consider that Ruby was banking on the fact that Yang and Weiss would disappear into the arcade, leaving the two of them to enjoy a pseudo-date alone. Regardless of Ruby's intentions behind the trip, Blake found herself feeling grateful to Ruby for always considering her in her planned team outings.

The next memory that surfaced in Blake's mind was a certain incident that occurred a few months back. During the second week of break between their first and second semesters at beacon, Team RWBY had been out on a training exercise organized by Beacon Academy, the exercise was optional to students over break, but Team RWBY had decided to go on at least one exercise regimen, for the experience. During the mission a group of upperclassmen, which typically serve as the recon group that reports on grim numbers and locations for the underclassmen to fight to accumulate battle experience, went missing. The professors who were overseeing the whole operation sent out all three participating teams of underclassmen to help locate their seniors. Team RWBY had the most unfortunate luck of finding them, or rather what was left of them. The entire team had been incapacitated or gravely wounded by a trio of Deathstalkers. One of the three massive grim had suffered substantial damage but still possessed ample strength to continue on, while the other two were completely unscathed. Immediately Ruby ordered them to engage, Blake and Yang were to hold off the three Deathstalkers, while she and Weiss would collect their unconscious seniors. Ruby instructed Yang to provide mid-range projectile support to delay the grim's advance, with Blake serving as the decoy with her semblance to slow them down. Weiss used glyphs to transport the upperclassmen while Ruby contacted the professors and issued orders to her team. Immediately after the upperclassmen were transported a safe distance away, with Weiss acting as the last line of defense for the unconscious seniors, Ruby returned to assist Yang and Blake. Upon returning she found Blake lying face down on the ground, a dark bruise quickly developing on the side of her head and she was groaning in pain. Yang had snapped and charged the three Deathstalkers, only to be swatted aside without mercy. The force exerted on the blonde was easily enough to trigger her last resort, causing her hair to flicker and shine like a solar flare and her eyes to glow an eerie blood red. However, even with Yang's semblance enhanced strength she could do little to halt the advance of three Deathstalkers, after all she was only a single person. The other two advanced on the downed faunus. Ruby, left with no other option, intercepted the two grim. Ruby managed to land several well-placed shots on the forefront of one of the Deathstalkers body, shooting out its eyes and blinding it in the process. But the second one learned from the mistakes of its comrade and shielded its eyes with it massive claws. Ruby exhausted the rest of her clip into the defending grim, only to fail to have a single shot break through. The instant the empty clip dropped from Crescent Rose, the Deathstalker roared to life and charged, only it wasn't charging at Ruby, but rather Blake who was nearby. The Deathstalker was upon the unaware faunus in an instant and was reeling back with its stinger full of potent and lethal toxins. In a final act of desperation Ruby activated her semblance and used her body to push Blake out of the path of the stinger.

Unfortunately, this placed Ruby in the direct line for the strike. Incredibly, Ruby's smaller frame constituted a smaller target, causing the stinger's aim to be off, resulting in an indirect hit on the younger girl where the stinger grazed her thigh. The cut extended from one side her the girl's thigh to the other and was deep enough to nick the femoral artery, for the brief duration that the stinger was in Ruby's flesh it was able to inject a small proportion of the stinger's venom into her leg. The wound combined with the highly destructive affects of the venom caused excruciating pain to erupt in the young girl's leg, which caused her to release a blood-curdling cry of anguish and pain. Upon hearing the piercing shriek of her team leader, Blake snapped from her dazed state and immediately noticed that there was a Deathstalker straddling the one who sounded like Ruby and had its stinger impaled into something near the younger girl, Blake was not sure of the state of her team leader due to the massive body of the Deathstalker breaking her line of sight. Blake can still remember the feeling of her heart constrict in such extreme fear over the possibility of seeing Ruby impaled on the Deathstalker's stinger, even recalling the events caused the same paralyzing sensation to course through her body. When she found that the stinger had missed, somewhat, and found Ruby lying in a puddle of liquid that mirrored her namesake, having fainted from pain and blood loss, Blake was both relieved and enraged. She was relieved that Ruby was alive and not impaled, but was also enraged when she saw what the grim had done to her team leader. Luckily for Blake the professors arrived on site the moment she moved to engage the Deathstalker that was looming over an unconscious Ruby. The full-fledged Hunters and Huntresses that were the professors quickly dispatched the grim and began treating the wounded. Ruby was given an antidote for the poison, and her leg was sterilized, stitched and dressed. Blake volunteered to carry Ruby back to camp, but instead handed her off to Yang when the blonde hobbled over to cradle her unconscious sister with tears in her eyes. Ruby would forever have that scar that ran horizontally across her mid thigh and that stretched from her inner thigh all the way around to the area of skin directly opposite of the scar's starting point. Blake would sometimes see the scar when Ruby walks around the dorm in shorts after having woken up in the morning. It has forever haunted Blake that she never got the opportunity to properly repay the younger girl for saving her life.

The fact that Blake rejected Ruby's feelings without so much as a second thought, considering all of the things that Ruby has done for the team and for Blake, was eating away at the raven-haired girl. If Blake was being completely honest with herself, she missed all the things Ruby did for her, she missed having Ruby greet her when she came back to the dorm, she missed Ruby's planned outings that almost always catered to what Blake liked, she missed waking up in the morning to see her beloved team all centered around a girl that was youngest of them all, yet possessed qualities that were the makings of a genuine leader. This girl, who was ferocious and valiant on the battlefield, while kind and innocent off the battlefield, was the only one of all three of Blake's teammates that accepted her immediately and unconditionally, for that Blake was extremely grateful.

In retrospection, Blake realized the kind of courage that is required to confess one's feelings to the object of their affection. Ruby revealed her most closely guarded emotions, emotions that she had not even shared with her own sister, with someone who she just met one year ago. Blake cursed herself when she realized that the innocent and naïve little girl she saw on the roof was not Ruby's true character, it was her heart that she was openly displaying to Blake, and Blake lashed out at Ruby's heart with merciless words brimming with venom and malice. It was no wonder Ruby reacted the way that she did, the younger girl had laid bare all of herself to Blake, hiding not even the smallest portion of her heart for protection, and Blake shattered Ruby's love and affection entirely, calling her a 'naïve' girl who was living in a dream, when in reality Ruby was completely down to earth and perfectly aware of the possible outcomes of her confession. The events that transpired on that roof caused the female Faunus to lose much sleep, and often had her on the brink of tears for her mistakes.

The longer Blake pondered the more her heart ached. She was currently lying on her bed, staring at the bed elevated above her as the blankets that drapped over the sides swayed in the gentle breeze that flowed in from the open window. Blake was at a complete loss of what to do, the more she thought of Ruby the more she hated herself for the way she acted, Yang and Weiss were completely useless and unapproachable, never mind even bringing up the topic of their young team leader to them. So Blake decided on the only option left to her, she decided to wait.

Chapter End