"...You can turn into a Grimm?" Weiss asked slowly with extremely sceptical expression on her face.
"Yes" Jaune answered while making sure that he didn't move a muscle or make any threatening movements or gestures. It seemed to be the wrong move to take as the white-haired girl huffed and sent Jaune a severe glare.
"This is not a time to be joking around! I refuse to have the team become splintered if one person doesn't want to reveal their real Sembl… an..." Weiss started her speech but her words seemed to fail her as Jaune slowly lifted his hand above the table the Team was gathered around and placed his forearm against its wooden surface while closing his eyes.
The hand had sprouted black Grimm-flesh from underneath a bone-made vambrace, while Jaune's fingers had turned black and had long, sharp claws instead of nails.
As the familiar bubbling intensified, Jaune felt the bone of his thumb extend once more to form a long bone-blade which he placed on the table after he broke it off his hand.
Jaune opened his eyes slowly after clearing the haze of bloodlust from his mind with the help of pushing his claws into the flesh of his palm and taking deep breaths.
He looked around slowly to see Weiss staring at the blade with dumbstruck expression while Blake had curled up on her seat and seemed to be on edge of jumping out of it to either run away or attack at slightest provocation.
Ruby had frozen still with her silver eyes wide as she looked between Jaune's blade and his face, sending a feeling not unlike liquid ice moving down Jaune's spine each time the eyes looked into his.
"So uh…" Jaune made to begin his explanation "It's kind of weird Semblance"
Silence followed his statement until Ruby disappeared from Jaune's sight. He could feel a weight materializing on his back and pair of small hands that pulled his hand and locked it behind his back.
"Where is Jaune and what did you do to him? Did Ozpin do this?" Ruby demanded from behind him as she tightened her hold on his arm behind his back, which didn't do much to harm Jaune. "Give Jaune back!"
"Um… Ruby, I'm Jaune? I haven't gone anywhere like I promised." Jaune told the smaller girl while turning his head to look at her... which caused Ruby to let out a small 'eep' as her hold was broken, and she disappeared from his back to stand near the door and block the only way out of the room.
"Your eyes…" Blake whispered as she had stood away from her seat and was slowly backing towards the exit from the room as well "They are exactly like Grimm's…"
Weiss seemed to finally regain her senses as well and she slammed her hand on the table, causing Blake to jump up slightly and startle both Ruby and Jaune.
"Stand down!" She snarled, sending everyone on the room a glare before focusing her attention on Jaune "Are you going to attack us?" she asked, sending another glare at the sword that had started to bleach slowly on the table as Jaune had instantly pulled his hand away from it after forming it.
"No!" Jaune answered, lifting both his human and inhuman hand up in a sign of surrender as he continued to sit on his chair.
"He could be lying" Blake commented.
"I'm not!"
"He could be lying about him not lying" Blake responded as she kept backing away slowly.
"Sit down, all of you!" Weiss repeated herself "That means you two" She added, looking at Blake and Ruby.
"Jaune, when we first met, who was with me and what did I tell you?" Weiss asked, sending a glare at the teenager.
"Uh, you were with Pyrrha and you bowed to me and told me that I was a strong fighter if Pyrrha recognized me, I think. I didn't really get what you meant by that, by the way" Jaune answered which caused Weiss to relax ever so slightly, but she didn't take her eyes off him "So you are Jaune…"
"I can't believe I have to seriously ask someone of this, but are you a Grimm?" she continued.
"I don't think I am, but I'm honestly not sure" Jaune answered "This sort of happened without my consent"
"That makes no sense…" Blake said from the side with her eyes glued to the red blade "A Grimm Semblance?"
"Uh, I guess so?" Jaune answered, turning his head between the rest of his team "I mean, I haven't had time to really figure out what all of this is"
"What do you mean by 'not having time'? You attended the combat schools, right?" Ruby asked with weak voice as the situation seemed to overwhelm the girl "Didn't you figure it out during the pre-Beacon preparation?"
"Well, I sort of never attended any combat schools since I only returned to civilization few days ago- although I'm not even sure if that was only few days since I got captured as soon as I made it to Vale by some cult calling themselves 'White Fang' or something and held captive by them until I escaped four or so days ago." Jaune explained, causing Blake to take a sharp breath.
"White Fang?" She whispered "You were captured by the White Fang?"
"Yeah, do you know them?" Jaune confirmed.
"No... "
The answer came not from Blake but from Weiss.
"You were captured by those degenerates?" Weiss continued, her face having lost some of it's colour "Did they capture and experiment on you to make you what you are now? A Grimm? Have White Fang lost what morality and sense they had left and started to dabble with the Grimm?"
"White Fang isn't like that!" Blake argued, causing Weiss to raise her eyebrow at the black-haired girl and open her mouth to retort something...
"We're getting sidetracked!" Ruby yelled from beside the room's exit and startling all of the room's occupants.
"Jaune, can you please return to normal, please?" She asked with much calmer voice after both Weiss and Blake had turned their attention back to the Grimm at hand. "You are kind of scary looking…" she added quietly as she kept staring at Jaune's eyes.
'Hold on, did my eyes and face turn as well? Like when I transformed in front of my sisters?' Jaune wondered in his head and pulled his Scroll to use its camera to show his face.
He saw a pair of baleful red eyes staring back at him from a face framed by thick, black veins and extremely pale skin as his jaw had started to slowly elongate and his lips had started to pull back to reveal rows of long, sharp teeth. Turning his head, he spotted patches of bone-armor starting to form around the top of his head and neck...
'Oh no, it's happening again'
"Uhhh…. I didn't mean to do that?" Jaune said, pointing at his face as he heard his voice come out in deep, growling baritone "I kind of wanted to just show the sword and uh…"
"Turn back" Ruby pleaded. "Please"
Jaune closed his eyes again and concentrated on the familiar bubbling heat that started to once again build on his skin, and he felt the bone vambrace and claw of his hand start to sizzle a into black mist and the black veins on his face started to disappear, making way for much healthier complexion.
He heard series of snaps coming out of his jaw and neck as the elongated bones retracted and the bone-plates snapped off his neck.
When he opened his eyes, they were deep blue once more, although he felt his inner voice lurking beneath the surface of his mind, looking for a chance to break out...
"So um…" Jaune made to begin but paused as the gathered team kept staring at him with myriad of expressions.
'Well, It worked with Ozpin, so let's hope it works here as well…' Jaune thought before he opened his mouth again "Please don't kill me?"
Weiss scowled.
Blake kept staring at him with neutral expression.
Ruby's expression was stuck between fright and shock.
"No-one is killing anyone" Weiss finally said, causing Ruby's expression to easen up "You saved my life from that Grimm Abomination, and that alone redeems you in my eyes"
'Yeah, I might have to censor that part of the story out' Jaune thought while wincing 'I'm fairly sure that telling her I was the Grimm in the clearing would not go down well'
"That was me, by the way" Blake said from the side "I saved you from that Grimm, not Jaune… after you had fainted in front of it" she added with slightly smug tone.
"But… I woke up with you and Jaune standing beside me and the creature was dead?" Weiss asked, puzzled over the events and with slight tint of red on her cheeks.
"What Abomination? Saving Weiss? What are you talking about" Ruby piped from the side after getting enough of being ignored.
"I heard Weiss screaming during the Initiation Test and went to investigate, and found her fainted in front of a large Grimm…" Blake explained to Ruby as Weiss had crossed her arms and was sending glares at the black-haired girl "I saved her and pursued the Grimm after it fled, but Jaune had already taken care of it by the time I caught up with it"
"T-That's beside the point!" Weiss growled at Blake "What's more important is that Jaune, despite his unusual Semblance hasn't even tried to harm us or attack us in any way!"
'Aaand, there goes trying to apologize for mistaking Blake as a Grimm' Jaune concluded as Weiss continued to scowl at Blake.
"Well, he did say that he was a Grimm, in front of a group of Hunters-in-training, after which he pulled out a Grimm-sword..." Blake sent a glare at Jaune, and he blushed slightly as he realized he had basically copied what Ruby had done to him in the airship before Initiation- pulled out a weapon in wrong context, and caused a scene. "One might get a wrong impression."
"Sorry."
"Just... Don't do it again." Weiss sighed, before lifting her eyebrow at him. "Does anyone else know about your... thing?"
"Yeah. Uh, I mean, Ozpin knows about my Semblance… and he sort of told me to keep it quiet." Jaune said instead, causing Ruby's eyes to regain some of it's shine.
"You mean that the headmaster has approved of you? That you aren't a danger to us and you won't get killed as a Grimm if people find out?" Ruby asked with hope in her voice.
"Headmaster told you to stay quiet about your Semblance… and the first thing you do is tell us about it?" Blake raised her eyebrow at Jaune "So much for not telling anyone…"
"I mean, I couldn't just not tell my team about it, could I? That I'm not exactly a human?" Jaune answered to Blake.
"Y-yeah" Blake answered while turning her head away, almost if she was ashamed of something.
Jaune looked at the girl's odd reaction for while before turning his head to Ruby "And Ozpin didn't specifically forbid me from telling my team but he did tell that I probably shouldn't tell or show my Semblance to rest of the students… so I guess he approved of me."
"That's also the main reason I needed new weapons, since my err, swords and my fight style sort of revolves around using my Semblance" Jaune continued speaking to Ruby after it seemed that the girls had started to settle down slightly and return to their seats "I'm fairly sure that it would raise issues if I turned into a half-Grimm or something in middle of a combat class"
"Is… Is your Semblance why you don't die when you are killed?" Ruby asked quietly as she had sat down to her old seat and drawing a half-nod from Jaune. "Well, at least you're not dead so… It's good thing at least. But can you... well… not do that transformation thingy again? It's… you don't look like you when you do it."
"I can't promise that." Jaune said honestly, which caused Ruby to wilt slightly.
"How extensive is your transformation? Is it limited to just your features or does it go even further?" Weiss asked, curious of the unusual ability.
"Er, really extensive. I can turn entirely into a Grimm, but I'd rather not demonstrate…" Jaune answered, as he was starting to get nervous under the white-haired girl's inquisitive gaze.
"What about your Aura? It was also mentioned to be somehow irregular?"
"Well, my Aura is malfunctioning or somehow not working as it should." Jaune explained "Whenever I get hit, I get hurt like someone with no Aura would, but afterwards I heal up really fast. I think it's linked to my Semblance as well somehow..."
Jaune picked up the decaying bone-blade from the table and stabbed it through his other hand with a wince of pain, before pulling the blade off to show the wound starting to close almost instantly. He noticed that the girls that had flinched slightly as as had picked the blade up but he choose to ignore it.
He put the decaying blade back to the table as the deep scarlet colour of his blood started to spread across the web of tiny hollow veins in the blade, and the blade started to slowly regenerate back to it's usual form.
"That's… disturbing" Blake commented as she stared at the slowly regenerating blade and the closing wound on Jaune's hand while sitting on the edge of her seat.
"A over-active healing Aura, huh…" Weiss seemed thoughtful "Odd, but somehow explainable."
Jaune raised his eyebrow "What do you mean?"
"Normally Aura heals minor wounds with rest, time and proper nutrition, and refills it's defensive portion after proper amount of time and nutrition" Weiss explained "If Jaune's Aura skips refilling the 'protective Aura' completely, it would heal wounds with far greater speed... but means that his 'protective' Aura is always depleted. Entirely reactive rather than proactive... Do you know what happened that could have caused your Aura to become irregular like that?"
Jaune thought for a moment, recalling the moment his Aura had been unlocked.
'..."And through our actions, archive Immortality…" Dad unlocked my Aura just as I woke up in the Shion Lodge… Could it be because of that…'
"When my Aura was unlocked, I was nearly dead from a lethal wound… could that have been it?"
Weiss seemed thoughtful as she contemplated the issue.
"So it's possible that your Aura has never made it past the 'healing' part to get into 'building a protection' part, and is stuck in a state where it can't refill itself as it is trying to heal a wound that has already been healed?" she finally said. "I have no idea what could have happened beside that… I'd need to consult a Aura specialist or Aura healer to make sure..."
"Umm, we shouldn't do that though" Jaune said while lifting his hand as if asking for permission to speak in classroom "Wouldn't the specialist also notice that I have a Grimm Semblance or something and try to get me captured or arrested as a Grimm?"
"Don't be ridiculous…" Weiss started but fell quiet a second later.
"Yeah, that might be bad though…" Ruby piped from the side "I don't want some doctor to take you away just because you have an unusual semblance… what if they dissect you or something? What do you think, Blake?"
Blake was quiet and had pulled her legs to her chest as she kept staring at the blood-red bone-sword on the table. Ruby waved her hand in front of the girl's face as it seemed that the black-haired girl had fallen so deep into her thoughts that she had ignored Ruby completely.
"W-what?" Blake managed to say as Ruby poked the girl's cheek after her waving proved ineffective.
"What do you think?" Ruby kept poking the startled girl "What should we do about Jaune's Aura? Or his Semblance?"
"I… I don't know" Blake said after a moment of gathering her wits.
It seemed that the sentiment was shared across the entire team, and the silence dragged on.
After a moment that had felt like an hour, Weiss slammed her hand down on the table "It seems that these team meetings will be necessary in the future as well… but for now, I don't think we should make any hasty decisions based off recent revelations and instead try to continue forwards as we have been so far." she concluded the team meeting.
Ruby agreed as she fiddled with her skirt and Blake nodded as the quiet girl had returned from her thoughts. Jaune nodded as well and reached to grab the red blade to put it away.
"With that in mind, it's starting to get late, and we need to go get dinner before the dining hall closes." Weiss said as she grabbed her schoolbag.
That sentence caused a slightly more energetic reaction and the team rose up to leave the small meeting room.
As the team moved towards the dining hall under the darkening sky, Jaune noticed that Ruby wasn't walking as close to him as she had before the team meeting…
The uneasy mood hadn't lifted as most of the team made their way back to the dorms after the dinner, with the exception of Blake who had disappeared into the library as soon as she had finished with her dinner.
Before the rest of the team could enter their given dorm however, they were intercepted near the dorm-room's entrance by a yellow missile that launched itself from the dorm directly opposite to team SABR's, and impacted against Ruby.
"Sis! How's your day been?" Yang exclaimed as she attempted to suffocate Ruby against her considerable bosom "Did you like the lessons? What's with the long face? Did someone bully you? Do I need to go and break someone's jaw?"
"It- It's nothing to worry about… we just had a team talk and stuff" Ruby breathed out after she managed to extract her head from her sister's breasts and squirm out of her grasp.
"Hello Jaune" Pyrrha greeted Jaune as she too had exited from the team RYNN's dorm room, fully clothed in her combat-gear.
"Hi Pyrrha… uh, are you expecting a fight?" Jaune greeted back at the red-haired girl who blushed slightly.
"Well, not exactly… but speaking of a fight, would you like to go training with me?" Pyrrha asked with a hopeful smile on her face.
"Sorry, I can't train right now" Jaune answered which caused the girl's shoulders to droop slightly and her smile to become just a bit more fragile before he continued "I don't have a weapon right now and I don't think I'd do well with just my bare hands…"
"I would be delighted to train with you, however" Weiss nodded politely to Pyrrha whose smile turned from brittle to forced.
"Ah- oh, of course, I'd be happy if we were to train together" Pyrrha said, causing Weiss to nod politely and head off towards the armory as Pyrrha gave Jaune a look that he wasn't quite able to decipher before she followed the white-haired girl out of the dorms.
'Huh, It seems that Pyrrha isn't mad at me for that stunt back at Vale… that's good at least.' Jaune thought 'I'll have to get something for Ruby as thanks for making me weapons so I can train like a regular student.'
Jaune nodded to himself as Ruby continued to speak to Yang in hushed tones and the older girl's face started to grow redder and redder for some reason, and she started to give Jaune glares that varied between disbelief and outright hostility.
"...he is what exactly?" Jaune heard Yang say and he tuned his ears to listen closer.
"Yeah, he's Grimm. Ish. Sort of. Kind of. I think. And I'm not sure what to think about… " he heard Ruby explain to Yang, which caused Jaune's hair to stand up and a wave of cold move down his spine.
"Uh, Ruby? That was supposed to be a secret…" Jaune said weakly to the girl who gave out a small 'eep' and hid behind Yang.
"We need to talk" Yang said and took hold of Jaune's throat, and pushed him to team SABR's room as Ruby latched onto Yang's arm.
"Yang! Jaune hasn't done anything wrong!" Ruby pleaded as Yang looked like she was about to punch Jaune's face off his shoulders.
'Ah crap, Yang's probably not approving of me having the Semblance that I have and being a…'
"What's your deal? Ruby tells me you dragged her to an empty classroom and started to get all touchy-feely with her" Yang growled.
'Oh'
"Uh, I was just holding onto her hand when she was distressed?" Jaune tried to explain as Yang loosened her grip so that he could get air through his throat "No ulterior motives, I swear"
The golden-yellow haired girl growled and let go of his throat… to grab him between his legs.
"This stays in the pants, or it gets removed, we clear?" Yang growled as Ruby's face went from white to bright red, and Jaune's face went from asphyxiated blue to white.
Yang gave a hard squeeze as no answer seemed to be forthcoming, prompting Jaune to nod vigorously.
"Good. Now, with that out of the way, what's this nonsense about you being a Grimm?" Yang asked while pulling her hand back, before her tone took a dangerous edge "You didn't try to feed Ruby some spiked cookies or something, did you?"
'Should I try to show her my shapeshifting or just to tell her about it… ' Jaune thought before giving Ruby a glance as the girl seemed to be looking everywhere that wasn't Yang or Jaune, and her cheeks were red 'Ruby doesn't like seeing me use it though...'
"Yeah, my Semblance sort of allows me to turn into a Grimm…" Jaune finally went on to explain to Yang what he had told his team as the girl looked at him with sceptical expression.
"I don't believe it." Yang finally said "That sounds so far-fetched that it belongs to the storybooks…"
"I saw it!" Ruby piped from the side "It's true... " she continued as Yang turned her look at her.
"Please don't tell anyone" Jaune begun before Yang could retort "I don't want for it to spread across the student body… Even Ozpin told me to keep it secret from anyone not in my team"
"Even the headmaster is in on this madness?" Yang said with sceptical tone "Fine, I'll believe in you for now, but if I find out that you've been lying to Ruby or if you do something inappropriate to Ruby…" she flexed her fingers in front of her face to remind Jaune of her threat, causing him to wince slightly.
The silence dragged on as the group of three stared at eachother and Ruby seemed to be on a verge of tears.
Yang sighed as she seemed to calm down as the moment stretched.
"Gah... Sheesh, sorry..." Yang groaned, and Jaune lifted an eyebrow at her warily. "It's just that... It's been long day and we just had a big argument in our team as well so my patience is really thin right now. Learning that someone was getting all touchy with Ruby just rubbed me the wrong way, you know?"
The yellow-golden haired girl sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "I'm sorry?" she repeated her words to Jaune, and he nodded although he was still puzzled over the girl's aggressive behaviour.
"Um… Yang's not usually like that…" Ruby made to begin as Yang had exited the room after saying that she wanted to go watch Pyrrha's training with Weiss.
"Yeah, I think she was just worried about you. She's probably just being over-protective because you two are in different teams." Jaune assured Ruby as the two were left alone in the room.
"Right... She's just protecting me." Ruby seemed to cheer up slightly. "I don't think she dislikes you though."
"Well, she has funny way of showing it." Jaune sighed. "Well, I guess this is a good time to go over the drawings for the training swords…"
"...Although, I don't like it…" Ruby muttered as Jaune had sat down on one of the dorm-room's studying desks.
"Hm?"
"I don't like that the swords I'm going to make won't be really used by you" Ruby pouted lightly as she crossed her arms while she sat next to Jaune. "I mean, they'd just be training swords, not the swords you'd actually use in combat"
"Is that a problem?"
"It feels disrespectful to the weapon to deny their purpose!" Ruby said heatedly "Just to be made in order to be tossed aside…"
"But… how else would I train? I can't form my actual weapons or use my Semblance to transform so I could fight other students on equal grounds…" Jaune wondered.
"Y-yeah…" Ruby went quiet again as she seemed to be thinking about it "Still, I don't like it…"
"I'll make sure to do my best to honour them when I use them" Jaune assured Ruby as he pulled a stack of Ruby's sword-drawings from his bag and went on to looking through them as Ruby pointed out what each of them did.
.
..
...
The evening eventually turned towards night and as the clock ticked 9:30pm, Weiss returned to the dorm while being slightly bruised and had soon changed into her pajamas after showering.
"...Ruby, I'm not sure what a pulse-ordnance multi-driver is but it sounds like it'd be better suited on some warship rather than a sword…" Jaune said weakly as Ruby pointed out yet another design to him "Couldn't I just have a steel copy of my actual swords?"
"But they are boring!" Ruby insisted "A greatsword that turns into pair of shortswords that turns into a railgun artillery is far cooler!"
"Have either of you seen Blake?" Weiss asked as she had sat on her bed to brush her hair.
Both Ruby and Jaune shook their head, and Weiss scowled slightly.
"The curfew is in fifteen minutes…" Weiss said, lifting her Scroll to check the time "She needs to hurry up so she won't be late..." the rest of her speech was lost as the girl in question opened the dorm-room's door and slipped in, and headed into the showers without making a single sound.
The Clock ticked on as Weiss started to study her materials while sitting on the remaining free studying desk beside Ruby and Jaune, and Blake returned from the showers to go sit on her bed and read her book, until it was time for team SABR to retire into their beds...
'...He looked around and raised his binoculars to look at the elevated train tracks that had been built above the red canopy of black-barked trees…
…"How's the perimeter over there?" He asked over a short-range radio, and got a buzzing response through the untraceable communication device "Continue watching, the leader and that toy of his will be here soon…".
...The solid white and grey mask on his face was itchy, but at least it covered his face from the wind and the dust that blew in the wind in the cliffside trail, although the black and white uniform he wore did little to block the wind…
...A faint scream was cut off in the distance, causing his ears to perk up and he lifted his radio on his lips again "Perimeter, report. What was that scream?"
...A silence followed his transmission and he attempted to ask again, before placing the device back to his belt with muttered curse over the malfunctioning old device, and he lifted himself up from the cold, black rocks to investigate…
...The black rocks of the cliffside trail were wet, and he reached to touch the rock, only to have his hand come off covered in red liquid... He looking around and saw scraps of cloth on the ground...
"A Grimm?" he whispered, before he pulled his cleaver and pistol from his belt as he started to run...
...He ran through the trail until he came to a spot in the cliffside trail, that had been dubbed 'the insertion point' as it would allow the leader to board the Schee company train that would soon pass below the naturally formed path…
…"What's wrong?" a scout asked of him as he moved around the corner in the path to see the small team that had assembled to accompany the leader and his pet aboard the train…
...The ground shook underneath him almost as if something large was closing towards them…
...He opened his mouth to warn the assembled group of people with white masks and grey and white uniforms, but before he could get a word out he felt a sharp pain lance through his back…
...He grasped at the large, red blade that had pierced through his back and out of his stomach as he was lifted into the air…
...A pair of baleful red eyes stared at him from a elongated, monstrous face as a lipless maw of long, sharp teeth closed in on his head, and he felt only pain…
.
..
...
"Hrgh!" Jaune grit out as he woke up with a cold snap traveling through his spine as his body arced over the phantom pain of sharp jaws biting into his neck and throat at the same time…
He slapped and pushed against the invisible teeth, only to feel his hands connecting with his own body and leaving small bruises as his hand hit against his jaw…
The pain snapped him from his daze and he pulled his hands into fists while forcing himself back to the bed properly, and forcing himself to take deep, calm breaths to expel the remains of the dream.
'That dream… just like the night before…' he thought hazily as the instinctive panic of getting eaten alive passed 'Just what is causing those dreams… I have never… ' his thoughts were scattered and erratic as he tried to make sense of his dream.
Jaune pulled his hand in front of his face to confirm it being in its human form,
The bedsheets were tossed aside as Jaune felt uncomfortably sweaty after the dream, and he pulled his Scroll up to check the time.
'5:30… so I could take a shower without causing too much of a fuss…' he thought hazily and put the Scroll back down and took a look around the room, seeing the faint shapes of Ruby, Weiss and Blake still on their beds although their forms were shrouded in darkness as the room had no lights, and the moonlight was faint.
He rose up slowly, making sure to walk quietly and open the bathroom door carefully so he wouldn't disturb the sleeping girls as he moved in a disoriented daze. He pulled his clothes off and stepped quietly into the shower after closing the bathroom door behind him carefully. He closed the sliding shower-doors after him, taking care to not step on Blake's toes as he moved past the wide-eyed girl who had been washing a pair of cat-ears on top of her head. After a moment of fumbling with the showerhead, he managed to grab it and turn the stream of hot water towards his face…
'Hold on, Blake? Cat-ears?' Jaune thought as the water streamed down his face and washed the haze from his mind- before his legs were swept from under him and he fell down with his face connecting with the tiled floor. Before he could regain his senses, his head was pulled back and slammed against the floor again.
"You will not tell anyone of this" he heard an angry, feminine voice hiss to his ear as a weight settled on his back and pair of arms grasped his throat from behind "If you tell anyone what I am, I will… I will hurt you…" Blake hissed.
"Glarhg" Jaune attempted to formulate his response, but his speech failed him mainly due to his inability to get air through the vice-like grip the girl had on his throat. As the grip didn't show any signs of letting up, he turned himself around on the floor to face the girl, and he felt Blake's hold on his throat loosening slightly as she was forced to adjust her grip.
"Ghurk… Sorry… I… didn't… mean… to… intrude…" Jaune tried to speak as the girl's eyes had widened in horror when Jaune didn't seem to be fazed the slightest by her efforts to throttle him, or slowed down by her attempts to hold him still.
"Just what is going on in here!" Jaune heard an arctic, although sleepy voice announce from the doorway to the showers as Weiss stepped through the bathroom door to investigate the commotion while still in her pajamas.
She froze still as her eyes locked onto the naked Blake with shampoo on her hair straddling the equally naked Jaune on the shower floor while the black-haired girl was throttling Jaune with both hands.
Weiss's face went through a myriad of expressions before she backed through the doorway and closed the bathroom door, leaving Blake staring at the now-closed door as her hands started to shake while still holding onto Jaune's throat.
"So uh, I'm sorry, this is completely my fault. I just wanted to take a shower but… Hurk!" Jaune's attempt to explain his actions was interrupted as Blake's grip on his throat returned at full force.
"My life is over…" Blake whispered while still looking at the closed bathroom door.
'... If I didn't need to breathe, I'm fairly sure I'd be the one whose life would be over.' Jaune thought as he struggled to get a word out of his throat to apologize for causing the whole mess…
Weiss backed away from the bathroom dorm as she attempted to get her thoughts under her control.
'Blake was a Faunus? And she and Jaune were in that kind of relationship? This doesn't make sense…' She thought as she came to a stop beside her bed.
"Euh... Weiss?" A sleepy voice pulled her from her thoughts as Ruby had woken up was well. "What's going on?" the girl asked as she pulled her sleep-mask off and rubbed her eyes.
"Miss Rose, were you aware of miss Belladonna's… circumstance… behind her bow?" Weiss asked, slipping back to her formal speech as she was trying to come to terms with what she'd seen.
"Behind her bow? What'd you mean?"
"I mean… Nevermind. Just… don't go to the shower" Weiss said with faint tint of red on her cheeks.
"What's in the shower?" Ruby asked from the bathroom door as she had zoomed past the disoriented heiress, and the smaller girl took a look inside the room before Weiss could stop her.
"Oh." Ruby said as she closed the door and put her back against it with her face turned bright red.
"Yeah" Weiss confirmed.
"I got to tell Yang about this!" Ruby exclaimed and tried to make her way to the dorm-room's exit… but before she could open the door, Weiss took a hold of the smaller girl's wrist.
"Stop! Just what are you doing?" Weiss scowled as Ruby squirmed in her grasp "We should be apologizing for intruding and finding out something Blake had tried to keep secret, not trying to spread it!"
"But… I always tell Yang about everything" Ruby complained.
"Why? Do you also tell your sister about other people's stuff as well?"
"Yes!" Ruby confirmed, leaving Weiss flabbergasted with her mouth hanging open.
"W-Why?" she finally got out "Did you also tell her about Jaune's Semblance?"
"Yes" Ruby said innocently as she looked at Weiss almost as if it was obvious.
"What's wrong with you!" Weiss exclaimed after she collected her wits "Why do you tell your sister other people's secrets that are entrusted to you?"
"Yang's always looking out for me, and we always tell eachother everything- we've had to look out for each other ever since, well…" Ruby went quiet for a moment "ever since mom died. and for a long time afterwards, dad wasn't in a shape to take care of us…"
"I... see." Weiss said as she let go of Ruby's hand. "But still, you need to live your own life, and sharing secrets that are entrusted to you, and not to Yang, is a very good way to turn your friends to your enemies" she lectured the girl who seemed to wilt under her gaze.
"Uh… I'm sorry" Ruby finally said, causing Weiss to scowl at the girl once more.
"It's not me who you should apologize to."
"Then who should I…"
"Jaune! Apologize to Jaune! Just how clueless can you be?" Weiss scowled
"Oh… Sorry. Yang always tells me that I'm not the most socially aware person…" Ruby tried to begin, but Weiss cut her off again.
"I'm not talking to Yang, I'm talking to Ruby Rose, I'm not interested in Yang's opinion, I'm interested in Ruby Rose's opinion."
"Ah…" Ruby fell quiet.
"Just why did you feel the need to tell about Jaune's Semblance to Yang?"
"It's just that… It feels odd." Ruby tried to explain quietly "I've trained to fight and fought Grimm for most of my life… And dad and my uncle told me that when mom died, it was because she was ambushed by the Grimm and killed… and then Jaune tells me that he's partly Grimm but he's nice and I like being around him…"
"So you didn't know what to think about Jaune for a moment and ran straight to Yang?" Weiss asked, sending a glare at the girl "You need to grow up, seriously."
Ruby gave an indignant squeak at the white-haired girl's words before Weiss continued.
"Most of my life, I've lived in fear of being killed" Weiss confessed "Not because of Grimm, but because of a group of… not people, but a group of mosnters masquerading as people" she added as Ruby made to comment.
"The White Fang… They are a group of faunus terrorists have attacked my family, my company, and their workers. We've provided the Faunus work in Atlas, and they spite us for it…" Weiss told Ruby "It started with protests, then turned to bloody riots, and from that, terror attacks against my family… to the point where even my mother was killed by their hands. I've had to live my life in fear of being the next one to disappear when I lived back in Atlas"
"That's…" Ruby begun but fell quiet as Weiss spoke over her.
"Despite that, I don't hate the entirety of Faunus- I just hate the White Fang scum and their sympathizers which, granted, is most of the faunus. My father hates all faunus, my little brother hates all faunus, and I'm fairly sure that my sister does as well although she hides it well…" Weiss took a breath "But I didn't want to take their opinions. I wanted to make my own. My own decisions, in my own life. If I took their opinions without forming my own, I'd still be in Atlas, studying to become the next Heiress of SDC and being tucked away from any and all danger- as much as a Schnee can be."
"I don't..." Ruby made an attempt to interrupt her, but Weiss was having none of it.
"Opinions are a prescious resource. Countless parties will try to influence your opinion, and even more will want to stifle yours. I get that you are close to your sister, but you are not your sister. Or do you care about Yang's opinion so much that you'd sacrifice your teammates trust for it?" Weiss finished her speech as Ruby had wilted and sat on her bed.
"I'm… sorry" she said finally.
"Don't tell me that" Weiss said "Tell that to Jaune."
'Hello? Jaune to Blake, do you respond?' Jaune thought as he attempted to wave his hand in front of Blake's face as she had frozen completely still when Ruby's face had peeked through the bathroom's door briefly, before disappearing again.
He got enough of being manhandled a moment later and he took hold of Blake's arms still tied around his throat, and pulled them off before pushing the girl off him.
"Blake, I'm sorry for intruding, but trying to throttle me this hard is kind of overreaction" Jaune said as he massaged his throat as he looked at the girl, before realizing that both of them were still naked and turning his eyes at the nearby wall.
Blake had pulled herself into the corner of the shower and pulled her legs close to her chest. She didn't answer as she seemed to be lost on her own world.
"My life is over… the Schnee knows… everyone will know soon... " Blake whispered as she rocked back and forth, completely ignoring Jaune "I can't stay in Beacon… I need to leave"
"What's wrong, Blake? Acting this violent isn't like… well, you"
"Shut up. Get out" Blake hissed.
"Not before you tell me what's wrong. You said something about leaving Beacon- I get this is embarrassing but It's not like it's the end of the world." Jaune growled at the girl as he pulled himself back to similiar sitting position.
Blake just sent a glare at him "You don't get it do you? You saw them. You know what I am, and so does the Schnee girl and the Rose girl…"
"Yes, and they were pretty, and I apologize for seeing them by accident, but I think you are overreacting with the whole trying to throttle me and saying that you'd leave Beacon"
"You don't get it! The Schnee girl will never accept me because of them!"
"I can't see why she wouldn't. She has a pair of them as well" Jaune told the girl.
"...What are you on about" Blake said as she stared at Jaune who was keeping his eyes strictly on the wall.
"Breasts"
Blake sighed, before she started to laugh.
It was not a happy laugh, but a despaired one as she rocked back and forth with her eyes wild.
"Of course that would be the only thing a man would pay attention to…"
"I mean, I also get that you are a faunus as well but why would that be so big of a thing?" Jaune said, causing Blake to shut up instantly.
"You don't get it" She said for the third time "Faunus are hated, not treated as equals and the Schnee are the worst offenders of all. She'd extort me or make me her slave or…"
"You're overreacting." Jaune said "Weiss isn't like that…"
"You don't know that. You don't know our pain, how we are hated. You're not a faunus."
"Yeah I'm just a Grimm. Join the club" Jaune said, lifting his hand and allowing it to grow black veins and long claws, before he forced the transformation to halt and undo the changes it had made. "She accepted that I was a Grimm, well sort of… so why wouldn't she accept a pair of ears?" he asked of the girl as he rubbed his hand that had turned back to normal.
Blake fell silent as she stared at the hand which had undergone brief transformation, seemingly remembering just what Jaune's Semblance was.
"Listen, Let's just wash ourselves, dress ourselves and walk out there and see what happens." Jaune said as Blake didn't seem to be able to formulate a response "Tell you what, if Weiss tries to extort you or something, I'll personally help you escape Beacon or try to make her stop?"
Blake nodded ever so slightly after a moment that seemed to stretch for an eternity, and Jaune reached his hand to help the girl up while looking at anywhere that wasn't her bare skin.
"Don't look" Blake said as she went back to cleaning herself, and Jaune faced the wall until it would be his turn.
After clothing themselves, both of the teammates braced themselves as they stepped back to the dorm-room together
.
..
...
"..."
"..."
Uncomfortable silence filled team SABR's room as Blake and Jaune faced the two remaining team members.
The silence stretched on until Ruby's face gained a determined look and she took deep breath-
"I'm sorry!" she blurted out. "I'm sorry that I told Yang about your Semblance!"
Jaune blinked.
"Uh, No problem?" he said, taken off guard as he was prepared to apologize for causing a scene in the showers.
Blake was quiet as she had frozen still while staring at Weiss, who had red tint on her cheeks and was looking at a nearby wall with her hands bunched up and a faint scowl on her face.
"I didn't mean to uh… betray your trust so uh... can we still be friends?" Ruby asked quietly, ignoring Blake's and Weiss's one-sided staring contest. "Please?"
'Ah… So that's what has been bugging her then?' Jaune thought.
"I… I'll forgive you. But please don't tell others about my little secret?" he responded to Ruby whose expression perked up "Promise?"
"Yeah! I'll promise!" She said while jumping slightly.
"And uh… I won't tell anyone about your and Blake's um… relationship" she continued after a brief moment with a slightly quiet tone as she looked away from Jaune.
"Our what?" Jaune asked, but was cut off as Blake rushed in his defence. Well, sort of.
"We are not in a relationship" She told Ruby as her attention was torn away from the Schnee heiress. "The shower incident... just sort of happened."
"Uh-huh" Weiss commented from the side. "In the future, miss Belladonna and mister Arc, I expect you two to take your… private affairs… to somewhere else than our dorm's shower. I wasn't aware that the faunus would be that, hm, eager, but I expect you two to at least take into consideration our…"
"It wasn't like that!" Blake insisted to the Schnee with heated tone "And if you two try to spread information about me being a faunus I will… I will end you!"
"Excuse me!" Weiss said, scandalized over Blake's threat.
"Blake" Jaune interrupted the black-haired girl by placing his hand on her shoulder.
"Blake's just somehow thinking that you'd erm, 'exploit her' if you found out she was faunus... " Jaune explained to fuming Weiss "I mean, it's not like being a faunus is somehow bad, right?"
"I'm starting to think that it is, if that's the sort of behaviour I can expect" Weiss glared at the black-haired girl with her hands bunched up. "I don't get it! We, as the Schnee company, have only worked in betterment of Faunus by providing jobs, infrastructure…"
"...Slavery, dangerous mines, broken families…" Blake interrupted the girl "Have you ever visited the Schnee mines yourself? Or the work camps?"
"We're getting off track here." Jaune interrupted before the argument could escalate "This isn't about some companies or work, it's about if Blake can stay here without getting harassed by her own team… although the reverse needs to also apply" he added, giving Blake a look.
"How about me being able to shower in peace... " the faunus in question muttered quietly while glaring at Jaune who blushed and looked away.
"I have no issues with miss Belladonna being a faunus, as long as she isn't part of the White Fang scum or attempt to harm me… like she just threatened to do" Weiss scowled at Blake who surprisingly looked down and went quiet.
"Um… I don't know what's the big deal with being faunus or not being faunus... but..." Ruby piped up "We should stop fighting... can we stop fighting, please?" she pleaded, looking at Blake and Weiss.
"So Weiss, Ruby and I have no problems with Blake, and Blake has no problems with us, putting aside the 'ending you' thingy?" Jaune tried to make peace "I'm sure Blake is just overreacting, I mean she just tried to choke me in the shower which certainly was a overreaction…" he continued, ignoring how the rest of his team had sprouted bright red faces after his last statement. "...She just wants to be treated as regular student and not a faunus, I think"
"I can accept Blake's presence and keep her secret if she apologizes for threatening me…" Weiss grumbled "...And if you two apologize for satisfying your deviant sex-fantasies while Ruby and I were sleeping in the same dorm as you were doing it!"
"It wasn't like that!" Blake half-screamed "But fine, I'm sorry for threatening you…"
Weiss continued to glare at her while Ruby had covered her face with her hands, and her ears seemed to be attempting to set themselves on fire judging by their bright red colour.
"...Fine. I apologize for 'fulfilling my deviant sex-fantasies in the dorm room while you and Ruby were present'..." Blake finally muttered as Weiss kept staring at her while tapping the floor with her foot.
"So are we good now? No bad feelings? No hidden, unspoken bitter regrets?" Jaune asked as the dorm fell quiet.
A round of nods followed his question, although Blake seemed to gain a measure of uncertainty in her expression, before it disappeared to make way for ashamed expression.
'I think she feels bad for overreacting so hard… It must be hard, being a faunus…' Jaune thought as he nodded at the girl.
"I have one"
Jaune looked over to discover Ruby having spoken while looking directly at Blake.
'Crap, does she have a problem with Blake after all…'
Ruby lifted her hand threateningly and pointed a finger at Blake.
"I won't lose to you!" the smaller girl announced while holding her other hand against her waist and pushing her chest upwards.
Weiss's mouth fell open as she stared at the smaller girl while Blake covered her face with her hands and let out a muffled scream.
'Uh… What?'
AN
Next chapter 20-21. Oct- Training
Short chapter this time as I'm contemplating moving few events around in the story's timeline. I might release a "mid-week" chapter to patch up the shortness of this chapter or just make the next one longer.
Chapter edited as I noticed some glaring issues, and it had a missing part at the end.
Omake
"...So then you press this button, and you activate the Siege module in the sword which increases your rate of fire but makes the sword really unwieldy so you won't be able to move very fast…" Ruby explained as she introduced her creation to Jaune. Rest of team SABR and RYNN were standing behind the pair and watching the grand unveiling of the weapon with a mixture of horror and anticipation as the group were gathered near the edge of Beacon's grounds.
"And with that, I hereby give you the control of 'Crescent Arc-Caster', Remnant's first sword-shield-turret that fires swords that turn into guns, with a dual turreted direct-firing artillery railgun attachment that also turns into a flak-cannon, toaster, kite-shield and a bike" she finished, dropping a hardback user's manual that was half the girl's size in front of a speechless Jaune.
"I only wanted a sword…" he said weakly as the girl demonstrated how the flak-cannon worked by shooting up at a extremely panicked Nevermore which tried its best to zig-zag through the shrapnel explosions.
"Yeah, now you realize why I don't allow Ruby to dabble with Ember Celica" Yang said from the side as she shrugged her shoulders, causing both Weiss and Blake to make a mental note to hide their weapons from Ruby's sight.
"Ah! It wasn't a Nevermore! I'm sorryyy!" Ruby called out to a panicked Nevermore that had turned out to be a big crow that had managed to do an emergency landing through the anti-air flak, and was giving the small girl a reprimanding look as it's feathers smoldered slightly from all of the fire and smoke it had to fly through...