Okay, first thing: sorry for this very short chapter. It's just 2.5k words. I'm really sorry and I will try never to do this again, but today I was feeling happy so I didn't want to risk waiting another day and then write while angry. As you can guess, I'm an emotional writer, so when my mood influences my story. Besides, it does have kind of a cliffhanger. Never wrote one before except in Dragons and Knights... chapter 8, I think.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter.

PS: I changed the team of the sap "prank" in the Forever Fall Forest because I've noticed how some people do not like canon characters get too evil. I've had my fair experience with bullies and I've heard hideous stories, but since I do not want to irritate you by making canon characters act OOC by making them basically deserving to be beaten down by Team RWAN+VYBL (and one of them in Grimm form). So I decided to use a team of OCs. And they won't be the only ones. Power often does not come with kindness.

Jaune Arc felt terrible.

To say it was one of the worst days of his life would've been right. The Bullhead ride back to Beacon hadn't been awkward: it had been heartbreaking. Not because it was explicitly sad, but because of the memories of what he'd done. He had no regrets in beating Team DRGN into unconsciousness. When Goodwitch had asked about them, Yang had been quick to reply a simple `Grimm`. It wasn't a complete lie, after all. No, what he was devastated about was what he had done later.

He had serious reasons to hate himself at the moment. To think that he had showed up and captured Ruby only to `play along` with their plans to search for him... A dangerous game, sure, but one that would've made them feel important. Especially so since they knew there was a Grimm Knight in the forest. It had all been a game. Walk in, taunt them a little, call in some Grimm in case things got nasty and then disappear. When had his plan gone so horribly wrong?

It had probably been when he had kissed Ruby, he reasoned. Oum, even if it had been something just slightly less wicked than rape, he could still tell it had been wonderful. Not the contact itself, not even her taste, even if Dust she tasted good. No, it had just been the gesture. He and his sisters had `practised` with kissing for another reason, apart from simple practice: it had been because it gave them a warm feeling of being cared for, something they sorely lacked from both parents. But after what he'd done, he didn't know if he could feel warmth ever again. He just wanted to run, turn into a Grimm and curl up in a ball, waiting for everything to fade. That was his usual reaction to bad things. That was the usual reaction of all the Callows children. With the Queen of the Grimm as mother and a psychopathic murderer as father, it wasn't so hard to believe.

The others noticed his pain, but probably they thought it was due to him not being there when Ruby was taken, given the short `It wasn't your fault` and `You couldn't have known about it` he received from them. He managed to keep his distance from Ruby, somehow, but time and again he would spot her red cape from among the others and his heart would tighten again. It was true what he had said to her: the most hurtful thing he could think of was the ones he cared about being hurt. Having lived with the parents he had, he had had a lack of love that he had turned into love for others. He didn't want his friends to feel as unloved as he had felt. Ruby didn't speak about what had happened, and after a while Yang stopped speaking. They were already back at their dorms when it happened.

Ruby took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. "There is something I need to tell you", she said suddenly. "About what happened before I got back with you".

"Did he hurt?", immediately asked Yang, concerned beyond definition. "Are you okay?".

"He didn't hurt me", she replied quietly. "I hurt him".

Everyone went silent at that. Jaune removed his gaze from the ground and dared a look at Ruby. She really seemed to mean that. And that wasn't possible. He was hurt, yes, but it had been him the one who hurt her, not the other way around. He was hurt because he had forced himself on her, he had kissed her without her consent. In his mind, that was nothing short of rape, even though many would've disagreed. "W-What do you mean?", asked Yang, clearly not expecting her little sister to be able to even land a hit of a Grimm Knight. Now she believed her about the Grimm, but at the same time she couldn't help but feel doubtful about Ruby actually hurting one. Team DRGN hadn't even been able to land a hit: what chances had the little girl? Too little to be possible. "H-How?".

"I... When he captured me, I asked him if he was going to kill me", she said, her cheeks tinted in embarrassment. "I was scared and I just kinda blurted it out. He laughed and said he wasn't going to do it unless I asked him to. And then he asked me what I wanted him to do".

"And you told him to drop dead?", growled Yang, angry. "He's lucky he had you as hostage, otherwise...".

"Otherwise he would've beaten you without even thinking about it!", Ruby snapped, and everyone flinched. It wasn't like her. "He's too strong for you! He's too strong for any of us! He wasn't even worried about letting me go!".

"What do you mean by that?", asked Blake, sharp and attentive.

"I... I asked him to let me go, obviously", she recalled in a small voice. "And he said it was okay... as long as he got something as payment".

"What did he want?", asked Yang. "Blood? Your weapon? The promise not to interfere any more?".

"Probably one of those things... but I didn't let him say anything", replied Ruby, and now her cheeks where red for something different than embarrass. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I just did what I thought he would've asked me... although from his reaction, I'd say he hadn't meant that".

"What, Ruby?", Weiss pressed on, and Ruby shifted uncomfortably. "What did you do to hurt him?".

"I k-kissed him".

The reactions were varied. Yang literally burst into flames, screaming enraged. Jaune couldn't bear to look in anyone's eyes in his shame. Ren, Nora, Pyrrha and Blake were frozen in disbelief and shock. Weiss's mouth was hanging open, all pretences of decor forgotten at the young girl's statement. Ruby cringed as Yang shouted a particularly rude curse, and tried to calm her down. "I-It was m-my fault", she said, cringing again when the blonde didn't seem to listen. "A-And he didn't w-want it... h-he began to c-cry...".

And just like that, everyone was shocked into listening.

"He did what?", asked Yang, heavily falling back on the floor.

"I don't know!", cried Ruby, now panicking under everyone's but Jaune's gaze. "When he pulled back, he began to cry and then run off".

"The scream...", murmured Ren, and then flinched when everyone's attention was turned on him. "Before Ruby came back, we all heard a second scream, but it didn't sound like the first...".

"It was pained", interrupted Blake, whose hearing was much sharper than anyone else's in the room. "I didn't know why, but it sounded... agonizing".

"Maybe kissing a girl as pure as Ruby hurt him", growled Yang, her eyes of a fierce red. "He's just a Grimm, after all. He's a monster without morals nor mercy".

Nobody replied.

#####

Ruby, though, had a different opinion.

Noir Callows wasn't a monster without morals nor mercy. He was a Grimm, sure, but he wasn't mindless, nor bloodthirsty, nor cruel. Maybe he was evil, maybe he was the evillest of all beings on Remnant, but in just the two occasions she had met him he had shown more humanity than many men and women. He had pointed out how humans held prejudices against Faunus, and he actually had a point in saying that if humans discriminated and the Grimm didn't, maybe humans weren't as evolved and intelligent as they thought.

Even when he had kept her hostage, she had been the one who had kissed him against his will. She didn't exactly know why had that hurt him so much, but it had. She couldn't prevent a blush reaching her face. She felt so stupid now. All human-like monsters in movies and books always asked for a kiss from the main character when they captured her. It was how they worked. But apparently Noir hadn't wanted that.

Or maybe he had. She hadn't exactly let him speak his mind before kissing him.

At that, she blushed. She had just gone and kissed a Grimm Knight just because in movies and books it was what they usually asked from the main character. Although in a book she had `borrowed` from Yang once, they had asked for much more... and had gotten it too, as opposite to her own books, where the protagonist's allies always dashed in in the nick of time to save her if she needed to be saved, or to give her back her sword so she could fight her way to a happy ending.

As Team VYBL left Team RWAN alone in their dorm, in her little mind began worming its way an idea. It was something she hadn't considered before. Something that clashed with Yang's idea in a way that was impossible to just ignore. Noir Callows crushed Team DRGN, but they were the ones to attack first. He did not hurt anyone else. Even back in the Emerald Forest, he had actually stopped the Death Stalker from attacking them. And he had talked to them, even if a bit harshly in Forever Fall, like a person.

Was he not a monster?

The mere idea of it was absurd. He was a Grimm. Grimm killed people. They killed men, women and children without a care in the world. Huntsmen's first duty was to avoid those deaths to happen. The Grimm had torn beloved ones from their families. They had killed many many innocents. The Grimm were evil. All of them.

'The your view of the world is extremely biased'.

Ruby cringed and got up, announcing she needed some time alone. Pyrrha and Weiss gave her an understanding look, while Jaune didn't meet her eyes. He still felt guilty for not being there to help, she supposed, and she frowned. It hadn't been his fault. She would need to talk to him later. But at the moment, she needed some time for herself.

Half an hour later, she was laying on a rooftop, looking up at the stars. Between the late return to Beacon, the long awkward silence that had reigned in their dorm before and after her revelation and the time it had taken her to find that place, the day had already died away, and the shattered moon shined in the sky.

She sighed. Why the world was so difficult to understand? Why couldn't there be black and white, bad and good? Why did it had to be so confusing? Noir Callows was a Grimm, was a dangerous Grimm... but he was a person. After all, her Uncle Qrow was a monster with his scythe, one of the best Huntsman known in Remnant... although he tended to be always drunk. Why couldn't Noir be dangerous and a person at the same time?

It should've felt wrong, to doubt a Grimm's evilness. But it didn't. It felt like she should've done that more often. She should've thought and considered people more, prejudices and first impressions be damned. Noir wasn't a monster, not in the way normal Grimm were. He was strong and dangerous, sure, but he was actually disgusted by the hatred humans had for Faunus. Shouldn't he have been happy for the extra negativity in the world? And she hadn't missed his flinch when she had feared the Grimm she had been killing had souls. Normal Grimm would've bathed in it, but he had actually seemed uncomfortable.

Just more mysteries.

It wasn't fair. She was just a girl trying to become a heroine. She wanted to make the world more similar to a fairy tale, with a happy ending. She wanted a happy ending herself. And she surely wouldn't consider killing a Grimm with a soul a happy ending. Not unless it was completely necessary. Why did the world had to be so confusing?

Glaring at the stars above her, she sighed.

Noir Callows was a mystery. Was he evil? Was he not? She felt the beginning of a headache coming. It was against the nature of the Grimm to be good. But what if the legend of the Grimm and the Maiden was true? What if Grimm Knights were just people like everyone else? She felt like she shouldn't have been doubting what were basically fundamental rules of Nature. Grimm were evil. They were darkness incarnate. They had to be killed, or they would kill people. They had to be wiped off Remnant.

"Does this make us humans any better than the Grimm?", she wondered softly, her voice lost in the dark night's air. It was getting cold, but she wanted to do one last thing before going back inside. Standing up, she took a deep breath. It shouldn't have mattered. He wasn't even gonna hear her. It shouldn't have mattered, but it did.

"I'm sorry for hurting you. It was my fault. I panicked and acted against your will", she said, her voice fractionally louder, but still soft and rustling like the wind. "I do not know what or who you are, but it doesn't matter. I'm sorry, even if you are a Grimm and you are mindlessly evil... because I'm not".

Now feeling better and lighter, she sighed and headed back inside, but a hiss through the air halted her. Something landed behind her with barely a sound, but what she heard was the sound of a blade embedding into stone. She turned, her heart hammering in her throat, and saw no one.

Instead, firmly stuck in the roof, there was a single black feather.

She frowned as she got nearer, picking it up and observing it carefully. It was a plain black feather, too large to be from a normal bird -plus there was the little details it was embedded into the concrete- and too small to be from an adult Nevermore. The juveniles one wouldn't be able to even approach Beacon, and even the adults would've probably mowed down without many problems. Since it had obviously been thrown, she looked around. Maybe some students playing pranks on her by making her believe there was a Nevermore nearby? She wasn't that foolish. As her gaze swept past a building, she froze.

There was something on that building.

The angle of the throw was right, and the dark figure seemed to have wings, but it wasn't a Nevermore. Its skin was ghostly white, far too white to be healthy or even dead. It was humanoid, with black clothes that looked very much like an armour and wild black hair falling all over its face and forehead. A pair of twin blades ran on the sides of its arms, as dark as the night and with silver rims. She shivered when their eyes met, silver into red.

Slowly, as if not to scare her away, the Grimm Knight nodded at her in some sort of bow.

She felt her heartbeat increase madly as he got up just as slowly, terrified that he would decide to attack her, but instead he just turned and ran, disappearing from the sight as he dived and glided behind a building. She sighed in relief before realizing what that meant.

'The Grimm Knight can enter Beacon'.

Oh, yeah.

With Watts as an uncle, not even Beacon's security can catch him. Besides, if Cinder had a scroll that infected the communication net to a world-wide level AND the supposedly-hyper-protected computers of the military, then I guess Jaune can have his uncle hack his way into Beacon's security and shut down some cameras, or maybe even have a scroll himself to shut them down.

Anyway, now Ruby knows that not even Beacon is safe. What will she do?

Oh, remember I told you about the bet I lost a few days ago? That same friend (who is actually a relative, but they don't want me to mention them too directly) asked me for another smut, saying that I needed to improve or I would not be ready for the real world, because the real world is too rude for my current level of politeness. I told him them they could write that smut on paper and then shove said paper you all know where. They didn't comment on my politeness any more.

Until next time,

Khor Evik Vlakhavlakh