Who saw this one coming?

I still think Blake is easier to write than Ruby and harder than Weiss.

26: Confirmation Bias

Isaac

I knew as soon as we saw her that this wasn't the Blake we were looking for. Going by the pictures from RWBY, the likeness was uncanny. The outfit was perfect, and the material was right. A lot of cosplay looked weird because people used the wrong material but this one didn't have that problem. The signature bow looked like a solid piece and shifted a little as she walked. I noticed a Gambol Shroud, but to be fair Blake did hide it at several points in the series.

But after seeing the actual pictures on Ruby's scroll, nope, nuh-uh, no way. I don't mean to sound racist or anything but she was obviously Japanese and Blake obviously wasn't. I mean she tried to hide it and look more like the real Blake but it just didn't quite work.

Sitting down at the cramped table was really awkward. It was obvious that not only was she not what we were expecting to see, but we weren't what she was expecting to see, either.

She muttered something in Japanese and then said to us, downcast, "I thought I see Ruby and Weiss."

"And we thought we'd see Blake," Cliff replied in an irritated tone before we could stop him.

"I am Blake!" she snapped, clearly quite angry and upset.

"No, like, we thought we'd see the actual Blake," Cliff corrected. After a moment, he added, "That sounds as absurd as it sounds, doesn't it?"

"Well, yeah," I told him.

"You not think Blake real, no?" the girl interrupted.

"Well, yes and no," I replied. "Look, there's been a big misunderstanding. I'm Isaac. These are my friends Cliff and Ben."

"Cliche," Cliff muttered.

"I am Akemi," she introduced.

"Okay, Akemi, this is going to sound insane-"

Cliff cut me off. "You're actually going to tell her?"

I shrugged. "Either she believes us and can help us or doesn't believe us and we lose nothing."

He mulled it over for a moment. "Okay, fair point."

I restarted my explanation. "Like I said, this is going to sound insane. We found the real Ruby Rose about a month ago. Then, later, we found out Weiss was in Donetsk-"

"Donetsk?"

"Yes, Donetsk, Ukraine, where the war is," I confirmed. "So we met her in Kiev and we think the rest of team RWBY is coming and we thought we would find Blake here."

"You expect me to believe?" She waved her arm in a very unblakelike fashion.

"I think Ruby can explain it better," I told her, bringing up video on my phone and handing it to the cosplayer.

"She very good," Akemi commented as she handed back the phone, still not very impressed with us. "But I thought see her, not you."

Cliff shrugged. "Yeah, we thought about bringing her, but it's kind of hard to travel with no passport."

"So you come here to meet me? I am here," Akemi snapped, frustrated.

"No, we came here to find Blake and bring her back to

"The real Blake."

"You come here for fool quest? I not believe. You crazy." She stood up, intending to leave.

"Come on!" Cliff shouted. "Why else would we fly a thousand fucking miles?"

Ben began listing off reasons. "Electronics, anime, cheap electronics, computer parts, weird shit-"

Cliff clared at him. "Ben, don't ruin the dramatic moment."

"Sorry."

"Look, sorry for making you come here," I apologized. "It was our mistake. You don't believe us, that's fine. You're not who we were trying to find, that's fine too. It was a misunderstanding, it happens, it's an inconvenience, yes. We both went out of our way to do something and came away disappointed."

"I think we went out of our way a lot more," Cliff muttered.

"Wait," Akemi interrupted as we stood to leave. "Maybe you are look for other Blake?"

"What other Blake?" Cliff asked slowly.

She said slowly, "There was other Blake at gathering. I not know well."

"We only saw one Blake and that was you," I pointed out.

She nodded. "She is shy of the camera, so she is filming."

"She was behind the camera the whole fucking time?" Cliff exclaimed like this was a Hangover-esque revelation or something.

"We don't know if it's her," Ben pointed out. "It's probably just another Japanese Blake cosplayer."

"She not Japanese," Akemi interrupted. "She speak English good, maybe from America, but not talk much. I know Yuko confuse her."

"Blake would sound American," I stated.

"So would three hundred million other people- more if you count Canadians and other groups that sound American but aren't."

"She stay with Yuko," Akemi said helpfully. "I ask, maybe she know more?"

"That would be great, thanks," I replied.

Akemi pulled out her phone- definitely not a scroll- and fired off a text. A few seconds later, the phone buzzed and she told us, "Yuko say Blake run away."

Cliff heaved a deep sigh. "On one hand, that's pretty much confirmation. On the other hand, you've got to be fucking kidding me!"

Blake Belladonna

I found myself running back toward the first spot I remembered from here. Where I arrived. If I arrived.

So many questions. Where was here? How did I get here? Why was there a show about us? Was it really fiction? How much of it was real and how much of it wasn't? Why did people dress as Faunus? Why did people dress like me? Was I really- Why did the cars drive on the wrong side of the road? Was I really Blake Belladonna? Was I just someone who thought she was Blake Belladonna?

I don't know why I gravitated toward that spot. I guess I was looking for answers, even though I knew that I wouldn't find any. It would be nice to have someone to explain it all, but I knew that wouldn't happen. The best I could hope for was... well, I didn't know, really.

I couldn't think with so many thoughts in my head. I needed to think, I needed to figure out what was going on. I was so confused, so disoriented, so afraid. Even for me, this was strange. I needed to run away, think, find answers.

Then again, that was what I always did, wasn't it? If there was a problem, sooner or later I ended up running away. It was all I had ever really known.

Review replies, again.

linkthetoaoftime: Probably, but it'll most likely be delayed until close to the end of her arc for obvious reasons.

Courtney O'brien: Sorry, but there are no plans to bring CFVY to Earth like what happened to RWBY. Draw as much from that statement as you want.

Sgt. Sporky: Why not both? In all seriousness, this is probably going to be the darkest and most serious part of Emergence, or at least Emergence Part 1. As for Blake, it's more a matter of having lots of time to think and nobody to adequately explain things to her, and you may be right about her being more vulnerable (I would use the term sensitive) in the first place. Ruby is naive and optimistic and met people who could explain everything fairly quickly. Weiss had Katya and a war. Blake has lots of time to think and Yuko was barely there and they can't communicate well.

Happy1K1nob1: Serious Sam? I don't see a joke, but I haven't really played the games much.

Epic Zealot Productions 2.0: Uh, what?