"So… how did you two meet?" Winter asked somewhat shakily as she cradled her cup of tea in her hands.
"Well… uh… we met during Initiation test." Weiss stammered. "He… he saved me from a Grimm Abomination!"
"I… see." Winter sighed while keeping an close eye on Jaune's movements. "And how exactly did you… 'tame' him?"
"Uh... "
Team SABR had sat around a table in the dorm's small kitchen after Ruby had prepared tea and snacks, and Winter had recovered enough to stand on her own feet and walk to the kitchen. Weiss had woken up as Jaune had grabbed one of the mugs full of steaming hot and fragrant liquid and waved it under the girl's nose, although the act had gotten him a very suspicious glare from the uniformed Atlas Specialist. Team RYNN had decided to hang back a little, and had retreated to their dorm although they had left their door open and Jaune was fairly certain that they were preparing to come to their aid if things got violent.
Luckily though the dorm only housed teams SABR and RYNN as curiously enough the two other other dorm-rooms in their wing were empty- presumably either there hadn't been enough teams that had succeeded in the Initiation Test and thus got accepted into Beacon, or more likely the Headmaster had decided to not assign any additional teams to their dorm to help Jaune with his struggle to keep his secret safe.
Nevertheless the lack of possible bystanders allowed Jaune to walk around in the dorm's shared kitchen in his Grimm form without needing to worry about being seen, at least as long has he stayed away from the windows.
"Weiss. How did you 'tame' him?" Winter repeated as no answer was forthcoming. "This is important. If you have somehow discovered a way to tame Grimm… to bend them to your will..."
"N-no, I mean..." Weiss stammered, and Ruby reached to start patting Weiss's hand reassuringly.
"It's a secret." Ruby nodded conspiratorially towards Jaune while addressing her words to Winter.
"Even if it's a secret, something like this is too important to…" Winter started, but Blake interrupted her.
"Trust me, you don't want to know what we had to go through to hm… 'tame' him." the disguised faunus said, and Jaune saw how the girl's amber eyes flashed dangerously. "It wasn't pretty… but we got through it, as a team."
Winter choked on her tea as Blake's words registered in, and Jaune lifted his tentacle so he could slap her on the back to help her. It was the wrong move to take as Weiss grabbed the appendage and brought it down while Winter reared back and reached for her sabre.
"Weiss! Did…"
"It's alright, sister!" Weiss waved her hand wildly to persuade Winter that the situation was under control- although the fact that the tentacle was still in Weiss's hand didn't help Winter's mood. "He just uh… got too excited, I guess?"
"We͝i͏ss͘.͢.͞.̴" Jaune wanted to rub his face in frustration, but the full-face bone-mask effectively prevented those actions. '...Although I should probably steer clear of any sudden movements towards anyone for a while… Winter is jumpy enough as it is, and I'm fairly sure Weiss's fever is not helping her…'
"Ex… excited? Headmaster told me that you… no..." Winter stared at the appendage in pure shock. "I… Is that how you tamed it?"
"Well… uh… I guess?" Weiss didn't quite seem to get what Winter was trying to suggest, but decided to go along with it nevertheless. "I mean, Yes. Training him was quite hard at the start, but it got gradually easier, and we decided to... to start dating soon afterwards. I'm fairly sure that our way of taming him wouldn't work on other Grimm though, he's special."
"...You were right, I did not want to know that." Winter's face was about as pale as her hair as she stared at the appendage that Weiss was still gripping tightly while Jaune was squirming in his seat as Weiss was squishing the tentacle in her hand as if it was some sort of organic stress toy. "A-and are you… uh… content with the relationship?"
"Erm… Y-yes. Very." Weiss got out. "My apologies, the fever is making me slightly dizzy... thanks." she interrupted her speech as Jaune pulled a bag of ice from the freezer with his tentacles and offered it to the white-haired girl who immediately pushed it against her temple.
"I… I see." Winter said as she watched the exchange warily. "Are you sure you are in control? That it won't just suddenly turn on you?"
"He's not going to do that." Ruby piped in from the side. "We trust him."
"You trust it?" Winter's words dripped scepticism. "It's a Grimm, for Oum's sake!"
"Yeah, we know. We have eyes." Blake quipped sarcastically as she glared at the older of the Schnee sisters. "He's part of our happy little family."
"I see." Winter sighed and attempted to visibly compose herself. "I won't pretend that I approve… but I'll refrain from taking an action, for now."
"Thank you, dear sister." Weiss smiled weakly at her big sister, although even Jaune could see that Weiss's smile was forced. It seemed that Winter noticed it as well, and her eyes narrowed dangerously as a response.
"Nevertheless, General Ironwood's visit to Vale might take anywhere from few weeks to a month, depending on how quickly we complete our objective." Winter told Weiss while keeping an close eye on Jaune. "I'll keep an eye on your… relationship. If I deem that you are… influenced... by the Grimm somehow, I will haul you back to Atlas, Weiss."
"D-dear sister?"
"I won't abandon you to the Grimm's mercies, sister." Winter glared at the tentacles that were twitching slowly behind Jaune. "If I find out that the Grimm is somehow influencing you… controlling you… I will save you."
The look Winter gave to Jaune made it clear that her 'saving' Weiss would also include slaying him.
"He's not controlling…"
"Of course you'd say that if you were being influenced by it somehow." Winter ignored Weiss's words. "You can't argue that this isn't highly unusual, if not one-of-a-kind situation."
"But…"
"My decision stands." Winter sent a reprimanding glare at Weiss. "While your… preferences are yours to decide, I won't have my sister succumbing to some Grimm's will."
"I'm͜.̴..͡ rig͜ht̸ h̛ere.̷.͘.̕" Jaune growled weakly, but a stern glare from Winter let him know that it was not his turn to speak, and it would never be if she had anything to say about it.
"I see… I'm glad that you are worried about my safety, but I assure you that he's completely… er, safe." Weiss reached for the teapot to pour herself more of the hot liquid, but Ruby interrupted her as Weiss's hands were too shaky to handle the pot reliably and she reached to pour Weiss more tea. "But… If making sure that we… l-love... each other makes you feel better about it…"
"It will." Winter nodded. "Thank you for understanding. I wish only the best for you, and I'm not entirely sure if this… thing… fits the criteria. I am worried about you, Weiss."
"I… I see." Weiss's voice was shaky from relief and raw emotion towards her big sister. "Thank you, sister, but I'll be alright."
Jaune reached to tie his arm around the white-haired girl and squeezed her lightly to reassure her while Winter watched the exchange carefully, and Blake's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"Regardless, I'm glad to see that you are recovering from your recent misfortunes." Winter sighed as she pushed herself up, and pushed her chair back under the kitchen table while glancing at her Scroll. "I am needed in general Ironwood's presence. Thank you for trusting me with your… private life."
"Of course, dear sister." Weiss lifted herself up weakly. "It's been a pleasure… and thank you for coming to see me."
"I will come to see you again at later date." Winter nodded back at Weiss. "Be well sister… and you." she turned to address Jaune. "If I even suspect that your… tentacles... are in Weiss when she's sick…"
Her threat was left unsaid, but Jaune got the gist of it, and he squirmed his tentacles uncomfortably as he struggled to find words that would placate the white-haired Specialist.
"I̴ ̨ẁon't͞." he tried to rasp out. "Do ̷ţha͢t̨...̢"
"See that you don't." Winter nodded once more to the rest of team SABR before heading to the dorm-wing's exit...
.
..
...
"Gaahh…" Weiss gave out an uncharacteristic whine as she slumped back to her bed, completely spent after her meeting with her sister. "That… That couldn't have gone any worse…"
"Agreed." Blake said as she sent a look at Weiss as teams SABR and RYNN had grouped up in SABR's dorm-room once again after Jaune had returned to his human shape. "Did you even realize what you… implied to your sister?"
"That I was dating a Grimm?"
"A tentacle Grimm." Blake's voice was grave as she addressed her words to the white-haired girl.
"What does that have to do with anything…" Weiss grumbled as she adjusted her blankets.
"Uh…" Pyrrha blushed and looked away while Blake gave a tortured sigh, and Ruby blinked innocently at the exchange.
Yang just narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Jaune, and he could have sworn that Ren's face had grown slightly green for some reason during Blake's speech while Nora just hummed happily as she sat beside Ren on the floor.
"Right… You don't know." Blake sighed as she rose from her seat to rummage around her bookshelf. She pulled a book from the shelf, and opened it on a scene which had a somewhat worn bookmark, and offered the book to Weiss.
"What's this?" Weiss's eyes narrowed as she looked at the book which had been given to her. She turned the book around to see the summary… and instantly dropped the book as if the hardback print had burnt her. "W-what are you making me read?!"
"Just… read it and you'll understand." Blake gritted out.
"Wh…" Weiss glared at Blake, and picked the book very carefully back up and began reading as Blake gave a pointed look at the book. "Fine! I don't care anymore."
"What's that about?" Yang asked Pyrrha in the background and Jaune saw as Pyrrha looked pointedly away from everyone in the room with her cheeks red.
"I… I don't know. I've never heard of it." Pyrrha told Yang as the golden-yellow haired girl looked like she would repeat her question. "I'm sure that it's not…"
"...Filth." Weiss finished as she put the book down very carefully. Jaune turned his eyes towards the bedridden girl, and saw how Weiss's face had grown bright red and he could have sworn that wisps of steam rose from her hair as she tried to set herself on fire by power of embarrassment alone. "Y… you… Is this something people do? Are people into this?!"
'What was that book?' Jaune thought as he peeked at the book the ex-heiress still had in her grip.''Huntress in Peril: Tentacles of despair and delight?'... Hold on, why did Blake have that in her shelf?'
"So what was that about?" Ruby asked as she tried to sneak a peek at the book in Weiss's hands, and the white-haired girl quickly pulled the book back and put it under her blanket.
Blake raised her eyebrow at Weiss. "So, do you now realize what you told your sister you had been doing with Jaune?"
"I... " Weiss sent a glare at Jaune, as if she'd seen him for the first time. "I see."
Jaune tried to ignore the feelings of distress that the girl radiated as she looked at him as if he was responsible for the whole ordeal. '...Then again, she'd be right…'
"...Can I have my book back?" Blake asked, and Weiss sent a reprimanding glare at her.
"No."
"Saw something that you liked, eh?" Yang grinned widely at the embarrassed ex-heiress.
"N-No!" Weiss denied. "I just refuse to allow my team to read such filth! What if Ruby had seen it?"
Yang's grin was wiped straight off her face as Ruby was mentioned, and it was replaced with a horrified look as she snapped her eyes to Jaune.
"No, I haven't done that" Jaune sighed at Yang's unasked question. "Not with anyone."
"But you know about it." Yang narrowed her eyes.
"Yes."
"I can't believe that we're seriously having this conversation." Weiss rubbed her eyes tiredly while Pyrrha fiddled with her skirt nervously.
"Can we please change the subject?" Ren's voice interrupted the group before their thoughts could get derailed even further into dangerous territory.
"Right." Jaune took the straw that was offered, and moved the conversation onwards. "Weiss. What are we going to do about the story you told your sister?"
"I… I need to think about what I'm going to do." Weiss said after a moment, and she groaned as she slid deeper under her blankets. "I'm still sick, if you haven't noticed…"
"Ah." Jaune nodded. "Time, then."
"...Although, I might have an idea. I have to look into it more when I get over my cold." Weiss drawled out after a while. "What if we announced Jaune to be the first domesticated Grimm to the general public?"
"Eh?" Jaune turned his head back towards Weiss. "But didn't Ozpin tell to keep my ability a secret?"
"Yes, so we won't be telling the public that it's your ability." Weiss drawled to him. "We're just going to go out and say that you, in your Grimm form, are the first ever Grimm to be tamed. No-one will say anything about the Grimm being you."
"So to avoid the public scandal you make yourself what the scandal wants you to be?" Blake lifted her eyebrow suspiciously at Weiss.
"Yes, and no." Weiss said as she looked at Jaune calculatingly. "If… If I had found out a way to tame a Grimm somehow… It's like how Winter said it, it would be great discovery! No, more than that, the greatest breakthrough in our struggle against the Grimm... In the entire human history!"
"But… we haven't done that." Jaune poked a carrier-sized hole in Weiss's theory. "I'm just well… odd."
"The public doesn't know that." Weiss waved his concerns off. "They would just see a Grimm, and see it obey me. I could even downplay the incident at Docks to me testing out the theory in action, and accuse the incompetent press responsible for the whole mess for taking advantage of the confusion to spin a baseless rumor."
"I guess?" Jaune scratched the back of his head. "I mean, would people even believe that a Grimm could be tamed?"
"Most of the people don't know anything about Grimm. Or rather, the only thing they know about the Grimm is that they are frightening, deadly, and will attack without provocation." Ren came into the conversation. "It might be hard to get them to believe you."
"They will believe what they see." Weiss dismissed Ren's concerns. "They believed the rumors without a moment's hesitation earlier."
"It may be because Vale's Central Press has a fairly good reputation for being truthful with their publications." Pyrrha came into Ren's defence. "Although, I don't know how they allowed so scandalous article to pass."
"How do you plan to get your voice heard?" Blake questioned Weiss's plan. "I doubt that the press would be willing to give you a fair hearing."
"I'll think of a way." Weiss waved Blake off. "But for now, I'd like to sleep. Can you leave?"
"Right." Jaune nodded to the white-haired girl. "We'll let you recover in peace. Just… say if you need something."
"I will."
.
..
…
"So…. How does she work?" Jaune asked as he tried to get a weapon to unfold.
Ruby had invited him to go to a shooting range located within Beacon after making sure that Weiss was comfortable, and Blake had been picked to stay behind to watch if Weiss needed something- and Ruby had made sure to evacuate the area with sufficient haste before Blake could object to her new assignment.
Unfortunately for Ruby, Pyrrha had decided to tag along the pair, or more rather she had decided to follow Jaune around and had ended up in the shooting range as well.
Rivalry had followed almost immediately as Pyrrha had asked if Jaune wanted to try shooting with her rifle-spear, and Ruby had puffed her cheeks and expressed her desire to show Jaune how to fire a real weapon, namely her Crescent Rose.
Which had meant that Jaune was stuck between rock and a hard place as he tried to assure both girls that their weapons were great while trying to keep peace- all the while trying to learn how to use the pair of unique hybrid weapons the girls had.
"So… I pull this lever, and flick this switch to…" Jaune wanted to make sure he was doing everything right as he aimed through Crescent Rose's scope at a cardboard Beowolf target two hundred feet away.
"...You pull the charging handle back to load a round in, and let it slide forwards. The switch controls the adjustable recoil dampener." Ruby clarified. "Make sure that the recoil dampener is at maximum setting for your first shot, since you don't want to get thrown back by the recoil, right?"
It went without saying that if he managed to lose his grip on the weapon because of recoil and the weapon would get damaged as a result, Ruby would likely end up sad- and Jaune would very likely end up with a fist-sized hole in his face when Yang would discover that he made Ruby upset.
He braced himself and inconspicuously extended a pair of claws from the back of his feet to anchor himself on the concrete floor of the shooting ranges firing point, squeezed the trigger of the Crescent Rose gently… and completely missed the target as the gun kicked violently against his shoulder and face.
"Ow…" Jaune reached to rub his eye as the scope had impacted against his head from the force of the recoil, although he had managed to keep his hold on the weapon.
"Close one." Ruby cheered as she looked through a monocular at the target where dust had started to settle to reveal a sizeable crater in front of the target on the heavy sand. "Adjust three point two degrees up and one point one to left…"
"Uh, how do I do that?" Jaune asked as he looked at the smoking crater that the high-explosive round had left in front of the Beowolf target. The sand that the firing range used to cover the ground in front of the targets had considerable amount of lead so it would resist impacts from Dust rounds and would not allow fires to spread if the cardboard targets would get lit on fire by the volatile shells.
'Sheesh… To think that Ruby regularly uses this thing without the recoil dampener on to augment her mobility with the recoil…' Jaune thought as Ruby put her monocular away. 'I think it's the Aura and channelling of it into her weapon that allows her to use it so easily... I'm fairly certain that a person without Aura couldn't even fire non-dampened Crescent Rose without breaking bones- although it's nice to see that she trusts me enough to allow me to handle it...'
"Adjusting fire is easy, just push this and…" Ruby reached to pluck Crescent Rose from his hands and she started to fiddle with some of the buttons on the side of the scope- but before she had managed to finish her calibrations Pyrrha had pushed her rifle-spear to Jaune's hands.
"Would you like to try out Miló?" Pyrrha asked with a smile. "She's slightly smaller than Crescent Rose, but I assure you that what she lacks in size and power she makes up with user friendliness."
"Sure." Jaune agreed while he tried to ignore the betrayed look Ruby sent him as he took the slender rifle, and Ruby hugged her Crescent Rose against her chest.
He could have sworn that Ruby muttered something along the lines of 'you're still cool in my eyes' to her sniper-scythe.
"So, you charge it like this, and…" Pyrrha instructed happily as she adjusted Jaune's stance and grip on her weapon. "...And now you're ready to fire."
"Thanks, Pyrrha." Jaune nodded at the girl, and Pyrrha stepped back slightly to allow him to take the shot.
He fired once, and managed to hit the corner of the cardboard target. "Whoa!"
"Good work." Pyrrha congratulated while Ruby seethed silently beside him.
"I could have taught you that…" Ruby grumbled as Jaune offered the gun back to Pyrrha, and Ruby took the chance to push Crescent Rose against his arms. "My turn!"
"Right." Jaune nodded, and lifted the sniper-scythe again. 'I could swear I'm forgetting something…'
The way Ruby sent a look at Pyrrha reminded him of Blake though, and the faunus's behaviour when he had been with Pyrrha in Vale… 'Oh. Right.'
He hadn't asked what Ruby felt towards him.
'…What if she likes me?' Jaune tried to think while he focused on his next shot at the cardboard Beowolf target. He pulled his face slightly back from the scope to avoid having it imprint itself on his eye, and squeezed the trigger gently… and the weapon spat fire at the target, obliterating it entirely. However more importantly, the weapon kicked back hard against his shoulder as he had forgotten to adjust the recoil dampener or anchor himself to the concrete in his distracted state, and as a result the weapon was knocked off his hands, and he fell over on the concrete floor…
...Or he would have fallen over, were it not for Pyrrha catching him mid-fall. Unfortunately his weight meant that the pair tumbled to the ground, although thanks to Pyrrha's training the descent was far more controlled than it would have been should he have fallen by himself.
"Thanks." Jaune nodded at the girl gratefully while trying to disentangle himself from her hug. "Are you alright?"
"I am, and you're welcome." Pyrrha smiled happily while stroking his hair, and her grip around his waist tightened the more he tried to get up. "We both caught what we wanted, right?"
Jaune was confused for a moment as to what Pyrrha meant, before he glanced upwards and saw Ruby hugging Crescent Rose against her chest as the red-clad girl had caught her weapon in mid air after it had slipped from his grip.
Ruby blinked once before looking at her weapon in her hug, and looking back at Jaune who was in Pyrrha's hug, and she blushed furiously while sending Pyrrha a hostile glare and puffing her cheeks.
'Right…' Jaune thought as he lifted himself up from the floor as Pyrrha's grip slipped. He turned around and offered the red-haired champion a hand to help her up as well. 'I'll have to find a moment to ask Ruby about her feelings… but how do I ask her, and what am I going to do if Ruby says yes?'
"Would you like to go train afterwards?" Pyrrha asked Jaune while Ruby pouted. "We haven't sparred properly since our first, erm, 'fight' during the combat class."
"I… Yeah, we could do that." Jaune answered while still deep in thought.
"I'm coming too!" Ruby decided and she holstered her Crescent Rose after removing the live Dust ammo from it's magazine and pushing few practise rounds in.
"Erm… sure. You're welcome, of course." Pyrrha smiled at Ruby, although Jaune caught a very miniscule whiff of annoyance from Pyrrha.
'I hope we can all get along with eachother…' Jaune sighed internally as he led the small group out of the firing range and towards the simulation rooms. He picked up his pair of training gauntlets from the Armory on the way there and strapped them to his arms and donned his metal chest-plate and shoulderpads.
"You're not going to use your Semblance to train?" Pyrrha asked carefully as he finished attaching the straps.
"Not this time, no." Jaune told her. "I figured that I'd get a bit more hand-to-hand training done. Just a personal preference." '...And I figured that Ruby would cheer up a bit if I used the weapons she made for me.' he added in his head, and glanced at Ruby who seemed to inspect his gear critically.
"Once again, thanks for making these for me. I appreciate it." Jaune told Ruby, and the girl started to smile a little after hearing his words.
"What arena would you two prefer?" Pyrrha asked as the trio arrived to the simulation room and Pyrrha pulled up her Scroll to prepare the room for activation.
"Come to think of it, both Ruby and I are from around Vale." Jaune mused. "Don't you feel a bit homesick?"
"Me?" Pyrrha's eyes widened slightly. "I… I guess? I haven't really had a chance to think about my family back in Mistral..."
"I was wondering if we could use some Mistralian arena to make you feel a bit more 'at home?'" Jaune followed up with his question, and saw as Pyrrha considered the possibility.
"...What's Mistralian scenery like?" Ruby asked as she had stepped up beside Pyrrha and was looking up at her.
"Well… Mistralian arenas usually had sand as floor. It's a old tradition dating to more violent ages where the championship fights were fought to death, rather than to low Aura level like nowadays, and sand made it harder to slip if… when... either of the combatants stained the ground with blood." Pyrrha told Ruby and Jaune. "The arena's are on level with the crowds which would gather around the arena, making it vastly different from the way Vale does combat arenas where the arena floor is on lower level than the observing crowd. I figured that in the past, the combatants in Vale might not always have erm… consensually agreed to fight, and the arena setup was made to prevent either of the fighters from fleeing to the crowd."
Pyrrha pressed her finger on her Scroll, and the featureless simulation room came to life and scenery started to form around them.
"Mistral's combat circle would allow the fighters to exit the combat ring at any time, although it was quite rare for either party to do so as it would bring dishonor to the combatant, their family and their sponsors. It would be seen as trading your honor and worth for your life." Pyrrha explained as the metal floor was replaced with sand. "Of course, in the days past it was quite dangerous setup for observers since there was no way of restricting stray shots or projectile attacks from veering off course and hitting the crowd- which also meant that quite few projectile weapons were banned from the arena fights until the recent advances in Dust engineering made it possible to generate a energy shield around the arena to block stray shots from hitting the crowd."
"It's pretty." Ruby said as she looked up where the bland room had been replaced with sunny blue sky where Mistralian flags waved in the faint breeze, held high by a series of wooden arcs and poles.
Jaune looked around to see that they were standing on a combat ring made of from sand. The outer edge of the combat ring was decorated with stone tiles, signalling the edge of the arena, and all around them were empty seats made for crowds of people who would come and watch the fight, were it a real location and not just the simulation room. Tall wooden arcs decorated the entrances to the arena, and he saw a large mountain in the distance.
Houses and palaces decorated the mountain's side and top, and he lifted his hand over his eyes to block the sun so he could see the distant mountain-city better.
"That's the city of Mistral." Pyrrha explained as she put her Scroll away. "This arena is set on the outskirt of the city, although there are scenes for various Mistralian environments as well pre-programmed into the simulation room. The room mimics the surrounding scenery quite nicely, although if you tried to leave the boundaries you'd hit a wall. Literally."
"Is this where you lived?" Jaune asked curiously. "I mean the city, not the simulation room."
"Yes. My father and mother were Hunters, and could afford a fairly decent housing in the city because of the high wage they were able to pull from their missions." Pyrrha nodded, and pointed at a relatively large palace on the side of the mountain. "We live in the upper middle class's level- if you don't know, the city of Mistral works by levels, like how city of Vale works by districts. The low levels of the city are closest to the wilderness, and are infested with cut-throats, drug dealers and criminals. The lowest levels also house the poor, and the sick."
She sighed. "Nevertheless, the higher you go, the nicer it gets up until you reach the emperor's place and the Haven Academy."
"That sounds… tough." Ruby said as she looked towards the huts on the lower part of the distant city. "Isn't anyone interested in helping the people in the lower parts?"
"Many have tried, and the city does keep peace in the lower levels with the help of police and the Hunters, but generally the… unpleasant… parts of the populace tend to migrate back soon after the city finishes exterminating the criminal elements."
"So the lower levels have become something that people just accept and move on with their daily lives." Jaune said.
"Well… yes." Pyrrha looked somewhat sad as she said it. "While I don't approve of it, I've heard my father speaking that it is also a mean of controlling the population growth… so that there would never be too much people in the city."
"Too much people?" Ruby asked warily. "What do you mean?"
"A city can only house so much people before you start running out of space and food." Pyrrha said as she turned towards the city. "If you have too many people in too small space… things tend to get ugly eventually. Fights. Riots. Starvation… and all of that attracts the Grimm."
"So the city's government sends people off to the lower levels… to die." Jaune said, and felt a surge of anger inside him. "They are feeding people to the Grimm and the criminals!"
"I… I don't think they have a choice though, and I wouldn't say that they are deliberately sending people to their deaths." Pyrrha said. "It's that they have to do something, or risk a Grimm invasion and civil unrest. Plus, the city of Mistral offers the people who aren't doing all that well monetarily a choice to migrate to the villages and towns outside Mistral, as alternative to getting pushed to the lower level of the city."
"Villages like Shion… where they risk bandits and Grimm." Jaune sighed as he rubbed his temple. "Right... "
"...I don't like it." Ruby said as she looked at the city of Mistral with burning silver eyes. "Stopping this kind of thing is why I wanted to become a Huntress in the first place."
"Yeah." Jaune agreed and he patted Ruby's back reassuringly. "Me too… Well, to stop the bandits and Grimm, to be exact."
"The procedure is largely the same in all four kingdoms as well." Pyrrha's voice broke them off their thoughts. "Vale does the same as well with her frontier villages and towns."
'Hold on, doesn't that mean that if…' "So theoretically if my sisters didn't make enough money in Vale, they could be shipped off into the frontier towns?" Jaune asked.
"I think so, yes." Pyrrha confirmed. "Which is why I wanted to help with their finances as well, if possible. I wouldn't want your sisters to face that kind of a problem."
"Uh…. that sounds pretty bad." Ruby said quietly. "I mean, I can help too!" she added as she seemed to realize what Pyrrha had offered.
"Thanks." Jaune sighed in relief. "But… I wouldn't want to put a drain on your resources…"
A finger pressed against his lips cut him off.
"Shush, I'll decide what I do with my money." Pyrrha smiled at him as she pulled her finger off. "We're not so different after all. My home is in the city of Mistral, in a fairly decent spot and yours is in Vale, in a fairly decent spot- even if your home is a bit run-down. Besides, I'm sure your sisters would like if your family's house was renovated a bit, right?"
"Yeah, I suppose so." Jaune reached to grab Pyrrha's hand. "Thanks, I appreciate it."
"So uh… Can we start with the training? Guys?" Ruby asked as she hopped between Pyrrha and Jaune, effectively pulling the two apart.
"Yeah."
Meanwhile in the Beacon's dorms, or more specifically in team SABR's dorm-room.
"So…" Blake drawled as she pretended to do schoolwork while lying on her bed, and Weiss pretended to do schoolwork while lying in her own bed as well.
Pretend being the keyword as Blake could tell what the ex-heiress was reading without even taking a look- the way Weiss's breathing quickened momentarily from time to time, the way she paused for a moment before changing the pages, and the lack of scratch of a pencil against paper all signalled to Blake that Weiss was doing something else than studying, and she was fairly sure that she knew what the white-haired girl was doing.
"Weiss."
"What?" Weiss's answer was slightly too fast, and Blake nodded knowingly to herself.
"So, how's that book I 'borrowed' to you?" Blake asked without looking over the edge of her bed.
"What!" Blake heard a rumble and swoosh of cloth, and she knew that a certain book had disappeared under the white-haired girl's blanket. "I… I wasn't reading that! I was… studying history!"
"I'm certain you were."
"...I was!"
"...Page 174 has a nice scene…"
"..."
"Let me know if you want to 'borrow' more."
"Shut up!"
"...Just remember to change the sheets afterwards." Blake smirked.'This is almost too easy…'
"I am not the one doing indecent things in the dormroom!" Weiss protested.
"I am not!" she repeated as Blake was quiet.
"I didn't say anything…"
"...Grhhhh…"
Blake's smirk grew wider as she heard Weiss's growling… but she wiped her smirk off as she thought about what she needed to say next.
"Weiss."
"...What."
"I am dating Jaune."
"...I thought that was obvious." Weiss's words dripped sarcasm.
"I'm serious." Blake said while moving to look at the ex-heiress over the edge of the bed. Weiss had a sizeable blush on her cheeks and she was looking at her schoolbook with a stubborn expression while the shape of book Blake had shown to the girl was showing through her blanket.
"Did you think your relationship was secret?" Weiss asked icily. "I believe it was fairly obvious from the moment I discovered you two… reproducing… in our dorm-room's shower?"
"It wasn't like that!" Blake's eyes flashed dangerously even as her cheeks grew red. "We started dating just two days ago!"
"So you two had an affair for a full month before even choosing to date each other?"
"Grh, fine." Blake gave an exasperated sigh. 'Stupid, bullheaded… argh…' "Just… I thought that I'd let you know about it. If our relationship causes problems with our team mechanics... If… If my 'thing' with Jaune doesn't work, I don't want to cause a split in our team because of it."
"So… you're telling me to prepare for a possibility that you two would break up and I'm left with the job of picking up the pieces and keeping the team from fracturing?" Weiss's tone could have frozen lava.
"Pretty much." Blake said.
"Fine, let's just add that to the pile on my desk, as if that wasn't reaching sky-high at this point already." Weiss groaned. "Just… what made you think that your relationship with Jaune would change?"
"Erm…"
"Do you suspect that he has an affair or something?" Weiss asked sceptically.
"Uh… Well..."
"Spit it out." Weiss growled at Blake as the faunus's courage failed her momentarily.
"I'm sort of dating Pyrrha and dating Jaune at the same time." Blake sighed finally. "And I'm not sure if it's going to work o..."
"Wait, you're the one having an affair?!" Weiss's screech interrupted Blake's speech.
"And Jaune is dating Pyrrha while he is dating me." Blake added.
"You both have an affair with the same girl?!"
"Well… sort of. We both know about it though."
"Arghhh…" Weiss slumped down on her bed with a tortured groan. "Can we please stop already… I can't take much more of this."
"I wanted to make sure that you knew about it."
"...Fine." Weiss sent a reprimanding look at Blake. "Fine. Thank you for trusting me with the information. I guess that you want to keep it secret from the others since you didn't tell me about this when the rest of our team and RYNN were here?"
"Yeah." Blake nodded seriously. "I'd like to keep our… 'arrangement' private for now- but I felt that I needed to let you to know about it."
"Why are you telling me this though?" Weiss asked. "You've always seemed like a very private person, why the change of heart?"
"It's… Well. I was very private person when I was in White Fang and even after I left them…" Blake acknowledged. "But I've tried to change my way because I saw what could happen if I just kept to myself back when I was captured by the Fang. I'm trying to open up a bit more, to become a part of our team… because I feel that if I don't, then the next time something like that happens we may not be as fortunate and get off with just a scare and few bruises."
"So you're actively trying to change yourself for the better." Weiss nodded. "I can respect that, at least."
"Thank you." Blake murmured and silence descended between the two for a while.
"Sheesh…" Weiss sighed finally. "What a mess this has become… so if I get this right, you and Pyrrha are dating each other and Jaune at the same time. I told Winter that I was dating a Grimm, which is in fact Jaune, and on top of that Ruby is trying to go for Jaune as well..."
"Yeah…" Blake tilted her head at Weiss. "It does sound a bit… unusual, now that you say it."
'And you 'forgot' to mention the way you keep sending looks at Ruby…' Blake added in her head.
"Haah…" Weiss groaned tiredly as she reached for a jug of water Blake had put next to her bed, and the sick white-haired girl filled her glass with citrus-scented water.
"Just how did you manage to convince Pyrrha to go along with that kind of arrangement? I thought she was someone who would be above such depravity." Weiss asked as she sipped her water carefully.
"Well… it was a odd one." Blake sighed as she pulled her head back and lied down on her bed again. The soft sheets felt nice and smooth against her back as she thought about her next words. "I guess it just happened."
She could practically feel Weiss's eyes drilling a hole in her bed and in her back, which prompted her to continue. "We were on a date, and Pyrrha decided to come along. I didn't really want her to be there since… well, I had some plans in place, but in the end I yielded to her presence."
"And?"
"We went to Jaune's home after a small hassle in Vale's trade district, and… we got kind of drunk." Blake sighed. "Just for the record, Jaune's twin sisters are more dangerous than they look. Always be on your guard around them."
"Go on." Weiss huffed. "I am not interested in your revelry with alcohol."
"Well… the twins suggested that Pyrrha, Jaune and I would try and date each other at the same time, and at the time we were too drunk to make rational decisions." Blake curled and uncurled her fingers in front of her face. "And… we got a bit too into it. We woke up the next day in Jaune's bed, and after a bit of hesitation decided to along with the twin's idea for the time being."
"Would I be correct if I assumed that you pushed miss Nikos into accepting such outrageous proposal?" Weiss asked, and Blake felt a surge of irritation towards the white-haired girl from her accusatory tone.
"No, it was actually Pyrrha who decided to go along with the arrangement." Blake hissed, and Weiss fell quiet. "I was against it at first, but Jaune… Jaune wanted to give it a chance, so I went along with it."
"You sound like that you're not happy with it?" Weiss asked, and Blake let her hand fall down on her chest.
"It's… just not something I've ever considered really." Blake sighed. "I would have said no and let that be the end of it if Jaune had tried to brute force his way to a three-way relationship, but I felt that he tried to genuinely find a way for both Pyrrha and me to be happy."
"...I see." Weiss's tone was neutral. "But you didn't answer my question, really. Are you happy with your… arrangement?"
"I'm not sure yet." Blake said while looking up at the white ceiling. "I haven't had time to make my mind about it… but Pyrrha seems like decent enough of a person, if overly polite, although I have feeling that Pyrrha is hiding something behind that smile of hers. Something more terrifying than just loneliness. And Jaune is… well, Jaune. He's basically a knight in shining armour, except his armor is made from the stuff of nightmares, and instead of being cool he's kind of…well, Jaune. But he tries his best to make everyone around him happy."
"That's a fairly apt description of him at least." Weiss's voice was slightly amused, although she paused afterwards to sneeze. "Well, tell me in advance if your relationship is going to fail spectacularly so I can prepare for the inevitable fallout… and please, try to not have it happen during a mission."
"Thanks for listening though. I appreciate it."
"I figured that I'd need to listen to your troubles if I wanted to be a proper leader who at least pretends to care about her underlings." Weiss's voice was sarcastic and Blake nodded internally as she recognized the friendly banter for what it was.
"I'm so grateful to have so thoughtful leader." Blake snarked back as she turned around in her bed. "Also, in case If you're interested, that book I 'lent' you has a sequel as well…"
"I take back all I said…" Weiss grumbled to her tissue, and Blake smirked as she picked her book up again, and heard a shuffle as Weiss pulled 'her' book from under her blanket as well.
She even tried to be sneaky about it.
Blake found it incredibly adorable.
Next Chapter- around 25th.
Slightly slow chapter mainly because of work exhaustion which left a bit less energy for the writing so I kept the pace a bit slower instead of jumping to things that were hinted in the chapter.
Omake:
It was a disaster.
"Oh no! I'm so sorry!"
"Ew! I mean watch out!" Ruby dashed forwards, and her hands slipped, sending an object flying. "Gross!"
"I'll grab it!" Pyrrha said, but her grip failed on the slippery and wet object, and it flew off again. "Ah, sorry, that was my fault!"
It was a complete disaster.
They, Pyrrha, Ruby and Jaune, had been training in the simulation room for a while until Jaune had suggested that they could try training with bladed weapons, and Ruby had agreed as hand-to-hand really wasn't her strong point. It had gone well enough for a while, until Jaune's guard had slipped slightly and Pyrrha had exploited the opening to slash her sword at Jaune… and she remembered too late that Jaune's Aura didn't offer any protection.
Which was why they were playing dodgeball with Jaune's severed head as the attack had effectively launched the boy('s head) into the air and was currently in state where Ruby and Pyrrha were trying to chase after the slippery object of their more-or-less hidden affection.
The chase of the identified flying object turned out to be slightly harder than it seemed as the blood from the wound made the head quite slippery, and both of the girls tended to have a habit of instinctively throwing the head away when it twitched or moved, or whenever they actually managed to catch it.
'I'll seriously need to do something about this soon…' Jaune thought while he flew in the air as a severed head for what had felt like minutes. 'Then again, without lungs I can't scream… Or can I?'
"I've got an idea!" Jaune glanced the best he could towards Ruby who had unfolded her Crescent Rose to rifle configuration and was waving it around like a baseball bat. "Get ready to catch him, Pyrrha!"
Jaune really didn't like the maniacal look Ruby had in her eyes, nor the shadow that had fallen over Pyrrha's face.
…
"Right." Emerald Sustrai whispered to herself as she closed the door to the simulation room very, very quietly. She had planned to go visit the simulation room and set up a beach resort scene, grab a bit of cold juice and have herself a vacation-in-disguise. A quick glance at a pair of red-headed girls playing dodgeball inside the deactivated simulation room quickly put an end to those thoughts. Specifically when the severed head the girls had used as a ball had somehow started to scream mid-air, and the headless body lying on its own blood on the steel floor had started to twitch.
"Oookay, I didn't see that, I didn't see that…" Emerald muttered to herself as she walked away from the simulation room, intending on finding the nearest source of hard liquors to wipe away what she had seen just now.