A/N: Before this chapter starts, a big shout-out goes to Mystech Master and Will DeGrave for their suggestions that helped me out when thinking about this and the next oncoming chapter! With that said, I hope you enjoy!
Heart Aino was a girl with one defining personality trait. That was, of course, her obsession with love. It was such an ingrained facet of her personality, it was a scientific impossibility for her to ever think of anything else.
As such, it didn't take a genius to figure out that her favorite holiday of them all was naturally the day dedicated to celebrate love and romance: Valentine's Day. Such an obvious fact it was, every one of Heart's friends knew that it would be dangerous to be around her, since that was the day she let all sense of restrictions fly and practically begged her friends to find somebody to call a Valentine. Having so many friends now after the Phantom Field incident, Heart knew that she was going to have to get at least a single couple together if she would be able to sleep that night. Half a dozen to feel satisfied. And about a full dozen to feel genuinely happy.
The only one from Heart's inner circle that had yet to experience the terrifying force of nature that was the Extraordinary Rare Maiden on Valentine's Day, was the Valkyria Weiß. The albino colored girl had actually been headed to Heart's bakery home that day in the hopes of baking something for Scharlachrot, Eko, and her other friends in honor of the coming holiday. Little did she know the insanity that would come next.
"Excuse me," Weiß said, entering the bakery. "Sorry to disturb you Commander, but I was just-"
"Wei-Wei!" Heart said, manifesting directly a few inches in front of Weiß's face, before grabbing her firmly by the shoulders! "Perfect timing! Get your butt over here!"
Suddenly, Weiß found herself tugged by Heart right over to the kitchen, everything becoming a blur of speed that would astonish even the likes of Linne or Ruby in terms of velocity! Weiß looked at a large assortment of baking goods sprinkled around, creating quite the mess around the counters and the stove, seeming that Heart was doing only the bare minimum to keep the place standing, but was totally inconsiderate towards everything else, not caring one bit for keeping basic cleanliness.
"Okay!" Heart said. "Here's what I got! So, with Valentine's Day coming, I'm gonna set up a great festival around the city! I am sure that I can cut a deal with Petra to close off a large section for us to have a party and get everyone else over here! We'll have a lot of games set up all over the place, it'll be like something you'd see in Golden Week!"
"But! Here's the important thing! We ne~ed to get some of these budding couples together!"
"So! I think that it'd be best if we maybe confer with some of the shinobi girls to set up a plan and get them to help us subtly nudge them towards each other! And then, push them into a lot of the games and activities around the area!"
"With the Valentine's Day season, I feel the power of Partinias coursing through me! There is no way that on that day of all days, that these couples won't finally blossom into a beautiful relationship of love!"
"What do you think!?"
Weiß had been keeping silent, more silent than usual, to listen to what Heart had in store. The exaggerated nature in which Heart was bouncing around like a chipmunk on a caffeine buzz was certainly entertaining, and at it's core not too far from normal for her, but the distinctly crazed look in her eyes was putting Weiß on edge. The Valkyria was concerned that she was actually going to have to knock out Heart if her ranting became too much for her to handle.
But at the moment at least, Heart was not hurting Weiß or herself. She had actually stopped talking and was standing in front of Weiß in a vain attempt to catch her breath, looking at the pale girl with a wanting look in her eyes.
Weiß held a finger up in the air and took a breath, before ascertaining what she should say. "Excuse me a minute," she said. She walked carefully into the main room, pulling out her phone.
Saki was walking calmly through the streets of the Kingdom of Vale, her scarf tied around her neck and a warm winter coat thrown over her shoulders to fight off the chill. It was much colder in Japan than it was in Vale, seeing that with their more futuristic technology, Vale was able to heat the streets and buildings. But, that still kept a seasonal coldness appropriate for the later half of Winter.
Sometimes, on occasion, she would need a moment to herself to think for some time. And in recent days, these few excursions were much needed.
Heart had gotten quite attached to the number of individuals that were met after the Phantom Field incident, and that certainly did make Saki happy. To see one of the only people that Saki truly cared about getting so excited to have so many new people to know. But that only made things harder for Saki when it came to interacting with them on her own.
Normally, Saki could be fairly cold and withdrawn, never really interacting with people in the wild. It was Heart that helped gave her an excuse to interact with people in the first place. But Heart was the only person that Saki ever really got close to. Even the other individuals in Heart's friend group like Kamui, Lilica, Weiß, Maori and so on, Saki had a hard time interacting with organically.
But with so many individuals met from the Phantom Field occurrence, with so many people constantly flowing and shifting in their interactions, Saki had a hard time figuring out what she should do now. What lengths she might have to go to in order to get close to other people and actually gain more people to be close with in her life. If that was even a possibility for her at all.
"Oh, Saki!" a voice from nearby said. Saki turned and saw Yumi walking over to her from nearby, wearing her own assortment of winter clothing. "It's been awhile!"
"O-oh, yeah," Saki said. "It has been some time Yumi. What can I help you with? Are you looking for Heart at all?"
"No, not at all," Yumi said, shaking her head. "I was just in the neighborhood when I saw you walking by. And so I was wondering if you would like to talk? Although, I'm not interrupting you, am I?"
"N-no. No," Saki said, shaking her head. "But... d-don't you have your other teammates with you?"
"No," Yumi replied, shaking her head again. "While they're typically not too far away, I do take a few occasions to go on my own."
Saki adjusted her scarf in a vain attempt to hid her face. "O-okay," she said. "I can relate to that. So, I'd be happy to walk around for a bit."
However, she didn't do so much as take a single step before her phone started buzzing. Excusing herself for one moment, she answered. "Hello?" she asked.
"Terribly sorry to disturb you, Saki," Weiß said on the other line. "But I am very concerned about what the commander is currently doing and am at a loss for what I should do to handle the situation."
"Weiß?" Saki asked. "Wait... you said the commander so... Oh no, don't tell me. You went to see Heart, didn't you?"
"Correct," Weiß replied. "I was just going to see her to get some pastries as gifts for the others in honor of Valentine's Day, when she began to make a great number of declarations that were not unlike those of a megalomaniacal supervillain."
"Yeah, I was afraid of that," Saki said. "That's why most of us who're friends with Heart know to beat it when Valentine's comes around. Look, try your best to look after yourself and I'll come over as soon as I can."
"Very well," Weiß said, before hanging up.
"Sorry Yumi," Saki said, turning back to the ninja. "But I'm afraid that I have to go. I have a Heart situation going on back home that I have to handle. You know how it is."
"Oh, of course I do," Yumi said. "If any of my classmates were up to no good I would do the same thing. Well, good luck."
"Thank you," Saki said, before running back home.
Unbeknownst to either Saki or Heart, two out of the four members of the Investigation Team were headed towards the bakery for a similar purpose to what brought Weiß there as well. Yukiko and Chie were headed to the bakery to get some sweets for their boys, and some of their other guy friends as well, in honor of the upcoming holiday.
"So what do you think we should do?" Chie asked.
"What do you mean?" Yukiko asked.
"Well," Chie replied, "I mean, do we just go with the basic stuff? Do we get different candy for each individual person? Or do we just go with standard chocolate for everybody? I mean it's not like we have any boyfriends or just boys we like in general to give some chocolate to."
"That's true," Yukiko nodded. "Rise made that explicitly clear when she was in the chat room last night, in reference to how Yosuke-kun was able to get Makoto-chan to ask him out, meaning that all of the guys on our team save for Teddie just about has a girl. Which leaves us girls as distinctly unavailable."
"Yeah," Chie said, "I remember she targeted us two specifically in that statement. I also distinctly remember that you, me, and Naoto-kun were very quiet so as not to break the hard truth to her about Narukami-kun and Weiss-chan, since she's still convinced that she and Narukami-kun are soulmates or something."
"Best she learn in her own time," Yukiko said, waving off the comment. "But I will say, I'm not really that worried about finding that 'prince' of mine as I used to be. But of course I still want to have a boyfriend and eventually a husband in the future."
"Yeah," Chie said. "That's what I'm thinking about too. But I'd be lying if I said that you were going to have as hard a time as I will."
Chie didn't really bring that up again as the two finished walking toward the bakery. As they did, they saw a familiar figure pacing rather agitatedly in front of the bakery. "Is that Blake-chan?" Chie asked.
"Hey! Blake-chan!" Yukiko called.
Blake screeched to a halt in place, her back facing the other two, before she spun around and saw the others with a face that distinctly looked less like a cat and more like a deer in the headlights. Both girls from the Investigation Team closed the distance between the two of them, the front door of the bakery standing between them still.
"What're you doing here?" Chie asked, a cheeky grin on her face. "Looking for something for a certain guy, are ya?"
"N-n-n-n-n-nothing quite so much," Blake said, stuttering worse than Murakumo when her mask came off. "I-I-I-I-I was just thinking. Thinking really hard as a matter of fact. And I've decided in that thinking that I think I won't stick around any longer. Goodbye."
She promptly turned and began walking away, prompting Chie to crouch in a pouncing position! "Not so fast!" she said. She leapt after Blake, wrapping her hands around the faunus's waist and cause the two to tumble into a ball on the ground!
"You can't fool us!" Chie yelled. "We know you're here looking for something for Sun-kun!"
"Chie, let me go!" Blake said.
"Don't go dodging the truth!" Chie said. "Fess up and I'll let you go!"
"Oh, Blake-san!" Yukiko said, hands up to her chin in delight! "It's totally okay! We don't judge! You know that, so be honest!"
Blake gave a sigh of defeat, head reconnecting with the sidewalk. "Okay," she said. "I was looking for something for Sun. Not anything full-blown Valentine related, but I thought that I should at least get him a little something so he knows that I care."
"What do you think?" Chie asked Yukiko. "Think that sounds genuine enough?"
"What's that about being genuine!?" Blake demanded. "You said if I admitted it, you'd let me go! So let me go already!"
"Okay, she's right," Yukiko said. "Let her go, Chie."
"Eh, fine," Chie said, letting Blake go and standing back up.
"Thanks," Blake said curtly, dusting herself off.
Before anyone could say anything else, the front door burst open, with Heart looking at them with hungry eyes! "Ah! Perfect! Get in here!"
She proceeded to get everyone close and shoved them into the bakery, Chie only having enough time to release a surprised "Woah there!" before the door shut behind them, and they vanished from sight!
Little known fact about Tsubaki was the fact that she was pretty infatuated with Jin Kisaragi, Ragna's mentally damaged, murderous, uncouth, and overall just a total douchebag that nobody else ever wants to be around, younger brother. So Tsubaki wanted to do something with the coming day to show that she cared about him quite a bit, and maybe, just maybe, get a bit closer to him. Mai, Noel, and Makoto always encouraged Tsubaki to be closer and act more social, and while trying to be social with Jin was the equivalent of attempting to breathe in space with no help, Tsubaki at least wished to do something like that soon.
As she got close to the bakery that Heart Aino lived in, she saw somebody appearing quite conflicted as he waited on the outside. She hadn't quite memorized their names since she didn't spend nearly as much time "hanging out" with them as the others, but she was still able to recognize him as a member of the Investigation Team; specifically the brutish, blonde haired guy.
"Excuse me?" she asked, tapping him on the shoulder. He jumped and spun around, face redder than Tsubaki's own hair.
"O-oh, hey," Kanji replied. "Y-you're name's Tsubaki, yeah?"
"That is me," Tsubaki replied. "And you're one of the Investigation Team members, yes? Forgive me, I haven't memorized your name."
"It's okay," Kanji replied. "M-my name is Kanji Tatsumi."
"Lovely to meet you," Tsubaki greeted. "I take it, you were here to see Heart Aino for very much the same reason I was?"
"I-if you mean lookin' for a gift for someone than..." Kanji began, before letting out a sigh. "Yeah, I was. But I can't make myself go in there. It's way to freakin' embarrasing! 'Specially when I finally give it to her!"
"I understand," Tsubaki said, giving a nod. "I have had... similar reservations in coming out to the man I find myself smitten by. But I know it will hurt far worse to not be genuine with him than to continue hiding the feelings and risk him drifting even further away."
Kanji looked rather impressed by Tsubaki's philosophy, watching as she made her way to the front door. However, Heart stuck her head out the moment Tsubaki was about to grab the door handle! "Perfect!" she said. "Get in here!"
Next thing they knew, both Tsubaki and Kanji found themselves being shoved into the bakery by Heart, the door slamming shut on an empty street for the second time!
Ruby was the next one coming along, walking calmly down the street towards the bakery as her mind was full static. She kept coming up with ideas as to what she might do for Valentine's Day invading her mind, before she scratched them off and would begin to contradict herself the next instant. The main reason she was even headed over to the bakery in the first place was because she had no idea what she was even doing anymore.
She knew that Chie and Yukiko were there, and the hope was that she might be able to get some advice as to what she should do next. But of course, as it had happened numerous times by that point, Heart opened the door before Ruby could even grab the handle! "In!" the Rare Maiden said, shoving Ruby inside before she could even tell what was happening!
Inside the bakery, a good nunmber of individuals were merely chatting amongst themselves, looking rather confused by their current circumstances. Among them Ruby spotted Tsubaki, Blake, Weiß, Kanji, and her targets in Yukiko and Chie. Ruby noted that Heart had rushed off back to the kitchen, leaving Ruby totally on her own without a clue as to what exactly the point of that was.
Seeing one of her teammates, Ruby approached her first. "Uh, Blake?" she said. "What exactly is happening?"
"Heart's lost it," Blake replied. "Well, if she ever had it to begin with." Ruby merely looked confused.
"Since Valentine's Day is around the corner," Blake said, "Heart has gone full-blown overdrive in an attempt to make the holiday perfect."
"Oh... no..." Ruby said.
"Yes, that's what we're all thinking," Tsubaki said, standing beside Blake. "So most of us, namely Blake and myself, have been trying to keep her calm and not cause a disaster."
"Well... good luck with that," Ruby said. "Cause' I was on my way here for one reason, and I see them over that way."
Ruby left Tsubaki and Blake alone, as she made her way over to Yukiko and Chie. "Hey you two," Ruby greeted.
"Hey Ruby-chan," Chie greeted. "Man, can you believe Heart-chan?"
"Honestly, I could," Ruby replied. "She is a bit obsessed with love, if you couldn't tell."
"Yeah," Chie conceded. "Anyway, what's up?"
"Well..." Ruby said, thinking over what she might say, before she just ended up throwing in the towel and bowed in front of the two of them! "Please help me!" she said. "You both know so much more about this kinda thing than I do and I have nowhere else to turn!"
"Whoa, hold up," Chie said. "What're you asking Ruby-chan? Just so we're clear."
Ruby stood back up straight. "I need help" she said. "Valentine's Day is around the corner and I'm utterly clueless as to what I should do!"
A great number of clattering and crashing noises emanated from the kitchen, before Heart burst from the door with a look of sheer desperation on her face! "Tell! Me! Everything!" she demanded.
"Hey! Easy there!" Ruby said, fending off the Rare Maiden as she tried to get uncomfortably close to Ruby's face! "I don't have a specific guy in mind!"
"It's just... I know a lot of boys now, more than I've ever known in my life, all of them being pretty close to me. You got Jaune, Yosuke, Hyde, Yu, Kurogane, Sun, just to name a few. They're all very good friends to me and I don't know what I should do wit hthe holiday around the corner. Do I just avoid them, or do I do something for them? I've never really celebrated Valentine's Day altogether before now."
"What a waste!" Heart yelled. Ruby was stunned and let out a confused, "eh?" before Heart went on.
"One more time. What a waste!"
"Ru-Ru!" Heart said, grabbing Ruby by the arms. "You can't just go by without embracing the day of love!"
"We must rectify this!" Naturally, Heart had her own ulterior motives, given that Ruby was one of the primary targets of hers for her Valentine's plan. She still hadn't forgotten about her promise to Ruby about finding the Rose Red a boyfriend, and you didn't need to be a self-proclaimed love expert like Heart to see that Ruby and a certain Unknown Actor had an attraction to each other.
"E-easy Heart!" Ruby said, trying to get out of her grasp. "I came asking for help from Chie and Yukiko because they're more... relaxed?"
"Whatever do you mean?" Heart asked, actually confused.
"Don't worry Ruby-chan," Chie said. "We were already going to do something for Valentine's Day for the guys, so let us help you out."
"Correct," Yukiko said. "First of all, you don't have to only give things like chocolate to the boy you like. You can give chocolate to people you don't have a crush on too. Even girls."
"Ah! Thank goodness!" Ruby said in relief.
"Secondly," Yukiko said, "there's actually different kinds of chocolate you can give. First you have what's called Giri-choco, which is a quick, ready made chocolate you can give to people you care about."
"But then you have Honmei-choco. These are the ones you give to those you really are in love with! Typically they're expensive, fancy, or homemade. If they're homemade or not also bears significance."
"Oh~!" Ruby and Heart said at once.
"Eh?" Yukiko wondered.
She was surprised as they were all looking at her with wide eyes and eager expressions!
"Yuki-Yuki knows so much!" Heart said.
"Yeah Yukiko!" Ruby said. "You're so smart!"
Yukiko giggled, a bit of a blush creeping on her cheels. "Well," she said, "when I was younger I did a lot of research."
"Say!" Heart said. "We should all make chocolate for everybody!"
"Huh," Blake said, meeting her eyes with Tsubaki and Weiß. "That... actually sounds pretty sweet."
"Exactly!" Heart said. "That way I can even more subtly push the couples together without anyone knowing!"
"Huh?" everyone else wondered. Heart looked around, a sweat drop appearing on her forehead.
"None of you heard that," she said.
"All the same," Tsubaki said, "Heart's suggestion sounds good. Perhaps we can all work together on that."
As the girls continued to converse, Kanji stood on the corner waiting to himself. He wasn't the most comfortable being the only guy in the room, as all the other girls continued speaking animatedly to one another. However, salvation soon arrived as he got a call on his phone.
"Hello?" he answered.
"Kanji. Need your help. Now," Sun's voice on the other line said.
"Huh?" Kanji wondered. "Sun-senpai? What's up?"
"We got a situation," Sun replied, "and need your help asap."
"What's the situation?" Kanji asked.
"It's Seth," Sun replied. "I need your point of view to help him."
"Really?" Kanji asked. "You need my point of view?"
"Yeah," Sun replied. "Just help me with the little nutball if you could."
"Okay," Kanji said. "I'm on my way."
After Kanji hung up, he did his part to try and excuse himself, receiving help from the likes of Blake and Chie to do so, as Heart was very adamant about him staying. Soon enough though, he took his leave, and the girls continued to work on making chocolate for the upcoming holiday.
Later That Same Day:
Saki finally ended up finishing the long trek from the Kingdom of Vale toward her resident Japan, before arriving at the bakery. As she arrived, she saw the familiar face of Weiss Schnee standing in front of her, walking towards the bakery from the opposite side of the entrance.
"Hello Saki," Weiss greeted. "Here to see Heart, are you?"
"Yes," Saki replied. "Weiß called me and said that she was losing her cool a bit. How about you?"
"Oh," Weiss replied, not matching Saki's gaze. "Just here to pick something up."
Truth be told, Weiss had previously ordered some sweets to be prepared ahead of time that she would give to her teammates, as well as a few to her closer friends outside of her team like Pyrrha, Hyde, and of course Yu.
"Alright then," Saki said. "Let's head in and... hope that you can get what you're looking for without trouble."
Well, sure enough there was trouble. As the Arcana user and Huntress-in-training entered, they both could not believe what they were seeing. The entire kitchen interior had gotten positively coated in chocolate that was sliding or dripping from the ceiling or walls. And of course, as if she were actually surprised by this, Weiss found her partner and leader was at the center of it, along with Heart herself, plus Chie, Tsubaki, Weiß, Yukiko, and Blake of all people.
The sight was enough to make Weiss have to repress a loud exclamation, something that Saki could easily pick up on, as both were wondering what could have possibly happened here to cause such a disaster. And while Weiss could voice this question, at the moment she was just struggling to keep her temper in check.
Here she was, just coming to pick up some preordered treats for the upcoming holiday and of course something like this happened. Ruby noticed her teammate's rage coming off of her, giving little more than a nervous chuckle in response. "H-hey Weiss," she said. "Uh... I can explain."
Weiss continued her steady breathing. "Talk. Now," she said firmly.
"We were on a date!" Heart said, licking chocolate from her hand.
"It was not a date!" Chie said, before slipping on some of the dripping chocolate and falling flat on her face!
"What else would you call it?" Tsubaki asked, wiping chocolate from her dress.
"Well..." Yukiko said, rubbing her head. "We were trying to help some of these guys out..."
From there, they did their part to try and explain the situation that had happened prior that afternoon to the heiress, who was doing her part to be patient as she listened to what they had to say. "So let me get this straight," Weiss said. "You managed to do this - this! - just by trying to make chocolate for the others?"
"Y-yes, that's the gist of it," Tsubaki said, attempting to stand up, only to slip and fall again.
"In all fairness," Blake added, back against the counter as a brace while she removed her filthy bow, "those like Tsubaki, Weiß, and myself were trying to keep Chie and Yukiko from killing somebody with their ingredients, which left those like Heart all-but unrestrained."
"Just be thankful Noel wasn't here," Tsubaki added from the floor. "Or else we'd without a prayer."
Weiss whistled to get their attention once more! "How did you even do this much!?" she demanded.
"Well..." Heart replied. "First we were just making enough chocolate for the boys. But then we thought, 'hey! What's stopping us from making some for each other, or our girlfriends too?' So we added more. And then we thought about our other friends and teachers like Mitsuru-san, Aigis-san, Ragna-san, Petra-san, Qrow-san. And then-!"
"Okay! Okay! Enough!" Weiss said. "I get it! Your list just kept getting bigger and you had no sense of restraint!"
"I'm sorry Weiss," Ruby said.
"Well it's not like we can discipline you for this," Saki said. "And they did have the best of intentions," she added specifically to Weiss. The heiress herself sighed, resigned to that statement.
"True enough," she said. "It's just... weird. Let's just see if we can get this place cleaned up. Then maybe we'll see if we can continue making that chocolate without any more catastrophes."
Agreeing that was fair enough, the girls got to work cleaning the kitchen. Once the place was totally clean, with Saki able to better keep Heart relaxed than anyone else, they were able to begin creating chocolate for the entire crew.
Still having plans for the rest of that afternoon, on top of having wasted enough time as it was with helping clean up the kitchen, Weiss got the preordered food from Heart, the Extraordinary Rare Maiden acting appropriately repentant.
"Sorry for bugging you, Wei-Wei," she said.
"It's okay," Weiss replied. "Just please... when it actually is Valentine's Day, don't spaz out like you did here?"
"I'll... try," Heart said.
"And that's all I ask," Weiss replied, before turning and taking her leave.
Eventually, the group finished their chocolate, having made enough to satiate everyone no doubt. They broke off different groups of chocolate for as many individuals as they could think of. A few members of the group took a few of their chocolate piles with them; Chie and Yukiko taking their chocolate for the rest of their team, Ruby and Blake taking some for their teammates and other close friends like Team JNPR and Sun and Neptune, etc. and Tsubaki took her chocolate for her friends from the military and such.
As they took their leave, Heart once again listed off a great number of apologies, saying how she was sorry for being a bit overeager. The others were naturally alright with her, saying that there was no reason for her to be so sorry, before they left. However, even as they left, Heart was still pleased with herself for being just the slightest bit cheeky.
For you see, she left a few specific labels on some of the chocolate for a few of the individuals. The amount of chocolate that had to be made naturally required multiple pots to be prepared, and Heart did her own on the side that was meant for a very special reason.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, she had made some of that "special chocolate" that Yukiko had mentioned for a few specific individuals. And nobody would be any the wiser until the partners that she had listed out had already received their presents.
The success of her scheme was enough to cause the pink haired girl to nearly laugh maniacally. But she would certainly wait to revel in her success until she saw everything all come together on the holiday itself.
Epilogue: A Few Hours Ago.
Kanji arrived at the place where Sun had told him to meet up at, seeing that the monkey tailed faunus was chilling on a bench with Seth himself in the middle of Kanzakai. Seth looked disinterested, as per general, while Sun looked a little tired.
"So..." Kanji said. "What's going on guys?"
"Oh, hey Kanji," Sun greeted. "Perfect timing. The problem here is that Seth is being antisocial... still."
"Oh really?" Kanji asked. "Wait, why do you need my help with that?"
"Cause," Sun replied, "Valentine's Day is coming obviously, and I've been hard pressed to convince this guy to hang out with us."
"Well," Kanji said, "while I can understand that given Seth's behavior in the past, why are you trying to force this? You know he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to."
"Which is precisely," Seth added, "what I've been trying to tell him for the past forty-five minutes."
"Hey," Sun said, "you stay out of this. This isn't about you."
"Then what is it about, you idiot?" Seth demanded.
"Anyway," Sun added, "I was hoping you could help with some advice."
"Why me?" Kanji asked.
"Because," Sun replied, "you're not the biggest social butterfly of them all, but you're at least willing to try and interact with others. So maybe you can help give him some perspective?"
Kanji looked at Seth, who still looked like he would rather be anywhere else at the moment. The Gentle Beast took a breath as he sat on the assassin's left side on the bench, leaning back against the rest. "Well," he said, "why exactly are you against it?"
"What do you mean?" Seth asked. "I'm against 'hanging out' with you all because it's pointless for me. I'm an assassin of the Night Blade. I live by my mission. Nothing more, nothing less."
"Well," Kanji said, "that sounds like a pretty lonely existence."
"Perhaps it is," Seth replied. "What's your point?"
"All I'm saying," Kanji said, "is that I lived kinda like that for awhile myself."
This actually prompted Seth to raise an eyebrow. "Really?" he asked. "You don't seem the type."
"And at my heart, I'm not," Kanji replied. "But for awhile I tried to be. For a bit of time, I pushed everyone else away and purposefully made them afraid of me. I tried making myself out to look like this bad guy so that way people wouldn't try to mess with me. But that changed after I met my senpai."
"Now I got people I can be close to and learn from. And I've only met more of them since then. I realized that trying to keep everyone else away from me was a really stupid idea and there was no reason for me to be so afraid of other people."
"So what's so special about you that you can't even let yourself have a few friends?"
Seth looked at the ground, appearing quite thoughtful over what Kanji had said to him. He'd thought about that quite a bit in his life. To what extent did his mission constitute him being away from others in life? But every time he thought about it, he always came back to the same reason.
"I can't allow it," he said. "I don't deserve it."
"And why is that?" Sun asked. Seth was silent in reply.
"You know," Sun said, "Blake thought a bit like that at one point." He smirked proudly as this obviously got Seth's attention.
"At first," Sun added, "she didn't really have the intention on getting close to the rest of Team RWBY. She kept to herself and never really let a whole lot of information out. But you know what changed?"
"What?" Seth asked.
"She got friends," Sun said. "Friends that were willing to break through and learn about what exactly it was that she was so afraid of, whether she wanted to or not. Because at the end she needed to, and they knew this."
Seth looked at Sun in the eye, a silent understanding coming between the two. "Okay fine," Seth said. "If you insist. But don't expect me to go hounding somebody like that plush doll."
"We wouldn't," the others replied.
"And that's not what we're asking," Kanji added.
"All we ask," Sun began, but Seth cut him off.
"Is at least to try," Seth said. "And I will. But I make no promises of actually opening up at all."
And that was enough for both Kanji and Sun to accept. The willingness to try. And despite his overall reluctance and expectancy for no major revelation to come, the Unseen Assassin would experience something that would certainly lead to a major "investigation" to be had in the future. But that's another story.
To Be Continued...
A/N: Hey there! So, we got Part 1 of a 2 Part Valentine's Day chapter! Yeah, I had a feeling from the get-go that this was probably going to be a multi-part chapter, and wouldn't you know it, we got exactly that. Okay, to be fair, this probably didn't need to be a multi-part chapter, but I figured that'd be easier and have a bit more coherency, considering that this chapter is most of the set-up for the holiday itself while the next part will be more of the overall payoff. So you can look forward to that in the future. ;)
As for this chapter, I had a lot of fun writing out Heart's psychotic energy in this chapter! I mean, anyone with half a brain could figure out that this love addict would be so excited to celebrate Valentine's Day! Not to mention she is the resident shipping maniac, so it's obvious that she would attempt to get everyone together! Not to mention, those trying to just celebrate the holiday in a fairly unassuming manner would end up getting a bit overwhelmed by her high energy!
I did try to work in a bit more characterization about Saki and Seth, with Saki getting a bit more detail about her own social awkwardness, and Seth for more of a direct reason why he tries to avoid everyone else. But outside of that, I think the chapter overall speaks for itself.
With that all said and done, I do hope you enjoyed! And like I said, stay tuned for the next chapter where we get the real holiday celebration! Hopefully pretty soon too!
Review Time!
Before we really get started, I would just like to start out by thanking those of you who have left questions for the cast! They've all been great and I will release a Q&A soon!
To fernandamichelleraya: Yeah, after having some serious procrastination issues starting up RWBY Vol. 7, I realized that I'd been neglecting poor Penny Polendina this whole time, so I figured I should try getting her some more focus, and figured she'd be a good non-biased source for Yosuke to confide in. And, yeah, it's just his luck he'd end up having some difficulty getting the ball rolling, but he should be all-good soon.
To FightingFlash64: No argument here. All the Investigation Team must be protected at all cost.
To both Sonny and James since you both had similar questions: honestly, the whole "punishment" thing had really just been a one-off joke to explain how the girls got back at the guys for spying on them. If you really want, I may do a full chapter explaining what happened, but again, only if you guys would really like to see it, in which case, I'll do my best!
To SolarS: For the comment on Ch.39, don't you worry. Since I believe in karma, both Kanji and Hyde won't end up getting hurt at any point. (Also those water weapons sound epic.) And as for Ch.40, yeah I figured Penny would operate more as an unbiased source, not being as overwhelmed by emotions like anxiety or embarrassment as "organic" beings. And I agree on both Yosuke and Makoto being sweet beans! XD
To Will DeGrave: As usual, you got some good suggestions! I am curious about what would lead Mercury to being called in of all people, but I'm sure I can think of something.
To Mystech Master: That whole "acclimation" idea will certainly find its way in at some point. It gave me a great idea in the near future. ;)
To dragonofhellsflame: I have had the suggestion of having Ozpin and Linne meet since they both have similar operations in terms of reincarnation. So you can rest easy knowing I'll get to that as soon as I can.
To james: I can't deny that idea of Team RWBY learning about WWI and WWII is an interesting idea, but upon a bit more reflection about it I realized the big problem with that is that it falls into a fairly sensitive political/historical realm that leaves me feeling like I'm not qualified to write out something like that. It's very similar to the suggestion that I got before about Hyde being revealed as a transgender boy, where I just don't know if I am capable of writing something out like that without the risk of offending somebody. I mean, for corn's sake, the demigod himself Kohei Horikoshi author of My Hero Academia got vehement backlash for naming the scientist villain "Maruta Shiga" as a reference to Japan's infamous 731 human experimentation, which got to the point of Horikoshi actually being forced to write an apology. (Look it up, it's a batcrap insane controversy.) Now in a similar vain to the whole guys' punishment, if there is enough requests for it, I may as well write a chapter about it. But in the meantime, despite most of these series taking place in worlds based out of reality, things will just be kept in the realm of escapist fiction.
And finally, to the guest who suggested the prank tournament: That is a suggestion that could have terrifying and hilarious end results.
To finish up, I do have a few more announcements to make. For starters, I would like to thank those of you who have voted on the poll I had on my page about writing a more plot-driven RWBY based crossover story, the feedback I'd gotten have made me very satisfied and I'm gonna close it up soon, since things have sort of petered out for a time, with the #1 choice being none other than the previously mentioned My Hero Academia! In fairness, I felt this was appropriate as I had even asked you guys in the past about that series in general, so I think it's fair these two get combined. I will have to do some thinking about it in the future, but I have already been thinking about what I can do with that idea. And if you guys have any suggestions, feel free to PM me about it. (Namely because I don't want the reviews of this series to end up becoming a message board for a totally separate story! XD)
Aside from that, in the near future this story will end up becoming a year old. It's crazy to think that this series has been posted up for a year now, so with that in mind, after the Valentine's Day story is done, I will be doing an anniversary chapter combining a bunch of "shorter" ideas into a single space, before following up with the Q&A chapter as another celebration part, which I feel will be appropriate.
And after that I'll be doing some "spring cleaning" on my page; officially scrubbing my less than favorable stories, including my piss-poor first story, and TOWBB before I come back in with a newer, and hopefully better version of that, as well as updating my profile, and even going back and correcting some errors on my older chapters to make them look "cleaner" for new readers.
So until then, thank you as always for reading, let me know your thoughts, and just thank you all for sticking with this story and enjoying it so much! It really does mean a lot to me. Until next time have a fantastic evening, and take care!