A Flame in the Dark
It had been a couple of weeks since the first years field trip to Forever Fall, or the failed trip for RWBY and JNPR thanks to CRDL. Once they all got back, CRDL was taken to Ozpin's office where they were given detention for the rest of the month for their attempted actions. Because of that, Cardin started to take his frustrations out on many of the Faunus students, especially a second year rabbit Faunus. That didn't last long until he received a purse to the crouch by her very irate leader. Those pictures circulated quicker than a wildfire. Mostly thanks to the efforts of Jaune and Yang who were amo8ng the many to get a front row seat of it.
Aside form that, the two teams kept focusing on their schoolwork and working on their teamwork. RWBY were getting closer to their teammates. Weiss could still be standoffish but she was starting to thaw enough for none of them to get too angry with her. And Blake seemed to start bonding with them more, although there was still this aloofness around her.
For JNPR, things were going smoothly. Ever since Nora opened up to Jaune about her past, she had been getting even closer to him. And he thought she was an open book to begin with. Ren sensed this as well and they were quickly becoming best friends, if not brothers. Something neither really had growing up. And Pyrrha was just happy that she had people who just saw her for her and not her title. Not hard for Jaune since he had no idea who she was before meeting her. She just seemed like a nice, quirky girl and was he had grown up with two those growing up.
The only slight kink in the road was when she accidentally walked in on Jaune as he was changing after his shower. She had seen more than she probably should have before flushing a deep red and passing out. That made the next couple of days very awkward for the two, hell Pyrrha couldn't look at him without blushing the same color as her hair. Nora found the whole situation hilarious. And once Ruby and Yang found out, they would give these looks to his poor partner and he had no idea on just why they were doing it.
Things were going great for the two teams and they were all improving steadily every day. The only downside to that was that the Xiao Long/Rose siblings were getting less and less time to spend together outside of classes and meals. But they would fix that at some point down the road. They always did.
Which brings us to the last school day of that week. Jaune was in the library after classes, busy looking up information on one of their many computers. He was by himself, having told his team that he was going to do some work on Oobleck's latest assignment. Nora had found that boring and Pyrrha had already finished it, which left him to go on his own. Exactly how he wanted it.
He did love spending time with his team but he wasn't entirely sure on how they would react to what he was looking into. Or specifically, Ren and Nora since he was looking into the Destruction of Kuroyuri. Ever since Nora had told him of that, his mind just kept going back to the images that came to him. And he couldn't shake the feeling that he was there when it happened but for some reason he couldn't bring them back to the surface of his mind.
He found Mistral's official report on what had happened. After their investigation they came to the conclusion that something had caused a large amount of Grimm to be attracted to the village. During the attack, something had caused a massive fire that had devastated the village and took numerous human and Faunus lives. But it appeared to have killed nearly as many, if not more, Grimm. Some reports from survivors said it even killed a very powerful Grimm known as the Nuckelavee, the Grimm that had been the thing that lead the charge into the village.
The source of the fire was never found out but it had to have been quite powerful for such a blaze to catch so suddenly and spread so fast. Nothing short of a large amount of fire Dust could do that and Kuroyuri didn't have that much and any that they kept was stored somewhere it couldn't cause that much damage in a worst case scenario. It was the only mystery that the Kingdom couldn't solve.
That wasn't enough for Jaune though. He needed to know more. So he started to look into other articles on the matter. Some coming from news reports from around the time that it had happened. Others were firsthand recounts from the survivors. He was even desperate enough to go into some of the conspiracy theory posts to see if that could help. Naturally, it did not.
After several hours of research, he had found absolutely nothing. He leant back into his chair with a defeated sigh, massaging the bridge of his nose in frustration. "How can there be nothing?" He asked himself, out loud.
He leant his head back and looked up to the ceiling. 'I want to believe I wasn't there but I don't know what else besides my Semblance could've caused that. Kuroyuri wasn't that far from Mistral and two days or so after that date is the earliest memory of myself on the boat to Patch… How could I make it across almost two continents and an ocean in a matter of a couple of days, short of an airship. And no one would allow a seven year old on a ship by themselves.'
His eyes narrowed slightly, 'Why can't I remember? How did I get to Patch?' He growled to himself slightly, 'I thought I gave up on trying to find those answers long ago. But if I did destroy Ren and Nora's home… I need to find out. No matter what that answer may be.'
His thoughts were interrupted when a pair of hands suddenly covered his eyes. Before he could do anything, a familiar voice spoke up, "Guess who?"
He just grinned, "Hmmm, that is a tough one." He started and caused the voice to giggle, "Let's see… is it a massive cinnamon roll that gained sentience?"
"Uh, no?" the voice responded, sounding very confused.
"Oh, then that must mean it is a puppy trapped in the form of a young woman."
"What? No!" the voice sounded almost annoyed now.
"Well there is only one person I know who is as sweet as a cinnamon roll and as adorable as a puppy, it has to be my little sister Ruby." He grinned teasingly.
"Jaune!" Ruby whined as she moved her hands and walked to be on his left. He turned his head with the grin still on his lips. Ruby had her arms crossed over her chest and was pouting with a blush on her cheeks. "That's embarrassing… What if someone had overheard that?"
He just shrugged, "They would probably agree."
She just glared at him as the blush seemed to darken, "You're terrible…" she said weakly.
He chuckled, "We both know that isn't true." She turned away from him. That was when he decided it would be best to stop teasing his sister. "Alright, come here," He told her as he held out his left arm.
She looked over and stayed there for a few seconds before she started to make her way over to him. He wrapped his arm around her back to bring her in for a one armed hug. It took about thirty seconds before Ruby decided to drop the act of being mad at him and wrapped both her arms around him to hug him back. She decided to get more comfortable and sat down on his lap sideways and tucking her head underneath his chin. A strange sight to anyone else if they had been looking at them but it was normal for these two.
They sat like that for a bit before Jaune spoke up, "So what brings you here, Ruby?"
He felt her shrug, "I was looking for you and Pyrrha told me you came here. So, here I am." He felt her turn towards the computer screen, "What are you working on?"
He closed the window before she could read much of it. "Nothing much. Just a bit of a side project."
She pulled back enough to look at him properly. "Jaune, we don't keep secrets from each other, remember? Sibling pact."
He sighed, "I know but I can't talk about this. Nora told me something about her past in confidence and I wanted to look a little bit more into it. I won't tell anyone else unless she wants to talk about it." He told her. It wasn't necessarily a lie but it was a half-truth. He didn't want her to worry about this. Not yet at least.
Ruby just looked at him for a bit before nodding, "I guess you can't do anything about it. Just remember you can talk to me. Yang too. We're always here for you." She said with a grin.
He just smiled and left a brief kiss to her forehead, "I know, sis. Trust me, I know."
"Good." she said happily before she hugged him again.
That caused him to chuckle again, "You're affectionate today."
"I'm Ruby." She said naturally.
"Very true. But you seem even more affectionate though." He answered back.
"I've just missed you." She told him honestly. "We've been seeing less and less of each other recently."
"Going through withdrawal?" he said jokingly.
He then felt her punch his chest, which did very little. "Jerk."
"That's Yang's thing." He told her.
"You had it coming." She said simply.
"So, why did you want to find me?" he asked the most important question. "It wasn't just for hugs."
"Oh, right." She said as she got off his lap and turned to him. She smiled, "Since tomorrow is Saturday, Yang and I wanted to have a Sibling Day in Vale." She said excitedly.
That made him grin. The classic Xiao Long/Rose Sibling Days. Days where the three of them would go into Patch. Or Vale when they were older, just to have a day of fun. Nowadays they were days to go see movies, go to the arcade, shopping and going out to eat at their favorite diner. Days just for the three of them to spend quality time together.
"Well, I have nothing planned with my team. So my schedule is wide open." He answered with a smile.
"Yay!" Ruby cheered before she was quickly shushed by the librarian. She had this sheepish look on her face as she whisper-shouted, "Sorry."
Jaune just logged off the computer before he stood up and followed Ruby to the exit. He didn't want to annoy anyone else in the library. As they were moving, Ruby was on her scroll to message Yang that they were coming to plan out their day tomorrow. Jaune just kept smiling. Seeing how excited Ruby was and knowing just how happy this would make Yang, just made his heart swell a bit. Regardless of what they were going to do tomorrow, he knew he was going to enjoy the day.
It was later in the afternoon, just border lining evening on that Saturday. The remaining members of RWBY and JNPR had spent their day doing what they wanted in lieu of missing their leaders. Pyrrha had gotten some of the work done on her homework before going to the gym for some regular exercise. She was surprised to find that Nora and Ren were there as well. Ren not looking like he had done so by choice. Nora on the other hand looked to be having as much fun as an unsupervised child in a candy store.
They did their own variety of workouts before Nora begged Pyrrha for a sparring match and she decided to humor the cheery bomber. The three went to a free sparring room with their weapons in tow, Ren sitting on the sidelines in case he needed to reel in his partner and her usual antics. He doubted that Jaune would want to come back to see that she had destroyed a sparring room in his absence.
Luckily, it didn't come down to that. They two women of JNPR had a spar of near epic proportions but no damage was caused beyond the normal. But despite her best efforts, Nora found herself losing to the four time champion. But she didn't seem all that disappointed. She just kept saying they needed to do that again, which made Pyrrha and Ren smile. That's when they decided to pack it in and head back to the dorms before dinner. They were curious if Jaune had returned from his day out with his sisters.
They were slightly surprised to see that Weiss and Blake were about to enter the dorms just before them. After seeing the trio from JNPR, Weiss held the door and the quintet walked together to their rooms. Just talking about what they had done for the day.
Apparently, Weiss and Blake had gone to the library for different reasons: Weiss to do homework and Blake to start a new book. When they saw each other, they decided to work on the homework together and surprisingly to the hidden Faunus, Weiss started a discussion on books. She had been meaning to pick up a new one and thought Blake would have a suggestion. That lead to them discussing books they had both read and each suggesting possible titles to the other. Something neither expected but enjoyed the impromptu bonding session with their teammate.
"Do you think Fearless Leader is back yet?" Nora asked as she was leading the group back to their rooms. "I really want us all to go to dinner together."
"We'll find out when we get there." Ren told her simply. Nora just gave him a deadpanned look, not really liking that answer.
Weiss rolled her eyes slightly, fighting the grin trying to stretch across her lips, "You could call him if you're so curious." She added.
Nora shook her head, "But what if the three of them are in the middle of something?" Nora asked. "I don't wanna interrupt them to just ask a question."
Blake nodded, "She does have a point. We all saw just how excited the three of them were to have an outing together."
Pyrrha giggled, "It was nice to see Yang trying to play it cool but I could tell she was as excited as the other two."
Nora spun around to look at them all as she started to walk backwards, "Do you think we'd be as close friends if it wasn't for those three being siblings?"
"Possibly." Blake nodded. "They did drag us all together and all."
Before they could continue this conversation, they all heard a moan coming from somewhere close by. They all stopped, confused on what they just heard before they heard it again, this time knowing where it was coming from: RWBY's dorm room. They then gained a variety of blushes after realizing just what could be causing the sound.
Pyrrha cleared her throat, "Well…" she started to say in embarrassment. "I-I guess we know Yang is back at least…"
"I can't believe she is that loud…" Blake muttered to herself.
They heard another moan followed by her saying, "Oh, right there~"
"Wasn't she supposed to be with Jaune and-" Nora was the cut off by another familiar sound.
It was a familiar chuckle, barely being muffled by the door, "Wow, Yang. You're this wound up? You should've seen someone about this."
Everyone's eyes went wide in just shock, "J-Jaune?" Pyrrha questioned.
They then heard a whine, "I can't go to anyone else. You do it way better and it would just be more annoying in the long run."
"True." They could hear him say confidently. "Like I know about… this spot." They then heard a near breathless moan come from Yang.
Everyone's blush seemed to darken at just what they were hearing. Each too stunned to do anything or even know what to think. That became worse when they heard another voice, "Come on, Jaune. Hurry up! I want my turn." Ruby spoke up next.
"Patience, Ruby." Jaune chided her slightly. "If it were you, you wouldn't want me to just skip over you to get to Yang."
They all heard a whine, "Fine…" Ruby said and they could just imagine her pouting.
"This can't be happening…" Weiss said, just blown away. Before she realized what she was doing, she had already thrown open the door to her room. "Stop with this debauchery this instant!"
She wasn't sure on what she was expecting to see but it most certainly wasn't this. Jaune was sat on Blake's bed, only missing his hoodie. Yang was sat in one of their chairs, using the backrest to rest her arms and head on. Her shirt was discarded, leaving her upper body only in a sports bra and Jaune's hands were laying on her back. Ruby was across from them, sat on her partner's bed with a weapons magazine in hand. All three were just staring at Weiss wide eyes, "Uh, hey, Weiss. What's up?" Ruby said in an unsure tone.
Weiss just kept staring and soon the other four people in the hallway just peaked in to see just what was going on. Each confused but relieved to see that their overactive imaginations were very wrong. "Uh…" the Heiress replied intelligently.
"Hey everyone." Jaune said, still shaking off his shock. "How's it going?" His hand went back to what they were doing before and start working on her muscles again. "Damn it. Yang, you're all tense again."
Yang gave a hum of enjoyment before she rested her face on her crossed arms again, "Well sorry." She said slightly miffed. "I wasn't expecting Ice Queen to throw the door in and scare the crap outta me."
That snapped her out of that and Weiss crossed her arms, "What is going on here?" she tried to act authoritative but the blush was taking away from that.
"Oh!" Ruby said cheerfully, having overcome the sudden arrival of their teams. "Yang's back was starting to bother her when we were coming back to Beacon. So Jaune offered to give her a massage to help out. I wanted one too, so I'm waiting."
Everyone entered the room, closing the door behind them, "Jaune knows how to give massages?" Nora asked with a tilt of her head.
He chuckled, "Well I'm not certified but I know what I'm doing" His eyes not straying from his sister's back as he spoke, "Because of Yang's fighting style, she would end up with a lot of muscle strain. And her back pain got worse when she hit puberty. To help her out, I started to look into how to give proper massages. After a few dozen sessions, I figured out what worked for Yang and she would ask me to help her out when it would get bad."
"He's got magic fingers…" Yang managed to say quietly, sounding like she was nodding off.
"How did Ruby start to get into them?" Blake questioned.
"Are you kidding?" Jaune asked. "She goes around wielding a scythe twice her size and uses a sniper rifle. She would get just as sore as Yang and I wasn't going to let her deal with it." With that he pulled his hands from Yang's back, the shook his hands slightly and stretched out his fingers, "Alright, how do you feel now?"
Yang gave a hum, disappointed that her massage was over. She sat up straight and stretched her back a bit to test it. This also pushed her sports bra clad chest out more for everyone to see, but it looked like she didn't care about that. She sighed happily, "Good as new." She turned around to face her brother, kissing his cheek. "Thanks again, Bro."
"Anytime." He said with a grin. Yang stood up and walked over to her desk that had her shirt on it. As she was pulling it over her head, Jaune spoke up, "Alright, Ruby, your turn." There was a small cheer before a cloud of rose petals flew into the chair and took the form of the resident reaper. She took up a position similar to Yang and Jaune started to work on her clothed back.
Everyone was still watching this, trying to fully grasp what they had been told. "If this is all true, why haven't any of us heard about this prior?" Weiss asked.
While still focusing on Ruby, he shrugged. "Never came up, I guess."
Weiss was just glaring at him. Jaune turned to her for a brief second, "What? It's true. There has been no reason for me to offer beforehand. I've never seen Pyrrha or Ren looking sore or at least not bad enough for me to offer. And I'm certain that Nora would prefer Ren to give her a massage over me if she needed one." Both mentioned women blushed slightly, Nora turning away as Ren looked at her for confirmation.
"And if I were to randomly go up to you or Blake offering to give you a massage, you would think I was trying to pull something." Jaune added as he continued to speak to Weiss. "Besides, if you were really in any kind of pain and I could do anything about it, I was confident that Ruby or Yang would talk to you about it before asking me to help out."
Yang chuckled, "But even then, I doubt either of you would've wanted him to. I get the feeling that neither of you would've been too comfortable with it."
The two had to give it to her on that. Even if Yang and/or Ruby were there with them, they probably wouldn't be able to relax enough to get the full benefits. Weiss huffed, "Well excuse me for not being comfortable with being with a man in only my bra."
Yang just stared at her, "No one said you had to do that. I only do it that way because it feels better. But you could be like Ruby and stay fully clothed." Yang then smirked evilly, "Man, Weiss, was Jaune right and you're a deviant underneath that prim and proper mask."
"I am not a deviant!" Weiss said in annoyance and embarrassment. That just caused the brawler to laugh like crazy.
As Weiss was trying to set her teammate on fire with only her glare, Pyrrha walked around them to talk to Jaune, "So, Jaune, how was your Sibling Day."
"It was great." He said with a smile. "Saw a movie and went to the arcade for a few hours. Did some shopping for Dust and other necessities, along with a few random things that caught our attention. And, of course, the lunch at our favorite diner."
"That sounds grand." She said with a grin. She then looked to the side, almost like she was embarrassed, "And, if I find that I do need one, would you mind giving me a massage?"
Jaune turned to her in shock, not really expecting any of them to take him up on his offer. He then grinned, "Sure, Pyrrha."
Pyrrha gave him a near radiant smile. Yang, having overheard this, turned to the two and gave Pyrrha a slight glare before quickly reeling it in with a deep breath. Ruby would've probably done something similar but she was swept away in the bliss that came with Jaune's massage.
Ten or so minutes later, Ruby's massage was done and the eight made their way to cafeteria to grab dinner. As they did, they discussed about all meeting up tomorrow to finish off any of the homework they hadn't done yet. Weiss and Blake offering to give additional assistance since they had already finished a good portion of them. And the siblings still had the most developed notes ready to be used if necessary.
It seemed to be just another night to them and tomorrow was shaping up to be another usual day for the first years. But soon the semester would end and with the Vytal Tournament around the corner, that would mean other students would be showing up shortly. And who knew what that would do. Or what secrets would start to be pulled to the surface.
A/N- And here is the next chapter. Sorry for the delay, the last few weeks have been hectic. And yes, this is a filler chapter but I didn't want to keep pushing into the plot I touche don last chapter. But fear not, that will be here soon enough.
Also, to those who don't know, I discontinued Distortion. I now have a poll on up to see what story will take the place of it going forward. It'll be open until the end of May, so go over and cast a vote. I'm excited to see which one will end up being the winner.
Anyways, I hoped you all enjoyed and I hope to see you all in the next update!
