Crimson XVIII: Food for the Soul

'This is just getting ridiculous; why the hell do I still feel so uneasy?'

Ragna hadn't moved from the rooftop in the half hour since Cinder had left their first meeting. Once more the sun was beginning to descend over Beacon, marking the end to another day. Even if the most that happened that particular day was a reasonably long assembly and the assigning of partners, the Grimm Reaper felt… drained. Not physically at all, just like he'd had to endure something else… and dealing with his new Project partner might've had something to do with that.

'Every damn second I spend close to that woman, I feel like something's trying to get under my skin… even the Rabbit's mouth doesn't hit me this bad. Sure I'll get pissed whenever I have to deal with her, but normally when its over and done with that's where I get to drop it. Here it's just getting worse the more I have to stew over it. And now I have to spend an entire quarter working close with her...'

"Just brilliant."

Letting out a lengthy sigh, Ragna turned and finally departed from the rooftops and headed down the long stairway to the first floor. On his way down, he tried to come up with a plan for how he'd get his head cleared. Right now, the only thing he could come up with would be to head Grimm hunting for the rest of the night. He'd be able to get out of the town's boundaries without much issue easily enough, but it was still a big time investment and he'd likely have a busy day the next morning having to cover for both Tsubaki and Noel since they were still trying to make their way back to the Academy. Not to mention he'd already been Grimm hunting a few nights ago; too many more of these late nights now that school was back in session and he'd have Goodwitch on his ass. For now that was still out.

"I know it's going to take a little longer with the stormy weather, but I think that's something that we're going to need to grin and bear." Litchi's voice caught Ragna off guard as he hadn't seen anyone besides himself in this dimly lit hallway. Glancing to the side, he saw that the door to her nurse office had been left slightly ajar. "Now don't you start; I already had to talk your father out of traveling across the entire Kingdom on foot just so that he could see you a few days early." A brief paused as she listened for the response on the other end of the phone. "I knew he would too. Tell you what, as soon you get here we'll go shopping like you've been wanting. There's a really nice mall in the area." There was a short happy outburst coming from the other line, letting Ragna know that offer had been received well. "I love you too sweetie, call me when you've heard anything about your flight."

Letting out a deep sigh, Litchi exited her office to head to her teacher's quarters for the night. A brief pause of surprise was evident on her face as she saw Ragna standing out by his lonesome, this marked the third time the two had run into one another.

"Didn't mean to eavesdrop here," Ragna offered as a weak apology, awkwardly scratching the back of his head.

"Didn't think you would, but you don't exactly look like you're all here in the first place," the nurse said, getting a closer look and causing Ragna to take a reserved step back. "Hmm… is it possible that even you can be worried about Project Hell?"

"That your experience as a faculty talking? ...Or is it just motherly intuition?"

"A little of both I suppose," Litchi admitted with a small smile. "I suppose you heard me on the phone talking to my little Linhua then, despite not wanting to eavesdrop?"

"Just caught the end of the phone call," he admitted passively. To keep her from pressing any questions on himself, he decided it would be best to try and keep her talking about her daughter for now. "So… she's still in Haven then?"

"Right, at one of the smaller academies," Litchi explained. "She's been studying more and more on patient care and medicine, but I finally promised her that this year she'd be allowed to help me in my role as school nurse… provided of course that she keeps with her regular studies."

"She's studying medicine? That can't be easy," Ragna acknowledge, remembering some of the struggles Jubei had drilling that specific information into him years ago. "How old is she?"

"Why do you want to know? Are you asking so you can get a better guess at how old her dear mother is?"

"Uh… no?" he answered, not quite seeing the woman's logic.

"I'm only teasing you," she said, covering her mouth to suppress a small giggle. Ragna rolled his eyes, already having to deal with a lot of this behavior lately. "Not that it'd give you that good of an idea to start; Linuha isn't mine… not biologically anyways."

"...That right?" Ragna responded, his words sounding strange and thoughtful. Litchi picked up on this and continued on in hopes of unraveling the mystery of the teenager in front of her.

"I was actually the one the had helped deliver her and so far that's been the only time I've assisted in childbirth. Her biological mother… I'm afraid that she didn't make it. Her village had been destroyed by the Grimm and all of the physical and mental stress made for a difficult pregnancy. Linhau was born weak as well, and it took everything I knew at the time just to keep her alive. I ended up spending so much of my time just looking after her that…"

"That you began to see her as a daughter," Ragna finished. Litchi was about to nod, but he continued to elaborate. "Even though she didn't have to be your responsibility, the fact that you knew next to nothing about taking care of a kid, and knew the kind of struggle you were in for… it didn't matter. Your mind was already made up and you were going to do everything that you could to make sure she'd live a happy life…" He noticed Litchi looking at him with a sense of awe and awkwardly flinched away. "At least… that's what I'm guessing happened."

"And you're completely spot on," she told him, almost breathless at how right he'd actually been. "I guess you have your own experience with that, then?"

"Something like that." Ragna thought back to the earlier years of his childhood. That had been a much more carefree time; one where he was able to laze around outside during the day, brush off the occasional chore, and still have a hot meal waiting for him. He remembered playing around with his family during day, reading in their long evenings together, and after dinner… "...Baking."

"I'm sorry?" Litchi asked, bringing Ragna back to the present.

"It's nothing, just sorta got an idea how I can destress," he finished, sending a small yet well meant smile. "Thanks doc."

"I'm not entirely sure what I just did to help, but you certainly look a bit more at ease," she told him decidedly.

"Heh, guess doctor work gave you an eye for this sort of thing."

"No… just a mother's intuition," Litchi joked with a small giggle, using Ragna's earlier words against him. "Have a good rest of your night, but make sure you're not up too late with whatever it is you're doing."

"Yeah yeah, I'll be sure to get a prescribed eight hours doc," Ragna waved off as he walked away, his behavior slowly returning to normal. 'Hope I still remember the recipe. Didn't it go eggs, flour, milk…?'

Meanwhile -Relius Clover's Office-

'Classes begin tomorrow and I've yet to even begin my unpacking,' the current genius of the academy thought to himself as he looked to the many still full packaging strewn about his office. 'Were I still back at my labs, I would have left this to Carl and Ada, but alone even unpacking and shelving my books would take some time. It won't do well for the students to see their instructor with sleep in his eyes… not that they could see it.'

Relius gave a low sigh as he adjusted his own mask, trying to formulate what it was he should do. True, tomorrow's curriculum would be easy enough to explain once he'd found the few books he needed, so the more delicate equipment could be readied at a later day Though he knew he was already on thin ice with a certain colleague, and he was sure leaving so many boxes unpacked would earn him a less than ideal lecture of his own.

"What a bothersome individual, and somehow Ignis saw it right to make her Ada's godmother."

Relius's complaints were cut short when he heard a small series of taps upon his door. He'd already reunited properly with the rest of the staff, so they'd have no business here. That would only leave a student as his unexpected visitor. Relius hadn't even gotten around to posting his office hours and given the time of day this hardly seemed fair for him. Still, as an acting teacher of Beacon he had responsibilities and restrictions that he hadn't as a famed researcher. Preparing himself for the first of his teacherly duties, he opened the door to engage his first student face to face.

"Jaune Arc…" Relius simply saying the young blond's name earned him a gasp; he tried not to look too pleased with that fact.

"You know who I am?" the student asked with an obvious quiver in his voice.

"Of course I do. I've obviously read the files on each and every one of my future students in preparation for my teaching job. Easier to plan a curriculum if I know the mostly blank slates I'm given to work with."

"A-all of them?"

"Jaune Arc. The only male between eight siblings and the current owner of the sword Crocea Mors, a weapon that you inherited from your great-great-father. Partnered with Noel Vermillion in this year's Random Project. Minimal combat skills, though a slight development over this last quarter alone. Ranked average during last quarter's finals. Managed to gain entry into Beacon Academy via faked credentials." Jaune gave an audible gulp. "Obviously Ozpin already knows, but I'd do my best not to disappoint him this quarter."

"U-Understood…" He felt terrified that he was likely on thin ice, but also relieved that he didn't have to hide his secret any further.

"But to the main point; unknown semblance." Relius seemed to scowl beneath his mask. "Which brings you to my doorstep at this late hour."

"I-I can come back tomorrow, or… some other time?"

"No; you're already here which means there's little point. But I'm afraid you'll have to earn your knowledge tonight." He gestured Jaune to follow him into the office. "Be careful with my equipment, I want everything set properly on my desk and nothing set ajar in the slightest. I'll begin by organizing my bookshelf."

"Uh… if your equipment is so important, shouldn't you be-?"

"Do you want my advice or not?"

"Right on it!" Jaune promised as he quickly went to open the cardboard boxes while Relius looked over his empty bookshelves, silently pondering the system that would best serve his organization needs here. "So about my semblance?"

"I'm afraid I can't give you the simple answer to what your semblance will be, the rumors surrounding my abilities are grossly exaggerated," Relius explained, not taking his eyes off the empty shelves. "People say I can tell a person's semblance just by looking at them, but the truth is I've only been successful about seventy percent of the time. An impressive feat to be sure, but not omnipotence like many have claimed."

"So you can't know for sure," Jaune said as he opened one of the bags that held a scientific device that he'd never seen before. Knowing how much this probably cost, he tried to be careful as he set it upon Relius's desk. "Could you at least make a guess to what kind of semblance I have? Anything to know what I'd working with in the future."

"It's not as easy as simply looking at a person and knowing This person will have a Speed boosting semblance or I know this person has a Strength based semblance. Much research has to go into making even the barest of educated guesses, but with the level of understanding I have for you…" Relius seemed to think it over a long moment, though his eyes still remained focused on the bookshelf. "...A Support base, that's the type you would obtain as you are right now."

"Oh…" It was clear Jaune couldn't help but feel the slightest bit disappointed. He'd been hoping that his Semblance would have finally given him a proper edge in combat, something that would finally allow him to keep up with his peers as his own warrior… this just made it clear how much he still needed to depend on them.

"I understand that you're disappointed in my evaluation, but again I could be wrong," the professor told him as he set the first textbook upon his shelf, an organization system now in mind. "And even if I am right, it's more the semblance holder's abilities to express their semblance than the power itself."

'But I don't have that, even if I got my semblance today the others have been using theirs for so long I wouldn't have the first idea how to use my own,' Jaune thought bitterly, but he also realized something the teacher had been implying. "You said I'd get a Support semblance as I am right now, does that mean it can change?"

"Now… you're asking the right questions," Relius commented, almost forming a pleased smirk. "Semblances are not set in stone, nor are they some preordained destiny that we all carry. The best way of looking at a semblance is as an expression of the soul, the cumulation of who we are as individuals."

"...So, what does that mean for me? That I'd have to change who I am before I get my semblance?"

"Indeed, but it's not as easy as it sounds. I gave you the Support semblance earlier, as you'd expect a large part of that is your reliance on others as a whole, making contributions more based on strategy than combat experience." Jaune wasn't exactly a fan of the phrasing, he felt like he'd just been called weak. "Only theoretically of course, if you wanted I suppose you could try to change that particular aspect of yourself in an attempt to change your semblance, but that's far easier said than done. Even if you managed to become the greatest warrior of the academy overnight and could single handedly take down an entire swarm of Grimm… are you really just doing this for yourself, or are you doing this so that you can better aid your teammates?"

"Both I guess," Jaune admitted feeling that there were more to semblances than he thought. "So does that mean it's possible for someone to change their Semblance once it's already been awakened?"

"I wouldn't know, in fact I've spent a few years trying to see if such a thing was even possible," Relius admitted. "True, you'd be able to change a few aspects of your powers, but to suddenly change a semblance completely still seems nothing more than a fairy tale."

"Oh…" Jaune realized.

"Which is why I completely detest the idea of Bloodline Semblances," the professor said with a fair bit of disdain. "While your soul and semblance is an expression of you as a whole, it can be… influenced. Certain parts of who you are can be rewritten over to give priority to other aspects. I assume you know Weiss Schnee from your year?"

"Yeah, she mainly uses Glyphs as part of her semblance."

"Which is passed down in her family, in fact it's so encouraged to the point that a family member could be seen as an outsider if they had any other type of semblance. Most often the not, the pressure is enough to confirm them to their family's wishes." He gave a lengthy sigh. "It's an honest shame, so many noble children with so much potential, squandered by their House's need to set some self imposed image. Inherited semblances only make for inherited burdens… but that's a thesis I wasn't allowed to publish."

'Guess Weiss had it harder than we thought,' Jaune started to piece together. "So then, how do you awaken a semblance in the first place? Is there some trick to it?"

"No tricks so to speak, though again it can be influenced," Relius said as he began shelving his books at a faster pace now. "Though there are a few reports of many semblances being awakened during certain instances, the largely seem random overall. Some speculate that training, dire combat conditions, or certain forms of trauma can awaken a semblance. The truth is that there's not nearly enough concrete evidence to support any of these claims. They just seem to… happen."

"That's… well, I guess I'll just have to wait then."

"Indeed, but let me give you two warnings before you do anything reckless. I've recently heard of a product being sold on the Black Market that claims to unleash your semblance. While I have my doubts that a student could ever obtain such a thing, you must never use it. At best, these things have no reaction and you've wasted most of your life savings, but ingesting it could prove fatal or at the very least cause… infertility."

'Mom would kill me if that happened,' Jaune thought worriedly to himself.

"Second is going back to the claim of Semblances being awoken by a form of trauma. While some still see a truth to an awakening brought about by a rush of adrenaline, I'd ask that you don't try to search for it." Relius seemed to pause at this idea. "This is mere theory of course, but there is some evidence that pushing too hard will result in something… broken. Dark Semblances; Semblances brought about by a trauma so terrible that the awakened ability is completely corrupted, as is the soul. These can be among the most dangerous of Semblances… to any party involved."

"I… I'll keep that in mind," Jaune said as he finished taking out the last of the equipment. "That should be everything set up, but if you don't mind two more questions…"

"If they are about my mask, you can leave," Relius told him bluntly, taking his time in shelving the rest of his books, one of the few hobbies he still had.

"...Okay, I've got one question then," the student admitted. "What's your semblance? If you're a valedictorian it must be really powerful."

"Creation based, though I can only form it to shape gears." With a sharp snap of his fingers, Relius created a glowing cog behind him out of thin air. There wasn't anything overly special about it, it just floated in the air and slowly rotated. "I call it Clockwork Horror… You don't seem impressed."

"I mean, I understand the Clockwork part easily enough. But Horror?"

Grunting, Relius snapped his fingers again, creating an identical cog right next to it. The two creations then increased their turning speed in opposite directions, going dangerously fast and causing wicked sparks to flash wherever they made contact.

"Go on, trying sticking a finger through, or maybe your entire arm." Jaune reasonably refused the offer. "As I said, it's the user's expression of a semblance, not the power itself."

Beacon Kitchens

"Starting to smell like home," Ragna muttered to himself aloud as he rubbed down the station he'd been using for cooking. "Nice that they had everything I needed here… not that the recipe is too complex to begin with."

It would've made for a much later night if he'd needed to head into town and grab what he needed, thankfully the public cooking supplies had everything that he needed to start cooking a decent recreation of one of his childhood recipes. Sure most of it had been based on memory… but he'd made this enough times when he was a kid that he could remember everything he needed by heart. Much like he'd hoped the basic act of cooking itself felt nostalgic as it did relaxing, taking his mind off of his awkward situation with his current partner.

"Smells like someone's baking." Ragna heard a voice say from the hallway before the doors were opened revealing Team RWBY with their leader at the front. "R-Ragna?"

"Good timing," he said, putting his left hand into a thick kitchen mitt. Opening the over and reaching inside, he brought out a steaming metal tray. "Cookies just finished baking."

"...Well if you insist I'll take a half dozen or so!" Ruby quickly shouted, reaching for the still steaming try with her bare hand. Ragna harshly slapped it away with his own. "Ow, hey!"

"These are fresh out of the oven you idiot; don't tell me that you were going to burn yourself half to death instead of waiting."

"Oh she's already tried that at home… on several occasions," Yang told him, thinking back to when her father tried to make their mother's old recipe and Ruby just couldn't keep herself away. Even now, Ragna had to hold Ruby back with his free hand while he held up the tray of cookies with his mitted one. "Kind of an odd family game of keep away… it got much harder when she got her semblance."

"Still, if you wanted to make cookies you should've known Ruby well enough that she'd try something like this," Weiss Schnee told him in her usual matter a factly way.

"Sounds more like you're just jealous he didn't make them for you," Blake countered, earning an appropriately icy glare from her teammate.

"To be completely open about it, I didn't make these for anyone," Ragna intervened, trying to stop whatever was about to happen before it could start. Giving one last stern look to Ruby, he set the tray down on the counter. "I just sorta made these on a whim 'cause I felt like it."

"Yeah, but why make cookies? I thought you usually prefered either barbecue, tempura, or curry," Ruby asked as she tried to take her attention from the plate of oh so heavenly temptations.

"Because…" Ragna was hesitating for a long moment, crossing his arms as he stood there awkwardly unable to make eye contact with them. In his head, he knew that it was silly to keep something this small from them, from anyone really, but especially from them… This was just something that he'd closed off for so long, it was hard for him to expose it even to people he felt close to.

"It's okay, you don't have to talk about whatever it is if it makes you uncomfortable," Ruby told him. "Don't feel like we're pressuring you at all."

"...Okay, why is everyone looking at me; I'm not the only guilty one here," Yang told the other girls who were giving her accusatory scowls.

"Sheesh," Ragna said as he uncrossed his arms, giving a more familiar moody slouch. "...I made them because it reminds me of my mother."

"Your… mother?" Weiss repeated, realizing that aside from Jin none of them knew anything about Ragna's family. She'd assumed he was a sort of extended child from the Kisaragi family, but had never asked him about it directly.

"I mean I call her my mom, but I guess she was more of my caretaker than anything else," he admitted, slightly backpedaling the sentiment. "After a while of living with her though, that's what I started calling her… Jin started doing it much earlier than I did."

"Oh… and…?" Yang began hesitantly. Ragna knew where this question was going.

"She… she died over a decade ago." He had to fight hard not to grit his teeth at his phrasing. There'd been nothing natural about that death; and witnessing it first hand was an image he'd never be able to forget… and a part of him never wanted to.

"Yang and I lost our moms too," Ruby told him gently, trying to show him some form of comradery, even if it was over loss.

"...Moms as in plural?" the Reaper questioned.

"Yep, guess we never told you that Ruby and are half-sisters," Yang said, putting a comforting arm around her little sis. "Never really cared for that term though; I say Ruby's my sister, she's my sister."

"And don't let anyone tell you a damn thing otherwise," Ragna asserted, earning soft smiles from both of them. "I probably should've seen that coming though; why else would you two have last names?"

"I dunno, maybe because I wanted to change my name to something more intimidating?" the blonde suggested, smirking while she tried to lighten the mood. "Yang Xiao Long does stand for Shining Little Dragon."

"Please, if you'd really changed your name it wouldn't have been anything so subtle," he countered. "You'd have gone straight for Yang Goddess of Fire."

"...Probably," she admitted, leading Ragna to give an honest chuckle.

"So now that all my doom and gloom is out of the way, did everyone find out who they're working with on the final project?"

"Yep! Looks like I'm going spend my project teamed up with Pyrrha!" Ruby told him excitedly. "I talked with her and it sounds like she already has a lot of ideas on how we're going to tackle our assignment."

"You're lucky that way, I don't think Nora's going to be taking it nearly as seriously," Blake said with a small sigh. "Something tells me that by the end of this I'm going to appreciate everything Ren has to do to keep her in line."

"...You're already teamed up with Yang, how much harder can it be?" Ragna's honest question was rewarded with a sharp jab to his side from the blonde, giving him just the slightest bit of a scowl. "Hey, I'm not wrong."

"Oh? Then what do have to say about me being teamed up with Makoto Nanaya?" she bit back.

"The fact you'll both enable each other's crazy plans? A recipe for disaster," he concluded.

"...He's not wrong," Blake had to admit, giving Yang a small smirk as the blonde found herself on the receiving end of teasing tonight. "But as for Weiss…"

"...I'm going to be teamed up with your brother," she informed Ragna, her father's ploy weighing heavily on her mind. "He doesn't seem like he's necessarily going to be a problem to work with, but I don't think we'll be budding friends by the end of this."

"Just let me know if he starts acting like a total ass, I can always have a few words with him," the Reaper promised, though Weiss knew Jin's cold posture was the least of her worries right now. "As for me, it looks like I'm going to be working with a transfer chick named Cinder."

"That girl we met yesterday after sparring?" Ruby remembered. "Wow, small world. Have you talked to her since you found out?"

"Yeah, I chatted with her a little bit ago though there wasn't a whole lot to say. It's just hard to make plans when I'm missing half of my damn team," he groaned. "Either way, I get the feeling that I'm going to be spending most of my time with her this quarter."

"Do you think she's cute?"

Now if that question had come from Yang, Ragna would've likely responded with an eye roll, a swear, an annoyed grunt, or some combination of the three. He'd have known full well that this was one of her classic attempts to either tease or embarrass him. Hearing this question coming from Blake was a new one on him. The cat faunus herself didn't seem to realize she'd asked the question aloud until she noticed everyone staring at her, to which she responded by merely shying her gaze away.

"Ooooo-kay," Ragna said as the air felt awkward, somehow making him feel more embarrassed than Yang had ever made him feel. Now all eyes were on him as they awaited his response. "I mean, it's not like she's ugly or anything. Far from it. It's just that there's something there…" He couldn't help but give an involuntary shiver. "There's just something that I'm not a fan of." Trying to put a smirk on his face, he turned to Blake. "Any reason you felt like asking?"

"I was just wondering," Blake said a tad more on the defensive side, though Ragna's smirk turned just the slightest bit snarky as he noticed the rising pink on her features. "Any follow up, Yang?"

"Not from where I'm standing, I got what I wanted," she told her partner, getting her back for the slight teasing from before. Blake's scowl was enough to tell her to move on so Yang directed her attention to the still cooling tray of cookies. "How long do we still have to wait?"

"Probably just a few minutes at best, which reminds me…" Grabbing a spatula from one of the drawers, Ragna made a small plate using up about half the cookies. "Rest are yours, but for hell's sake make sure Ruby doesn't burn herself on these things."

"I promise to be patient," Ruby promised a little reluctantly before smiling at Ragna. "It's just a little hard to wait, knowing how good of a cook you are!"

"...Say that after you try these; I'm still not convinced that these came out right," he admitted. He almost sounded embarrassed about it, but departed with another word and left the girls by themselves.

"So Ruby, you've met the Cinder person Ragna's partnering with?" Yang asked her sister, leading the younger sibling to nod. "And, what are your thoughts to Blake's question?"

"Do we really still have to talk about this?" the cat Faunus demanded with a slight hiss in her voice. "Besides, Ragna was just here and he answered just fine."

"Maybe, but then again this is Ragna's judgement that we're talking about," Weiss cutting in, agreeing with Yang for once. "He might not have the best eye for this sort of thing."

"...Then what does that say about all of us?" Blake responded realistically.

"That we didn't give him much of a choice either way," the blonde shot back. "So what's Cinder like?"

"I mean I can't say too much about her; we both only met for a couple of minutes," Ruby explained as she tried to think back. "I didn't really get an idea for what kind of a person she is, only that she seemed kinda more focused on Ragna than me." She gave a shrug. "Maybe if I'd seen her weapon I would have a better idea."

"What would looking at a weapon tell you about a person?" Weiss demanded.

"Nothing, just that it's something that she wanted to see," Yang responded before shaking her head at her sister's weapon loving behavior. "The only thing she loves more than weapons is cooling off right in front of her."

"Make that cooled off because I've waited long enough!" Ruby said before she finally grabbed one of Ragna's cookies and took a large bite out of it. She chewed the tasty treat in pure bliss for a few moments… only to stiffen as her bright smile seemed to vanish the better she tasted it.

"Ragna did warn us that he's had trouble with this recipe," Weiss reminded.

"That's not the problem," Ruby said in an eerily quiet voice as she stared at the treat. "Yang, you need to try these."

Yang didn't know what her sister was getting at, but when she went for her own tasting of the treat, the point became painfully clear. Blake and Weiss grew concerned as the normally bubbly brawler was awe struck by that simple treat.

"There's no way," she said through a half full mouth of food. "This… this our mom's recipe."

Later -Beacon Dormitories-

"He damn well better like these," Ragna muttered to himself as he prepared for an encounter that still had a high potential to go very wrong. Things hadn't been as heated these past few encounters, but at least then there had been others around to keep them at least more self conscious of making a scene. As things stood now, if they met in private things could take a turn towards an ugly argument. "Whatever…"

Knocking on the door in front of him and waiting for it open, he was greeted by Kagura Mutsuki who looked surprised to see him anywhere near his team room. Jin was also inside, looking over some books and already taking notes… despite the fact that the projects hadn't even been assigned yet.

"Cookies?" Kagura asked with an eyebrow raised. That did cause Jin to lift his head from his notetaking, eyeing the plate of cookies Ragna held.

"I had some left over, don't feel like I'm made these just for the both of you," Ragna said as he brushed past Kagura and set them down on one of the nightstands between the beds. It was only then that he noticed Jin was eyeing him with a hint of scepticism. "What? You don't want them?"

"It's not that," Jin said before smirking at his older sibling, his reading glasses only adding to how smug he currently looked. "I'm just surprised you managed to make these without setting off any of the smoke alarms." A tick mark appeared on Ragna's forehead at the insult. "Back when we were kids, instead of making cookies all you managed to make was an out of control fire."

"Hey! I only did that the first-!"

"The first several times," Jin shot back. "And even when we weren't threatened with our church burning down, these were more charcoal than actual cookie."

"Damn it, do you want these or not?" Ragna demanded with a scowl. Jin didn't say another word as he took one of the cookies off of the plate and bit into it, taking a long moment to consider the taste as he chewed it. "So? How are they?"

"Just like how I remember them," Jin admitted through a pang of nostalgia. Trying to cover them, he kept his snarky composure up, almost like a shield. "Minus your usual charcoal of course."

"Honestly Jin…" he groaned, grabbing one of the cookies for himself. "Just don't be a total bastard to Weiss, alright?"

"I have no plans or reason to, but I'll expect her to put a strong effort towards our project and get positive results," he informed. Ragna figured that would be the best deal he could get, so nodded as he headed out of his brother's room, passing Kagura once again as he shut the door behind him.

"Your not going to tell him what's going on?" Kagura asked as he grabbed one of the cookies for himself.

"No, I'll leave that Weiss if she decides to do so… which I doubt that she would so soon," Jin counted as he continued with his own treat while resuming his reading on noble families and their traditional sense of law. "Any number of things could happen if he found out now… for the moment, we should continue to design our base strategy before committing to any single path."

"Good call, guess it's still too early in the game," he noted as started on his own cookie, which he found pleasant enough. "Between projects, getting out of this damn marriage scheme, and making sure you look good with the Festival, you're going to have your hands full this quarter."

"Which is why I need to make sure I can make every second count," he countered. "You don't have to help me on this, you've done more than enough by warning me."

"Come on, what kind of friend would I be if I just dumped this whole mess on you and walked away?" Kagura questioned. "Just promise me that when this is over that you and Tsubaki will stop being so damn uptight around each other, it's starting painful with how much the two of you beat around the bush."

"No deal," Jin responded, not missing a beat as he continued his reading.

"...Can't say I didn't try, Jinny."

"Stop calling me that."

"NO."

Author's Note

With the 60+ hour work weeks I've been having, I'm a little surprised that I got this chapter out at all. Things at my new job are getting crazier as we get closer to the end of the year, so there might not be that many updates. That said, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter even if it was a little on the shorter and more exposition based side.

Review Responses

Wlyman2009: Stayed tuned for more then.

Fernandamichelleraya: Villains doing villainous things is always a fun… and then there's Hazama where things go completely out of control for everyone involved.

Friend: Yes to Jaune's sisters, but I'm not assigning names just yet.

Bismark Alexander: References are fine as long as they don't completely ruin the illusion of fantasy, but I'll keep that in mind. As for what she has against Ragna, it more that she hates Hazama and knows that (even if he doesn't show it) he has a vested interest in Ragna.

Slackboy101: It would make parts of his like a living hell for sure.

Ragriz: It's good money, but it's also why I went a whole month without posting.

ArmantusCumPinnae: Hmm… you've got a lot of interesting ways I can take this story, but more of that in the future.

The Unplanner: Hah! All hilarious takes on the story.

P3R50N4: Future reveal planned.

Guest: ...I'll consider it and what the readers want.

Pally111: Heh, your reviews never fail to put a smile on my face. Great to hear from you.

ShadowSytykerX: WHOOOPS!

Guest (2): Tell me about it… math teachers especially.

Reclusive Dork: He'll certainly become involved further down the line.

JBL0104: Either way…

Until next time everyone! Ciao!