It took nearly a week for Jaune to return from the jungle where he had run off after their argument. Blake had begun to fear that he had left Menagerie completely when her father told her of reports he had received concerning a young man hacking down Grimm in the jungle. In the end, he was the one who ended up finding her as she tried to relax in the library of her house.
Returning to this sanctuary from her past had been one of Blake's favourite parts about coming home. Long before any of her problems involving the White Fang, this had been the place where her mother would read to her every night, nurturing her passion for literature. Just sitting in the familiar, old leather chairs and breathing in the scent of wood and old paper was enough to make her relax as memories from a happier time in her life greeted her.
It was for this reason that her guard was down enough to make her jump when Jaune suddenly dropped into the chair across from her, his gaze fixed on the smoldering embers behind the wrought iron grates of the hearth. Considering the fact that she hadn't been able to properly sneak up on him since they had arrived in Menagerie, the fact that Jaune, of all people, had managed to approach her undetected annoyed Blake greatly, especially after having vanished for so long. She opened her mouth to snap at him when she noticed the distant look in his eye, and decided to drop it and wait for him to speak first.
It took several minutes, but eventually Jaune closed his eyes and sighed, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees as loose strands of his blonde hair fell from his wolf tail to hang over his brow. "My family has produced Huntsmen for generations," he said quietly. "Further back than even the four schools themselves, the Arc family has been the center of countless tales and constantly labeled heroes. Problem with being a hero, though, is that they rarely get to die of old age surrounded by loved ones. Generations of fighting in the name of glory and protecting the innocent cut our family tree down until there was no one left but my mom and a sword and shield older than anyone can remember. Problem is, there's not a ton of opportunity for a lone girl on the streets to train herself to be a hero. She became angry at the idea of heroes, but wasn't willing to part with the only thing she had left of her parents, so, to feed herself, she sold the only other thing a girl in her situation could. Eventually, she made enough money to put a roof over her head, but her... clients, weren't always the most considerate when it came to the consequences of their actions." He paused and took a deep breath while Blake's eyes widened somewhat as she started to understand what he was saying.
"She was fifteen when she had my oldest sister. By that time, she propbably was terrified of what she was going to do with another mouth that needed feeding, but when Saphron was born, Mom knew that she was going to make sure that little girl had the best life possible, far away from the death and sadness that everyone seems to forget when they talk about heroes. She started working more and more to make sure Saph didn't have to follow in her footsteps or those of her parents, and when Verte was born, her resolve strengthened even further. But, it was hard on her, and the nine of us had to look after each other. It got a little easier when she managed to get a job at a butcher shop and fell in love with a hunter. We didn't have much, but we made it work. Eventually, though, those years took their toll on Mom, and she got sick. She couldn't work anymore so my older sisters all went and found jobs. I didn't though. I was already well known for messing up pretty much every job I had, so no one in Ansel would hire me. Instead, one night, I ran away, stealing the one thing that she could never have parted with, and set out for Beacon with a set of forged transcripts in hand. I figured I would become a great Huntsmen like my ancestors and be able to take care of my family, or, at the very least, I could provide them with one less mouth to feed."
"Jaune," Blake whispered, reaching out to him when he raised his head and began talking once again.
"What happened at the Fall of Beacon," Jaune said harshly before deflating with an explosive sigh. "None of us came away from that unscathed. I can understand where you're coming from, the guilt that eats away at you everyday. The feeling that as long as you're around, the people you care about will always be in danger. I can even understand feeling like you're protecting them, I almost did the same. But, when you leave like that, all you do is hurt the people closest to you. It was selfish to believe that no one could understand what you were feeling, and that you knew best, I'm not sorry for saying that. I am sorry for how I said it, though. I shouldn't have used the my own pain to undermine yours."
"I needed it," Blake admitted. "I've been so wrapped up in the fact that Adam came to Beacon because of me, that I ignored everything else that happened to everyone else that was there."
"To be fair," Jaune said, a grin tugging at his lips. "He does sound like a jerk."
Blake smirked. "You have no idea."
The two of them burst into laughter, and Blake felt a weight she hadn't even known was there lift off her chest, leaving behind a lingering warmth that she couldn't remember feeling since coming out to her team as a faunus. Eventually, they calmed down, and Jaune's face took on a more serious expression once more. Looking at him in the dim firelight, Blake could once again see how he had changed physically in the year since she had seen him with the light scruff on his cheeks and neck and his sharper jawline, all signs of any lingering baby fat having melted away during his time presumably living in less than ideal conditions, making him look much older than he should.
"I've been looking into some of the other Grimm attacks that have taken place in the surrounding areas," he declared reaching into his pocket and pulling out his scroll.
"Did you figure out where they're coming from?" Blake asked.
"Not quite," Jaune admitted, typing on his scroll before handing it over to her. "But I have started to see a few patterns."
"Like what?" Blake asked as she accepted the device and looked down to see what he had typed.
We're being watched. Masked girl out the Eastern window. She frowned. It wasn't surprising that the Fang would have someone watching the only human on Menagerie, but the fact that whoever it was wore a mask set her on edge.
"Well, it's clear their coming from the deserts to the west," Jaune continued as Blake handed the scroll back to him where he began typing on it once more, handing it back to her once he was finished but not releasing her hand as she reached to grab it and leaning close to her to make it look like they were both reading the screen. I'm going to give your semblance a boost. Leave a shadow of us both and sneak up on her. Blake raised an eyebrow, she had never even tried to leave a shadow of another person behind, and even then, her own vanished within moments and the distance she moved herself was nowhere near enough to get the leg up on someone who was all the way outside the house. She looked from the screen to Jaune, trying to find a way to covertly relay these facts when she was suddenly caught in the endless blue of his eyes and she suddenly felt it.
It started like a soothing balm on her very soul originating from where they were touching until suddenly, Blake felt raw energy coursing through her veins. It felt like her aura was suddenly endless. Like things that would have normally left her drained were nothing more than a thought away. Her muscles demanded use, making her have to work suddenly focus this overwhelming energy flowing through her to doing as Jaune asked. When she did, though, she suddenly found them both standing at the base of a tree more than twenty feet from the walls of the house. Looking up, she found their spy still watching the distant window and leapt through the air with a loud crack of splitting stone, rocketing towards the voyeur with more speed than she could ever imagine and slamming into her, sending them both careening out of the tree.
Blake barely even felt it when the woman punched her in the jaw in an attempt to break free, nor did she when they slammed into a nearby trunk, the force of their impact splitting and downing it with a crash that immediately had alarms around Blake's home blaring. Blake and her opponent rolled across the ground, coming to a stop about ten feet from one another, and Blake stood up fixing her gaze on the woman just as the lights throughout the house came one, revealing a slim, tanned woman with long, brown hair tied back in a ponytail that curled in on itself at the end. The woman wore a larger Grimm mask than most White Fang members, which, along with the horns added to the top of the mask, indicated she was of a higher rank than others as well as resonating in Blake's memory.
"Illia?" She called out. The other woman stiffened before her skin changed colour, suddenly turning black as the night as she tried to escape into the shadows, all but confirming Blake's fear only to run into Jaune who came running behind them both and backhanded Illia, sending her tumbling back into the light and shattering her mask.
"Why are you watching her?" He demanded.
"You shouldn't have come back," Illia grunted, pushing herself to her feet. "Especially not with a human."
"Blake?" Blake's eyes widened at the sound of her mother's voice as she and father came running towards them. At the same moment, Illia pulled out what looked like a segmented rapier with a gun handle for a hilt and pointed it at Blake before turning and squeezing the trigger as her mother came around the corner, making the segments seperate with a bright yellow light between them as they launched themselves at Kali.
"MOM!" Blake screamed as she watched the blade move in slow motion towards her mother's shoulder. She closed her eyes and thus didn't see whatever caused the loud clang of metal striking metal, only opening them when she heard a grunt that did not come from her mother and finding Jaune, a massive shield covering most of his body as he stood unmoving in front of her parents, his cheek bleeding from where Illia's blade had grazed it after being deflected.
Rage the likes Blake had never felt before coursed through her as she turned back to her one-time friend who had the gall to attack her mother, and she cursed violently upon remembering that she was unarmed as Illia used the distraction to fade away into the dark foliage behind her.
"Mom!" She yelled, running to her mother and wrapping her arms around her as she made sure Kali was uninjured. "Are you okay?"
"I am," Kali mumbled into her hair before looking up behind Blake. "Thanks to your friend at least."
Blake turned around to look at Jaune who was staring at the section of jungle through which Illia had escaped and took a step forward only to hesitate when he spun around in place, a hard look on his face and stared her father in the eye.
"I can track her," he declared, seemingly unaware of the long cut dripping blood down the right side of his face. "But only if she thinks we lost her. Keep your men away from this area until tomorrow, I can't risk anything tampering with the trail when we're letting it cool like this."
"I can do that," Ghira replied, his arms not leaving their place around his wife's shoulders. "This was an attack on my family. You will have whatever you need to hunt down the animals behind it."
"In the meantime," Kali suggested, her voice soothing as she tried to calm both her husband and daughter. "Why don't you help Jaune with that cut, Blake? It looks rather painful."
Blake nodded, while Jaune collapsed his shield, which ran up a series of rails along the plates covering his arm before detaching sections that expanded into the guards over his neck, pectoral and back while the main piece continued to the center of his back, returning to its sheathed form where he put his shrunken sword as well. Reaching out, she grabbed his hand and pulled him away from her parents and back inside her home, the one place she was supposed to be safe towards her room where she kept some bandages.
"Are you okay?" Jaune asked once they had arrived and Blake shut the door.
Blake opened her mouth to answer, but instead found herself doing something she never would have thought to even be within the realm of possibility not too long ago. She threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around him, grateful for his immediate reaction as he returned the gesture and kept her grounded as she wrestled with the concept of nearly having lost her mother that night.
"Thank you," she mumbled, burying her face in his chest and taking deep breaths of the smell of earth and citrus and sea water. "Thank you."
A/N: Weirdly enough, it wasn't until the end that I had trouble with this one. I wanted the focus for this one to be mostly about their reconciliation, so the action got cut short. Hopefully the promise of Knightshade fluff softens the disappointment. Also, before anyone asks, there was a reason why Jaune bled from that blow he deflected despite having a ton of aura, it will be addressed in the next chapter. Anyway, I hope you guys liked this one and thanks again for reading and reviewing. See you next time!