Hello and welcome to chapter 5! So sorry for the wait; I've been gone for very long, but now that I've been discharged I'll be able to keep up the updates (couldn't type in the hospital). Again, sorry for the wait!

Her eyes darted towards the door. If she could just find an opening – however slight it might be – she could make a dash for it. By the time they realized she was gone, she would be off the radar and perfectly hidden. They would never find her.

But first of all, she needed that opening.

She could feel her palms getting sweaty from the tension. Her stomach was fluttering with butterflies, moths and lord knows what – a terrible sensation to be having while she was supposed to be calm. Or at least trying to look it.

To call it 'being nervous' would be an understatement. Her head was spinning and she felt like throwing up, but since she could not, she was forced to bear the nausea until it subsided. If it subsided.

"Well, we all knew this day would come eventually."

The voice, familiar as it was, still sent shivers down her spine. Despite her brain's screams, her body still jerked around to face her interrogator, eyes strained on that serious looking face. And the huge weapon in her hands.

She briefly wondered if it would hurt if that sharp blade was to tear her head off. It would definitely be a painful process, but if she could die before the pain registered…

Who was she kidding? This was her she was thinking about. She'd be lucky if she didn't get butchered in the slowest and most agonizing way possible.

"So, Miss Schnee."

She swallowed. She both hated and feared that tone in equal measure, but kept it to herself; no point angering the woman more than she probably already have, if that was even possible.

"I want you to be perfectly honest with me."

Even though she was not asked to respond, she nodded so furiously her head almost fell off.

"Did you or did you not have sex with my sister?" Yang asked.

"Ye- Wait, WHAT?!" Weiss exclaimed, practically leaping out of her chair. She had been expecting something else entirely given the mood, but the question actually asked threw her off completely. Not that it mattered, since Yang's expression of pure rage seemed to eclipse everything anyway.

"Wait, no!" Weiss said hastily, trying to retract her previous mistaken answer. Crescent Rose had never looked scarier, and she had little faith in Yang's ability to hold back. "We didn't do… h-have… t-that!"

"Then why can't you say the word properly?" Yang demanded.

"Who on Remnant can?!" Weiss yelled back, her cheeks a faint shade of pink.

"Unless you've already had sex with her, you would be perfectly fine saying it!"

"For crying out loud, stop saying that word!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Weiss could see Ruby doing her best impression of her own cape, which was a rather brilliant crimson hue. If she had been in a joking mood, Weiss would probably have said she could be a chameleon Faunus. Or just a ripe tomato.

Blake, on the other hand, was massaging her temples while shaking her head in a clearly exasperated manner.

"Yang," the black-haired Faunus sighed. "At least put the scythe down first."

"Fine," Yang grumbled, setting Crescent Rose down against the wall before turning back to Weiss. "So how far did you go?"

"I only slept with her for one night!" Weiss said incredulously, before realizing how that must have sounded.

"You were right, Blake," Yang said, her expression stony with one eye twitching. "It'd be better to use my hands and choke her to death instead."

"Wait, no!" Weiss exclaimed. "I meant we just shared a bed for one night! That's it! Ruby Rose! Back me up!"

"Y-yes ma'am!" Ruby said, jumping at suddenly being called. Her face was still flaming red, which Weiss would normally be mad about if not for how adorable she looked. "T-that's right!"

"Ruby, if she took your virginity-" Yang began.

"Yang!" Ruby yelled. "Wait; what does 'vir'-"

"Weiss," Blake said suddenly, raising her voice. "What did you want to tell us?"

"W-what?" Weiss asked back, her flustered brain unable to process the question.

"I swear, Weiss, if you had sex with Ruby-"

"For crying out loud, Yang!" Weiss's face was burning with embarrassment. "I didn't have s- do THAT with her! I was going to tell you I'm a Faunus!"

"Good!" Yang declared, satisfied. "Wait; what?"

The room went dead silent for a few seconds, but those seconds crawled by like hours. Drowning in the utter lack of response, Weiss fidgeted uncomfortably as she waited them out, all while feeling their gaze digging deeply into her skin.

This was not the way she had expected things to go. She had worked up so much courage to tell them her secret, and now it just came out because she got agitated. So much for staying calm.

"Weiss…"

Ruby's voice, more like a gasp than anything, was the first thing she heard. Weiss did not even dare to look up at meet her eyes, for fear of what she might see. Instead, all she felt was a curious hand on her skirt-

Weiss had no idea she could scream like that, but she managed to surprise even herself with what emerged from her mouth. Covering her bottom through her skirt and positively livid with rage and shock, Weiss looked at her partner with a glare that could freeze magma.

"RUBY ROSE!" She shrieked. "What on Remnant do you think you're doing?!"

"I was just checking to see if you had a tail, that's all," Ruby replied innocently.

"I don't have a tail!" Weiss screamed.

"What about ears, then?" Yang asked, stroking the top of Weiss's head and by extension, her snow-white hair.

"I don't have ears, either!" Weiss denied, pushing the blonde away. Why were they treating this so lightly?

"Then what Faunus are you?" Blake asked, raising an eyebrow. There was something off about her curiosity, but Weiss was too flustered to notice. "I don't see any particular… appendages."

"I'm… a half-Faunus," Weiss admitted. "I don't really know what animal I'm supposed to be, but I'm half human too, so that's probably why I don't have them…"

"So how do you know you're a Faunus?" Yang asked.

"I can see in the dark," Weiss replied slowly. "Not only that, I can… smell out other Faunus. Like Blake…"

"So you're a Faunus without the animal parts?" Ruby asked. "Wait, that means you knew Blake was a Faunus all along? And you… um…"

"Yes," Weiss answered, refusing to meet Blake's eyes. "I didn't know she was with the White Fang… I don't actually detest the Faunus themselves, just so you know. S-sorry," she added in a nearly inaudible mumble.

"Hey, aren't we going off-topic here?" Yang mentioned after a short pause. "Didn't Weiss have something important to tell us?"

"You're saying that now?" Blake asked.

"Now that you mention it, that's right," Ruby said, as though she had just remembered something very important. "What was the important thing you had to say, Weiss?"

"Huh?" it took a solid ten seconds for Weiss to respond to that question. Yang aside, was Ruby not paying attention to anything she said either? Was that a trait of their family or something?

"You said we'd be angry and everything, so it's something big right?" Ruby asked. "So what is it?"

"I-I just told you!" Weiss exclaimed. "I'm a half-Faunus!"

"Wait," Yang spoke up. "Was that it?"

"Yes!" Weiss replied, almost angrily. "Why aren't you the least bit surprised at all?"

"What's there to be surprised about?" Yang asked. "I mean, yeah, it's something new, but it's like finding out something about a new classmate isn't it?"

"What do you mean?" Surprisingly, it was Blake who asked that question and not Weiss.

"Hey, I wasn't that bothered by Blake's declaration," Yang shrugged. "I don't see why I should be bothered with yours."

"Yeah, same here," Ruby added. "I thought you were going to say you liked to kill puppies in your free time or something…"

"What?!" Weiss had already lost track of how many times she got sidetracked by her partner that day. "Why would I do that?!"

"Then we're all good!" Ruby declared, beaming widely. "Now that that's settled, let's go get some cookies!"

Without warning, Weiss's knees buckled, causing her to collapse onto the floor. As much as she tried, she just could not muster any power to her wobbly, jelly-like legs. Her body, filled with a sense of relief so profound it shook her being, stayed where it was, unwilling to move. Even in the face of her pride as the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, Weiss Schnee just continued to kneel there, as a soft, gradual sobbing slowly reached her ears.

All this while, after all that effort, she finally managed to tell them. After all that worrying, all that fearing, she finally conveyed her secret. Yet despite all that she had to go through, Weiss had not been rejected by any of them. Despite all the mental turmoil she had to endure, their acceptance was so easy and ready, a though it was not something serious at all. How could she have been ensnared by those fears all this time?

"W-Weiss?" Ruby asked, unable to comprehend what was going on. "W-what's wrong? Is it something I said?"

Of course it was. Because of her simple words, because of her ready acceptance, everything had changed. The very world she had been living in for so long instantly changed because of her words. How could it not be because of her words?

"Yes," she replied, smiling through her white-hot tears. "It has everything to do with what you said, you dolt.

"Thank you."