Darkbloom

Chapter 9

Blake and Weiss moved through the woods, carefully keeping an eye out for any enemies. They'd accepted a mission to exterminate an Ursa Major along with a few standard Ursai – not exactly a challenging mission for them, but then again, that wasn't what she was afraid of.

Frankly, it was a miracle to her that she hadn't run into the White Fang yet. They had to be out there, looking for her. Even if Adam wasn't out there with them, he would have set them up to hunt for her, that much was certain. It was just a matter of time before they found her.

That begged the question, then – if she knew the White Fang was going to be hunting for her, then why did she still stick around? Truthfully, she didn't quite know, herself. Perhaps it was the fact that a small part of her genuinely enjoyed spending time with Jaune and Cinder… and, perhaps begrudgingly, even Weiss was slightly more tolerable than some of her so-called 'comrades' in the White Fang had been. They weren't friends, but she could at least appreciate the presence of all three of them, and as for Weiss… well, at least Blake could rely on Weiss to watch her back.

Far off in the distance, from directly behind them, Blake heard a twig snap. Her cat ears twitched, and she instantly froze before turning around, snapping her pistol up. She found herself aiming at nothing. She stood there for a moment, her hands shaking with fear, before letting out a breath and lowering her weapons.

"What is it?" Weiss asked. "Grimm?"

"It's nothing," Blake said hurriedly. "Just thought I heard something, that's all."

Weiss crossed her arms. "Well, what'd you think you heard?"

"Nothing important," Blake lied. "Wasn't sure if someone from the village tried to follow after us or something."

"You don't seem to have a very high opinion of them," Weiss stated as the two of them continued to walk.

Blake let out a soft exhale through her nose. "Of course I don't. I've seen the way they look at me."

"The way they look at you? What does that mean?"

Of course Weiss would be the one to ask that question. But Blake knew all about it by now – Weiss was sheltered, and even if she hadn't been, she was still just a human. There were some things about being a Faunus that humans could simply never understand, no matter how hard they tried.

"They look at me like I'm already a criminal," Blake said as she pushed her way through some trees.

"To play devil's advocate for a moment, you were part of the White Fang. Perhaps being a member softened your opinion of them, but I assure you, for regular people, we have a long list of reasons to be wary of them."

Blake rolled her eyes. "Even if that were true, the people in this town have no physical evidence to connect me to that. For all they know, they're unfairly stereotyping me, if not outright racially profiling me." Blake paused. Jaune had told her not to push this far before, but she wanted to know. "And I'm curious about something, if you'll accept me trying to be impartial for a moment."

"Not like this conversation can get any worse."

"Why do you hate the White Fang so much? I mean, I know why they'd hate you – you're related to Jacques Schnee, after all – but I can't figure out why you, in particular, dislike them so much."

"Because they're personally struck against my family and I," Weiss said without stopping. "I don't care about my father – in fact, I hate the man about as much as the White Fang themselves do – but that doesn't excuse the things they've tried to do to my sister, my brother, my mother, and myself."

"Like what?" Blake asked, genuinely curious. "I don't mean to pry, but I've spent my whole life in the White Fang. If they've done anything unsavory towards you or your family, I haven't heard about it."

"I'm not surprised," Weiss replied. "They'd want to keep a lot of that a secret, after all. It's morbid of me to admit, but I understand why they'd do those things from the point of view of a terrorist organization, though I obviously disagree with them. Where shall I start? Maybe I'll begin with the time a White Fang militant tried to sneak into one of my concerts with a suicide vest underneath his jacket. He only got discovered because the venue had recently installed metal detectors at all the entrances and exits. He tried to make a run for it and was tackled by a nearby security guard, which set his vest off, killing them both. I was fifteen at the time."

Blake scowled. "I never heard about that."

"Because it was covered up everywhere," Weiss explained. "I doubt the White Fang would want you to hear about it. As for the rest of the world… it didn't even make the papers in Atlas, thanks to my father's connections. He thought it'd be embarrassing for the world to find out how a lowly White Fang member had very nearly gotten into his daughter's concert and murdered her. And, of course, that's just one incident out of several that involved only me.. My sister, for example, had many more, before she joined the military and learned to fight on her own."

"Tell me about her," Blake said, desperate to change the subject now that she could hear the venom leaking into Weiss' tone. "You speak very highly of her. You two must be close."

Weiss blinked, surprised by the sudden shift, but just like Blake hoped she would, she seemed all too eager to move on to a different topic.

"Winter is… very special to me," Weiss said. "And not just because she's my sister. She's the closest thing I have to a best friend, even though I know she'd never want me to say that. It's true, though – at least, it was true before she emancipated herself and joined the military. Father disowned her after that, so I haven't seen her in some time, unfortunately…"

Blake nodded along as Weiss spoke, a hollow pit forming in her stomach the entire time. She'd intentionally diverted Weiss' attention away from the White Fang to try and alleviate some of her anger and stress before it all boiled over, but she hadn't been ready for Weiss' words to impact her the way they were.

After all, Blake had left her own family on very bad terms several years ago. It was hard not to miss them, hearing Weiss reminisce about how close she was to her own family.

That wasn't about to stop Blake, though – anything was better than antagonizing Weiss the way she had been, especially if they needed to work together.

"And your brother?" Blake asked. "Tell me about him."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Whitley is difficult at times. He's desperate for my father's attention, and as such, has styled himself as the spitting image of my father. I suppose that makes sense – he's the current heir to the company."

"You gave it up?"

"No, but after my little running-away-from-home stunt, I highly doubt my father will let me hold onto my position as heiress," Weiss said dryly. "He's already frozen all my family bank accounts. I suspect that once I finally make it back to Atlas, it'll be right back into the gilded cage for me."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry to hear that," Blake offered. "Sounds like you just want to be free, more than anything."

"I want my father out of my life," Weiss stated blithely. "That's what I want more than anything."

"Sounds like you really hate the man."

"I hate him more than anyone would possibly suspect, especially White Fang members, present company excluded, of course. Unlike all of you, I have a deeply personal reason for disliking him."

"And that is?"

Weiss suddenly stopped, causing Blake to nearly run into her. She caught herself just in time, pausing a few steps behind Weiss and staring at her in confusion. Weiss let out a soft exhale.

"...He ruined my mother," she said softly. "It was my tenth birthday. My father was supposed to show up to my birthday dinner, but he didn't – he was too busy to attend. We all waited for him, anyway. When he finally did show up hours later, him and my mother got into a huge fight about it. During that fight, he admitted he'd only married my mother so he could take over the family business, and that he didn't truly love her or any of us. We were all just a means to an end for him."

Weiss clenched her fists hard enough for them to turn white-knuckled. "That little incident drove my mother over the edge. She started drinking heavily. Ever since that day, she's been little more than a distant, jaded alcoholic, who left my siblings and I to be raised by our army of servants."

Blake was stunned. She didn't know what to say. All the White Fang members had always envisioned the Schnee family as being all on the same page when it came to agreeing with each other, yet from what Weiss was telling her, in reality, the Schnee family was little more than a dysfunctional mess. Sure, they were a dysfunctional mess with all the money and power in the world behind their family name, but that couldn't do anything to actually fix their home life.

"So why doesn't your mother just divorce him?" Blake asked.

"Because when she married him, she signed over the rights to most of her assets, the company included," Weiss explained. "For all her faults, my mother did genuinely love my father back then. So when he asked her to sign over everything to him, she did, because she thought it was going to be an equal partnership – he'd handle the family business and she'd raise the children. But as you can probably already tell, it didn't end up like that. Instead, my father's name is now on all the family accounts, and my mother is a depressed drunkard who spends her days locked in the wine cellar."

"But surely her family is more important to her than the company," Blake said. "I mean, yes, I understand that she doesn't want to sign away everything she owns, but there has to be a limit."

"You have to understand that the SDC is all we have left of my grandfather aside from memories," Weiss said. "He built that company with his own two hands from the ground up. It would kill him to see what my father is doing with it now. Signing it away at this point would be akin to spitting on his grave. My sister tried to convince my mother to do it anyway, a little while before she left the military, and my mother wouldn't even entertain the thought."

Again, Blake fell silent as she tried to process the deluge of information Weiss had just thrown her way. All her life, she'd been taught that the Schnee family was little more than a giant monolith of racism and bigotry, and that they all deserved to burn for it. She'd stood by and cheered when her old flame had spent all that time, ranting and raving about SDC atrocities and how he wouldn't rest until every single Schnee was repaid in full for what they'd done.

And now she was here, listening to Weiss reveal just how dysfunctional the Schnee family truly was. The truth was that they weren't anywhere close to the monolithic entity the White Fang painted them as. Rather, they were little more than four bystanders being crushed under the heel of a rich, power-mad, sociopathic tyrant.

And wasn't that thought uncomfortable? In a way, she could almost relate to Weiss' struggle.

Blake's thoughts were again interrupted by the sound of a twig snapping off in the forest. This time, though, Weiss seemed to hear it as well. She turned towards Blake, confusion etched across her face.

"What was that?"

"I don't know, but I don't like it," Blake said. "Come on. Let's get this job done, then get out of here."

Weiss nodded in agreement, then the two of them set off, Blake keeping her ears perked up the entire time, just in case something tried to jump them.

"Well, that was boring."

"Ah!" Jaune exclaimed. He glared at Cinder as she stepped into his room. "Seriously, do you have to do it every time…?"

Cinder stood at the foot of his bed, her arms crossed. "That was a waste of an afternoon," she confirmed.

"So you didn't learn anything?"

"On the contrary, I learned quite a bit with regards to our two little tag-alongs. Unfortunately, none of it was pertinent to our current circumstances, but I suppose it is marginally better than spending half a day tailing them and coming up completely empty."

"If you say so. Still, what did you learn about them, exactly?"

"Only that Weiss has far greater familial problems than even we might have initially suspected."

"More specifically?"

"Before that, you owe me something," Cinder reminded him. "Such was the nature of your contract."

Jaune sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Alright, sure. What do you want?"

"Wait here."

Cinder left the room for a moment, leaving Jaune alone to wonder what she was doing. He got his answer a short while later when she returned, carrying a bottle in her hands.

"More wine?" Jaune asked.

Cinder shook her head. "This is something different – bourbon, I believe?"

Jaune's eyes widened. "Uh, that stuff is pretty strong, actually-"

"Preposterous. You will drink with me and regale me with tales of your own family. And then, when I am satisfied, I shall give you what you desire of me. Unless you intend to break the contract?"

"Of course I don't," Jaune said. "Here, let me have a taste."

Cinder uncapped the bottle, then handed it over to him. He took a brief sniff from the bottle, his face screwing up in the process. Clearly, she'd sprung for the high-proof liquor.

"Did you just pick one at random or something?"

"I asked the man at the store for his recommendation," Cinder confirmed.

"...You didn't steal it, did you?"

She scoffed. "Of course not. As it turns out, men are as easy to manipulate in this time as in my own time. I simply dropped a few sultry comments towards him, and he all but melted in my hand, enough to give me the whole bottle for a far reduced price."

That didn't exactly strike Jaune as ethical, but at this point, he knew better than to try and argue ethics with a demon. Instead, he took a breath, then sipped from the bottle. His eyes widened as the liquor hit his mouth, but he forced himself to swallow it, gasping and sputtering as it went down his throat.

"Sweet Gods, it tastes like gasoline…" he managed to get out between coughs.

Cinder stared at him. "It cannot be that bad."

"Wait, Cinder-"

She raised the bottle to her lips and took a sip. True to Jaune's expectations, her expression did change slightly when the taste first hit her, but to her credit, she didn't rip the bottle away from her mouth or even begin coughing the same way he had. Instead, she gently lowered it, then set it aside before shrugging.

"Not bad, though I prefer wine," she said. "Here."

Cinder passed him the bottle, and Jaune reluctantly took another sip. It was hardly any better than the first one.

"So," Cinder began, "your family."

"Yeah, what about them?"

"Explain them to me, particularly your relationship with them all. I have been traveling with you for some time, yet do not have a read on them."

"Ah. Well, I suppose that's easy enough," Jaune said. He took another sip of bourbon, wincing as he passed the bottle back to Cinder. "Well, to start, there's my mother and father. Mom's kinda stereotypical – stay-at-home mom, loves her kids, can be stern when she needs to be, about what you'd expect from a mother like her. As for my relationship with her… admittedly, I'm a bit of a mama's boy."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I really love my mother," Jaune emphasized. "But then again, I've been growing out of that, especially since I've left home to travel with you. It used to be that I didn't like to be far away from my family, her in particular, but the older I get, the more I've found her to be… kinda suffocating, if I'm being honest. I needed space to spread my wings, so to speak. Traveling with you has been good for me, in that regard."

Cinder nodded along. "And your father?"

"Ah… that's complicated," Jaune offered. "And not just because he almost killed me. I love my dad, too, and I know he loves me, but he's also big into tough love. He means well, but sometimes he takes it a bit too far. I understand where he's coming from, though – he wants the best for his children, especially me, since I'm the only male child. But what that really means is that, from time to time, he can get more overprotective than my mom can. Like that whole thing with me wanting to be a hero – in his eyes, that was little more than me admitting that I wanted to get myself killed. Dad's got connections all over Remnant, and he leveraged them into making sure I couldn't do anything dangerous for a living."

"How so?"

"Well, he somehow managed to convince every single combat school and Huntsman Academy to ignore all my calls, even before I started calling them. He also contacted every military recruiting office nearby and threatened them into not even trying to enlist me. And, of course, you saw what he's capable of when he really sets his mind to stopping me from doing something."

"Foolish man did not realize his actions were only going to drive you away in time," Cinder mused. "I had to point it out to him, if you'll recall."

"Yeah, I remember. Thank you for that, by the way."

"Tyranny is tyranny, even if only in the home. Your father was exerting his will over you like so many tinpot despots throughout history, only on a smaller scale. He, like so many others before him, failed to realize that a person can only be pushed so far before lashing out. You are fortunate to have had the opportunity to do so in a relatively controlled fashion."

"You call that relatively controlled?" Jaune asked, raising an eyebrow. "He almost killed me."

"Compared to when I lashed out at my fathers, yes, it was, in fact, relatively controlled," Cinder stated. "Not that I would expect you to have any knowledge of that, given their efforts to sanitize history afterwards."

A light dawned in Jaune's head. "...Cinder, are you comparing yourself to me?"

"Only in this regard, as we happen to share a similarity here," she pointed out. "I must admit that it amuses me. I did not think I would be quite so similar to my servant of choice."

She offered him the bottle of bourbon, and he sipped from it before handing it back. "I guess that makes three of us on the team who have issues with their parents," Jaune mused. "That we know of, at least – I wouldn't be surprised if Blake is holding out on us."

"But enough with this tangent," Cinder announced. "Move on to your sisters."

"Right, my sisters," Jaune said with a nod. "Like I mentioned earlier, I'm the middle child – there are three above me and four below me. The three above me have all moved out by now. The ones you'll recognize are Saphron and Vermilion. Saphron is the one who's been messaging me, trying to get me to contact my parents. Vermilion, on the other hand… you probably know all about her."

"The Huntress of the family," Cinder said. "Yes, I am familiar, considering I saved her life. That does beg the question, though – your father was content to allow her to live the life of a Huntress, yet not you?"

"It was different for me," Jaune argued. "I'm his only son. He was always closest to me because of that."

"Are you sure that is the reason why?"

"What do you mean? Of course it is."

"Perhaps not," Cinder pointed out. "From my memory, the Arc family lineage has always had a long line of male warriors throughout its history, dating back to at least the King of Vale. Your great-grandfather, your grandfather, your father… but not you. Why do you think your father suddenly chose to break the cycle?"

Jaune thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't know, Cinder."

"Could it perhaps be that he was afraid of what you might do?"

"No offense, but that's ridiculous," Jaune said.

"Is it? After all, my fathers were afraid of me, in the end, to the point where they cast me down to hell for my crimes against them. Think about it, Jaune – your father's father, and his father before him, lived through war – the harshest war in history since I rebelled against my creators, in fact. Do you think they emerged from it truly virtuous?"

A chill went down Jaune's spine. He swallowed nervously. "You would know that, wouldn't you?" he asked. "After all, if they'd lost their virtue… they'd be in your domain, would they not?"

A smirk crossed Cinder's face. "How surprising. You are quicker to figure things out than I thought."

Jaune didn't answer, instead reaching for the bottle of bourbon once more. Cinder suddenly grabbed hold of his wrist, and looked him in the eyes, her smirk widening.

"Would you, perhaps, like some information?" she asked. "Free of charge, in fact."

"That depends on the information," Jaune said, trying his best not to let his apprehension.

"There is no need to be nervous, Jaune."

"I'm not nervous."

Her smirk turned downright predatory. "Liar. Did you forget that we are bonded? I can sense you, the same a Grimm would sense its prey. There is very little you can hide from me at this point."

Jaune did his best to maintain his composure, despite the fact that his heart was hammering in his chest. "...Alright, lay it on me."

"How about a question first, hm?" She leaned in, her wicked grin now wide enough to show off her teeth. "How many of your relatives do you think are being held in my domain?"

Jaune's heart just about skipped a beat. He stared into Cinder's amber eyes, trying his best to turn the question over in his mind. He knew her well enough by now to know that this wasn't nearly as direct a question as it seemed on the surface. If anything, this was a test – she wanted to see how his mind worked.

"...I think," he said slowly. "That you have the exact amount that you should."

"Oh?" she asked. "An interesting answer. Elaborate, if you would."

"...I don't know exactly how many of my relatives you have," he began. "Given how far back the Arc family tree can be traced, that is an impossible question to answer outright. So, instead, I'll go with a more vague answer – you have the exact amount of Arcs down there that you should, when taking into account the way they lived their lives."

"Hm… and what makes you say that I have the exact amount? It sounds as if you trust my judgment."

"Because I know you," he explained. "I remember what happened with the Grimm, in that village. You hate the idea of damning innocent people, because you, yourself were once damned, and you know how torturous it can be. I can't claim to understand your morals, but they are clear enough to me that I realize that you'd never inflict that kind of fate upon somebody who doesn't deserve it. So yes, I trust your judgment."

"How bold," Cinder said. "Did it not occur to you that the Brothers themselves also trusted my judgment, right up until I attempted to turn everyone against them?"

"Only because you thought they weren't worthy of being worshiped," Jaune recalled. "And I know that's a decision you didn't make lightly. Considering they're not here anymore, it seems to me that you were correct, in the end."

Again, Cinder smirked. "Well said," she complimented.

Jaune breathed a quiet sigh of relief, his heartbeat calming itself. Cinder offered him the bottle, and he drank deeply of it before handing it back.

"Eleven," she said.

"What?" Jaune asked.

"I have eleven of your family members," Cinder elaborated. "And you were correct – every single one of them deserved it. And before you ask – no, you would not recognize any of them; this was before even the King of Vale. I would not be surprised if they were all but excommunicated from the annals of your family history, such were their crimes. Even the best and brightest families can occasionally produce a complete monster, it would seem."

"So it would seem…" Jaune agreed.

Cinder stood up. "Get some rest, Jaune. I will continue tracking Blake tomorrow."

With that, she left him alone with his thoughts. The moment she was gone, Jaune let out a heavy exhale.

Once again, the vision of her in the ice came flooding back, and he did his best to push it away.

The more he interacted with her and learned about her, the more that vision was beginning to eclipse the human facade she'd created for herself. At this point, he could only hope he'd manage to live up to her expectations.

He dreaded the idea of becoming her twelfth Arc.

Yeah, it's another late update, I'm sorry to say. This should have come out earlier in the week. I'm getting a lot busier with work and IDPA, hence the late updates. I'm surprised how quickly I've gotten drawn into IDPA – it's only a few matches every couple of weeks, but it's a lot of fun and I really enjoy seeing myself steadily improve with every match. I'm still pretty shit at it, but then again, I've only shot three matches, and it's a completely different set of skills than the ones I've cultivated up to this point. I'll get better in time. And I still haven't gotten DQ'd yet, which is my only goal for the first 10-20 matches. I just want to be safe and have fun at this point, really.

What else… I'm learning I'm kinda burnt out on music. The only thing that really brings me joy that's music-related anymore is composing my own stuff, but I kinda suck at it lol. I really need to work at that some more.

As far as stories are concerned… that mystery crackfic is currently still in the works. I'm taking that one pretty slow so it might not be up for a few more weeks. Plastered Paradox is also still in the works, of course, and will be updated again next week. That Jaune/Eve Taurus story I mentioned a fucking long time back is also still in the works, too. Hoping to get that one posted in the next few weeks, maybe.

Besides that, I've got nothing else. Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you all again soon!

Enjoy my work and want to help me out a bit? You can support me, as well as read more of my writing, over on Amazon. My second original story is available for purchase now, you can find it by going on Amazon and searching for 'Dead World' by John Haruspex. The story is available now for three bucks in ebook format (or free with Kindle Unlimited) or twelve bucks in paperback format, if you prefer physical media. (Remove the spaces)

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