Cardin didn't sleep well at night anymore. That is to say, he didn't sleep at all most days and even when he did it wasn't for more than a few hours. The reason perplexed him as much as it changed; sometimes it was because he was too anxious to sleep, sometimes because he was too distracted by his thoughts and, strangely, sometimes because he was too tired to sleep. How that worked was beyond him, but it was frustrating none the less.

"Oh well, at least I'm up to date with my studies." He thought bitterly as he watched the alarm clock strike 3:00 AM from the desk. This was the third day in a row without sleep and he was starting to feel the effects of sleep deprivation. However, he couldn't risk sleeping yet. Not with the Weapon Maintenance test coming up.

The ginger dragged himself away from the desk and shuffled his way into the bathroom. He locked the door behind himself and started running the tap until the sink was full, a ritual in which he was already very familiar.

He opened the cabinet and pulled out a locked box. The mace-wielder pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked it, finding several vials of ice dust inside. Carefully, he took one out and a fraction of the substance into the water.

"This isn't gonna be fun."

Taking in a deep breath, Cardin dunked his head under the water. The icy temperatures stung his skin a little, but his eyes felt like they were made of ice. The water always seemed to affect his eyes the most, memories of his disastrous attempts at using fire dust for this purpose flooded his mind. He'd been lucky to not get any scars from that one.

The burning sensation in his chest made him realise that he'd been under the water longer than he'd intended. Damn it. If he kept spacing out like this, he might hurt himself.

He withdrew from the water, gasping for air. He quickly grabbed the towel closest to him, not caring who's it was and wiped his face of vigorously, hoping the friction would restore some sense of feeling to his face.

"That was not clever."

Cardin threw the towel into the pile of dirty laundry and stared into the mirror, looking for any signs that he might've hurt himself. Although his skin was a little whiter than usual, there didn't seem to be any sort of problem.

"Aside from the usual anyway."

His eyes were heavily sunken and bleary, resting atop of bags so large they could almost be mistaken for Black Eyes and his once deep, rich auburn hair looked…straw-like? Cardin didn't know how to properly describe it but it looked flat, lifeless even.

"Sleep deprivation will do that to ya."

At that moment, Cardin was overwhelmed by what a monumental failure the last few months had been. He'd failed to improve as a person, he'd failed at convincing people he was a better person, his grades were in the low B range at best and now he couldn't even sleep! How could sleeping be difficult? All you had to do was lie down and close your eyes until you passed out for Heaven's sake!

He wanted to hit something. He was overcome with the overwhelming urge to punch something in the face. Quickly throwing on some clothes, the hunter ran out of his dorm and through the halls, looking for something he could hit that wouldn't get him in trouble. He lost track of his time as he was consumed by his violent urges until he found himself in the courtyard, surrounded by trees.

"Good enough." He thought to himself as he stalked over to the tree and punched it, his aura-enhanced strength allowing him to tear a sizeable chunk out of it.

Cardin panted heavily, feeling unnaturally tired now that he vented his rage. Sleepiness aside, he felt much better, though. It reminded him of that one episode of The Sampsons when Hughmar almost died from repressing his anger. A comparison he didn't find even remotely comforting.

Cardin checked his watch and found, to his surprise, that it was now 5:00 AM. Taking in his surroundings, he found that he'd passed out on a bench next to the tree. He tried to stand up, but his legs turned to jelly underneath him and he face-planted unceremoniously onto the ground.

"Ow."

Cardin stood up and felt himself go dizzy. He raised a hand to his head and waited for the feeling to subside before began walking back to the main campus. He passed a few joggers and the like on his way there, a few even bumped into him but they didn't apologise. Hell, they didn't even acknowledge his existence. He might as well be the Beacon Ghost as far as they were concerned. The ginger caught himself wishing that he could be a ghost a few times a day. At least, if he were dead, he wouldn't have to put up with this bullshit.

Remembering that he had an engineering test today, Cardin absentmindedly walked into the Forging rooms, hoping to get some extra practice. It was supposed to be a 'simple' practical; disassembling and then reassembling a gun followed by a thirty-minute test. However, despite the ease of maintenance and lack of delicate work required to fix it, using a mace for a weapon left him with little knowledge on how to work with guns.

"Was it room 203?"

The teachers told them that they'd be putting the gun they'd use in the test in one of the engineering rooms so that the students could practice. It seemed idiotic to the Mace Wielder to put the exact thing they'd have to disassemble up for practice. Hell, why not message the test questions to him while they were at it.

Walking into room 203, he found a number of students standing around the workstations, frantically moving their arms around while timing themselves. It seemed he'd found the right room.

Cardin walked over to one of the empty workstations left over, noticing that the guns the students were working on looked like an older model. How fitting, they'd have no idea what half the parts were. A real test of their skill.

Cardin found himself at the workstation and looked at what he thought would be a new object of torture, his eyes widening in happiness.

"YES! Oh God yes! Thank you!" he cried out in happiness, kissing the tips of his fingers and raising his hands to the sky in thanks to whatever deity had granted him mercy. The display had drawn attention from everyone standing around him but he didn't care.

It was a standard issue rifle from the Faunus War, almost archaic by modern standards. But Cardin's father had been almost obsessed with the war, and that poured over into weapons. Cardin knew every nook and cranny of this weapon by memory. However, there was one particular nook Cardin had in mind.

Picking up a screwdriver, Cardin turned the gun over and looked for a screw near the barrel, completely out of place and serving almost no function.Almost. Cardin twisted the tool until the screw was completely removed. He then picked up a smaller screwdriver and stuck it down the hole. A satisfying click told Cardin all he needed to know. He pulled the tool away and watched with joy as the gun fell apart as if dismantled by some form of magic.

"Woah! How did you do that?"

Cardin almost ignored the voice out of habit, but eventually turned so fast he gave himself whiplash and saw none other than Ruby Rose, staring at the gun parts with amazement. The hood wearer looked at Cardin with a perplexed look, wondering why he looked so freaked out.

"What? Do I have something on my face?"

"You…your talking to me?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?"

Cardin was taken aback by her naivety, wasn't he the leper of the school?

"It's just that…never mind. What did you want?"

"I was wondering how you took it apart so quick. I can't do it at all."

Cardin felt a strange sort of bond with the Scythe-Wielder. Was this the beginning of an odd friendship? Or was he just elated over having another student willingly talk to him for the first time in what felt like an eternity. No matter, Cardin wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste.

"You don't have to disassemble it. There's a trick to it. Watch."

Cardin moved over to Ruby's workbench while the smaller girl took a seat on her stool and watched intently.

"You see this screw here?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you just get this out and there's a button that you can push."

"Uh huh."

"And when you do, this happens."

Once again, Cardin pressed what he had dubbed as a child 'The Magic Button' and watched with a smirk as the gun fell apart, his smirk becoming a full-on smile when he saw Ruby's eyes widen in amazement.

"Ohmygodhowdidyouknowaboutthat!" Ruby all but screamed into Cardin's ear.

"My God is she enthusiastic."

"Well, my Dad was super obsessed with the Faunus War and not in the good way. He was a real 'hurr durr, we should never have made peace with those animals' kinda guy."

"Makes sense."

"Huh?" what did she mean by that?

"One of my friends at Signal said that Racism is taught, not learned."

Cardin winced violently at the words. Ruby realised the faux-pas as soon as the words were out of her mouth, and not wanting to make an enemy out of the ginger, started trying to apologise.

"Calm down, it's fine." The mace-wielder said, much to Ruby's relief.

"Anyway, my Dad brought in an heirloom rifle from his brother's house to show me. He went on and on and on about how to care for it and what not, but then he mentioned a bit of trivia."

Ruby tilted her head sideways in curiosity.

"You see, the Faunus were forced to use primitive weapon like axes, bows and the like, so when they started getting their hands on guns, the military started getting nervous. So, they put this button in so that when a battle started goin' south, the soldiers could turn a gun into gun parts since most Faunus didn't have the technical know-how to put 'em back together."

Ruby's mouth formed a quiet 'O' in understanding. Cardin turned and looked at the disassembled gun parts.

"Oh man, let me tell ya. Knowing this gun is gonna be the prac part. Heh, greatest thing since strawberries."

Ruby perked up in excitement.

"You like strawberries?!"

"Ahahaha, growing up with my mother it wasn't a question of if you like strawberries, but how much you like strawberries. She had literally half our backyard walled of for growing them. I still carry around a pack with me."

Cardin opened up a pouch on his belt that he made a point to take with him everywhere he went and pulled out a container of Strawberries. He religiously opened the clasp on it and put one of the delicious fruits in his mouth while Ruby all but salivated on the rest of them.

"Can I have one?"

"No, my strawberries!" He said while pulling the container to his chest and hunching over it, a playful smirk on his face.

"Will see about that, I have the ultimate begging face! Nothing can resist me!"

"Oh yeah, well I grew up with three baby cousins, I've developed the ultimate begging face counter."

"Is that so?"

"Yep."

The two stared at each other, both of them with a look of smug confidence on their faces. Ruby turned around and began practicing the face in the reflection of her scroll. Once she reached the desired mixture of both cute and pitiful, she whirled around…

Only to see Cardin with his head turned, staring into the distance.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing, I just never realised how interesting that wall is." He said, barely managing to keep a straight face.

"Is that so…"

Ruby activated her semblance, using the opportunity to get as close to Cardin's face as she could without actually touching him. Cardin simply stood up in response. Growling, Ruby grabbed his face and forced him to look at her, pouting her lips as much as humanly possible, only for Cardin to close his eyes. He laughed when he heard Ruby make a strangled noise of frustration.

"See? Ultimate strategy, as long as I don't look, you can't do anything."

Ruby let go of his face and scratched at her chin, narrowing her eyes as Cardin popped another strawberry in his mouth.

"Oh, this is soooo good. If only I had a short, silver-eyed girl to share them with." He said mockingly.

Ruby took that moment to try and grab the container out of his hands, but Cardin simply raised the container above his head. Ruby jumped as high as she could but barely managed to even touch his elbows. Cardin lazily reached up and grabbed another strawberry and pretended to hand it to Ruby, only to but it in his mouth as she reached for it.

"Oh man, this must be the best strawberries in the world."

Ruby made a miserable sound and stared at the ground dejectedly. Cardin didn't know if it was another trick or if he'd really gone too far. He decided not to risk it.

"Just kidding, take as many as you wa-"

The ginger didn't even get to finish the sentence as Ruby pounced on his hand, all but inhaling the remaining fruits, leaving an empty container in his hand.

"You know, when I said 'take as many as you want' I didn't mea-"

"Too late." She said innocently, followed by a very unladylike belch. Cardin laughed heartily while Ruby blushed and pulled her hood over her head.

"Hey, can I borrow someone's…whadyacallit, little screwdriver." A meek-looking pig faunus ask. Ruby saw an uncomfortable look pass over Cardin's face before he grabbed the screwdriver off of his desk.

"Yeah, here. Catch."

The Faunus caught the screwdriver but, seeing who gave it to him, turned around and kept on working, not even bothering to say thanks.

"Not that I blame him."

"Wow, you didn't even call him a swine or anything!" Ruby said in mild shock.

"Yeah, I've been trying to do less of that lately." He said sadly. Ruby stared at Cardin intently, not sure how to proceed, trying to find the right words for this situation.

"You know, I think everyone might be wrong about you."

Cardin froze in place, struggling to comprehend what he just heard. For a moment, Ruby thought she'd somehow offended him.

"You…you really think so?"

"Yeah, I do. I mean, sure, you're not perfect, but you're trying to be a better person. I mean, that's gotta count for something, right?"

"I've got to go, see ya around."

Cardin walked as calmly as possible out of the room and closed the door behind him. He then promptly sprinted down the hall jumped as high as he could, yelling out of joy.

"She thinks I'm a decent guy!"

This was the first good thing that had ever happened to Cardin in awhile, he felt ecstatic, invincible even! Nothing could ruin his mood now.

He kept sprinting down the hall, only to get punched in the face as he rounded a corner and shoved up against the wall.

"We've been looking for you, Cardin!" Eve spat bitterly.

"Except for these assholes…"