Blake waited for her charge to stop crying, and after she heard a single muffled sniffle, she slowly released the girl from her hug, as not to scare the girl. Reaper was an apparent criminal, never being shown love in her entire life; but there were now two who showed her what it feels like, for however long they would stay around for. This girl was a Faunus, one of her, but there was a scent to her that radiated kindness, not hate; hate was what others radiated round her, but this girl, she radiated love, friendship, kindness and kinship.

But one question began to annoy her to no end. "W-Why...?" she looked up at the raven haired girl, who simply smiled a little, before leaning down to meet her gaze while staying just far enough away to not scare Reaper.

"Because you're a-"

This took Ruby miles back in her painful and torture ridden childhood.

(^^^^^^)

She was being beaten, badly. What was even worse was that people were either watching or plainly ignoring her pain cried shouts for help or her torment-filled screams for reasons and mercy. In the end, after nearly two hours of punches landing in her face or ribs, and kicks hitting off of every part of her body, it stopped. She stared up at one of the men who had grown tired of her ill response to his public beating and merely spat on her, grumbling to himself about getting a drink and finishing her off.

She knew at least half of the bones in her body were decimated and her jaw lay on the verge of smashing in half, but she still stared up with blurry eyes and tears and looked at one of the men, who seemed to see that this has gone way further than he anticipated, but he nonetheless enjoyed the sight. He walked away, shaking his head as he did so and the others soon followed, leaving one to grab the things they had thrown around while the beatings ensued and she looked at him, catching his hate-filled eyes and evil smile of accomplishment.

"W-Why...?" she weakly mumbled out, and the man looked at her before smiling, stretching his arm muscles and testing his legs hadn't been strained from all of the kicking he had taken part in delivering to the innocent girl.

Blood was caked all over her arms, legs, head and it dribbled out of her mouth, even some slivered its way out of her ears- both pairs. It pooled around her, and she could feel herself being dragged from consciousness and, soon, life. She would die if her wounds were not treated soon, but she never cared anymore; she had suffered throughout her life, and dying would be a welcomed respite from it all.

His smile grew even more sinister before he walked over to her, kicking her once more in the jaw, shattering the left side and severely damaging the right.

"Because you're a monster..." that was when, before her vision faded and consciousness slipped away, she saw two fox ears perched atop the man's head.

That was probably the day she began to fear her own kind as well as humans.

That was probably the last way she expected her day to go, yet she somehow knew it would end with this happening.

That was probably the worst day of her seven years of existence.

(^^^^^^)

"-Wolf Faunus and a scared little girl who's never had a friend before, and I don't usually go out of my way, but for some reason, it pains me to be away from you or see you hurt..." Blake finished, but she watched on with interested eyes as she could see Reaper wasn't paying attention and rubbing the left side of her jaw with her left hand.

Reaper- or Ruby, which was not yet known to the raven haired cat-, remembered the pain she went through when she replaced the entire left side of her jaw, along with some teeth, tendons and bones, with metal and robotics. The metallic and robotic jaw functioned the same way her arm did, but with less complicated parts and needed no maintenance.

It was simple, really. Each and every one of her robotic nerves hooked themselves onto her facial nerve; the most used nerve in the body and fed off of the electrical impulses it gave off, powering the jaw. As long as she lived, basically, the machine worked. It was, mostly, the same as her arm, with the small exception of the aforementioned needless use of maintenance and cleaning.

She then noticed the cat Faunus in front of her's curious eyes and noticed that she had been rubbing the jaw in memory. She lowered her arm quickly, averting her gaze to the ground, and mumbled out a weak sorry. After a small, second long silence she flinched, expecting a hit for speaking out of line, but none came.

She looked up and saw- well, heard- the onyx haired girl mumble something, but Ruby having perfected her hearing to the point of super-Faunus, she heard exactly what she mumbled.

"She flinched...just how bad has she had it...?"

Wait, this was odd. Someone actually was worried about how bad her childhood and general existence had been? This was different to her, and she answered anyway, given that she shouldn't have heard it but had no choice but to answer.

She didn't know how to deal with being silent while someone else talked about her, anyway, and she felt it best to at least get to know her protector of sorts.

"My...M-My life was p-p-pretty bad...left a l-lot of scars." Ruby said, copying a joke- if merely out of context- she had heard a sailor say when he was around his other friends one night when she could get past others. This was all before she was condemned as a criminal, mind you.

She didn't use any humorous tone to her voice, or any lingering admonishment of joking, but Blake laughed a soft laugh nonetheless. She didn't know how to deal with people laughing with her for once, not at her.

"So...got some war stories huh? I got a fair share of them myself. Maybe, when we get back to Beacon, we could talk a little more. I don't know why, but something about you...it just makes me open more...and I think I like it."

Reaper slowly nodded, not exactly looking forward to talking about her long and storied childhood, but felt that if she were on a team and Blake was there- even though she didn't know her name was Blake- she may as well get everything out in the open.

(^^^^^^)

Weiss couldn't believe it, and by the shocked expressions on her partner's and other new teammate's face as well, they couldn't either.

This was the last thing she wanted to happen; she had trained, and fought, and battled her way past thousands of Grimm, political scandals and even some suitors who were a little too grabby, and somehow the responsibility of leader has fallen on to some...some scared little, red cloaked child! Even worse, this child had secrets that could destroy the entire school of Beacon- yet she knew not if this was true- and she would not be undermined by a child. Whatever thoughts of regret for what she did to her earlier were replaced with rage.

Ozpin was glowing with a face of pride at the red cloaked girl, who had her mouth agape and eyes wide, but then settled for making sure her hood was covering her head before walking away, leaving a confused and worried Ozpin to watch her leave before turning to congratulate the others.

All team leaders were to have a meeting in the headmaster's office, but Weiss saw Reaper walk in the opposite direction, head hung low and clutching at her right arm. Maybe now was a good time to see what was with the girl that she was so...well...how she was.

But Weiss didn't realize that maybe she was in for more than she anticipated, and maybe some secrets are best left...undiscovered.

(^^^^^^)

Short chapter, but there's a reason...laziness...

...Enough said.