Author's Note: Okay, backstory time, I hope you enjoy, and please, let me know what you think, or if you have any suggestions, speculation, or confusion; I won't spoil future events, but I'd be happy to entertain helpful suggestions and constructive criticism. Do enjoy.
Blake had the dorm to herself the next evening; Yang and Ruby had dragged Weiss off to some fancy restaurant that they wanted to try, ostensibly because they just wanted to spend time with her, but the Heiress had quickly deduced that it was her wallet they needed more than anything else. Despite this, Weiss had eventually been coaxed out with them through a combination of begging sucking up, and thus the three of them had departed nearly an hour ago. Mina… Mina hadn't come to the dorm yet; she had been receiving additional instruction after classes so as to compensate for her inability to read the texts, so she said anyway, and thus she seldom returned earlier than nightfall. Blake suspected that Mina's 'additional instruction' was in fact a thinly veiled effort to keep an eye on her, however, as the sessions were always conducted by either Goodwitch or occasionally Ozpin himself, but though she was certain that they knew, just as Mina had suggested, they didn't act. Whatever the case, Blake was the sole occupant of Team RWBY's dorm room at the present, which was good, because it meant that there was no one around to see her break down.
She'd tried to deny it to herself when she'd first seen Mina wearing the Beacon uniform that day, but Blake had missed her, and both of them knew it from the first. It wasn't that easy though; Mina was at once a source of comfort and solace yet also a living embodiment of everything that she had come to Beacon to escape. Mina was still with the White Fang, and what was worse, she had been very much on board with Adam's 'new direction.' She'd always been of the practical sort, and she'd needed little convincing after the first time a train bombing had resulted in the frightened clearing of crowds before them to agree to the more violent approach. It was the people like Mina that had brought Blake to the eventual decision that she couldn't do it anymore, and yet… among all the memories that made the decision so difficult, there too she also was, and Blake had been utterly unprepared when she'd come back into her life.
The simple fact of Mina's presence had been a blow to her resolve in itself, but knowing Mina as she did, and loath to lose her new teammates-, family, had helped to keep her desire in check for fear that Mina might do them harm. But then she'd had to lie; she might've exposed Mina's identity to her teammates, but when Weiss broke under the weight of guilt for her conditioned prejudices, Blake had been forced to choose between Weiss' growth as a person and a roll of the dice on Mina's intentions. Even when Mina had delivered her veiled threat and stolen their first kiss in too long, Blake had managed to delude herself into thinking that she could keep her in check, but after the incident with Yang…
And now there was last night.
It was a hollow, guilt-filled rationalization, and she knew it, but Blake nonetheless told herself that maybe, just maybe by giving Mina what she'd personally wanted, Mina would be persuaded to overlook her unwillingness to leave her new life behind. She couldn't fool herself though; it hadn't been a self-sacrifice… she'd wanted it just as much…
She curled up on her bed and just hid under the covers, shivering and feeling ashamed of her own weakness. She knew that Mina was a danger to her Teammates; nearly murdering Cardin in their practice match on her first day had been a warning, not an accident. She knew why Mina was here and that she would not leave until she was satisfied, and she knew that Mina would say or do anything that she deemed necessary to achieve her ends, but even knowing all that, Blake still wanted he, and it made her sick, but it hadn't always been that way.
They'd met ten years ago; Blake had been holding a sign at a protest she thought it had been in Vale, but she wasn't sure. What set this one apart in her memory was not where it had taken place, but rather the horrifying sight of a willowy Faunus girl her own age being viciously kicked to the ground. In an instant she'd thrown down her sign and run over to help the stranger girl up as some of the grown-ups rushed forward to restrain the bastard. All the while the man raged about how the 'rabid little bitch' had bitten him, but it was not until she'd helped the little girl slip away into a nearby alley that a startled Blake had realized that this had indeed been the case, as evidenced by the blood trickling down from her lips.
"Did you… did you really bite him?" She'd asked nervously.
Still whimpering and tearing up, and without looking up from the ground, the visibly emaciated girl whispered, "Yes… b-but… I'm so... hungry…"
Little Blake had chewed her lip at that, pity gnawing at her stomach, and then decided to fish a granola bar out of the pocket of her threadbare jeans to offer it, "Here… how about this?"
The other girl had looked up at her for the first time then, and Blake remembered how surprised she'd been to see how unnaturally pale the girl's blue eyes had been as she'd sniffed the snack, but only shook her head.
"But aren't you hungry?" Blake had asked, confused and frustrated by the rebuff.
The girl had sniveled and shaken her head again, "Mommy said… said that we couldn't help it… it wasn't our fault and we could show people that we weren't bad… but…"
Blake hadn't understood, "What do you mean? I know that some of the big people are mean… but you can't try to eat them when you're-,"
"Mommy said that too… but one day… she… she didn't wake up!" She'd burst into tears.
Puzzled, Blake had tried to calm her down, but had been unable to come up with anything better than an awkward hug, "What are you hungry for?"
The other little girl sniveled again, wiping the tears from her eyes and a dirty grey sleeve, "Blood…"
It had been only then that little Blake had noticed the prominent fangs in the other girl's mouth, "B-blood?"
"Everything else makes me sick…"
She'd hesitated for only a moment, but then rolled up her sleeve and offered her wrist to her new friend, "Here,"
"Hmm?" The girl had cocked her head confusedly.
"Go ahead…" Blake had braced herself, squeezing her eyes shut, but the pain didn't come, "Aren't you gonna… you know?"
"W-what?" the girl's pasty face was confused.
"Can't you see I-,"
The other girl shook her head, "I… I don't see anything…"
Blake had lowered her arm in disbelief, "You're blind?"
The girl with the sightless blue eyes merely nodded.
Blake took her by the wrist and moved the other girl's hand to her exposed forearm and lifted it to her lips, "You can… I'll… help you…"
The willowy girl's eyes had gone wide and she spoke in a tremulous voice, "Really?"
Blake nodded, but then realized that the gesture was meaningless to her, "Yes; my name's Blake by the way, what's yours?"
"Mina…"
That had been the first time. She still had the scar from the clumsy, starving bite. Mina had been taken in by the White Fang after that, just like Blake, and soon they were the best of friends. The two of them had tried to keep Mina's needs a secret at first, but after Blake had begun to grow increasingly anemic the grown-ups had caught on quickly enough, and soon a different person volunteered to feed her each day. After Blake had recovered though, they'd been inseparable.
Some five years later though, things started to change within the White Fang. Many of the older members became increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress, and when the founder stepped down… They got Adam. It started with robberies, then retaliation for violence and discrimination against Faunus in kind, and by the time that he'd led them to kidnapping and train-hijacking, it was too late to go back.
Not that Blake had known that at first; she and Mina hadn't been involved in the leadership-, at twelve years old they'd been immersed in survival and combat training. It hadn't been anything like an ordinary combat school though; their training, and that of the other children under the 'protection' of the White Fang since Adam assumed control had been of the practical variety. No classes, no textbooks, no theory. The only manner in which it had resembled Beacon was the sink-or-swim attitude; not unlike Beacon's initiation, they were thrown into struggle after struggle, expected then to survive. Through all this Blake and Mina had stuck to each other like glue, at first to ensure that poor, sightless Mina made it through, but as she'd learned to use her preternaturally sensitive ears and discovered her semblance, she swiftly begun to pull her weight. Working together they got better and better at what they did, slaying Grimm, pilfering Dust, and other 'odd jobs' as Adam had called them. Every day they'd train, they'd fight, they'd steal, and when the day was done, they'd curl up together and Blake would read aloud to Mina, who'd listen with rapt attention.
Their first real mission came when they were fifteen; the two of them had been sent to blow up an automated Schnee freight train. On reflection, Schnee trains were easily among Adam's favorite 'targets of opportunity,' but at the time, they just knew that once on the train, they had to work their way to the engine, place the charges, and get out, and that was exactly what they did. Quiet as shadows, they slinked their way forward from where they'd boarded at the back of the train, keeping out of the view of the cameras and moving across the roof of the cars as needed. Just as the rest of the train had been, the engine was empty but for the consoles when they arrived. Relief had flushed over them prematurely as they placed the satchel bomb that they'd been provided, setting it to go off in ten minutes, but then, Mina's hand had accidentally brushed against one of the automated control consoles, and all hell broke loose.
Sirens blared and a security turret dropped from its mount in the ceiling. They didn't pause to let it open fire; in an instant they were back out of the care and were scrambling up to the roof on the ladders on either side of the coupling section. Yet there had been no shelter atop the train either, as each car had several exterior turrets, which opened up on them. Blake wasted no time in drawing her Gambol shroud to deflect the oncoming fire as Mina struggled to extend her special awareness through her semblance to find an escape route while fighting the agony hammering away at her ears brought on by the alarm and the roaring of the train over the tracks besides.
"Mina…"
"I… I can't focus!"
Blake had risked a concerned glance back over her shoulder to see that her friend was on her knees, trying desperately to cover her ears as tears streamed down her pain-stricken face, "Mina!"
There had been a bridge coming up overhead, and just as she was going to suggest that they escape onto it, her focus slipped, and a salvo of turret fire slammed into her side, which caused her stumble and slip over the side of the train and tumble into the gorge alongside which the train ran, and over which the fast-approaching bridge crossed.
"Mina!" Blake's desperation had gotten through the screaming noise to reach Mina, and struggling to her feet, she drove a stake through the rings fixed to the ends of several of her spools of wire and slung it down after Blake. Blake still remembered how the mixture of relief and pain had felt as the lengths of razor cord came into contact with and subsequently wrapped around her arm, biting into her flesh even despite her aura. Her vision had gone red as her fall came to a sudden halt and she dangled at the end of Mina's cutting lifeline, but she had been dimly aware after a ten-second eternity that she was no longer being dragged along, but rather being slowly winched up until a sobbing Mina heaved her onto the ties of the overhead train bridge.
"I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry Blake!" Mina had managed to utter past choked sobs, "It's my fault-!"
Heart hammering in her chest, Blake tried to sit up as her vision returned gradually and the shrieking alarms and rattling of wheels receded into the distance, "I… I'm okay Mina…" she had tried to reassure her, but winced as her arm moved, causing the lengths of the Sanguine Heart to bite into her arm again, sending another few trickles of blood running down.
"I'm sorry Blake-, I didn't know what to do! I-, I didn't want to lose you and I-!"
"It's okay Mina… You saved me… thank you,"
Mina had sniffled, the tears coming to a stop, and the embraced Blake, "I was so scared… I want to know how the story ends…"
Blake had been puzzled by this for a moment, but then she'd recalled that they had on chapter left of the book she'd been reading aloud the previous night, and then realized further that Mina didn't actually care about the book, "Mina… why don't you… It'd be a waste to just…" Blake's next turn to be Mina's donor wasn't for days, but that didn't much matter at this point; she was bleeding either way.
A perplexed expression had come over Mina then, but she understood, and nodding gingerly, Mina set about clearing the blood from Blake's arm, trying visibly to resist the urge to bite as she lapped up the blood and Blake's severely reduced Aura slowly closed the lacerations. Even as Mina fed, though, Blake could see that Mina remained broken up about having caused her injury, so as Mina moved up to the highest of her cuts on her upper arm, Blake ran her fingers through Mina's hair whispering assurances that it was okay, that she was forgiven.
Mina had tensed at the new contact at first, but soon she relaxed as she lapped up the last of the blood Blake's arm. Finished, she wrapped her arms around Blake, tears welling up again.
"I… I love you Blake…"
Blake had returned the embrace, "I love you too Mina…"
That had been their first kiss… It tasted of tears and Blake's own blood, and she would never forget it, no matter how bad things got.
After their mutual confession, though, Mina became exceedingly protective. She took on more and more of Adam's 'missions' by herself to keep them from being assigned to Blake, and her temper grew increasingly short with their fellow members of the White Fang where Blake was concerned. More than once Blake had needed to physically restrain Mina form doing harm or worse upon any of their peers that so much as criticized her too harshly in Mina's presence. It seemed to Blake that, having resolved never to allow her to come to harm again, Mina was becoming increasingly cynical and suspicious of virtually everyone other than herself, well, everyone she should have trusted anyway, but nonetheless, Mina threw herself completely into the cause.
It was in the Blake's last two years with the White Fang that Adam had started ordering the bombing of soft targets, and the desired results were nearly instantaneous. Blake found on the occasions when she walked down the streets of Vale that concerned mothers, and other fearful pedestrians cleared away before her and most any other Faunus they saw, for fear of White Fang retribution. They weren't being trodden upon any longer, this much was certainly true, but it just felt wrong…
Mina however, didn't seem to understand, "As long as you're safe, dearest," she would always say as the violence continued to escalate, "I don't care what it takes…"
Gradually though, Blake had begun to come to the conclusion that she couldn't live like that; the White Fang was supposed to win the Faunus respect, not terrified deference, but few others seemed to care about or acknowledge the difference, and what hurt most was that Mina wasn't one of them.
The last straw had been Adam's disregard for the passengers' lives on the train job in Forever Fall; no matter how much it hurt, Blake had decided that she had to get out, that she couldn't do it anymore… So she said 'goodbye.'
Now though… What had it all been for?
Mina Carfax sipped her virgin Bloody Mary with a satisfied smile on her lips. The blaring music and hammering beat would've been enough to give her a migraine without her earplugs, but as it was, she couldn't complain. She'd gotten what she'd wanted, and the drink was simply sublime.
Alas, her persona satisfaction was not the axis around which the world revolved, and she had not come here solely drink a toast to her personal victories, "Please, Mr. Torchwick, have a seat,"
There was momentary silence, but the smug crime lord took a seat at the barstool next to her, "They told me you were blind, Blue Eyes,"
Mina smirked, "They told you right, Mr. Torchwick; I am simply… observant,"
Though she made no move to suggest as much, Mina had tapped her semblance sufficiently so as to be aware of the three yards immediately surrounding her from the moment she'd entered the club; she wasn't keen on a repeat of the spill she'd gotten last time, however… accommodating the consequences had been. It was thus that she'd been aware of Torchwick despite her hearing being reduced to only slightly sharper than most on account of the earplugs.
"Fine," Torchwick allowed before continued in hushed tones, "But they didn't tell me that you were keen on screwing around,"
Mina chuckled, "Hmm…perhaps not, but then…."
"Look Blue Eyes," Torchwick's put a hand on the bar and leaned closer, "I don't know what you're doing up there at Beacon, and frankly, I don't care, but what I do know is that you've been given a very simple task, and you've yet to get it done,"
"I'll have her in due time-,"
"That wasn't the job!" Torchwick barked under his breath, "She needs to be dealt with!"
"I assure you Mr. Torchwick," Mina took another sip from her drink, a note of smugness creeping into her smile, "I have been very… busy…"
Roman Torchwick sat in puzzled silence for a moment, and not that Mina would notice, his eyes narrowed as he spoke again, "Take some free advice Blue Eyes; it's one thing to enjoy your work, but if you mix business and pleasure too much, both will come back to bite you in the ass,"
"I'm flattered, Mr. Torchwick, but I'm taken,"
"Oh shut up!" Torchwick was nearly too angry to maintain his whisper. "Don't fuck with me Blue Eyes-!"
"I wouldn't dream of it," Mina teased, regardless of Torchwick's frustration, "You aren't my type,"
It was plainly a mighty effort of will for Torchwick to restrain himself from slamming his fist on the bar, "You don't want to be serious about this? Fine, but you'll only get this warning once: get the job done. It'd be a damn shame if a beauty like you met with an unfortunate accident-,"
Mina laughed aloud, drawing a few startled looks, "It's amusing that you should say that, Mr. Torchwick, but trust me, blackmail works better when you intimidate the subject,"
"Laugh it up Blue Eyes, but it's not me that you need to worry about; you're Adam's bitch, and he'll be the one to deal with you if you fuck this up. Three days; otherwise you best have one damn good excuse. Do we understand each other?"
"But of course,"