Dear Readers!

Sorry about the radio silence. Been all busy and all.

Part of this new worldbuilding I am added in this chapter was inspired by my attempts to write my Cyberpunk fanfic. It will spice up even more AU elements that I want to add with how Tohsaka Industries is affecting Remnant.

ShirouKuroEmiya

Chapter Fifteen "SynBio"

I walked into the open field where my husband was fighting Ozpin and Glynda, acting as a distraction while I had visited Cinder. My presence was detected immediately and the fighting stopped as Ozpin and Glynda stared warily at me, almost as if they were expecting join in the fight.

"I'm not here to fight," I spoke up while holding up my hands. "Not unless you want to continue that is." I added jokingly, but really I was up for a fight if Ozpin and Glynda wanted to. I had plenty of stress building up that I could happily vent in a fight.

Glynda seemed like she was about to attack Shirou again when Ozpin placed a firm grip her shoulder. "Don't." He shook his head.

I was amazed that Glynda managed to restrain her emotions. If I had been her, I would have been furious after being shot and forced out Ozpin's office. For a moment, it seemed like Glynda was about to change her mind anytime and attack Shirou when Ozpin whispered something into her ears.

Shirou's brow twitched and I turned to him. My husband's senses were much sharper than mine thanks to his specialty in combat, where everything that one could see, hear or smell could determine victory or death. Well that story changed somewhat if I used my superior magical skill and knowledge to enhancing my senses, but that took time that I didn't have to hear what Ozpin had said to Glynda.

"You don't need to know." Shirou whispered into my mind.

My husband's refusal to answer made me even more curious until he projected memories of last night into my mind. I blushed and looked away, unable to glance at Ozpin and Glynda. Never in my mind had I expected Ozpin to share a romantic relationship with Glynda. I had never heard any rumors about such a thing during my short tenure as a Professor at Beacon.

After Ozpin stopped whispering into Glynda's ear, he turned to Shirou. "You certainly live up to your reputation Mister Emiya."

"Shirou is fine, Headmaster," said Shirou with a warm smile. "If you could teach a fraction of your skill to your students then Remnant future is very bright."

"Oh, I wish it was that easy." He replied humbly. "Have you vented all your anger, Glynda?"

"Yes, I did." Glynda replied politely, but her red face definitely told me she was lost in her own world, likely imagining what Ozpin had promised her. "I would have rather preferred that I was asked to leave the office then forced out."

"I agree, my husband should have not resorted to shooting you out of Ozpin's office." I stated while kicking my husband in the shins.

He promptly responded with a spinning low kick and I yelped as my feet were swept clean off the ground.

"I thought we agreed that you will not kick my shins in public." Shirou growled as he caught my body and embraced me in a tight hug.

I started to gently beat my hands against Shirou's chest. "Release me!"

"Not until you apologize."

"Never! I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Does someone deserve a spanking?"

My face flushed red in embarrassment. I couldn't believe he had said my secret in public! Well not public as only Ozpin and Glynda were around, but no one should know about certain preferences…

"Ahem…" Ozpin coughed while attempting to keep a straight face. "Would you like us to leave?"

"Please forget, what you heard!" I pleaded, and Glynda's eyes shone as if she had learned a secret that was worthy of using in the future as a bargaining tool.

I sighed and made a note to hash out a deal with Glynda to keep what she learned a secret. I highly doubted that Glynda would blackmail me, she didn't seem to be that type of person, but it was difficult to predict the future. People changed, or she might be forced into a situation where she might have to use that piece of information to get something out of me.

Suddenly, I started to change my opinion about Glynda. She sported the same look that Luvia, my cousin and rival, spotted when she saw an opportunity spring upon. Glynda looked like she was about to wring a deal when Ozpin shot her a warning look.

Shirou's eyes shone in amusement as if enjoying my predicament and he released me from his embrace. I glared at him and promised to get him back, before turning my attention to Ozpin and Glynda.

"What are you going to do about the recent development regarding Ruby's and Yang's family?" I asked seriously, and to my delight Glydna's sparking eyes disappeared. This was a sure sign that Glynda was not thinking about the juicy secret of mine she had discovered, and wholly focused on the topic I had brought up.

"I will give them some time alone," Ozpin replied calmly.

I stared at Ozpin. After I had learned that Ozpin was an immortal, I had been expecting a more calculating and ruthless individual. Someone else might think I was making an incorrect assumption as I hadn't known Ozpin for a long time. Why did I think such an assumption? Well for one, unlike those that made guesses of the mentality that an immortal might possess, well I had personally encountered and befriended not just one, but multiple immortals in the hundreds during my time at Chaldea.

Immorality… It came in many forms from a long-life of centuries, or even thousands of years, to being immune to wounds and diseases that would kill mortals many times over. No matter the form of immorality, immortals tended to stray from the general bounds of what most humans accepted as normal to the point that nearly all immortals started to see humans as inferiors, but this wasn't always the case. The immortals that had sided with Chaldea was proof that not all immortals treated humans as an inferior race.

"Rin, stop getting distracted," Shirou's voice rung in my mind.

I turned to Shirou and resisted the urge to glare at him for invading the privacy of my mind. The blame lay with me when I had proposed and created the mental link between us. It was a mental bond, which further built upon the one that I had made with Shirou so that he could use Unlimited Blade Works against Gilgamesh during the Fifth Fuyuki Holy Grail War, allowed us to sense each other's thought so that we could fight better together if we hadn't connected our minds with each other.

Turning away from my husband, I thought about what I wanted.

"Please tell Summer that Shirou and I would like to talk to her when she has the time," I said to Ozpin. "We have a great deal many questions whose answer may help with the war against Salem and the Grimm."

- O -

Weiss Schnee stared at the building in front of her with mixed feelings. If she had been the same girl before attending Beacon Academy then the sight of Faunus would have disgusted her. Her opinion on the Faunus was still rather low, but it had improved a little as she had lived with Blake, a Cat Faunus, for several weeks now.

"Why are we here?" asked Weiss as she turned to Blake.

"To expose you to the latest trend happening amongst pro-faunus humans," replied Blake ambiguously while smiling.

Weiss was about to ask what Blake meant when the cat faunus dragged her into the crowd entering and exiting the building. The building's interior soon revealed itself and Weiss' eyes widened when she saw several objects inside.

"What is that?" asked Weiss while pointing at the objects hanging on the walls or stored inside display cases.

"SynBio," replied Blake as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Weiss sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. Of course, she knew what SynBio, or formally known as Synthetic Biological technology, was. It had been around for several years already.

"I know what SynBio is," Weiss snapped. "What I want to know is why there are animal ears and tails on display?!"

Suddenly, Weiss felt her hair prickle up as everyone in the nearby area stared at her. Most of them looked at her hatefully, and there were some that looked as if they were ready to kill her.

"Sorry about my friend's outburst!" shouted Blake as she put her right hand over Weiss's mouth. Weiss let out muffled angrily. "She's someone that I am trying to change her views about us."

The staring crowd that was mostly filled with faunus or humans with pro-faunus views stopped staring and returned with their business. Some scolded Blake and treated Weiss as if she was criminal that was unlikely to be reformed. The last person to approach the two girls, finally left nearly five minutes after Weiss's outburst.

Blake hissed in pain as she shook her hand. "You didn't need to bite, Weiss."

"That's for covering my mouth for several minutes," growled Weiss as she wiped her mouth with napkin that she kept in her dress pocket. "Be grateful that I didn't bite hand harder."

Blake shook her hand and glared at Weiss. She stopped herself from snapping at Weiss because in some ways she deserved it. If she had been in Weiss's shoes, she would have bitten the person's hand covering her mouth long ago, instead of enduring like Weiss had.

"Fine, I sort of deserved that." Blake rolled her eyes and she glanced around. "It's a good thing, Professor Tohsaka gave us the pendant. Otherwise, people would have recognised you."

Blake's words made Weiss unconsciously tug at the pendant that Rin Tohsaka had given the Schnee heiress at Blake's request. The Schnee shuddered when she recalled the hostility, she had faced from making what could have been considered as anti-faunus comments. If the pendant hadn't been there, Weiss didn't doubt for a second that more than one of the people that had been staring at her might have tried to end her life if they had seen her true appearance hidden by the pendant's illusion.

"Responding to your earlier question," said Blake while she pointed at the animal ears and tails on display. "Thanks to Tohsaka Industries invention of the SynBio-"

"Why do people keep calling prosthetics as SynBio…" Weiss sighed in frustration, and she stopped herself from speaking further when people started to look at her again.

"It kind of caught on," said Blake while smiling. "I mean, if it wasn't for TI then prosthetics would have only been limited to the wealthy and those with connections."

"You are not entirely correct. Prosthetics for the general public has existed for years. They were just not as good as Tohsaka Industries' SynBio prosthetics."

"Trivial details that no one really cares about," Blake waved dismissively. She grabbed Weiss and pulled her into the store. "Let's see what suits you the best!"

- O -

"Is this really necessary?" complained Weiss as she held the paper bag that Blake had shoved into her hands.

"Yes, it is," replied Blake as she pushed Weiss into the changing room. "Remember your promise."

"How could I?" Weiss rolled her eyes and she closed the door to the cubicle she was going to change in.

"If you need help then give me a call. I have some experience wearing SynBio." Blake smiled warmly from the other side of the door.

The Schnee heiress took out the items inside the plastic bag. She smiled awkwardly and resisted the urge to throw the white cat ears and tail onto the ground. Weiss had never considered faunus highly given her past history with the White Fang assaulting, kidnapping and murdering her extended family, but she had started to see a new light after living with Blake for several weeks.

"Didn't you say you wanted to experience 'faunus talents' that we have over humans?" Blake called out, heavily placing emphasis on certain words in a cheeky manner.

Weiss tried to stop herself from scowling. The anti-faunus views she had been brought up with screamed to denounce that faunus had no such advantage over humans. That their so called "talents" was propaganda by pro-faunus proponents. Oh boy had Weiss been shocked to learn from Professor Tohsaka's and Instructor Emiya's classes that it was very real. A product of "artificially induced evolution" according to some of Professor Tohsaka lectures regarding the likely origins of the faunus.

She made sure to undo her hair and carefully searched around for the perfect spot. After she found the designated area, Weiss gave one of the white cat ears a careful look before putting it on her head. The cat ear stuck to her hair like glue, and she quickly attached the second cat ear.

After she was sure she had done as correctly as the pamphlet and video she had watched on how to use SynBio, Weiss took a deep breath and called out, "activate."

Weiss felt a sudden bout of vertigo and she quickly pressed her hand against a wall to steady herself. Her sense of balance soon started to return to her. She steadily stood up and looked into the mirror to see her new white cat ears twitch and move around to the slightest noise. Her attention might have remained on her cat ears if…

"My ears are gone!" Weiss screamed in alarm.

"Weiss calm down!" shouted Blake as she barged into the cubicle to witness a concerned Weiss, who was staring in the mirror and frantically searching for missing her human ears. "Did you forget about the detail that while your cat ears are active that your human ones are temporarily gone until you deactivate the SynBio ears?"

"What do you me-" Weiss started to slowly breath when she recalled what Blake was talking about. "I completely forget about that… Thanks for the reminder, Blake!"

The cat faunus smiled. "So how is it getting used to having cat ears?"

Weiss tried to control her constantly moving new cat ears, but it didn't work. Her cat ears constantly moved around as if it didn't belong to her. She might have even thought that they didn't belong to her if it was for the tactile sensation of the cat ears touching her hair and the moving air.

"I hate to admit this, but these new ears are certainly better than my human ones," Weiss grumbled unwillingly as she heard noises that her human ears prior to their temporary disappearance hadn't been able to pick up.

"You have taken your first step to the dark side of-"

"Don't use that corny line!" exclaimed Weiss in dismay. "And just because I found cat ears to be better than human ones doesn't automatically make me a pro-faunus supporter."

Weiss's suddenly felt an urge to play a prank. Her eyes started to glow and she took out a special weapon she had prepared for the occasion.

"Weiss," Blake's eyes widened as she recognised what Weiss had taken out of her pocket, "you mustn't-" The Schnee heiress started waving her secret weapon before her faunus teammate. "Nya!" Blake shouted happily as she chased after the secret weapon.

"Hey, Blake why are you chasing after the catnip?" Weiss taunted while waving her secret weapon around.

"Nya! Weiss you got to- Nya! Stop this- Nya!"

"How can I stop this-" Weiss's voice froze up when the door to the cubicle opened up and she spotted several cat faunus staring at her. "Oh no! Blake stop chasing after the catnip and stop them!"

"Nya! I tried to warn you about Nya! This, nya! You got no one else but nya-self to blame!"

- O -

"It hurts," Weiss complained while nursing her bruises.

"You kind of deserved that Weiss," Blake snapped cooly. "You were asking for it when you started waving catnip around cat faunus."

"I was just trying to play a harmless prank!"

"A 'harmless' prank that could have gotten you arrested for the amount of property damage you caused." Blake rolled her eyes as she recalled the ensuring incident involving the catnip. "You got lucky that I knew the store manager and convinced him to not press charges against you."

"Thank you for helping me out there. It would have been problematic if I had gotten arrested." Weiss thanked her partner. "Oh, that reminds me. Since when was your family rich? You might not be Schnee-level rich, but you are still richer than most wealthy families since your family own the Faunus Lifetsyle company."

"Did you happen to forget my surname? I thought it would be a dead giveaway."

"Well, there are many families with that surname, so I didn't suspect you were part of the Belladonna family."

"You know that now." Blake stopped walking and pulled at Weiss's new white cat tail.

"Nya!" screamed Weiss as she reached for her butt. "Blake, what was that for!?" She glared at the cat faunus. "That hurts!"

"Good that means the tail is connected properly to your nerve system." Blake nodded happily and she continued to tug on Weiss's tail, which caused the Schnee heiress to wince.

"Can you please stop that?"

"Just need to check one more thing." Blake placed her index and middle finger against Weiss' tail as if looking for a pulse. "Do you feel blood moving through either your cat ears or tail?"

"Yes, I do." Weiss nodded. "Why did the tail and ears you picked for me allow blood to circulate as if they were real thing?"

"Oh, the tail and ear are the latest SynBio products that Tohsaka Industries has released. A branch of products specifically designed for permanent use if the wearer decided to embrace the faunus lifestyle. So they are close to the real thing as possible," replied Blake as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "Something my family requested to increase awareness of faunus discrimination. Nothing beats the immersion of what's it like being a faunus if you could the blood pumping through the SynBio."

"Wait doesn't that mean it's possible to force humans into becoming faunus?!" screamed Weiss in alarm.

"Yes. That is possible." Blake unhappily nodded. "In fact, some of the radical, non-White Fang, faunus supporters have pushed for to be made in law to punish faunus hate crimes. What better way than to make the very people that despise faunus to live as one. A faunus hater would likely change their opinions then they would experience the very discrimination that faunus face."

Weiss shuddered. "That is so wrong on so many levels."

"It certainly is ethically wrong, but it is a radical solution that has proven to work," replied Blake in a dark tone. Weiss stared at her friend in disbelief. "The White Fang, after becoming the terrorist organisation it is today, experimented on many innocent humans in inhuman experiment. I cannot condone what the White Fang did was right, but the results of the experiment proven some very disgusting conclusions."

"I think I'm going to be sick," muttered Weiss as she felt the sudden urge to puke.

"I hate to admit it," continued Blake in mixed tone, "but it is in some ways more effective than putting faunus haters in jail for breaking hate crime laws in reforming their opinions."

The awkward silence remained for a while until Weiss started to get her emotions under control.

"So is this why society's perspective on the faunus has changed so drastically?" Weiss asked while pointing her cat ears and tails. "Did the results of the White Fang's experiments get out?"

"No," A smile crept up Blake's lips. "Thankfully few outside of the White Fang know about it."

"A boy, that's great to hear!" Weiss waved her hand as if trying to cool herself.

"Anyway…" Blake beamed. "This new trend… It's hard to resisting trying on BioSyn when it's a fashion trend amongst many demographics, especially with children and the young adults."

"This trend," said Weiss while her new cat ears twitched around with every little new sound, "it started with huntsmen, didn't it? I mean every little edge can mean the difference life and death or saving a civilian from the Grimm. It is why performance enhancing drugs normally illegal for civilians in competitive sports isn't banned for huntsmen use. The same logic likely applied to SynBio." Weiss tapped on her ears then her tail. "My hearing is better and the same for my sense of balance. If I noticed it, then there is no way any other huntsmen haven't and decided to use it their advantage."

"Well's it not really an advantage for the faunus huntsmen. We already had it from the start."

"Don't tell me you missed the faunus using SynBio?" Weiss blinked in surprise. "I saw several dog and cat faunus with more ears than they should be born with."

Blake blushed in embarrassment at the actions of her fellow faunus. It had first started with faunus wondering what if would be like to be another kind of faunus, for example what it would be like for a dog faunus to be a cat faunus.

Hence, the trend first for exploring the unknown, but an unexpected development happened.

Faunus starting to abusebless themselves with traits that they had never possessed in the first place. Why just stick to your faunus type gifts when you could have the natural talents of other faunus types. So it was not a surprise that a cat faunus like Blake might use a SynBio prosthetics of a dog faunus nose to give them the sensitive nose of a dog.

Blake sighed in dismay as she looked at some faunus that had more SynBio prosthetics then they should.

Just like any little good thing, there were people that started to take advantage of their new discovery, and in the extreme cases they were SynBio "addicts" that used more SynBio prosthetics then necessary until the overwhelming number of SynBio prosthetics started to have physical and mental side effects.

"Don't be like them," said Blake to Weiss while giving her comrade a thoughtful stare. "I know some good people that suffer greatly from using too many SynBio prosthetics."

"Isn't it just a wearable prosthetics-"

"It is a highly complex matter that would take hours to explain," Blake interrupted her friend, "but take my word… Never use more then 3 SynBio prosthetics."

"I can't be that ser-"

"Promise me, Weiss." Blake growled as she grabbed the collar of Weiss's dress.

The Schnee heiress was about to protest that there was no need to shake her clothes when she noticed Blake's serious eyes, screaming at Weiss to not brush off her concerns. Those eyes also glowed with a deep sense of regret as if she was attempting to prevent a future disaster.

Weiss couldn't help but ask. "Who is the person that you knew suffering from using too many SynBio prosthetics?"

"Adam Taurus," Blake said those words quietly and Weiss likely might have not heard if it wasn't for her new cat ears.

"Adam Taurus? The Adam Taurus, leader of the White Fang and public enemy number of all four Kingdoms for the number of suspected kidnappings and murders committed under his command?!" screamed Weiss in disbelief.

"Yes," Blake nodded glumly. "That Adam Taurus… He wasn't always that way. I knew that he was always resentful against humans for all the discrimination that we, faunus, faced, but it was never to the point that he would kill innocent humans that didn't hold anti-faunus beliefs."

"You must really know him well from how you speak about him."

"Oh, you have no idea, Weiss." Blake sighed. "In fact, he was once my closest friend that I would trust with my life until he went down the perilous road that made him into the internationally wanted terrorist he is today. I think it started with the side effects of using too many SynBio prosthetics and Adam hanging out with the wrong people…"

What do you guys think about what you read? Is it good, bad or meh? Any recommendations to improve? Please let me know.

Thank you for reading!