Did this feel like a long week to you?

REAPER IN RED

Chapter 50

I looked between headmaster Ozpin and Cinder Fall. These two people were just so confusing! One moment, they are explaining things clearly, and then the next, it's like they are getting sucked back into their heads of confusing information. Well, it was more so Cinder than the headmaster. He was always in 'confusing teacher mode'. I still didn't quite understand how he knew that I -or Cinder- was a Reaper, but it didn't feel like the right time to get into that discussion.

My eyes were still itching up a storm; a brand new feeling which I didn't expect to ever feel, and one which had already lost its novelty. I looked at myself through the slightly reflective mirror of the headmaster's office. It felt strange to see my reflection. The same hair, and nose, and lips, but not my piercing silver eyes. Not even my ruby red ones either.

A ring of soft copper held my attention. I wasn't quite sure if I liked it or not. It didn't feel quite like me yet.

I blinked, letting my lashes hide the strange colour for a moment. I opened my eyes once more.

Nope. Still weird.

I looked back at the headmaster and Cinder. They were patiently waiting on me.

Waiting for me to do what? I wasn't too sure. Maybe ask them a question? Well, I had many running around in my head. Dozens. Hundreds. Hundreds of dozens. There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask. And the knowledge that a Reaper Hunter named Qrow Branwen was currently in this very school, talking with my dear human sister, was definitely something that was adding a little bit of a time constraint. A very, very nerve-wracking time constraint.

So, I decided to ask the first question that popped into my head.

"You have much to learn, little one," Cinder had said.

"When will you teach me?" I asked in kind.

Cinder sly smirk shifted to an almost motherly smile. But it wasn't Cinder who answered my question.

"Let us first handle the issue of this Reaper Hunter in our midst, yes?"

"Why did you let a scary Reaper Hunter into the school!" I threw my hands up into the air. "He's... he..." I curled in on myself, unable to let out what this particular Reaper Hunter had done.

The headmaster gave a meek, little shrug. "He is a friend and an old student of mine. Besides, shouldn't you be excited to have a visit from your long lost 'uncle'?"

Right, I had forgotten about that for a moment. Yang had said that that human was her uncle. Which in turn made him my uncle.

My uncle who I had not realized was my uncle and had been away from Patch. I hadn't had a chance to change his old memories... Oh, this was very bad.

"Let us deal with this in a productive fashion, shall we?" Headmaster Ozpin shifted in his seat. "Now, it is imperative that Mr. Branwen does not suspect you to be a Reaper. Fortunately, I believe that the trope of 'no you' may work in this regard. 'No you'. Is that how the young people say it?"

The last question was directed at Cinder. She let out a few half-hearted chuckles. "No. And I think you will scar children if you ever say that in their presence. Please just… leave the colloquialisms to the mortal and the young."

Somehow, this lead to half an hour of me practicing my smile and what the headmaster was referring to as my "happy shouts". Did I truly shout that much? It was a recognizable verbal tick on my part, and one I do remember performing when needed. Especially after Yang made me try different foods and sweets, which were all superb. But, was it so noticeable that Beacon Academy's illustrious headmaster also picked up on it?

I wasn't sure if I should have been worried or not.

Deciding that it was the least of my concerns, I practiced a few more times, as well as a running hug -making sure I wasn't squeezing too tight- at the headmaster. After those many months of human schooling, I could honestly say that this short lesson with Headmaster Ozpin and Cinder would top the list for strangest lessons.

Feeling 'hugged out' for lack of a better term, I went to leave, pausing with my hand inches from the door. My heart was beating rapidly in my chest. I could feel my magic in jolts and pangs as my territory's border shifted alongside my emotions. Was this a panic attack? I was pretty sure I was having a panic attack.

My breathing grew slightly erratic, and I couldn't quite bring myself to open the headmaster's door. My mind was just throwing useless questions at me, not even bothering to wait for a response.

What if Qrow was standing right outside the door? What if he was waiting to speak with the headmaster? What if he remembered me? Did he remember me? If he did, would he kill me immediately? Or would he wait for a moment of weakness? Maybe do it in front of my friends. Would they all laugh? No, would they all run away like Blake did? How did Blake find Qrow in the first place? Did she… did she go looking for Qrow so that he could come and kill me? Did Qrow listen in to my conversation with Cinder and headmaster Ozpin? Did I just accidently out Cinder as a Reaper too? Was I at fault for Cinder's -soon to be- death? Why did he have to kill mom? Was Qrow watching me right now, laughing at my struggle to open a Salem damned door? Was he a shapeshifter, shapeshifting into a small little animal just waiting for me to let me guard down just so he could take off my head with a huge swing of his weapon? Was I breathing? Should I be breathing? Did Cinder notice that I stopped breathing?

"Breath, little one." Cinder commanded, resting a hand on my shoulder.

"Eep!" I squeaked out. I turned around to look at the elder Reaper. Her eyes were green, not the siver I was expecting. I liked them. Maybe my eyes would look better green.

How long had I been standing there?

"Not too long," Cinder replied helpfully.

Reaching over me, she pushed open the door. The hallways was empty. No windows, nor ledges. Nowhere for someone to hide. I breathed a small sigh of relief.

"Remember what we practiced. He's not Qrow the Reaper Hunter to you. Nor are you Ruby the Reaper to him."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Nor move. She gave me a light push that would have thrown a human across the room.

The elevator down to the ground floor was quiet. And definitely the faster choice than running up every flight of stairs. It still surprised me how exhausting that was. I let out an all too human-sounding yawn. Maybe I was still tired.

I was always tired.

The elevator dinged once I reached my floor, opening up to a mostly empty common area. Had I not realized before how boring the main lobby of the building was? Was I just too wrapped up in my own head to care? Was I still too wrapped up in my own head?

It was still bright and sunny outside. Just a normal, average, averagely normal day. People were talking. So many people were carrying their weapons with them.

Curved blades are the best Reaper hunting weapons, Qrow Branwen had said. Maybe I didn't realize how common it was for students to just carry around their weapons. And there I was, empty-handed like usual. My Crescent Rose was hidden away in my locker, and my other scythe was not the sort of weapon to reveal in a place like Beacon Academy.

Scimitars, Khopeshes, billhooks, sickles. The number of curved blades that I was only just then noticing was enough to make me go queasy. I was just glad that I had yet to see any other scythes. It was a difficult weapons to wield and an even harder one to master. I'd been using mine for the better part of a century and I still felt like I was a beginner compared to my mom. I wondered how good Cinder was with her's.

She definitely felt older than mom. By how much, I couldn't say. The two knew each other, that was for sure. Cinder had apparently taught mom her jingle. That… left a weird feeling in my belly. That jingle was mom's. She sang is to me as a baby and made sure I memorized it in my youth. It was one of her most important lessons to me. It was how I knew when I was waiting too long to Reap again.

It had been a way for me to connect with her, now that she's gone. But now? Now there was some connection between me and Cinder through mom's -Cinder's- jingle.

I was pulled from my thoughts by a strange looking curved bladed weapon, attached to a chain. If my mind wasn't filled with potential ways that it could cleave me, I would have been ogling it. Well, I guess I was ogling it. But, ogling it in a different sort of way.

I trudged forward, through the courtyard and past classroom buildings and lecture halls and the assorted other school buildings. Did I look behind me every few steps because I thought I saw Qrow Branwen hiding in the shadows?

I'd like to say I did, but it would have been a bold faced lie.

I was too young to deal with this! I knew I had dreamt of meeting the man who killed my mother again. Maybe even fighting him and avenging her. It would have been amazing, and glorious, and a perfect tale to tell my own daughter. But I had dreamt of it being years down the line. Maybe even decades. Not too many decades cuz he would be pretty old in human-years. What was considered old for humans? Fifty? Sixty? One hundred and twenty?

No matter. It was supposed to be a long way off. After I was a little more worldly, and a bit more practiced with my scythe on my own. More importantly, I would have fought him in my territory. My completed territory. One that wasn't currently stealing away my magic every second of the day and night, and making me feel weaker and tired.

A passing student yawned.

I yawned too.

I stopped in front of the Reaper and Huntsman statue. Nothing had changed about it since I saw it last, but it was comforting to look at. Maybe it was meant to remind people of a better time. Maybe it was meant to remind Reapers of our duty to humanity. To the humans and all the other names they gave each other. People, faunus and vampires alike.

Maybe it was some other reason that had been lost through the centuries. I just shut my eyes, breathing in slowly. Doing my best to slow my heartrate down to something more normal. If I was alone in a forest, I'd have chosen a direction and started running. Maybe not too, too far, since I wasn't sure what would happen to me if I strayed away from my territory's border. Especially with another Reaper currently inside of it. But I'd have run.

I breathed in slowly. In the back of my mind, I heard something. It was a song, too faint to pick out the words nor the melody, but one that was filling me with a sudden calmness which I was truly grateful for. Trying to think harder about it wasn't helping. It was like it was at the outermost edges of my memory. The harder I pulled for it, the quicker is slipped through my grasp.

It helped. It was a fleeting sort of help, that I kind of wished came from Cinder or even Ozpin. But it was nice enough. Cinder's reaction to everything still confused me. She seemed… different compared to our previous one-on-one interactions. Did Ozpin have some sort of strange effect on her?

Yang always said that people sometimes change their personalities when with somebody they like like. Did Cinder like like Ozpin? Did she love him?

I began my short walk back to my dorm, thinking about it. How would that even work? A relationship across species was strange enough, but the age difference was a little too much to wrap my head around. Ozpin was what, eighty? Ninety? It made more sense for me to date him than Cinder. And even then, the headmaster could be a lot younger than that -darn humans and my inability to gauge their ages- and it would still be a closer age difference than Cinder and him. Not that I'd ever date, let alone date a human.

The whole concept was just… weird. I was glad that none of my friends were dating.

Were any of them dating?

I hadn't seen any of them put their mouths on each other's mouths, so I'd assumed they weren't. What else did dating people do? Did that mean Tai -dad- dated someone?

Why was I even thinking about dating again?

I shook the strange thought spiral from my mind and entered into my dorm building.

Would Blake be back? Would she be living with us again? Was she waiting alongside Qrow Branwen to chop off my head? Did she tell Yang and Weiss about me? Were they all against me now? Did Blake still hate me?

No, Ruby. Think positive.

Blake would positively hate me.

Good job Ruby. That was the exact opposite of helpful.

"Blake… Blake is my friend," I stuttered. The helpful self-talk was much easier when it was said out loud. "Blake is my friend and would surely keep my secret. Right? S-She was just nervous before and now she'll be all better. We're still friends. She still cares for me. Truly."

I stared at the RWBY dorm room door. "She still cares for me and is still my friend."

I sucked in a deep breath and let it out as quick as I could.

As soon as all the air left me, I pushed open the door.

"Hey Ruby."

I lunged at the recognizable voice. I threw my arms around Blake, hugging her tightly, but not too tightly. She flinched, but I felt her arms settle on my back as she gave me a meek hug in turn.

Stepping back, I wiped some tears that I had not realized I was shedding from my eyes. "Welcome back Blake."

Yang and Weiss were sitting together on Weiss's bed, all smiles.

"It's good to be back," Blake replied with a small stutter. "I… I needed some time to myself. Sorry I… I'm sorry."

"Are we…" I let the unfinished question hang in the air.

Blake's smile remained on her face, though there was a lot of sadness in her eyes. "I don't know yet."

"Did you…"

"No," Blake shook her head. "We can talk a bit more later. I learned a lot while I was away. I think-"

"I think it's about time that your friend buzzes off for a moment." The growling voice shot a wave of panic through me. I turned around to the part of the room that I hadn't noticed. Standing, well, leaning against a dresser, in all of his lanky, terrifying might, was Qrow Branwen. His massive sword hung on his hip. His piercingly evil red eyes stared me down. There wasn't a hint of fear in those eyes. He wasn't worries that I was a Reaper. There wasn't even any hate there. Just a stone-cold seriousness that I wanted to run from.

His lips turned into a scary smile. "Why don't you give your 'dear old uncle Qrow' a hug?"

Wow! 50 chapters! Well, 60 chapters if you include interludes... But I don't, so 50 chapters! That's a heck of a lot. Will this reach 100? Who knows? I sure don't.

Sinokah - Sometimes you just have other things on your mind.

Dragonqueen1993 - I'm so sorry... but... I've never seen Soul Eater, so it was an unintentional reference. :P

Guest - I do love me some unreliable narration

JackTheSpades - Regarding Qrow, I have some fun stuff in the works. I wonder if you'll guess what it is. All your questions shall be revealed! Soon. As in, in the next 1-3 chapters.

TM Calypso - This will be a fun little arc.

Dragon Lord Draco - Sometimes the simplest solutions work best! How often do you truly notice eye colour when it doesn't stand out? :P But, still better than being noticed right away. Maybe.

Shadow Walker - Well, they are both Reapers.

Mexicat03 - I'm going to say that some things you mentioned are correct, some are incorrect and a lot of that shall be revealed fairly soon.

Sm0keyPanda - Yes! And now I can move on from the whole mystery bit and work on the next mystery bit!

Haley Earthstone - Thank you! Cinder is such a fun character to write in this story. Nobody has any clue what side she's on.