Chapter 5: And I wish for my individual Peace

It’s been two days since Blake had gotten to deal with this new situation. Two days since she had been on the run from her teammates, two days since she had been hired as a waitress in a simple bar in Vale’s industrial district.

The close encounter with Yang and Sun turned out to be the worst case of being found by any of the students of Beacon searching for her. After that unexpected situation, Sid had been partly-accepting of her request of him buying for her a hoodie and a face mask to keep most of her recognizable features hidden from sight.

It had been quite the annoying task to have this much on herself, the unpleasantness of having her cat-ears forced flat by the hood turning out to be far different that how it did felt to have a bow. It was all for the sake of not being found, to not be brought back to deal with the daily life of a student.

The girl was far too advanced in both physical and theoretical subjects to be actually capable of fitting with the role, having learned much from practical experience as a grunt-to-officer of the White Fang. This very notion was proven correct when the last she had to take resulted in an impressive A+.

Weiss had been partially irritated by this detail, thinking that Blake should have flunked it because of her lack of interest in studies. A presumptuous exclamation that came out from the fact she had to headbutt a lot with Ruby.

The Team Leader was young, inexperienced and was lacking two years worth of knowledge. This last bit was actually what caused the Schnee to devolve a large part of her free time in helping the caped girl to actually understand the basis of the lectures given at Beacon.

It was almost impressive how Ruby had actually managed to get enrolled at the Academy, her unique fighting style barely compensating for her lacking capacity in keeping up with the school’s pacing.

Actually, it was interesting how the Headmaster had broken the rule three times for this year, counting Ruby, herself and Jaune as prime examples of laws being ‘forgotten’ by Ozpin for some strange reasons.

Blake was more of a political refuge than else, it wouldn’t have surprised her if the gray-haired man had taken her in for the fact he had connected dots about her important parentage. After all, Kali Belladonna did come to study at Beacon for a few years before returning back to Menagerie to her father’ (Blake’s grandfather) orders.

Jaune was mediocre at best in whatever he did, his grades being just average enough and sufficient to continue with the school year without dealing with major issues with the teachers and the school itself. The blond was also weak in terms of fights, having been seen failing to keep up with someone like Cardin Winchester and other members of Team CRDL. but he was incredibly quick in accepting advice when presented and she wouldn’t be lying in saying that he had good chances of becoming a prominent huntsman by the end of his years at Beacon.

It was Ruby that the Belladonna found to be the blatant error in keeping things under the rug, the girl being an eyesore by the way she failed to catch up with the missing material required for the rest of the lessons. Even with Weiss’ help, the little Rose was still capable of keeping up with a lazy Yang… at the best of her strength.

Speaking of the blonde, the Cat Faunus was actually surprised by the fact the girl did indeed visit two more times the ‘Morning Sip’ and Blake had been forced to resort to have a hat and a pair of sunglasses while she was around. It did made things difficult as the light in the bar wasn’t strong enough to give her a proper sight over the tables and… some mess might have been made for the sake of not getting caught.

Her pay suffered the blunt of these encounters, but that wasn’t actually what got the girl interested over the frequency of the brawler by the simple establishment as she tried to find out more about Blake… and also flirt a little with a stone-faced Sid. After the first time he had to deal with both the brawler’s flirting and the Belladonna’s intense teasing over it, the young man had been smart enough to gear up and endure the advances forwarded by the blonde in question.

There was also the fact that the Cat Faunus couldn’t help but remind herself as of why she had never been close to Yang, the cheerful blonde being what Blake wouldn’t never want to be in a social context.

She was too much an extrovert compared to the reclusive Faunus, something that had put them at odds during their first days as partners. The following step had been silent neutrality with some minor bantering initiated by Yang herself.

Blake never felt the need to start anything as she felt that their relationship would have been affordable as formal team-members than anything else, a feeling not shared by the giddy blonde that would end up pestering her about the silliest of details.

While the Xiao Long was eager for fights, to speak with people and to venture in danger, the Belladonna preferred the peace and quiet of books rather than dealing with real life’s issues, something proven by the way she had decided to not return back to Beacon as it was no longer the fight with Weiss that kept her from going there to seek redemption.

The effort wasn’t… actually worth it. It was actually worse, in her quiet opinion, to let go of the little settlement gained by pure and raw dumb luck. Or lack of, considering the damage she had caused to end up in that curious situation.

Sid was still uneasy to have around, the same she knew was for him when she was around, but they both weren’t there to attack each other. Rather they were making sure the other didn’t pull a foul without any physical damage involved.

One could call it a cat-and-mouse play, where the girl was actually the rodent before someone with much more balance over his own life. He had his own moderation within the sea of extreme ends, something that Blake had failed to obtain after slamming painfully against both directions. The human was also partially-trained as a Huntsman but lacked any of the major skills and weapon that could actually make her consider him a threat to have around.

He was mostly harmless, if not sassy and impudent with his tones when she ended up causing some minor issues. Lucky for her, her attention over her attempt to be conciliating turned out to be a blessing for their curious relationship.

This connection was actually one of the major questions that had gotten the girl thinking about for hours, the extent and limits of their current ‘friendship’. It was odd to even call it friendship, the two of them being more or less simple housemates at this point.

Where they even friends? She was at fault for crashing down from his roof and making some escalation of sort out of panic and ill-thinking, but now they were… neutral to each other. There was a humane understanding of each other and they were both respectful to the barest about the other.

It was that simple bond that Blake found… nice to have in these trying times. There wasn’t any attempt to garner her utmost trust, nor was she supposed to fear every step for the sake of getting betrayed by the waiter.

A peaceful standoff, one where both contenders knew that there wouldn’t be any horrible development coming from it but still didn’t budge from their standing positions. Staring at each other, determination pouring from their souls as they keenly avoided to make the first, and possibly wrong, move against the other.

It was stimulating, it was refreshing and…

“I finished my sets,” Sid proclaimed with a tired sigh, his sweaty form slowly walking away from the living room. “I will take the bathroom for some minutes.”

The comment was enough to bring the Belladonna out of her silence-induced thoughts regarding the last two days of work, her attention once more shifting back to the fact she had yet to finish with her own training.

Two days had passed and the working week was over as Saturday began without a clear plan established by both housemates. Sure, Blake had loved three more hours of sleep by the lovely couch and she had turned up refreshed by the extra time spent resting.

Enough for her to be ready to the schedule she would have to deal while spending her whole day at the flat by exercising and meditating. The idea had came out from Sid, the young man mentioning how it’s been a while since he had last gone for some sessions of training and mentioning how the girl should have planned out something similar for the fact that she was a student at Beacon.

Telling him about the full context of everything that had happened by the docks, her former allegiance to the White Fang and the reason why she was still avoiding her team had helped immensely the Faunus’ plight as the human had visibly appreciated the honesty provided by the girl and offering some minor support in giving her the means of avoiding getting ‘discovered’ by anyone she knew about.

Still, some discomfort from the revelation of having been part of the now-violent organization had created some minor friction between the two as the young man was aware of the fact that the aggressive approach taken by the Fang developed far before her ‘planned’ leave and he had asked for some simple but crude questions.

Did she ever kills someone during service? Only in extreme cases of self-defense. Her first kill was legitimated by the fact she had been merely fourteen and the one she had offed was a rabid officer from Atlas attacking her without hesitation and madly.

Gambol Shroud had tasted blood in that encounter, but the following times the spread of the red color had been limited as she didn’t believe in making examples in that way. It was barbaric, it would have made her an ‘animal’ just like racists have painted her as with the rest of her kind.

With a tired sigh of her own, the girl slumped on the comfy sofa, eyes closing as she quietly basked in the quietness of her free day here at the flat. Sadly, the cat ears that were proud feature and sign of her heritage proved to be strong enough to catch the distant noise of water running from the bathroom.

Her eyes twitched open, a groan turning in an irritated purr as she blinked at the general direction where Sid was possibly taking a quick bath. The human was swift in his activities there but her mind couldn’t help but… wander to certain details.

She had noticed that he was well-developed in his chest, legs and arms, there was a clear attention at making sure he kept healthy, something that was surprising coming from a supposedly-normal civilian. Her brain surmised that it had to do with the particular roles of his parents, both military-related jobs that would end up requiring fitness as a core part of their lives.

Something that had been instilled even to their ‘average’ child, enough to have him become a fairly interesting threat if given a proper gun. Now, Blake wasn’t fairly certain of this particular statement, but she would easily admit that he could have been a good material for Huntsman…

Yet he was a little too old for that. It was two years, he was two years older than her and… he had already gotten ‘enough’ from his time spent completing the regular education and specialization, having his own work and flat… it was kind of a pity.

It would have been an interest addition, but then again he would have gone for Haven rather than Beacon and that would have render it mostly-impossible for her to meet him. It was a series of conflicting thought that followed this extended line that culminated… with someone knocking by the entrance of the living room.

Her attention snapped at the waving hand owned by the one and only Sid Tremaine, the young man having a little towel covering his wet hair as he tip-toed with a simple shirt and short pants, his shoes missing. “Bathroom is clear,” He announced calmly.

Blake nodded and, just as he got up from her seat, the man hummed. “By the way, I was planning to do a movie marathon after lunch,” The human pointed out, causing her to frown curiously at the proposal. “Something to keep entertained until dinner.”

The girl blinked and tilted her head to the side. “Anything specific…?” She asked, knowing that a large majority of movies would have hardly got her attention, thus denying her the ‘entertainment’ promised by the young man.

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“The Madonna Arc’s Anthology,” He mentioned absently as he checked on the small stack of discs sitting nearby the TV, ignoring the fact that Blake’s jaws had dropped the moment the name was mentioned. “So, Ninja of Love, the sequel and the spin-off-”

“W-Wait,” The young woman zeroed the distance between herself and thediscs in question and gave them a long look, her golden eyes widening as she had just found out about something… interesting.

She had heard about news of some movies having been adapted from her beloved books, but the availability of the three films had been limited to some areas of Mistral and Atlas. Vale was quick to ban it for the sake of avoiding the ‘halved’ romantic scenes and Vacuo couldn’t just afford to distribute the movie with how expensive the process was for many kingdoms.

But to think that a copy of the trilogy was here in Sid’s possession…

She gulped nervously and slowly stared up at the now-confused look settled on the young man’s face. “Something’s wrong about it?” He asked innocently, seemingly unable to pick up the immense joy vibrating from her features.

“W-Wrong?” Her tone felt trembling too. “N-Nothing wrong. Just… y-you really mean it? Can I… see it too?”

He frowned, his confusion deepening even more but he still nodded at her. “Yeah?”

It was enough for the Belladonna to show her affection at this grandiose offer… by launching herself at the unaware human in a surprise hug. The propulsion wasn’t strong enough to send them both flying back to the floor, but the relative closeness was more than enough to get a quick reaction out of Sid.

He started to pat her upper back, her shoulders hurting a little as he seemed to be struggling in what was supposed to be a show of gratefulness and affection.

“B-Blake! Get off of me-” He started to yell in a panicked tone. Could it be that he was flustered by the closeness she had-

“I just did a bath, Blake- You are stinky!”

Nevermind, any warm emotion she held for the young man flatly vanished with those strong words, she let go instantly of the hold she had imposed upon him…

But decided to deign him a quick headbutt on his chest, the action not strong enough to hurt both of them but… at least she was the only one knowing the meaning behind the gesture, in fact she walked up to the entrance, glanced back and saw immense confusion at what had just happened.

The giddy smile at the prospect of spending the rest of the afternoon in watching the terrific trilogy widened as she was finally granted the peace of mind in the form of a warm bath with bubble.

Bubbles made good things better. Always.

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The movie marathon turned out to be a major success, an idea that I was partly eager to experiment with someone as introverted as Blake was. The fact that the girl had been quite impatient during lunch after learning of this proposal should have been grand sign that I had somehow hit jackpot with the picking of the movies.

I had seen the little book the Faunus had around, the one she would take during their pauses at work or when it was time to go to sleep. It was Ninja of Love, or rather the Uncensored version of the curious literary work.

The trilogy itself as books had been the cause of a major uproar back when it was first released because of the graphic content of some ‘love’ sessions between the two protagonists, forcing the principal editor to re-release it in two versions. An 18+ book that contained the fullest ‘glory’ of the original text and a redacted version with the entirety of the sexual content cut down and removed.

The movies were based from the censored version, the movie-makers had been well-aware of the dangers of stirring another set of conflicts regarding the perception of the perverted book, thus deciding to create, with the author’s permission, some different scenes that replaced the very ones that were to be removed.

The first film gained a massive and positive critic and review from the majority of the fans, some still mourning the fact that the ‘fun bits’ from the series had been denied by some ‘overly-conservatives troglodytes’. And yes, they did use the term ‘troglodytes’ to define people denying the sex scenes.

I suppose I should also explain how exactly I ended up getting the trifecta with how rare it was finding it in Mistral and the answer to that question can be traced back to a mission my father had been part of back when he was still in active duty… three years ago.

He had been called to deal with a sudden increase of Grimm by the lone village of Ansel and there he ended up befriending an old colleague of his and his wife. The woman, which was the writer of the three books, decided to provide, as a sign of gratitude, the copies of the movie to my dad and…

Mom had been fairly angry about that. Considering the content presented by the movies, still a touch above what my siblings and I could have been able to watch ‘without inopportune questions being asked’.

Both my brother and my sister had refused the chances of getting these with them when they both left home, leaving me as the sole owner of the ‘forbidden’ movies as I moved out of my home in Mistral.

I had expected Blake to be a little uneasy at the fact I had provided her with the adaptation of quite the lewd book, the very one she was seen having around more than a few times, and yet she had been… overly-enthusiastic at the prospect of watching the three films in what turned out to be a seven hours long marathon.

I was flinching once or twice of the time as the tones used by some characters before the cut-off scenes were still there to torment with their lustful tones.

Seriously, why weren’t the movie shot down too? Why were they accepted so easily with how many crass dialogues it still had?

Good questions in which the three movies failed to give an answer too and… Blake continued to be the giddiest I’ve ever seen her, with a bright smile, shining golden eyes and cat ears twitching in full-attention as the plots of the stories unfolded from the large screen in front of the sofa.

We had our own mantle of sheets, two bowls of popcorn and chips, and large bottles of soda to keep our hunger and thirst satisfied for the whole duration of the marathon. We were sitting by the two edges of the furniture, our stares fixed at the TV displaying the movies. I had seen this just once before that day and… I didn’t find myself liking it just as I had back when I first gave it a quick look.

The dialogue was okay most of the time, some scenes were fantastic in showing the complexity behind some of the protagonists’ flaws and weaknesses, but the way the shipping was flaunted was… way too speedy for it to appear realistic. The delivery from some of the actors was disheartening at best as these were too dismissive of major details that could have given major weight to the overall stories of the individual characters. A good set of movies… but not the best to watch after three times.

And, much to my chagrin, I was actually contrasted by the way Blake was keen to describe the marathon. Terribly influenced by the love she held for the series, the girl judged it as a perfect masterwork, ‘the culmination of real life and fantasy, the dream and the fiction being painted upon reality itself’.

I was impressed by the use of some precise words to elevate the state of some of the good scenes and I almost fell for that vision of hers. It was pitched in a delightful manner and fairly honest… until a certain degree.

In fact, the only thing I ended up having to endure about this overly-positive judgment was how I had to decide whenever or not it would have been convenient for me to point out how her perception ignored the flaws of the good movies for the sake of lift up the potency of the scenes.

I was half-tempted to call ‘BS’ on her review of it, but then again I had the common sense to know that she was trained in the use of guns and she had a weapon on herself. And that is why, instead of headbutting against an early death, I merely kept quiet until dinner.

Dinner was fairly normal if not for Blake being in the best of moods with what had happened until mere moments ago. The smile plastered there was somehow intriguing to see as it morphed while she starting to eat her plateful of tuna.

The Cat Faunus loved fish and I was pretty sure that, without the scene unfolding before me, I would have felt it sounding more as a racist slur rather than the commentary of what she was doing right now.

She just loved fish, she literally spent half her pay in sea-food and there was nothing particularly wrong about it…

Except that she would let out a purr or two in a normal situation. But now? Now the girl was vibrating on her seat, the purrs loud enough to not appear as mere innocent noises as she continued to happily eat the cooked fish.

It was an overly-adorable sight, one that I had planned to have to see for that day. I had actually expected the girl to refuse the movies out of embarrassment and yet my little plan had backfired to a point where it actually looked I was ‘granted’ such a cute display of happiness.

I might have been aware of the fact that Cat Faunus and Dog Faunus were rather affectionate in showing their cheerfulness, the former being more difficult to render so rather than the latter, something I knew from experience, but… I was completely unprepared with how I was supposed to react about it.

After four days of having Blake around, I couldn’t help but feel nervous at the sudden shift of personality. I was certain it was a temporary thing, but I couldn’t let go of the fact that she was indeed looking terribly adorable-

OMG, her cute kitty-cat ears are flapping so excitedly and-

N-NO! We aren’t having any of that. I might love cats to a degree, but I couldn’t certainly compare a simple animal as a kitty to the purring, happy-looking Faunus sitting in front of me.

I felt by breath itching as I didn’t realize I had walked behind Blake, the girl was unaware of this sudden shift herself and… we both discovered what was going on when I had my hand softly settled on top of her head.

She tensed, and I tensed. I felt nervous, I felt paling and I felt the need to bolt away from the possible bomb I just set off with this careless and greedy action.

I expected her to snap at the sudden gesture, to hit me and maybe beat the crap out of me (kind of an Anime reaction that would be, but I was still fearful of any reaction from that Neko- I mean, Cat Faunus).

Then, much to my immense surprise and confusion, the black-haired girl relaxed and… started to purr even more, seemingly accepting the fact my hand was now on her head. I blinked once, then twice.

Then thrice.

What the heck is going on?!

Finally, I managed to lift my hand off from her soft and silky hair, wide eyes staring accusingly at my traitorous fingers before deigning to answer to the certainly-implicit question generating from the poor girl assaulted in such manner.

The degeneration of mankind in a nutshell!

“S-Sorry,” I tried to apologize, my head burning a little in embarrassment and mortification at the fact I did indeed touched a rather sensitive part of her biology. The cat ears were quite sensible, I remember receiving a lecture out from my mother when a child had been caught pulling on some Faunus child’s animal ears and- “I-It’s just that… it looked-”

“Cute?” She suggested softly, her head lowering a little and yet I could still see the blush spreading to her ears and turning those red. “I-It’s alright, I- You apologized.” There was embarrassment in the girl’s voice, but the purring for some reason didn’t cease even in that moment.

The rest of the evening was spent quietly and silently as we decided to not discuss about that weird and senseless scene. It was just too… senseless.