Chapter 15: It’s good to vent-
~Blake’s POV~
Her life has suddenly resumed some of its burdened pace, there was no doubt about it.
Blake was aware that there was a non-negligible amount of people that would surely love to pester around one way or another.
From morning up to the first pause from lessons, her mind was left in a state of peaceful remembrance as she was once again left to get accustomed back to the school life.
The first obstacle had been the bathroom as the Belladonna was reminded of the fact she had to share that service with three more girls.
Having lived just for a few weeks with Sid, a young man that would be swift with his morning routine, she couldn’t certainly ignore the sudden waiting time she would have to endure.
Yet there wasn’t much of a choice and at least she was the third in line with Yang left for last turn-wise.
The first lesson of the day was with Professor Port, something that wasn’t truly ideal to start a normal day with.
It turned out to be as boring as the Cat Faunus could remember it to be back before the battle at the docks, but while her first impulse was to reach out for the little book she had decided to bring with herself, the Cat Faunus had instead opted to make an effort to listen to the actual lecture.
Some of her fellow students would easily question her sanity at the horrid choice, yet the reasoning within her head was a logical and meaningful one.
There was no hiding from the truth, Blake needed to improve her current fighting capacity.
She could remember the rigorous training sessions she had to go through before becoming a White Fang operative, a mix of formal exercise left by some decent trainers within the organization and… some lessons that her mother had been so keen to tutor her about.
Kali Belladonna had fought much more than her husband has, having trained at Beacon herself and having been one of the top Huntresses before retiring home as per her father’s order, at the time the Chieftain of Menagerie.
With the extra preparation, rising up from the early ranks proved to be easier than she had thought it to be and she had so carefully started to try out to adapt some new means to keep up with her improvement.
But then her free time started to tank the sudden increase of responsibilities with her higher roles, forcing her to train lesser and lesser.
It didn’t help that by becoming Adam’s direct subordinate, she was also left with quite the overpowered companion to trust in any fighting.
They were quick to find some synergy with their unique styles and from there the need of training had silently vanished from her mind.
Maybe it was meant to be seen as ironic that it had been Adam’s indirect presence that had caused this desire to rekindle.
But it was also fairly infuriating how she had been neutralized so quickly against the two thugs.
Sid had managed to hold a steady ground, something admirable for someone that had just some knowledge and training from his parents, but that also highlighted how much Blake needed to restart some proper daily exercise.
Her first step was returning her focus back on writing down notes about battle-hardened teachers.
Albeit Port’s voice tended to get her to distract more than once, the narration he offered was actually useful for someone that most depended on natural instincts.
If there was something that the old professor’s stories shared up to a fascinating degree, it was the importance for Huntsmen to never drop their guard when they weren’t in a place that could be considered a safe location where to ease up and rest.
Not only during mission, but also everywhere that wasn’t their home or something even so relatively close to that.
Scribbling down his accurate and surprisingly-morbid depictions of some of his precise strikes brought back to the Belladonna an interest in resuming her studies of Grimm Anatomy.
Since she lacked considerable firepower, or at least something close to what her teammates had, Blake was left to rely upon her knowledge of the weakspots that were in Grimm’s bodies.
Some were quick to notice because of the different shade, mostly reddish, over the beasts’ skin, yet not many first-year students knew about the ‘unseen’ flaws on the monsters’ bodies.
It had been something that Adam had commented about a couple of years back, when one of their missions had been of clearing up a large area near to one of the bases in Mistral.
He was methodical, almost eager to swiftly decimate the Grimm that they had been meant to kill and his tone, so suave and yet so tense, made it possible for her head to promptly remember it even now.
Once Port was done with his lesson, it was time to face a lecture a little more practical than theoretical.
Professor Goodwitch decided to give about five minutes to describe what was going to happen now that there was a growing number of students coming from the other schools for the Vytal tournament.
The blonde started by citing how the classes would end up teaching the new arrivals too and how the lessons would take a wider approach to best keep up with the different curricula from the other schools.
Once the woman was done with her speech, the sparring sessions were officially started and… Blake decided it was high time to get herself engaged with this new purpose at Beacon.
But just as the Cat Faunus prepared to ask Yang if she wanted to train together in that session, her little attempt was killed as one voice coming from the other side of the benches reached her ears.
“Teach, I want to fight that stray cat there.”
The dark-haired girl tensed a little, her eyes scanning over whom had decided to address her in that racist term and… surprisingly enough it wasn’t Cardin.
In fact, the orange-haired bully looked fairly annoyed by the loud request coming right beside him.
It was one of the members from his team.
The young man had light-brown hair combed to the left and… he looked scrawnier than the team leader.
Was his name… Dove?
“Mr. Bronzewing, I will not accept requests about fighting students that have been recently hospitalized and I will not tolerate any other remarks of that kind,” Ms. Goodwitch cooly replied, her eyes narrowing at the now squirming young man, but then her attention was taken by a hand that had been raised by the very Faunus.
“Ms. Belladonna, I hope you aren’t going to-”
“I think I can do this, Ms. Goodwitch,” Blake interjected politely, ignoring the concerned looks coming from her teammates.
“You shouldn’t exert yourself this much,” Weiss said, surprising the Belladonna a little with her note of genuine worry. “You just recovered from what has happened to you and-”
“I appreciate the concern,” The dark-haired girl interrupted quietly, giving a small smile. “I really do. But I wasn’t hurt that badly to need a day off from fighting.”
The heiress looked a little uneasy about it all, but it was Yang that actually put her at ease.
“If she has any problems, I will intervene myself,” The blonde said calmly as she turned to stare at Blake right up to her eyes with her lilac orbs. “And that is final.”
A mere nod ceased the little tense situation, freeing Blake to go for what was supposed to be some simple sparring session.
…
Disappointment has never been so quick to come to her mind.
While she had expected for Dove to be slightly weaker than her, considering how long since she had last trained and that she had been slouching for some time now, Blake had thought that it could have ended up turning into something a little more… instructive.
Her already-low expectations crumbled when the ‘battle’ began and… the young man proceeded to attack her with some wild swings of his swords.
There was no logic, no planning, only swinging around in a stupid manner.
It was somewhat annoying, if not rage-worthy as she would have expected a little more from the ‘standard Beacon student’.
The Cat Faunus merely used her agility to carefully move through his attacks, press him to keep his footing unbalanced as she continued to stalk him around the arena.
His confidence collapsed after two minutes of futile lashing out, his eyes widening by the moment as he realized that he wasn’t getting nowhere with his attacks.
His team kept quiet during the fight, only Cardin was speaking to him and trying to give him some advice.
But none of the leader’s words reached his mind as he continued to lose more of his ‘dominance’ over the fight and soon he was stolen of the control over his own stance.
He tripped backwards, a panicked yelp cut shortly as Blake decided to intervene at this point as her boredom had reached far beyond what she was usually capable of bottle up.
Gambol Shroud moved silently, the ribbon attached to the end of the katana was swiftly unfolded while she delivered a strong kick right onto the side of his face.
Nothing dangerous, his own Aura had dropped just a little with her attack but the purpose behind this quick physical exchange far complex than it looked like.
Dove didn’t notice the ribbon was now wrapped around his body, pressing his arms into his chest as it tightened under her hold.
This time a yelp did leave his lips, but it was a pained one mixed with a groan.
He dropped to the ground again, trying to struggle out to what was a Dust-reinforced ribbon.
Some time passed as she loomed over him, her dull expression staring upon his nervous-angry look and… soon it was over.
Ms. Goodwitch gave Blake some little praise as there was just so few things that she did, while the woman was more than earnest to chide the freed Dove about his lacking capacity in a normal fight, providing him with a list of what he was supposed to do if he wanted to improve.
Some harsh training for sure, the means that he had to fight were so far close to what Jaune had back when he joined Beacon.
Cardin was mostly silent, only answering when it was necessary as the teacher repeated the situation with him, giving him the burden to see his teammate shaped up in a proper huntsman.
The bully gave her a brief glance, and surprisingly enough it lacked any malicious intent behind it.
The oddity of this case vanished right as she found herself scooped up in a hug by Yang, soon followed by Ruby and… some shoulder-patting from Weiss.
The rest of the lesson continued smoothly, with Blake still taking notes over the spars unfolding after her initial one.
Lunch was the next stop and the Belladonna was ready to enjoy some good time in peace and- sadly, fate was a cruel mistress.
The dark-haired young woman had thought that her team would have been the worst obstacle to face once she had returned to Beacon, yet a certain Monkey Faunus had proved her immensely wrong about this thought.
Sun was over-joyed with her safety.
Yes, the term was the closest adjective that happened to wrap up the sheer giddiness the blond had displayed as he had decided to come and see her when it was lunchtime.
The Cafeteria, one of the few places that she had thought to be devoid of any annoyances, became the ‘battlefield’ for one of the most irritating predicaments she had to face in her entire life.
And yes, that was also considering Adam’s creepy advances.
With a wide smile plastered on his youthful face and the hopeful glint in his blue eyes, the young man decided to coat her in various tales about what the Cat Faunus had missed while she had been ‘kidnapped’.
Stories that were farfetched in most part as they went far and long about the incredible hardship the student from Haven had to go through for the sake of trying to find her.
The Belladonna was almost keen to snort in several occasions at some exaggerated bits over his main theme, one that saw him following some mysterious trail that was somehow connected to the warehouse where she had been taken into.
Of course Sun had never come as close to the truth of things as he was so earnestly pointing out, his summary being quickly sniped down by her own team as she had been sitting beside Yang when this situation escalated.
There was another young light-blue-haired man that introduced himself as Sun’s partner, but while he seemed to be in a friendly relationship with the overly-enthusiastic Monkey Faunus, he wasn’t holding back from intervening in some of the exaggerations.
Neptune Vasilias ended up being quite capable in trying to restrain the eccentric tale-telling from his ‘brother-in-arm’, his efforts almost doubled by the rest of team RWBY.
Weiss proved to be prone in dismantling with the driest tone the ‘outlandish’ remarks lingering in Sun’s tale.
Yang was quick to playfully tease some of the sections that contained innuendos that she keenly exploited much to the fellow blond’s dismay.
But the one that surprisingly got the young man to cease with his little rant was... Ruby.
It had come out as a surprise, yet the naive girl was able to unbalance the already-shaky foundation which this ‘incredible’ story was starting to become the more the foreigner student continued to speak.
Ultimately, it was Neptune that got him to tell the truth over his efforts and… it wasn’t as ‘limited’ as he made them appear.
By the third day Blake had gone missing, the Monkey Faunus had gained some favors with one of the criminal informants in the capital, yet the man had proved to be unable to find out where she had gone.
There was no clue, nor hint for any Cat Faunus that had ‘appeared’ in the underworld, thus denying any chance for Sun to even begin some serious investigations and…
The girl knew that it would have been a shocker if he had.
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Since a large period of her ‘kidnapping’ was spent wandering in plain sight (with some alterations to her appearance, but still there for everyone to see her around), no criminals would have had any reason reported her presence as she was just one of the numerous civilians that walked in Vale.
A simple dot in a sea of dots.
Bianca had been a normal individual that spent most of her time around Sid Tremaine, a ‘human’ woman that was merely going with her life by working in a bar by Vale’s central district.
In the end, both Sun and Neptune decided to walk away from the cafeteria with the intention of looking around some more about the school.
It meant some brief peace before she was forced to deal with what was left for her to do today.
Something that she herself wasn’t sure how to deal with.
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The office was surprisingly quiet as Blake took her seat by one of the chair in front of the main desk.
Ozpin was mostly silent as he took a sip from his cup of coffee, a minuscule hum leaving his lips as he enjoyed the beverage in relative calm.
He had already greeted her, and he had been quite welcoming by letting her know that Ms. Goodwitch wasn’t going to assist him in this session.
Numerous were the thoughts rumbling within the Belladonna’s mind over what was supposed to happen now that she was there.
She had plenty of time to contemplate what the headmaster had truly wanted to known from her by going through what he defined as ‘therapy sessions’.
As much as the Cat Faunus was aware of, there wasn’t anything that seriously warranted a mental evaluation as she had received a standard one when she was first escorted back to the infirmary just two days ago.
Nothing about the White Fang, nothing about her kidnapping-
Yet Ozpin was sure that something about the last two weeks or so had escaped her attention and it was something important enough that had become reason to make this kind of… afternoon chats.
In her opinion, there was no real reasons that warranted this predicament, and yet there was nothing that she could do about without ending up dealing with more troubles within the school.
The old man’s attention didn’t seem to stem from something negligible and… surprisingly enough, she had to still understand why.
Why would the headmaster be interested in what had happened in these last two weeks if she knew plenty enough that nothing wrong had been done?
The silence lasted a little much more as her musings were left undisturbed, as much as the gray-haired man was finishing up the content in his dark-green mug.
In the end it was Blake herself to spoke up, finding the curious state of quiet to be far too ‘noisy’ to face for too long.
It was the inner pressure that had dictated for a response, something to get her to begin what was going to be quite the irritating circumstance.
“H-Headmaster,” She addressed politely, drawing the man’s eyes on her as he gave her an inquiring look. “H-How exactly are you going to start this ‘therapy session’? Are you going to ask me questions or-”
“Do you want me to ask questions, Ms. Belladonna?”
The sudden interjection caused the girl to tense up in a moment of nervousness.
Her eyes went wide and, a blink later, she frowned. “Wh-What?” Blake asked with a hint of uneasiness.
What kind of game was the headmaster playing? Why was he dragging this situation so much? And why like ‘this’!?
“Do you want to turn this in a test of sort, Ms. Belladonna? Where I act as a teacher, pushing you to give me precise answers about a topic you might or might not be aware of?” Ozpin asked with more details. “While I understand that you are frightened by the concept of someone unraveling the inner thoughts you have, I can assure you that I will not push you to do anything except be at ease with yourself.”
A few seconds passed, his words sinking right deep in her mind as he settled his now-empty cup to the side.
“I can also deduce you are unwilling to spare any major details about what has happened in the last few weeks, your stay at Mr. Tremaine’s home and...” The headmaster paused quietly, a little hum coming right out of his throat as he glanced up to the ceiling of the room. “Can you tell me about Menagerie?”
Another unexpected query, yet this time the young woman recovered faster than before.
“What do you want to-”
“I’ve visited the place several times in the last couple of decades,” Ozpin interrupted with a sigh. “Yet all of those times was for diplomatic purposes, while I admit I would have loved to see the pearly beaches that the island is known for. Tell me, Ms. Belladonna, are the rumors about their pristine state true?”
It was a strange topic to begin what was supposed to be a serious session about herself, but Blake didn’t certainly have a reason to truly complain if she was left alone about the real subjects of her discomfort.
“They look… nice,” She replied quietly, her cat ears twitching in remembrance about her past. “At least, I remember them being quite lovely… until late hours.”
“Aquatic Grimm are still a threat for those people wandering near the water near nighttime?” He asked with some surprise. “I thought that Mistral had offered some gunboats to solve this issue.”
“There was some effort to try and eliminate the threat, but things went wrong when most of the guns broke down beyond repair two days after the acquisition,” The girl mumbled tiredly, thinking back at the scandalous development about the boats being left without defenses against the Grimm assembled against them.
So many lives lost without an apparent reason…
“Was it sabotage?” The headmaster pressed a little more, eyeing her with barely-veiled surprise.
“There were some hints about that possibility,” Blake admitted with a blink. “But the Council of Mistral reneged any possibility of that, offering numerous documents over the proper maintenance of the boats during the years those were under their navy’s service.”
“But it wouldn’t exclude for a willing sabotage, one that happened just before the transaction.”
She felt her fists on her lap tightening into turning white at the remembrance as she kept sitting on her chair.
“Yes,” The young woman replied dryly.
…
Silence resumed from this very point and Blake almost felt glad of this little pause away from thinking about these uneasy memories.
She had been incredibly young, almost nine, when her father had started to deal with the grievances coming from the relatives and the loved ones of those that had perished in that horrible incident.
It had been one of the first issues that had driven Ghira Belladonna to leave the White Fang, as in that very instance a majority of the organization had requested a fiercer rebuttal about Mistral’s almost-mocking reply.
Yet her father had been forced to sternly refused such a course of action, but his reasoning was nothing to truly be displeased about.
While it would have been legitimate to clash against the kingdom, the fear of a naval retaliation was big enough to dissuade any violent reprisal.
There were times where logic had to prevail over the sorrow, and this very circumstance had been one of the ones that her dad had to deal with as the chieftain of Menagerie.
It wasn’t easy, it was never easy for someone to hold that much responsibility, and yet Ghira Belladonna had done that and much more.
“Do you miss your home, Blake?”
Her mind was brought back to reality and away from her memories, right to face Ozpin’s newest question and… the Cat Faunus blinked.
“I do, sometimes,” She admitted quietly. “Just as every student here as Beacon Academy.”
The man had a small smile lingering on his face, and it almost widened at her response.
“Truly?” He inquired with some fascination. “Yet I’m sure you have never thought of calling to your parents and-”
“They wouldn’t appreciate how things had gone for me,” Blake promptly interjected nervously. “They weren’t much keen when I decided to continue with my support for the Fang even when they formally left.”
“But they would still love to hear some news about their daughter, wouldn’t they?”
The Belladonna flinched at the pressure, but she gave a slow nod in return.
“I guess they would.”
There wasn’t truly a grand reason why she had yet to contact them, especially since the true threat of re-establishing contact with her parents had literally exploded when Sid had gotten that warehouse to blow up.
With the White Fang here in Vale crippled from calling back to the main headquarters, Blake certainly didn’t have a serious motivation to not try to call either her mother or her father.
The issue was… beyond logical and it was related to her own uneasiness over the matter.
While they would surely love to hear from her, she didn’t feel ready to take that kind of step by herself.
“I feel myself wondering how they would react if it wasn’t you to speak with them,” The headmaster resumed the conversation with a curious note. “What if it was someone from your team?”
She blinked at the query, confused by its importance within the… everything that this discussion was supposed to represent!
They had digressed far and away from what had happened mere weeks ago to talk about ‘pearly beaches’ and ‘talking with her parents’, things that weren’t truly essential for Ozpin to debate about.
While it was fine to lose some time, it was also best to keep some buttons unpressed.
Yet Blake pondered over his words, deciding to drag the time of her answer a little more as she thought about that eventuality.
Yang would probably be the best candidate… until serious topics were to be brought up.
The blonde was slowly making an effort to make up with the fact she had been ‘uncaring’ towards her about Blake’s own problems, promising to give more attention to her than before, but it wouldn’t be a lie to say that the process was slow and incredibly lacking of grand results so early on.
Weiss would be quite calm and collected while explaining the situation to them, and would surely have been the best option she had if not for the fact that she was a Schnee.
While her parents weren’t going to be prejudiced by such detail, the very notion that their daughter was in the same team as a Schnee would have put them on the edge and probably pushed them to pick some drastic choices.
Drastic choices that wouldn’t be that much acceptable from her part.
And lastly… Ruby.
The young girl would surely endear both her parents.
In the best of scenarios, they would try to make her part of some surrogate family to how much she look as innocent and ‘lovely’ to have around.
Yet the worst circumstance would see that they would be brought to the fact that someone as young as the Rose was leading their child’s team and, albeit cute, that wouldn’t have been much professional within their own standards of Academy’s experiences.
Promptly seeing her asked to leave Beacon Academy as quickly as possible.
Blake frowned at the ceiling, actually surprised by the fact that none of her teammates could technically contact her parents without causing some unwanted developments out of this possible eventuality.
Seriously, when did things turn so much complicated than a month ago?
“I suppose it can be truly complicated considering also the recent situation,” Ozpin pointed out calmly, drawing her attention back to him. “But then again maybe there is something that you could do instead of delaying the inevitable as they will learn one way or another with the Vytal Festival.”
...Oh Gods, her team was going to compete before hundreds of thousands of spectators, among which would be her parents.
They would learn at that point and there was no reason to deny the fact they would surely be the ones to call her.
They would be worried, her father would surely mobilize the entire Menagerie’s guard to ‘pick her up and bring her back home’, while her mom would pester her about the adventures she might have had at Beacon Academy.
The Belladonna gulped nervously at that possibility, yet her concerns were brought to a state of stillness as the headmaster continued.
“What if… the one that informed them of your situation is someone that you know and trust well enough to say the right things?” He inquired with a curious voice. “What if it was someone that has a good background and good relationship with you, Ms. Belladonna?”
There wasn’t much attention to hide about who the man was referencing about and… Blake was unsure about what to think about this newer option.
Sid was sure quick to get angry, even quicker than Yang, but he was usually fairly nice and diplomatic when calm.
The dark-haired young woman could easily see him having some trouble with her father since he was a young man and… since Blake had spent two weeks in his flat.
Still, after the initial annoyance, Ghira Belladonna could probably end up accepting the truthfulness over the matter and, with proper caution, the human could get her story right to her parents without seeing them either go ballistic or extremely worried. Or both.
Yet this situation would be… quite odd.
She blinked at the fact that her mother would seriously tease her about this ‘fascinating period of time spent with Sid’, probably pressing her daughter to tell her about how things had gone by in that curious predicament.
It would be embarrassing, but Blake could at least endure some of the teasing of that caliber.
It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t even close to have the same drawbacks as the ones of having her teammates deal with this matter.
“It could… work?”
Her voice was soft, almost too difficult to hear herself, and yet the headmaster seemed to catch her reply without much of a trouble.
In fact, his interested expression seemed to grow more intense as his smile widened even more.
“Isn’t that peculiar that you find yourself at ease at having someone that you have known since a few weeks ago instead of anyone here at Beacon?”
…
“W-What?”
“While I can see some minor issues born from having one of your teammates to contact your parents, it wouldn’t be difficult for me to help you in making sure they don’t do anything incredibly… brazen with this revelation,” Ozpin started to explain with a cautious tone. “I think you would prefer best to have someone like Sid Tremaine to try his hand at this curious gamble. I wonder why.”
Was this truly the case?
Sure, she had thought about Ozpin trying his hand to keep the team from breaking apart… but that wasn’t truly the reason why she had been more interested in having Sid to make that call instead of the girls.
It was all about making good impressions over her awkward case.
She would still remain at Beacon, that was undeniable now, but their parents’ reaction would still be a tense one despite Ozpin’s reassurances.
It would become difficult to mend with that kind of relationship and… maybe she wanted to also do something else about it.
But what exactly? What did she want to do by having Sid known to her family?
“I think this session… has concluded successfully, Ms. Belladonna,” Ozpin sighed quietly. “I think your new inner questions born from this enlightening conversation will do well as your very homework for this unique subject. You may take your leave now.”
…
“T-That’s it?” She blurted out of shock, surprised that the headmaster wasn’t asking more from her.
“We have plenty of time for tomorrow or maybe the day after that to discuss about this curious case of yours, but I think we made some progress with this first session,” He replied happily. “You did, in fact, recognize that something is indeed fascinating about your relationship with Mr. Tremaine.”
The Cat Faunus briefly gawked at his words, uncertain about how to reply to those and… so she merely stood up, giving the man a silent nod as she proceeded to leave the office in utter quietness.
Despite the ‘progress’ she had made there, Blake couldn’t help but feel that something was still missing.
What was Ozpin talking about when he mentioned ‘something fascinating’ about her and Sid?