Chapter 230: Runaway Cat [1]

War had raged within the dorm room of team RWBY, on one side was Weiss, she proclaimed with a hellfire blizzard. THe argument from earlier in the day having long since passed from evening and into night without sign of stopping.

"You're just a racist little girl Weiss!" Blake at one point bellowed, "you're so stuck within your head that you can't even accept that there are faunus out there that are good!"

Ruby and Yang were sat off to the side, lips zipped after a lashing from the bickering two silenced them.

"Oh get off your high horse!" Weiss returned scoffing. "I know perfectly well that there are 'good' faunus out there." Air quoting. "Now if only they were all good and not trying to ruin everything for everyone."

"They aren't! They're trying to get equality for everyone." Blake flailed one are and put.

"How? By being no better than the humans they hate so much?" Weiss hissed drawing Blake into a paused confusion. "What? You think I don't get it? That I'm 'stupid' and 'naive'" she mocked. "Because I know fully well what my father has done to the faunus. I know about the mines and their terrible working conditions. I know about the people who get flogged. Don't you remember that whole massive scuffle I had to go through just weeks ago!? You think I wanted to be so crude to that girl?"

Blake's expression darkened but hesitated still. "Her names Lili. You were more than just 'crude' you were insensitive and cruel! You didn't care about her, you still don't."

Weiss went still. Outside a crow hooted and the girls eyes turned to slivers. "Don't care?" Weiss huffed harshly. "I care plenty enough Blake. I cared so much that I spent every other day going over to hers and Ferry's room trying to say I'm sorry yet unable to because every single time I tried she would glare at me daring me to say 'sorry'."Her voice rose higher with every stomp of her foot on the ground. "I cared so little that I spent every other day when I am not with you three trying to make amends with those two. I care so little that Ferry has been sending me messages every single day asking me about things she doesn't know, things that haven't come up in her lessons with Velvet Scarlatina. That even Lili, for what I did to her—and yes, I was cruel, I was insensitive, I was acting like a bitchy little princess too high off her fathers dust supply to care for courtesies, that even she contacts me, that even she asks me questions about dust crystal storage and blending ratios." Panting Weiss felt an ache in her throat from all the screaming.

"I have tried, I have worked my ass off looking for forgiveness but I know fully well that there will always be people like you and the White Fang." A finger jabbed Blakes way. "People who don't care about anything the one does because the ten are bad."

Blake nigh physically recoiled and gulping as her body shivered not in intimidation but an increasingly powerful sense of confusion, 'how could Weiss do that?'

"You never told us that. How was I supposed to know?" Blake attempted to preserve her humility though couldn't as Weiss sneered and rolled her head.

"What was I supposed to do? Take out my scroll and take a selfie with them? Or would you prefer a video chat? How about I just keep taking pictures of the two and everything else I do." Weiss mocked and strode to her bed and once seated latched her eyes onto Blake's. "I'm not like you and your White Fang cohorts." Blake shivered and jerked, her bow twitching as the other two looked on without a clue.

"I don-"

"Oh don't even try and hide it. I've known since the day your ex tried to kidnap me, my father and successfully did another dozen. What was his name? Taurus? Adam Taurus?" Blake paled even further, her eyes darting to the door and window looking about ready to lunge for her escape.

"I don't know any Adam-"

"STOP LYING!" Weiss burst like a boiler, "I know everything Blake! I know about those protests in Mistral you first took part in! I know that your father was Ghira Belladonna and your mother Kali Belladonna. It wasn't hard figuring that out. I'm… I was amazed that it took me so long to figure it out. Belladonna. You couldn't even change your own name! I felt like an idiot. I still do." Weiss jabbed her chest, any measuring in her eyes gone to be fuelled with frustration.

"You know what I've figured out Blake." Weiss trailed off as Ruby and Weiss sent blank, uncomprehendingly dense looks between the two. "You're a coward and a hypocrite. You hide behind a bow scared of what you are, not of what would happen to you. You fought thinking you were doing good yet all you were was just the SDC but flavoured with ears, tails, and everything in between."

Every word hit like a kick from a stampeding goliath, it hit Blake's stomach, churning fear and horror. She looked to Ruby and Yang.

"Blake, what's she talking about?" Yang swelled, her voice low and laced with worry.

"It's not-" Blake tried to say but nothing came out. A step back brought her closer to the opened window where the wind billowed inwards giving the room a light chill. She knew Yang wouldn't care, she'd defend her to her dying breath, not even to mention Ruby who protect a speck of dust from the wind. But all she could see in that moment was darkness, cold eyes staring at her accusingly. Blaming her for hiding the truth, for lying all this time. She took another step back then spun and lunged through the window and skillfully clambered down the tree just outside.

"Blake!" Ruby bolted up chasing after her but stopping at the window to watch Blake disappear into the distance. "Not again." Ruby shrunk.

Weiss watched coldly Blake's back as it faded from view, her fingers curled into balls grapsing handfuls of her duvet. Yang turned to her, a fire to her eyes and shimmer to her hair. "What the hell was that?" she screamed.

Weiss met her gaze and didn't flinch the slightest, "honesty." Was all she said before raising to her feet, collecting her night wear and slipping into the bathroom, door slamming behind her.

Ruby looked to Yang and Yang to Ruby, they said nothing but they could see the dower, solemn expressions of the other.

"Why does this keep happening to us." Ruby thumped against the windowsill and slid to her bottom burrying her head into her knees, shaking as tears began to flow uncontrollably as she wept.

Yang was quick to her side, "it's…" Yang didn't know, she truly didn't know how to answer that. "I don't know Ruby. I really don't know anymore."

***

Far in the distance, well, atop a roof just a little off the beaten path. Parc watched with a sigh as Blake escaped into the night. He rose one hand, slicked back his hair then mumbled. "Some things are just meant to happen.

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