aiko's otter den

black cat's curses - Blake Belladonna is not a faunus.

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5. Recall

Ruby remembers an egg, so big compared to her small arms, her weak hands. She remembers chasing it around a smaller room with her brother right behind her. She remembers love, so much love.

None of that was reflected in the creature lurking around the ruins. It stumbled and groaned, black skin cracking as it walked. It let out a cry that could have been a sob.

Ruby didn’t think later, she’d regret it. But right now, right now, there was only one thought in mind:

Help him.

Her eyes burnt, an itching of the entire eyeball as she shoved the door open and jumped down. Her eyes burnt and burnt and burnt, but Crescent Rose reacted to her fingers and she swung and—

Missed.

“Shit!” she heard overhead as Yang was pulled back by the combined efforts of Blake and Weiss. Ruby spun herself to take off again. This time however, Greymon — or his Grimm, which was a thought not worth thinking about this was a thought she did not want to have ever ever — reacted and lashed out with his tail. It was clumsy or (hopefully) half-hearted and Ruby easily moved out of the way, swinging again with her whole body.

It connected, Crescent Rose’s scythe entering the neck smooth as a knife into butter and cutting down, down, down until it was through and gushing black and dust. It spilled over and Ruby froze. Something ran down her spine and a voice whispered —

“Hikari?”

“Greymon?” she repeated, witching Crescent Rose to its gun mode.

Another shudder.

“Where’s Taichi?”

Taichi? Who was—

Her brother. Her brother, who Yang reminded her so much of. Who had been full of courage and then fell, fell, fell into the earth—

“Dead,” she said after a moment. The entire word hurt to say, burning her throat and almost bringing her to tears. But Ruby Rose did not waste time with tears anymore and so she bared her teeth instead in the face of the responding roar.

He lunged for her and Blake’s entire body curled her up in it as they dodged. Ruby landed flat on her back with Blake on top of her. The amber eyes stared at her, nothing like Tailmon’s blue ones on the surface. They were just as wild, just as raw and hurting as the day she meant. Ruby’s heart ached with failure and shame.

“Be more careful next time,” Blake said softly, and Ruby smiled.

“Right. Sorry.” She paused. “Uh… let me up?”

Blake was happy to obey, pulling her up with ease. Ruby felt the fear fade, her heart clear and calm. She readied Crescent Rose, and lunged.

She met his claw with her blade and Blake leaped with Gambol Shroud. And they fought. the four of them fought and fought and it shouldn’t have been hard but it felt so impossible. And yet together, Ruby felt it very well could be.

---

The resounding lecture was terribly worth it, even to Blake, who had been avoiding trouble much as she could. Blake watched Ruby keep her head bowed down in the face of the professor berating her at full volume in the safety of the copter. Yang was looking close to exploding out of worry and dismay and Weiss…

Blake did not know what to make of the look on Weiss’ face.

Still. Greymon. Greymon. A Grimm.

Of all the Digimon. Of all of their friends. Why him?

What she remembered of Agumon was a happy go lucky, overeating, silly dinosaur who believed without fear and was honest even at the worst of times. What could have turned him into a Grimm? Could things be turned into Grimm? Could Digimon? Or was he just shaped like it out of coincidence or her thoughts or…?

Weiss picked up where their professor left off but Ruby didn’t look any more cowed now. She just looked more determined.

Blake, despite herself, couldn’t help but feel the same.

They began to make their way back, as the possibility of continuing patrol when there could be a new species of Grimm to make note of, poor judgement call or not, was foolhardy.

Ruby slumped into her seat again. “I thought they were going to eat me…” she whined next to Blake.

“They might have but they’d have had to save me a piece.” Yang sagged in between them. She wrapped an arm around Ruby and Blake each. “Thanks for helping her out, Blakey.”

“Sure.” Blake had no idea what else she could actually say to that, let alone the affectionate arm on her thinner shoulders. Yang was like that.

The not-a-Faunus got a very distinct feeling that she could be crushed like a grape if she had messed that up.

“Yaaaannggggg,” Ruby whined, but there was a smile on her face, one that Blake was sure if she’d seen her brother and sister they’d have given her. A horrible ache filled her chest at the thought of them.

They’d still be younger than Ruby, running around Menagerie with many cares and maybe clumsily drawn scents. She doubted they’d even recognize her, so tall and big and broken by humans and their wants. Or perhaps they would because they were faunus and human things like sight and voice weren’t the same as scent and touch and fur.

All of a sudden, she missed them so much, the only things that he hadn’t ruined in her. Well of the things that mattered. And so many did.

“Ruuubbbyyyy,” Yang mimicked, dragging herself over her sister to wrestle her to the floor.

Weiss let out an irritable huff as she finally settled in her seat. “They are hopeless, aren’t they?”

Blake almost smiled at the chaos. “I don’t know,” she said after a few moments of thought. “Maybe they just love each other.”

She expected a scoff, a wave of a hand, something dismissive. But when she received nothing, Blake turned to look at their final teammate. There was a strange expression on her face, like the secrets of the universe, of dust in the stars in the sky, were somehow even further from her grasp than she’d thought they were.

“Maybe,” she said after a moment. Then her smooth, cold, posh expression returned, more imperious than ever. “Or they’re just being ridiculous.”

“Both are possible,” Blake offered quietly. “When I lived at home, my siblings and I were like that.”

“You have siblings?” The disbelief was so palpable it stopped the other two mid-swipe.

Blake chortled. “Yes. I do. Licht and Danielle.”

And it felt nice to say their names again.

“You didn’t tell us that!” Yang crowed, leaping on her now. “I’m your partner, where are these juicy secrets?”

“In my head,” Blake said, containing the bubble of hope in her chest. Maybe, someday, these were the people she could tell everything.

Except about Tailmon. And Adam.

Everything except those.

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