Chapter 10

Due Diligence I

There were two things Ruby Rose immediately realized she would hate about sharing a room with Jaune. The first was that he woke up at an absolutely ungodly hour of the morning.

The second was that there was no. blasted. room. anywhere.

Their tiny room – if you could even call it that, it was more like a cell – was crammed wall to wall with four spartan beds and an equal number of rudimentary desks, hardly more than generally smooth blocks of wood on top of generally sturdy thinner blocks of wood. They didn't even have chairs.

Whatever. Remodeling could come later. If Beacon gave them time to do it, at least.

After her meeting with Ozpin (she'd been so close – but there was absolutely no way she would be able to kill him in her current state), she'd taken to wandering the halls, head spinning with… well, a lot, really. By the time she stumbled into her new quarters in the dead of night, her partner was already long asleep.

She'd dragged herself into the bathroom, stumbled into her pajamas, and collapsed into the nearest bed, eyes heavy with exhaustion. Even as tired as she was, sleep evaded her. When your work typically involved late night after late night, old habits died hard. By the time sleep finally overtook her, the first rays of sunlight were already peeking over the horizon.

She twitched awake only moments later at the sound of faint rustling in the bed next to hers. A bleary glance out the window told her that next to no time had passed; the sun was no higher in the sky than before.

"Sorry," came the apologetic voice of Jaune. "Didn't mean to wake you."

She grunted something halfway between "go away," and "why are you awake you inhuman lunatic" before slamming her eyes shut. People were not meant to be moving at this time of night. Day? Night? Unholy, either way.

Jaune left, the door creaking slightly to signal his exit, leaving her alone with only the rising sun to watch her. Just before consciousness fled her, it occurred to her that the other partnership of her team had yet to arrive.

They're still probably in medbay. Hopefully they're ok.

After all, it would really throw a wrench in the works to have to change teams already.

::-::-::

He hadn't gotten much rest, but Jaune Arc rose with the sun anyways, just as he had for every day in his entire memory. Even if he would have preferred to sleep in, his body had immediately propelled him to alertness at the first sign of light.

He rose as quietly as possible out of consideration for his sleeping partner, but ultimately his efforts were meaningless – she woke anyways, even if only barely. He mumbled a hasty apology, but filed her reaction away for future reference. She was a very, very light sleeper, and the speed and violence with which she had awoken spoke of familiarity with reacting to unseen danger. He didn't miss the way her eyes had snapped open and her hand had rushed under her pillow before she had seen him and relaxed. Even for a Beacon student, it was unusual behavior.

As he left, his musings about his partner were replaced with the familiar routine of his morning exercise. While he would undoubtedly have combat–focused classes later, it would be a disgrace to his family to be lax with his own discipline.

The need to stay hidden presented a complication, but the early hour offered more hiding places than would otherwise be possible. By the time most of his fellow students were preparing for the upcoming day, he had already completed a brisk run, his strength building exercises, and most of his sword forms. It was regrettable that the rest could not be finished, but, well, sacrifices were inevitable.

He went for a shower to wash the sweat he had worked up from his routine, then for a hearty breakfast. Doing so left him plenty of time to plan his schedule for the rest of the day. As an opportunity to recover from the rigors of initiation, Beacon's students were given the day off. It would be one of the few opportunities for free time they would receive. While he had little doubt his peers would squander their time in foolish trivialities, he had some questions that needed answering.

Once he was finished with his meal, he took to the halls. It took him only a few minutes to find his target.

"Professor!" he called as he spotted the desired head of blonde hair. Professor Glynda turned at his voice, mouth already down turned in disapproval.

"Mister Arc," she greeted coolly. "Please refrain from yelling in the halls. It's far too early for such noise."

"Right. Sorry, professor," he apologized with only a modicum of sincerity. "I was, ah, hoping you could help me with a problem?"

"What is it?" She asked, naked caution marking every word. No doubt she regularly dealt with "problems." Maybe even a few of them actually mattered.

Jaune glanced meaningfully at the people who were starting to stream through the open halls. "It's kind of personal."

"Personal…?" Glynda mused, but then her eyes lit with understanding. "I see. Very well. Come to my office, then."

He followed her through the winding maze of passages (the brief familiarity he had with them was insufficient. He'd have to memorize them as soon as possible – perhaps a task for the rest of the day) to a nondescript brown door in the middle of the faculty wing. When she opened the door and beckoned for him to enter, he did so without hesitation.

The interior was very much what he would have expected from a professor of Glynda's temperament. A perfectly ordered desk with organized stacks of papers occupied one corner, a humorous contrast to the sprawling disaster that was Ozpin's. A stacked bookshelf stood opposite. Jaune noticed the tomes it held were organized alphabetically.

Glynda took a seat at her desk, then waved her wand toward the door. Jaune couldn't see the resulting wave of power that washed over him, but he certainly felt it. It set his teeth on edge.

"A silencing spell," Glynda explained. "It requires some unorthodox use of dust, but I assure you it's very effective. Now, how can I help you? I assume you didn't require my attention for small talk."

"There are some students that I need information on," Jaune cut straight to the point. "The dossiers you provided me at the start of the year were helpful, but there are some questions that they were unable to address."

Glynda winced at his request. "While I appreciate the dedication you have demonstrated thus far, please understand I am… limited in what I can offer you. Faculty is held to a very high standard regarding student privacy, and the information I have given you, shallow as it may seem, is already well past the normal bounds of acceptability."

It was unfortunate, but understandable. Besides, uncooperative clients were a regular factor of the Arc family business. "I only need information for a few of them. Whatever you can give me."

She said nothing for a long moment. "Which ones?"

It wasn't agreement, but it was a step. "Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, Weiss Schnee, Yang XiaoLong and Pyrrha Nikos," Jaune rattled off. "Especially Ruby Rose and Blake Belladonna."

While all of seven of the other members of his makeshift group had been unusually powerful, Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie had set off the least flags in his mind. Both of them were within strength parameters he would have expected of a first year Beacon student, albeit on the stronger end, and neither had performed any action that roused his suspicion. Yang, on the other hand, had been exceptionally powerful, and Weiss had demonstrated an exceptional head for combat tactics under pressure, but both of them had fairly comprehensive dossiers that fit his observations. Information on them would be helpful but not strictly necessary. The last three, however…

Pyrrha Nikos stood out simply because it should not be possible for a student of her age to be so skilled. While her raw power couldn't compare to juggernauts like Yang or Nora, the finesse with which she handled herself wouldn't be out of place on a fully trained huntress. Jaune acknowledged there was a distinct possibility that if he dueled her, even at his full ability he would find himself outmatched. Even so, of the three that he had mentally listed as "high priority," she was the lowest. Her status as a public celebrity left him with many, many sources to peruse at his leisure.

Blake Belladonna stood out for the opposite reason. Her dossier had contained almost nothing, only a brief summary of her physical statistics. While her combat ability had been decent but nothing spectacular, she was an absolute unknown, and bodyguards learned very quickly to distrust mystery. Obviously, she had something to hide. The only question is why Beacon would be willing to aid her specifically. Why was she the exception?

As for Ruby Rose… Oum, but what warning flag did she not trigger.

"I'll do what I can. That's all I can promise," Glynda said, still clearly hesitant. "I'm sorry, I know it makes your job harder, but I can't just throw aside my integrity as an instructor. Anything I give you will come from outside of Beacon."

For somebody as structured as Glynda, even agreeing to that much was a monumental favor. "Thank you, professor. Anything you can offer will be greatly appreciated."

"One more thing, Mister Arc," she interrupted before Jaune could leave. "I can inform you right now that you will receive absolutely nothing regarding Miss Belladonna."

Well if that wasn't suspicious, he didn't know what was. "May I ask why?"

She shook her head. "I'm not at liberty to say."

Jaune bowed in response. "Understood. Good day, professor."

When the door clicked shut behind him, he cursed softly. Well, this was where he earned his paycheck.

::-::-::

Weiss Schnee was going absolutely insane.

The first reason was that she was still badly injured enough to prevent her from moving from the medbay bed, but not enough to grant her the peace of unconsciousness. The result?

She was bored out of her mind.

The second reason?

Yang XiaoLong, the girl making her best run to dethrone Ruby as the most irritating person Weiss knew, would not stop snoring.

And she was faking it. 100% faking it. There was no way anybody could be so unbelievably, window rattling, earth shaking, defy–all–human–limits loud.

Their particular ward was bereft of any other people. Weiss wished she could leave as well.

"I know you're faking it," she snapped when she could bear no more. "So you can go ahead and shut up now."

The snoring stopped instantly. "Aww, look at you," Yang cooed. "You know me so well already."

"Not well enough," Weiss countered. "You still owe me answers."

Yang sat up in the bed she occupied adjacent to Weiss, purple eyes uncharacteristically solemn. She studied the heiress with an unashamed intensity, but Weiss glared right back. She would not be cowed.

"I guess I do," Yang acknowledged. "Kind of regret promising you them." She laughed bitterly. "Alright, now's as good a time as any. What do you want to know?"

Weiss blinked in surprise, train of thought temporarily derailed by the mood whiplash. It took her a moment to settle on a question. "How do you and Ruby know each other? I've never seen her so upset."

"Already such good friends with her?" Yang teased. "I thought you two just met."

Weiss heart made a terrified leap into her throat. Of all the dumb mistakes – she blamed the painkillers. It had to be the painkillers. "She's rather insistent," she said, desperately praying Yang would accept the excuse.

"Yeah. I guess she is." The other girl mused with absent minded melancholy.

Whew. Good, took the attention off her slip. "Answer the question. How do you two know each other?"

"So demanding," Yang groused. "Fine. We're… we're sisters."

Weiss knew that, of course. But she wasn't supposed to. "You're what?"

"Sisters. Can't you tell?" Yang admonished. "We're the spitting image of each other."

"The only similarity, physical or otherwise, that you two share is that you're the most annoying people I know."

The blonde chuckled. "We're half sisters, actually. Same father, different mothers. Long story, but basically stuff happened and my mom left, and dad remarried. I don't really remember her."

Despite herself, Weiss felt a pang of sympathy. Yang hid it well, but she was certain that the other girl bore no small amount of hurt about her abandonment. "How was it? Living with Ruby's mom?"

"Honestly? Amazing. She was super–mom. Slayer of Grimm and baker of cookies." Yang stopped for a long moment, lost in memories. When she resumed, the words were halting. "I don't know how much more I should say. A lot of this… you should really hear it from Ruby."

Normally, Weiss would be relieved to hear those words. Yang XiaoLong reluctant to speak? Normally a blessing. Now? Hardly. "Tell me your side of the story, at least. Why does Ruby seem to hate you?"

Yang shot her a wry grin. "Awfully intrusive for such a new friend, aren't you?" Before Weiss could offer protest, she spoke again. "It's fine. We're partners now, and it'd feel good to get this off my chest. Haven't told anyone before." Purple eyes flashed a dangerous warning. "Don't make me regret telling you."

"I won't. I swear." Just hurry up and spit it out. I've been waiting way too long to hear this.

"You don't seem like the type anyways, and believe it or not I'm pretty good at reading people." Yang lay back down, breaking eye contact with Weiss in favor of staring at the ceiling. "Ruby and I were close when we were kids. Really close. But one day, she – Ruby's mom – died on a mission, and everything just fell apart."

Weiss said nothing, so Yang continued her monologue.

"I was… I don't know. Young. Maybe nine or ten? Somewhere around there. Dad couldn't handle it. Started drinking a lot. Never beat us or anything, though. He barely noticed us. Kinda just left us to fend for ourselves."

Weiss's stomach sank as she began to put the pieces together.

"Anyways," Yang said, "I'm the older sister, right? So it fell to me to take care of Ruby. Make sure she had food, got to school, had someone to talk to and comfort her, everything. Had to be a good mom on top of being a good daughter, basically, because I had to watch out for dad too. Make sure he didn't just up and die on us. Ruby was too young to really get what was going on. All her questions, her constant clinginess, the stress, dad's depression, it all got to me. Eventually I… I couldn't take it anymore."

"You ran," Weiss whispered.

Yang let loose a bark of empty laughter. "Yup. You got it. Just ditched and didn't look back. Never returned home. Couldn't bring myself to."

"What did you do afterwards?" Weiss asked, afraid that do you regret it would be too much.

"School, kind of. Spent some time in huntress prep schools, but I spent most of it just fighting. Gang warfare, underground prize fights, all that stuff. Easily made enough money to live." She grinned, pride lending her a bit of energy. "If you find the right places and you're strong, people don't ask questions. I was really strong even then. My fame kind of got out of hand, because people started coming after me. Challengers at first, then assassins, but eventually got a Beacon recruiter at my doorstep. I sure didn't make it in through good grades." She shrugged. "Guess they didn't care about my past."

Weiss suspected that there was a whole lot more that went into that "eventually," but she didn't push further. Yang had already given her far more than she had expected. Ruby hadn't talked much about her older sister, and Weiss hadn't ever known what to think. The truth had been a lot more convoluted than she had expected.

Really, she shouldn't care. The absolute mess of a relationship between her two partners – the old one and the new one – wasn't her business. It would be easy to ignore it and focus on her current mission.

But she couldn't just let it go. It didn't feel right, for whatever reason.

"Thanks for telling me," she said.

Yang shrugged. "Like I said, don't make me regret it. Anything else you want to know?"

"How," Weiss began, but cut herself off. She wracked her brain for a more diplomatic way to phrase her next question, but despite all the years of negotiation and etiquette training she had received, nothing came to mind. It was always harder with people you knew. "How do you feel about Ruby now?"

"Yeesh, Weiss–cream. Not pulling your punches," Yang said with a rueful half–grin. "I don't know. I really don't. It's… very complicated. Definitely didn't expect to meet her again like this."

"I can imagine," Weiss commented drily. "Alright, easier question. What happened with the deathstalker? Ruby abandoned us to help you."

Yang let loose a long, low whistle. "Oh boy. How to start…"

::-::-::

They hadn't seen each other in seven, almost eight years. A lot could change, especially when the time included a transition from childhood to becoming a young adult.

Even so, never in her wildest dreams would Yang have predicted the change that would befall her little sister.

She remembered a shy, innocent, adoring girl. Remembered how Ruby followed her almost everywhere, cried when she was separated, and never let go of the stuffed scythe that Uncle Qrow had given her for her fourth birthday (Summer had been very displeased, but Uncle Qrow never cared much).

All traces of that girl were gone. In its place? A machine. A monster. A weapon come to life. Yang had seen a lot of fighters over her years, far more than anybody her age had any right to. The good ones were like her. Hardened fighters, unnerved by little, comfortable in everything from a duel to a full out brawl. In their own way, they were the best of the best, survivors of a hundred battles.

A minuscule few, however, transcended even beyond that. It wasn't anything obvious. There was no physical sign she could point to, no personality trait they shared, no life experience or training method. But in the chaos of battle, they all became something else entirely. An entire existence devoted with laser focus to a single purpose: their opponent's death. Not out of any malice or hatred, but simply because that purpose was the essence of their existence. It was as indivisible from them as the need to breathe or eat.

Maybe she was crazy. Maybe normal people couldn't distinguish anything unusual. But she could. And they scared her witless.

She never expected Ruby would be one of them.

Even in her dazed state, Yang couldn't arrest her gaze from her little sister's lethal dance with the armored scorpion that towered over her. It was as mesmerizing as any art form. She dashed in and out of range, scythe painting a blurred arc of blood red in a sea of rose petals. Yang was used to speed, had seen (and been in) enough fights to see some of the fastest fighters that Remnant held. She herself was no slouch; in the underground rings, they'd called her 'Typhoon' for a reason. But Ruby wasn't just fast. She was perfectly controlled, as measured and sharp as any masterfully crafted blade.

Where did she even learn to fight like that? You couldn't teach yourself that style, not like Yang had taught herself.

What had Ruby been doing?

::-::-::

For all her immaculate skill, The Red One hadn't inflicted any more noticeable damage on the deathstalker. It skittered around her attacks with instinct–driven caution, covering its weak points behind the looming threat of its stinger. The blows that she managed to land fell against the thickest chitin, leaving jagged furrows but little else.

The stalemate could have dragged on, but The Red One's patience dissolved quickly. Her mounting frustration became readily apparent as she pushed distance and position on the grimm with rapidly escalating aggression. She extended further and further forward with each attack, heedless of the danger she put herself in.

Her inhuman speed and reflexes kept her out of harm's way for a few exchanges. It didn't last.

Normally, the Grimm were little more than savage beasts. The depth of their tactics rarely surpassed 'run at the enemy in groups instead of alone.' What made the truly dangerous grimm, the ancient ones, so terrifying was that they planned, they maneuvered, they adapted. And this deathstalker was very ancient indeed.

When The Red One sprang away after a failed attack, it readied itself. She dashed forward immediately, leaving no time for it to recover, just as she always had. Every other time she had done so it had fallen back to maintain its defensive stance. This time, it rushed to meet her.

The Red Maw lashed out with hungry fangs. Her razor blade cleaved straight through one of the deathstalker's legs like it was a flimsy paper screen. This was acceptable. It had anticipated this outcome.

The loss of one leg did not slow its momentum, nor did it throw it off balance. The deathstalker saw her silver eyes widen in shock and knew it had won. Committed as she was to her attack, she had no recourse for escape. Nearly one thousand pounds of armored grimm met barely one hundred pounds of human girl with all the force of a speeding car. She was bowled over in a sprawling heap, a hopeless tangle of limbs and scythe. Through some miracle she kept hold of her weapon without cutting herself, but it was ultimately irrelevant. It was too close for such a weapon to be useful.

The deathstalker readied its stinger. There was no moment of preamble or hesitation, no celebration. Only a fraction of a second to aim before death descended.

The point fell, the coat of of translucent toxins knifing through the air.

It was smashed aside.

Hair Like Fire stood on shaking legs, bent almost double. Her chest heaved with obvious exertion as she fought to drag air into her failing lungs, but her gauntlets proclaimed proud defiance. They were what had diverted the killing blow. The deathstalker yanked its prized weapon out of the shattered ground as The Red One struggled to her feet. No matter. Two crippled girls would do little against it.

"Ruby!" Hair Like Fire screamed. The two girls shared a brief glance, but this meant nothing. They could not communicate without words. The deathstalker knew this. The Red One raised her blade. It was useless. The weapon had only managed to pierce its armor because the girl had thrown her substantial speed into it. At close range, a standstill, and barely managing to stay upright? She would be lucky to even scratch its armor.

Its prized weapon fell once more.

The Red One lept to meet it in an unpredicted act of desperation, gleaming scythe streaming aside her. Why would she do that? It was futile–

With a mighty cry, Hair Like Fire smashed one of her gauntlets into the extended head of The Red Maw.

Like sanguine lightning from a clear sky, The Red Maw blazed through the air, yanking The Red One into an uncontrolled spin. The blade slashed straight through its prized weapon with unprecedented force, sending the massive point spiraling into the air, its previously impervious armor rendered useless against the power of the combined attack.

For the first time in living memory, the deathstalker knew fear.

It skittered backward, but its doom was sealed. Its prized weapon fell once more towards the earth. The Red One landed, plucked it out of the air with the crook of The Red Maw, and lobbed it in a gentle arc towards Hair Like Fire.

Hair Like Fire jumped forward, legs drawing power from some unseen reserve. She stretched both hands behind her head, almost to the breaking point, before spiking its prized weapon straight downwards with an earthshaking scream. The golden point spiraled through the air like the world's largest bullet.

It obliterated the deathstalker's head like a bulldozer over a rotten melon before continuing on, and by the time it halted there was very little left to disintegrate into ebony powder.

::-::-::

"Sweet Grimm–spawn," Weiss swore breathlessly. "I was wondering how you managed to take it out without Nora. That level of coordination doesn't even sound possible."

"Yeah," Yang preened. "Not bad for absolutely no planning whatsoever. Do you think it's genetic?"

"Maybe latent sister power? Certainly can't be from all the time you've spent together." Weiss drove mercilessly. Yang winced, previous arrogance popped like a balloon.

"That's still a sore spot, Weiss–cream."

Weiss sighed. "You've got a great opportunity to fix it, you know."

There was no response.

"What happened after?" Weiss said once she realized her partner would speak no further.

"Not much. I collapsed. Ruby kind of just sat there. We stayed like that until the bullhead came to pick us up."

Weiss knew she was running a risk by pushing her partner so hard. Demand too much or harass too far, and she could turn Yang against her, severely jeopardizing the dynamic of her new team. She'd been lucky so far – Yang was exceptionally good natured, and there was no reason for her to push even further.

Except there was, and now she knew why she couldn't let the matter rest. Ruby would never admit it, but her performance since meeting Yang again had been defined by unprecedented volatility. She was already something of a loose cannon normally, but now? Uncontrolled to the point of ineffectiveness.

You owe me so much more than you realize, you little brat.

She was running risk after risk for an old partner who would never realize it. But Weiss was a professional. Her job was to enable the little red assassin to operate at the best of her ability. Recognition didn't factor anywhere into that.

And maybe – just maybe – she cared a little bit more for the other girl than just as an operator wielding an asset. Maybe Ruby was one of her only friends (as much of a stretch as that term may be), just as she knew the same was true for the diminutive assassin. Maybe that meant something to her.

And maybe – just maybe – pushing the sisters to reconcile wouldn't be as much of a risk as one might expect. She didn't know Yang that well, admittedly. But she was so confident in her prediction that she would have bet a substantial amount of lien.

Weiss was convinced that the blonde wanted her sister back.

A/N:

Internal continuity is a nightmare… I constantly forget who knows what about everybody else and what I said in earlier chapters.

I'm struggling with finding a balance between realism and fantasy. The RWBY world, after all, is a well constructed fiction, but at the same time I like there to be logic and relatability to how characters behave. My current rule of thumb is that character interactions, dialogue, and development should be more or less believable, if not 100% realistic. Anything to do with combat or other stuff is open to… embellishment. Occasionally chuuni embellishment. Heh heh. I make no apologies. (Ok maybe a few half hearted ones)

I'm also convinced Neo's style combined with Ruby's skills would be absolutely terrifying.

Thanks for the reviews everyone. Hope you enjoyed it. I try to make extra effort to address anything that you guys bring up in them. They're both helpful and encouraging.