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”You can’t keep running away from everything, Blake.”
”You can’t abandon everything once it gets tough. You have to be strong to survive in this world. You know that better than anyone.”
”Since when have you become so pathetic?”
”Enough, Blake. I have nothing more to say to you right now.”
As she hops from roof to roof, running from the smoke and fire burning her school — her home — to the ground, she shakes her head to dispel the unwanted memory away.
She tells herself that she’s not abandoning anybody by leaving like this; that it’s her fault Yang lost her arm and she doesn’t need anyone else to suffer because her past finally caught up to her. She’s doing what’s best for everyone, especially her teammates — her family, — even if they don’t realize it yet.
Even if it hurts.
When she turns to look at the remains of Beacon, her eyes can’t help but catch on the bright red embers floating up in the sky throughout the ruined city. A spark of light amidst terrible shadows. Something so small and simple and yet so significant and powerful at the same time.
A soft red cloak flashes through her mind, and Blake looks away and starts running again.
Ruby looks at the purple flower blooming and standing strong despite the harsh snowy weather surrounding it. She thinks it’s called a “crocus”, or something. It’s the only flower in Patch that will grow during the winter — a little fun fact her mom used to tell her whenever they saw one.
She doesn’t think of her mom when looking at this flower, though. She thinks of Blake, her missing teammate, and she frowns with worry again.
At least with Yang and Weiss she knows where they’re at and that they’re, hopefully, reasonably safe and doing as well as they can be despite all that happened at Beacon.
(Even if Yang is hurting a lot more than Ruby really knows how to help with right now, and Weiss hasn’t been able to send her a single message or call since she got taken back to Atlas because Vale’s CCT tower’s down. She knows they’re okay without her there for the time being.)
But when it comes to Blake, she’s left in the dark.
She knows her family is from outside the kingdoms all the way in Menagerie — Blake had confided that information to her once — and that that’s most likely where she’d be going if she hasn’t made it there already, but what if she didn’t head there? What if she decided to go to an entirely different continent instead to start over again? It would be like finding a human needle in a Remnant-sized haystack in that case. If Blake really didn’t want to be found then it would be pretty much almost impossible.
And if she did go home, then what about the journey there? What if Blake runs into some trouble, whether it be the kind that had been following her or a herd of Grimm she accidentally got caught up in? She doesn’t have any support with her, and as leader it’s Ruby’s job to protect her team.
. . . She hasn’t been doing a good job of that lately, huh?
Her attention gets taken away from it when she hears Nora’s footsteps coming back up the path to the rest of them.
“Okay, bathroom break is over!” She says cheerfully. “Let’s keep going, shall we?”
Ruby smiles and they all continue their walk.
When Nora and Ren get a little bit ahead of them, engrossed in their own conversation, Jaune leans over to start one of his own.
“I’m sorry your team isn’t here with us.”
Ruby blinks at him in a bit of surprise but then quickly waves her hand. “Oh, don’t worry about them. I’m glad they’re taking some time to rest. We all need it after… you know.”
Jaune breathes a humorless laugh. “Yeah, understatement of the century. But I can tell that you’re really worried about them. Which I get — if I got separated from Ren and Nora I’d be all over the place.”
“Yeah. I feel a little “all over the place” to be honest. But my teammates are strong. They can take care of themselves. And besides, we have something important to do.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to try gathering them all first? We don’t know what we’ll be walking into once we reach Haven.”
Ruby has considered that question before she recruited Team JNR to help her out. She knew she had to do this journey after Qrow gave her that hint, and she knew she couldn’t do it by herself. And her team had been her first choice, of course, but. . .
“It wouldn’t work,” she sighs. “Yang isn’t doing well, I don’t think Weiss’ family would let her go so soon after such a big disaster, and Blake… I think Blake just wants to be left alone. Plus it would make this trip even longer if we had to go walking all around Remnant, and I don’t know how much time we have until Cinder hits Haven, and — .”
Jaune puts up his hands. “Okay, yeah, I hear you. But…” then he reaches up to awkwardly touch the back of his head. “If you wanted to just go after Blake, we could do that too. Even if it means we take slightly longer to go to Mistral, we’d be down for it.”
Ruby’s steps start slowing down. “Why would I just want to bring Blake? We don’t even know where she is. And wouldn’t it make more sense to go get Weiss since she’s my partner?”
Jaune seems confused at her response, and Ruby sees that Ren and Nora have stopped and are now looking at her, both sharing a similar expression. Did she say something wrong?
“Well,” Nora says slowly. “Aren’t you and Blake… you know…”
Ruby glances between each of them, and she begins to slowly start mirroring their confusion with her own. The feeling that she’s missing a vital piece of information sits like a stone in her chest.
What’s happening?
Ren speaks up quickly before the other two could say anything else. “Uh — it seems as though we’ve misunderstood the situation. Let’s just focus on our journey, okay? Daylight is leaving fast.”
“Yeah,” Jaune agrees. He then throws a small apologetic look back at her. “Sorry, Ruby, guess we got distracted. It’s been a long day. You ready to keep going?”
Ruby nods and follows quietly behind all of them, her thoughts now full and occupied.
She’s not completely clueless. She knows what they’re talking about, and she can’t let herself think about it at the moment.
Thinking about it means facing it. Facing it means accepting it. And accepting it means missing Blake is going to hurt a lot more than it already does.
Blake tries not to shake too much as she frantically tries to clean Sun’s shoulder.
She was right. She was right. Of course Sun would get stabbed by Ilia, because everyone she cares about is going to get hurt by her past one way or another. Her parents, Yang, now Sun…
And she couldn’t even react in time to save Yang and Sun. She couldn’t do a single thing right in either scenario.
She lets a few stray tears roll down her cheeks as she gently wipes the blood away. The wound itself isn’t too bad, luckily, and it was the electricity from the weapon that caused him to pass out. If his aura had been up he probably would’ve just needed a bandage and she wouldn’t be here right now, trying to patch him up without causing anymore damage.
But his aura wasn’t up. He had to use it all because she took too long grabbing the scroll. Just another mistake of hers that caused someone else to get hurt.
You keep making the same stupid mistakes.
You’re too weak, Blake.
You cannot protect anyone.
She breathes deeply and angrily wipes her tears. Not as frantic anymore but still upset, she grabs the gauze and starts bandaging Sun up.
Maybe now he’ll understand what it means to be close to her. Maybe he’ll realize that she’s beyond saving and that trying to do anything will only end badly for everyone involved. She’s made her choices, and she has to be the one facing the consequences of them. The only one.
Because what’s the alternative? More people around her get hurt — killed, for just being in the way? Sun was lucky that Ilia clearly didn’t want to kill him, because she could have done so much worse.
Adam wouldn’t have hesitated at all.
When Blake finishes wrapping up his injury and sees that it has stopped bleeding, other than the dark blood spot on the bandage, she leans back against the couch and finally relaxes a little bit.
But only a little. Her mind is still racing, her anxiety still spiked.
It’s not just Sun she’s worried about. There hasn’t been a single day since she left where she didn’t think about her team, and her regrets regarding them.
Say Sun’s right and they successfully defeat the White Fang here — what next? How can she possibly face her friends now after so selfishly abandoning them when they needed her most?
Yang must be upset with her right now. There’s no way she wouldn’t be, and there’s no way Blake would blame her for it at all. You lose an arm for someone and they couldn’t have even been bothered to say goodbye? Most would find that unforgivable. She hopes Yang feels the same way.
But Weiss and Ruby… She knows that they’ve already forgiven her for leaving. The hardest part is knowing that they probably weren’t even mad at her to begin with.
Her hands start shaking a little when she thinks of Ruby.
Sun following her to Menagerie was one thing, but what if Ruby had decided to come after her instead?
The thought of the White Fang harming Ruby sends a sharp spike into Blake’s chest and stomach — much like how she felt when Ruby fell down into the cave at Mountain Glenn.
What if Ruby was the one who got stabbed by Ilia? What if Ruby was the one who got attacked by Adam?
Despite all her failures thus far, she’s relieved that Ruby’s the one person who hasn’t been directly harmed by her past. She’s too kind and sweet and pure — her being unable to protect Ruby of all people in scenarios such as these would be too much for her to handle. There’s only so much heartbreak Blake could take.
She curls her hands into fists on her legs, and she breathes deeply. Wherever Ruby was now, Blake hopes that it’s far away from her.
Ruby looks around the room, and she’s worried.
On the bright side, the fighting has finally calmed down now that everyone in here, including Salem’s group, is tired. Plus there’s now a huge hole in the entrance to the academy, so they’re not as trapped in here as they were.
The down side, not only is everyone tired, but all of her friends are hurt pretty badly and they can barely stand. And Emerald and Mercury don’t seem to be either of those as they keep attacking her and her sister without breaking a sweat.
On the brightest side, Weiss is alright and is finally awake! And Jaune finally activated his semblance! A huge win for team RWBYJNR…O. RWBYORNJ? She’ll have to talk to the others where to fit Oscar sometime when they’re back home.
She blocks a kick from Mercury and swipes Crescent Rose around him, pulling him to the ground. As she does so, Yang whips around her and rapidly hits Emerald multiple times before punching her hard enough to send her falling to the floor as well.
The fight is finally catching up with both of them as well as they’re slower getting up than they were previously. Not tired enough for Ruby’s peace of mind, but she can manage. It’s still satisfying all the same.
A bright white light catches her eye, and she turns to see Weiss standing in the center of the room with a giant glyph behind her. No one interrupts — she doesn’t think that anyone would be able to as harsh sheets of ice are swirling rapidly around her like a protective barrier — and Weiss kneels down. From the glyph two massively large antennas come out of it, followed by an insect head, and then a winged body.
“A lancer,” Yang whistles.
“A Queen lancer!” Ruby says excitedly before calling out “Weiss! That’s amazing!”
Weiss smiles at her and stands back up, as regal and proud as she could be. Moving her rapier forward, the lancer’s large detachable stinger shoots ahead to the outside before retracting back and bringing Hazel along with it.
Ruby doesn’t cheer again but she does watch as Weiss looks back up ahead and her expression changes to one of surprise. Turning around, Ruby’s eyes widen and she gasps.
There, right at the entrance, stands Blake looking extremely confused. They lock eyes and the confusion morphs into one of shock and familiarity.
“Ruby?” Blake asks.
“Blake,” Ruby whispers back. She realizes she’s missed her so much more than she thought she did. Seeing her makes a wave of ease rush all over her — the closest she’ll get to drinking a healing potion from a video game probably. Her feeling of elation gets staggered when she remembers that the Vault is now opened, and she has to make sure that it’s dealt with before she does anything else.
“Yang! Go to the Vault,” she points behind them. With a nod Yang sprints over to it and she’s left facing Blake again.
“Ruby,” Blake calls again, softer and more relieved this time.
Before she fully knows it her legs are moving and she’s all but running right at her missing teammate, like a siren’s call. When Blake’s arms open she throws herself into them, choosing to allow herself this one respite despite the fighting still going on around them.
“I’ve missed you so much,” Ruby says in the other’s shoulder. Where have you been? What have you been doing? “So, so much.”
Blake laughs a little, and wraps her arms around her comfortingly. Everything is alright now. “I’ve missed you too.”
They hold each other like that for just a little bit longer. The battle can wait, just like they have.