Chapter 18

The Girl in the Mirror

Ruby dragged her feet down the long corridor using the wall and her sniper-scythe to stay upright. Each step was a new agony that threatened to escape her tightly clenched teeth, and every time she put pressure on a foot she couldn't help but wince at the warm liquid squishing in between her toes.

This time there were no supportive voices down the hall cheering her on, nor any shadows hovering nearby in case she should stumble. Only what passed between her teeth and the echos of her heavy boots which she touched the ground with as lightly as possible.

When she arrived on the freshmen's side of the training hall she collapsed against the opposite wall lined with dressing room doors, and let out a small yelp as a metal handle dug into her side. Each room she passed the handles prodded her but after passing a dozen or so the pain merely became yet another dull ache atop a multitude of others. In her daze however she passed the door label that read 'Team RWBY!' written in red, white, black, and yellow crayon, and had to roll over onto her other side to turn back around.

Her shaking hands fumbled with her ammo belt in search of her student ID to unlock the door with, and she sighed when she realized it was missing. Ruby hoped that she'd simply forgotten it back in the room or that her sister had nabbed it again when she wasn't looking, something Yang was prone to do even going so far as to blame her for leaving the ID where she could find it. Unfortunately even if Yang lost it again the school would just issue her new one instead of letting her take another ID picture that didn't include wild morning hair and chocolate smeared on her face, or her stuffed animal collection and Yang's posters of shirtless guys in the background.

Fortunately however she still had her scroll which meant she didn't have to knock and ask someone likely only partially dressed to open the door for her. She placed the holographic device into the ID slot and after it verified her identification she typed the password and unlocked the door, which thanks to an unsteady finger took a couple of tries to get it right.

She quietly closed the door behind her so that it didn't echo and sound like another explosive going off in the training hall, but when she stepped through the black privacy curtain Ruby couldn't help pausing at the peculiar scene before her.

Blake's bare back and left shoulder were facing toward her as she placed the top half of her new huntress attire back into her locker and retrieved the clothes she'd been wearing earlier that morning at breakfast. Although she no longer wore quite as many accessories as she did at the beginning of the school year, back when Ruby couldn't figure out how she even went to the bathroom, there was still a considerable pile that she had to sort through and decide whether the effort putting them back on was worth it or not, or if she should just change into a sweatshirt and sweatpants.

A few scars caught Ruby's eye, both fresh and old, along with what appeared to be her sister's handprint on Blake's barely covered backside, however it was the discolored skin on her left bicep that Ruby's eyes lingered on. Even on the rare occasions Blake wore a vest or short sleeves she always kept her left bicep covered either with an athletic arm sleeve or a black ribbon similar to the one in her hair or around Gambol Shroud's hilt. Even when she went to bed she kept it covered. And without a bow covering her ears or wearing something over her arm Ruby couldn't help thinking Blake was almost naked-looking. Well, more so than she already was.

Inquiring about her arm in the past Blake had claimed the discolored skin and scarring were due to a campfire accident when she was younger, but when Ruby had brought it up to Weiss her partner had accused her of not listening again as Blake had told her it had come from an Atlesian Knight that had gotten a lucky shot during her time with the White Fang. Something Weiss hadn't been able to decide whether she felt proud or guilty about.

Ruby wasn't sure what her sister had been told. She had asked several times but Yang was always quick to change the subject. Looking closely for the first time however Ruby's marksman eyes were more sure than ever that the burn looked deliberate, almost like some sort of branding mark, and the scarring like someone had taken a knife to it...

Perhaps it was because of her huntress training or her natural faunus instincts, but Blake glanced over her shoulder having felt that she was being watched. "Yes, Ruby?" she asked stiffly, her face brightening as she forced a polite smile.

"Huh?" The caped-girl blinked, confused by the question and Blake's reaction before realizing with horror she'd been staring at a half-naked girl. And with her luck probably with her mouth hanging open. "I-I wasn't- I mean I didn't- I-I-" Ruby's tongue forgot how to work as her face turned several shades of scarlet and she stumbled over both her words and feet to get to her locker which was within elbow reach of the barely clothed faunus.

Blake's face had a touch of pink but more than embarrassed she appeared amused by the situation. Living in the wilderness, bathing in lakes, and being one of the few females in her White Fang branch had taken away much of her modesty, and what she had left either had been lost sharing a bedroom, bathroom, and locker room with her teammates, or forcibly stripped from her by her partner who didn't seem to understand the concepts of modesty, privacy, or personal space.

In the back of her mind she could hear Yang's ever cheerful voice practically begging her to ask 'Like what ya see?' in the sultriest manner possible, or to do something else out of the Yang Xiao Long playbook of making people feel uncomfortable, but she and her partner's souls weren't entirely in harmony just yet.

But while she wasn't exactly modest Blake wasn't exactly proud of her body either, or particularly liked people staring at her. Besides occasionally baring her midriff which was customary for girls in Menagerie she generally preferred dark, innocuous clothing that drew about as much attention to herself as a person's shadow might.

"It's okay," she said, now shaking her head and chuckling. "I just wasn't expecting to look over and see you looking back at me with your mouth hanging open, or you drooling." She gave a playful wink and thought to herself that perhaps she and Yang were more in harmony than she previously thought, but resisted giving her partner's favorite asset of her's a shake.

"I-wasn't-staring!" Ruby yelled, turning to face her. "I-mean-okay-yes-I-was-but-it's-not-what-you-think! I-was-just-staring-at-how-shiny-your-hair-looks-not-at-anything-else-I-swear! Just-because-I'm-her-sister-doesn't-mean-I'm-weird-like-Yang-and-would-stare-at-your-cute-underwear-I-mean-Bellebooty-I-mean-bottom-or-Yang's-handprint! And-just-because-they're-eye-level-for-me-and-Weiss-doesn't-mean-that-I'm-starting-at-your-OH-GOD-WAIT-NO-I-MEAN-I-NEVER-SAW-ANYTHING! AAHHH!"

With a frustrated scream Ruby gathered her clothes in a whirlwind and stuffed them into her backpack before running toward the door and freedom completely missing Blake's bemused grin.

"PLEASE-DON'T-MENTION-THIS-TO-WEISS-OR-ESPECIALLY-YANG-SEE-YOU-BACK-IN-THE-ROOM-BYE!" Ruby had yelled at such a high pitch that she thought for sure she must've ruptured Blake's sensitive eardrums, but if she hadn't slamming the heavy metal door with all her remaining might probably had.

Once outside away from the giggling she pressed her back against the door and took a deep sigh of relief followed by a miserable groan. With any luck this little incident would be forgotten about or only vaguely remembered as yet another peculiar encounter with team RWBY's even more peculiar leader, which even Ruby knew was too long of an ever growing list.

With her embarrassment now outweighing the agony in her feet and limbs she limped down the hall toward the girl's bathroom with an extra bounce to her step. Slamming and locking the door behind her she wedged her rifle in between the handle and blue tile floor, that way not even a master lockpick would be able to get inside without breaking the door down.

Following the wall to keep upright once again she climbed onto the countertop and turned the water on in case someone with cat hearing pressed an ear against the door. After that she finally released the agonized moans, groans, and whimpers she'd been keeping to herself for seemingly all day, and slid the backpack off her shoulders which landed on the floor with a resounding thud.

She peeked through blurry eyes searching for any shadows that looked as though they didn't belong in the bathroom, and seeing none she closed her eyes again and rested her forehead against the mirror dazing in and out of consciousness.

Ruby felt sluggish, both mentally and physically, something normally foreign to her but was becoming all too familiar recently. The highs followed by the extreme lows, and the terrible sharp pains in her body that were just as vivid as the night she'd been flayed open by the woman in the Beowolf mask.

Absently she began loosening her boots and let out a pleasurable sigh when they too fell to the floor. The doctors had told her that she needed to give her feet time to 'breathe' every day, but finding that time was often difficult or impossible to find. Weiss would gag at the mere mention of her feet and Blake would scurry to the other side of the room and hang her head out the window if she so much as caught a whiff of them. Yang's reaction was always the worst though. Her eyes didn't turn red or her semblance become unstable. Her beautiful lilac eyes would well up and her brilliant aura dim before she could make an excuse to leave the room only to return much later either smelling like alcohol or retrieving a some out of the fridge when she got back.

Her big sis was the toughest person she knew, even tougher than their uncle, and she wasn't supposed to cry...

Ruby couldn't at all blame her sister and friends in the slightest though. After all she had the very same reactions as they did, and for their sakes she only removed her padded boots, extra thick socks, and layers of bandages when it was time to bathe or when she was all alone like now.

Her left sock was peeled off just seconds before the right, and slowly she began unwinding the bandages that were soaked in a mixture of sweat, various medical salves, a disheartening amount of blood, and what she guessed might've been pus or something else her partner would've vomited at the sight of.

She wiggled her toes lamenting how several of the nails still hadn't grown back, meaning it'd still be awhile until she could fully partake in the almost ritualistic nail painting night with the rest of her team and Zwei, but she found solace in that she'd been lucky enough to have not lost any of the cute little piggies adored by her mom and sister. With the bandages removed she glanced at the bottoms of her feet grimacing at the amount of bruising and scabs, a few of which that had reopened, and burns. By some miracle she hadn't received any red dust infections, but she wasn't going to take the same chance with regular infections which could be just as dangerous if she didn't want to be outfitted for cybernetics. Which admittedly part of her thought would be pretty cool.

With a deep breath that she guarded behind tightly clenched teeth, she swung her legs around and forcibly shoved her feet underneath the hot running water. An involuntary high-pitched scream rose in the back of her throat but it quickly turned into an angry snarl then finally whimpers and sniffling before turning the water over to cold.

When Ruby took all that she could and the sink was about to overflow she turned the water off. Shaking her feet to remove the excess water she swung back around and kicked her legs letting them air dry for a few minutes while she fought the urge to lean back and close her eyes. It would've been all too easy to fall asleep there just as she'd done all her life in countless other places less comfortable as this, but with Blake likely under orders from her sister to keep an eye and ear out for her that wasn't an option.

She had other, much more urgent matters than her feet to attend to...

Slowly she began undoing her corset-like waist cincher in the back, her fingers drunkenly fumbling over the simple knots she had tied earlier that morning. She ended up having to remove her ammo belt first, something Ruby would've thought obvious if not for her sluggish state of mind.

The heavy utility belt landed on the accumulating pile on the floor below followed by her cincher with its elastic bands. She then took off her cross pendants and carefully folded up her cape and placed it on the counter beside her. Afterward she pulled at her long sleeve black blouse, untucking it from her combat skirt which she also removed. The already snug fitting blouse was tighter than usual, particularly around her midsection, and growing frustrated she starting tugging at a red trimmed sleeve with her teeth to help get her arm out and pull it over her head.

She rested for a few minutes staring blankly and picking at the skin tight long sleeve athletic top made of the same material as her leggings. In the back of her mind she could hear her uncle's voice and her various other combat instructors complimenting her but also telling her that she was due to improve her combat attire. The multiple layers of form-fitting clothing were practical huntsmen standards, allowing them to quickly become aura saturated and fool her aura into protecting her clothes as if they were skin, but Ruby's always racing mind was already making mental notes. She couldn't carry much more weight than she already did without compromising her semblance, but over the past few months she had become increasingly envious of her sister's padded gloves as well as Weiss' left shoulder guard that she kept hidden underneath her blouse and jacket so subtly that Ruby hadn't even been aware of her partner wearing it until seeing her take it off.

Staring in the slightly fogged mirror Ruby couldn't help but notice the now sizable bulge at her stomach and poked at it curiously. Her fingers played with the hem of her top hesitantly before lifting it to reveal tightly wrapped bandages around her ribs. Swallowing a lump in her throat and barely able to breath she struggled getting the top over her head and unceremoniously dropped it on the pile below.

The bandages were wound from her stomach all the way up her chest and underneath her armpits, and with unsteady hands and her eyes tightly shut she began undoing the wraps. Once they were removed she exploring her body, running her fingertips over the canyons and crevices in her flesh, following them and the countless puncture marks up her chest.

She eventually opened her eyes but still didn't look down. Instead she looked in the mirror with an impassive face as though she were staring at some other poor soul's body. It became almost a game to her finding all the new scars that hadn't been there during her last close inspection. She badly pitied this poor girl but in the back of Ruby's mind her huntress training was already kicking in refusing to believe they could still be alive. She'd seen lifeless bodies covered in blood less ravaged than this glorified corpse, and she couldn't help but stare in almost morbid curiosity and fascination at the chest rising and descending on this stranger who should've long since breathed their last breath of air.

Occasionally the girl in the mirror would flinch as her fingers ran across a particularly sensitive scar, and Ruby would take this time to breathe deeply and fight the bile rising within her. Her huntress training and experience that allowed her to mostly ignore such gruesome scenes was gradually being forgotten the less she was able to pretend this was someone else's body, and she couldn't help shuddering as her fingers dipped inside a particularly gruesome scar that she'd seen on more than one victim who'd been disemboweled...

Frantic images flashed in her mind of a young girl playing in a snowy village nestled in the mountains. She could hear a woman's soft voice calling her name just over the hill from the strawberry garden, and Ruby cradled her head and curled into a ball as they began screaming her name over the sounds of growling and of ripping and tearing...

She covered her mouth before a scream could escaped her lips, and leaned forward just in time to expel her post-match victory snack in the sink. She dry heaved and shook for several minutes, whimpering and calling for her sister as she ran the water again to drown out the noise. Her scars tingled but never all at the same time. There seemed to be an abnormal sequence to when they came and passed, almost familiar even, and Ruby began to cry as she remembered every single one of them from her darkest, most vivid nightmares.

Another intense wave of horror, agony, and panic overtook in her mind and body, and Ruby quickly retrieved another roll of bandages and began wrapping up her feet and chest again. This time focusing on the tile floor and task at hand instead of the girl in the mirror.

'I have to find Penny...' She thought desperately to herself, having repeated the same thought over and over almost like a mantra while she'd been mindlessly and mercilessly blowing up Beowolf-shaped targets.

Atlas' massive transport ship where all of Polaris Academy's students were currently being housed was all the way at the bottom of Beacon's campus floating near the waterfall. Ruby barely trusted herself to walk to class across the street let alone the winding path down the cliffs, and even if she made it that far the Atlesian guards wouldn't have allowed her aboard without a security clearance or personal invitation from General Ironwood.

There was one person however who could get her aboard the airship as easily as snapping her long, delicate-looking fingers due to her family's company having built the warship, but Ruby knew her odd request would only be accepted if she revealed the real reason for her needing to get aboard and visit Penny, and visit her alone...

Once Ruby was wrapped like a Vacuon mummy once again, a precaution in case one of her roommates happened to see underneath her shirt and because her blouses often irritated the scars and made them itchy, she breathed a deep sigh of relief. Now she could pretend everything was just fine and would only get better.

Reaching down into her ammo belt she retrieved the half-empty pill bottle she'd been contemplating over just before leaving the firing range. The child protective lock almost proved to be too much for her shaky hands but eventually when the top popped open several white capsules spilled into her palm.

She hadn't exactly been wanting any specific number of painkillers, simply enough to make the pain in her entire body go away for at least a little while, and before they and more importantly the tingly sensation of her scars grew any worse. She had long since gone through her own bottles prescribed to her after the incident at the CCT and again after the mission, but after her teammates had no longer required theirs Ruby had confiscated them out of the trash and also renewed her sister's prescription without her knowing. She'd already gone through what had been left of Weiss' and Blake's bottles, and was hoping beyond hope that Yang's already half-empty bottle would last the next two weeks when their prescriptions were renewed, hopefully, or until she found Penny.

Ruby knew nobody would think any less of her for needing painkillers, especially not her sister and friends, but she'd inevitable have to explain why exactly she needed them, and that was something she didn't even want to admit to herself. Thankfully her aura seemed to have gotten accustomed to the pills even if it still effected her tolerance to them, and was recharging at about the same rate whether she was taking them or not. She had already made up her mind however to cut them out cold turkey the week leading up the tournament. She could live with pain if she had to, she was a huntress after all, but costing her team their much earned and deserved spot simply wasn't an option. Not when she had gotten so close.

'Penny will be in the tournament...' she thought to herself absently, smiling at their almost guaranteed reunion. She frowned however as nobody even knew when the tournament was supposed to begin after being pushed back for security purposes.

Looking back down at her shaking hand she was holding several times the recommended painkiller dosage, and part of her couldn't help but wish her sister was there to cut them up for her. She could do it herself of course, but just like the peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches made for her all her life it just wouldn't be the same. Without any more hesitation Ruby popped the pills into her mouth, and after cupping water into her hands and bringing them to her lips she rocked her head back and swallowed.

She smacked her lips and stuck out her tongue at the aftertaste lingering in her mouth, but as soon as she could began gathering a set of clean clothes from her bag and removing what she had left, avoiding looking for any new scars.

There wasn't much time or warning before the pills kicked in. Twenty or thirty minutes at most, and she'd probably spend at least half that time just getting back to the room. While she'd gotten excellent at hiding when she was on painkillers, which was most of the time as of late, her usual camouflage was sleep, or at least pretending to be. Taking them did make her drowsy but rarely enough to make her sleep on their own. Not that she wanted to sleep of course. They often gave her strange dreams even more so than usual. And at least if she stayed awake any slurring of her words would be mistaken for her just being exhausted and overdoing it that day, and any drool on Ruby just being Ruby.

Once she was dressed in a baggy sweatshirt and sweatpants, and most refreshingly a clean pair of socks and underwear, she studied herself in the mirror frowning. Ruby had never cared or worried much about her appearance or attire, hardly ever bothering with makeup and wearing only the clothes she liked or her sister bought for her, but even she disapproved of her disheveled appearance. Her eyes had a touch of red to them but a small part of her enjoyed actually having something in common with her sister even if for entirely different reasons, but the shadows underneath and her sickly pale skin certainly wasn't something they had in common. With a disappointed sigh she gathered together her belongings into her backpack and with a failed attempt at brushing of her hair limped toward the barricaded door for what she knew would be her hardest challenge of the day.

Pretending that she was fine and that everything was going to be alright to her sister and friends, and to herself...

(A/N: Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. I'm terribly sorry for the long gap in between chapters, friends, and thank you for your incredible patience with me. After posting Chapter 17 back in May I took a much needed hiatus from fanfiction and the RWBY community. I'm back now however better than ever (I hope), and since returning three weeks ago I've posted Chapter 3 of "The Twilight Dragon" and a one-shot called "Home is Where the Soul Rests" which was r/RWBY's August writing contest winner and follows Ruby's last day as a huntress. I hope you enjoy.

As for this chapter, I realized only after writing it how Ruby walking in on Blake changing in the locker room sounded like the start of a very different sort of fanfic, but I have to admit I rather enjoyed their interaction and thought it was funny. I also enjoyed getting Ruby all by herself again and getting the chance to see what she's been hiding from her sister and friends. It doesn't sound good whatever it is going on with her, perhaps you've already figured it out, and it sounds like finding Penny should be her top priority right now. She just can't catch a break can she? ;)

As always all credit goes to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has blessed me with this story and the most wonderful readers in the world. Thank you, friends, and God bless)