Inception Of A Grimm Soul - Chapter 4.1

While she was doing it mostly right now to prove a point to Yang, that didn't mean she hadn't been planning on getting to this eventually. She...just hadn't thought of a way to approach the boy.

There really was only one option for her. Winging it, that is.

Blake made her way to the back of the sitting area of the bullhead, stopping at the row of four seats Cobalt was sitting at, specifically the back set, while he sat at the one closest to the window.

His twin coloured eyes glanced at her out of his peripherals, before glancing back out of the window.

"Is it alright if I sit here?" she asked. She wasn't put off by it, she did the same thing quite a lot to people she wasn't interested in speaking to.

He yawned and shrugged, "Sure, knock yourself out Belladonna." he replied, not even bothering to ask what she wanted.

Blake smiled lightly at him, and slid into the seats, and hid her amusement as she saw his eyebrows rise when she shuffled over to take a seat in the chair next to his.

"So I've been meaning to speak with you for a bit now." she said, striking up conversation.

"Is that so?" he asked, "And why is that? I piss you off somehow?"

Not at all. In fact, she felt quite a bit of admiration for him. It was gratifying to see a human who cared about faunus like he did, enough to outright pick a fight with an entire school of hunters in training, with nobody at all to back him up, "No, nothing like that," Blake assured him, "I just wanted to say that I admire what you did for Velvet the other week, and thought it was really brave of you to call out everyone for the way they bully the faunus." admittedly, he was really toeing the line with the threats of violence, and stepping a bit too close towards the way Adam did things, but he wasn't outright attacking people like that or preaching hate, and unlike Adam and the White Fang, he spoke up alone with nobody to back him up.

To her surprise, Cobalt snorted, "That was hardly worth calling brave. Since there's no need to be afraid of those weaklings even if they all came at me at once, there was nothing brave about it."

Blake blinked. That...was an odd combination of humbleness under praise, yet absurdly arrogant at the same time. 'Maybe the arrogance isn't projecting at all.' she thought, bemused. Even Adam wouldn't be so arrogant to think he could challenge all those hunters in training at once.

...Could Cobalt actually perhaps be stronger than Adam? Since the semester had started, not once had he really been forced to go all out, or really exert himself. Weiss so far, had been the only one to even make him use his aura, and that was more him letting her try things out on him than her actually managing it through skill alone. Blake knew he was stronger than her, by a decent margin, but how he measured up to Adam, she couldn't tell for sure until he fought someone that was actually good enough to make him exert himself.

Well, it didn't change what he did regardless. "Still, you've practically alienated yourself with what you did," she stressed, "It can't be easy having people avoiding you and muttering things about you as you pass by them in the halls." she had in fact seen that happen, quite a few muttered threats and insults under their breath and the glares of anger were many.

"Like I care," he scoffed with a laugh, twin eyes of red and green flashing with amusement, "Belladonna, I could not care less what weak losers like them thought of me. They're literally not worth my attention. Maybe if they actually had the stones to pick a fight with me, they'd be worth respecting, but the fact they're totally cowed and are afraid to outright confront me, tells me all I need to know about them."

Blake paused, opening and closing her mouth, floundering. She had..no idea what to say to that. It was odd..very odd to find someone with such a high opinion of themselves.

"I suppose so," she nodded, it wasn't like he was wrong either way, they truly were cowards, it was just that he was incredibly mentally resilient to not care about basically being a social pariah at the same time, "It is nice of you though to care about the rights of the faunus, there aren't many humans that would stick up for them."

Once again, she was surprised by him snorting, "Faunus right?" he asked, voice incredulous and sending her a raised eyebrow, "I don't give a shit about faunus rights, or human rights for that matter."

"..What?" Blake's mouth hung open in surprise, "But you stood up for the Faunus!" she pointed out.

"Because the two things I hate most in the world is weaklings acting like hot shit, and weaklings who stand at the side and just watch this shit go on while mumbling about how someone else should step in and put an end to it," Cobalt explained harshly, before lifting a finger and pointing at her, "People like you and your friends fill that second category by the way."

"Excuse me?" her eyes drew together in a glare aimed his way.

"Belladonna, I could literally hear you and your friends commenting on the shit Cardin was doing to Velvet and how bad it was, but not one of you stood up to him and stopped him, it was pathetic." he spat at her.

Blake froze.

"This whole racist bullshit against the faunus? I think it's retarded to hate or be afraid of someone for some animal appendages, especially when it makes girls like Velvet even cuter," he continued on, "As far as I'm concerned, only weak little cowards do that trying to make themselves look strong, and I hate weakling cowards like that as I said."

It was true. She hadn't stood up for Velvet, she didn't want to dare risk it in view of so many people. Not when it would be so easy for someone to truly figure out what she was, with her last name and being incredibly vocal about faunus rights.

"We are approaching Beacon students, please get ready to disembark." Professor Goodwitches voice rang over the intercom, and a moment later, she felt butterflies in her stomach as the bullhead began to lower in altitude.

"Though, I'm not sure where to rank you as far as cowards go cat girl." Cobalt added as he stood up in his seat.

What!? Her yellow eyes went wide, "H-how did yo-?!" how did he know her secret!?

"You don't seriously expect everyone to have missed that little bit, did you?" he gave her a weird look and an almost sad shake of his head, as if he were disappointed and that stung, "For reference, I was staring at your amazing ass and I saw your bow wiggling a bit and caught a peak of your ears."

Blake's mind ran a mile a minute, trying to process everything that was just said. "Please don't tell anyone." she could only plead

"Who would I tell? Besides, it's not my business," he replied and she sighed in relief. He stepped passed her and made to leave, before pausing and looking at her, frozen in her seat. His twin coloured stare practically pinning her to her seat, "Why are you even here Belladonna? How can you expect to protect people as a huntress, when you're too scared to show off a pair of cat ears? Even those pathetic scum from the White Fang are more respectable than you right now, they at least have some pride on who they are."

Blake watched him walk off towards the front of the bullhead in a daze. '...well I wasn't all wrong I guess.' she thought weakly. He was incredibly arrogant, and his opinions were incredibly high handed, but...he wasn't a bad person.

White Fang. Scum yet even worth a little bit of respect even then huh? Scum apparently more respectable than her as far as he was concerned. So..she was less than scum huh?

Blake couldn't help it, she laughed quietly to herself. It was just too funny that a human sticking up for faunus, not because he believed in faunus rights or anything like that, thought the White Fang more respectable than her...and that her apparent only redeeming quality was her ass.

__________________

"So this is the guy who helped you out Bun-Bun?" Coco mused as she reclined back on her bed within the Team Coffee dorm room, "And the one everyone is talking about now."

She, and her three teammates were eyeing the enlarged video feed being displayed in the air by a scroll on the floor, depicting a fight between him and a girl the team as a whole were familiar with, having met her early into the semester. A fight he was utterly dominating with a casualness that was astounding. Weiss Schnee was one of the toughest of the first year course for a reason after all.

"That's him." Velvet confirmed with a smile and nod. Her eyes were concentrating on the image of him intently. Her semblance was active as she took in his every breath and movement and committing them to memory.

Coco whistled as she saw him easily step beyond the increased gravity from two separate glyphs created by the white haired Schnee heiress. "That's some absurd strength," she noted, her sunglasses slipping down the bridge of her nose. She cast a glance at the physical powerhouse of their team, an utter giant behemoth of a young man, "Hey Yatsu, think you could do that?"

The large tan boy frowned as he stared at the screen, "..I am unsure," he admitted, "I think I may be able to do it, but I doubt I would be able to with the same ease as he did."

"That's scary considering how fast and durable the kid is as well," Coco leaned back, appraising the boy as the fight continued on, still not once taking the Schnee heiress seriously, "And listen to him. He acts like he's the biggest badass to ever walk Remnant."

"It's not totally unfounded," Fox shrugged, "I mean, I can only hear what's going on, but the way he talks. It's boastful as hell, but I can't sense any falsities in his words or voice. It isn't just arrogance, he really believes in his own hype."

"Velvet?" Yatsuhashi directed his attention to their faunus teammate.

"I can't get much," she answered, smile still on her face, "Weiss isn't forcing him at all to ramp up and take her at all seriously. I can only tell you how the bare basics and how his muscles are moving and contracting. But from what I can tell, he's absurdly skilled, I don't think there's many at this school, teachers included that are at his level or beyond it."

"High praise." the giant young man nodded.

"How's he compare to you?" Fox asked her. Velvet was after all, while not the strongest of their team, by far the most skilled. She had perfectly copied all of their fighting styles, and those of the fighting styles of everyone in their year, and many, many others. While she couldn't use them all perfectly because of different body types and strengths, she could mix and blend everything together that she could use for a much greater style of her own.

"I can't say for sure," she replied, bunny ears on her head twitching eagerly every time the boy on screen spoke, "But, I'm guessing roughly around my level? He could be worse, or even a bit better, I'd have to see more to tell though."

"Man, looks like your knight in arrogant black armour really is a badass," Coco chuckled, "Now he just needs to up his taste in clothes a bit to go along with those good looks of his, and he'll be good to go." seriously, black cargo jeans and a sleeveless white hoodie? It wasn't bad looking, but it was drab, boring, too simple.

"I really wanna see him use his weapon." Velvet sighed wistfully.

"Oh I bet you do Bun-Bun." Coco chuckled, teasingly wiggling her eyebrows at the faunus girl.

"It's not like that Coco." Velvet rolled her eyes and protested.

Fox snorted, while Yatsuhashi gave a soft, yet rumbling chuckle.

"He did say you were cute though didn't he?" her team leader teased.

Velvet rolled her eyes again, "Yes, but just because he thinks I'm good looking doesn't mean there's anything beyond that," she pointed out, "I mean, Fox and Yatsuhashi are good looking but you don't see me wanting to go out with them."

"Ouch, right in the pride, however will I go on?" Fox mock clutched at his heart and slumped backwards onto his bed in 'defeat', drawing a bit of louder laughter and more amusement from Yatsuhashi.

"True, but he did make it a point to bring that up when he was helping you right, so it obviously weighed in on that factor yeah?" Coco retorted with a light laugh of her own, "You can't say you don't think he's hot either. I'm not even into guys and even I wouldn't mind a night with him. Besides, with the swagger about him he's gotta be packing some real heat down below the belt right?"

Fox perked his head up with a grin, "He's either overcompensating, or he's packing something that he could club an ursa with," he added, sniggering, "And considering I'm fairly certain he believes wholly in his own hype, then it's probably more likely he's packing a weapon of mass destruction down there."

"Guess with a weapon like that, he's all geared for rabbit hunting." Yatsuhashi couldn't help but comment.

"Yatsu!" Velvet's eyes went wide while her mouth dropped open, it was incredibly rare for him to drop a joke as scandalous as that considering how polite and kind he was!

All three of her teammates erupted into laughter.

Velvet ignored them and turned back to eye the boy on the screen who had come to her defence two weeks ago. She bit her lip as she felt the phantom sensation of a strong arm wrapped around her waist and giving her an appreciative little squeeze.