A/N This is my first fanfic (and my first piece of creative writing in quite a while). I thought I'd start off with a light, simple story. It's set at Beacon before Volume 3. Any reviews (good or bad) would be greatly appreciated.

Ruby Rose was hiding something, and Blake was determined to find out what. She had noticed the behavior last month, but last week's sparring had shown it more clearly than ever: Ruby had stopped using her semblance. Their team leader had never exactly been shy about using it; every place they ever fought ended up coated in rose petals. Before last month, Blake would have sworn Ruby couldn't fight without leaving them behind. Until suddenly, she didn't. As soon as she had noticed it, Blake had filed the fact away without any real concern. If Ruby wanted to fight without leaning on her semblance, that was fine with her.

Last week was the first time Blake had really become concerned. RWBY and JNPR had rented out a practice field for a few hours, and they were taking turns sparring in pairs. Ruby and Weiss were fighting against Ren and Nora when Nora managed to slip inside Ruby's guard and brought a full force swing of her hammer directly at Ruby's stomach. Blake had expected the move she had seen a hundred times: Ruby jumping backward and disappearing, leaving the blow to harmlessly sail through a cloud of petals. Instead, Ruby took the full force of the blow and slammed straight into the training room wall. Blake had just stared in shock. In all her time at Beacon, she had never seen her leader take a direct hit nearly that hard. Ruby always managed to dodge out of the way.

Once she started paying more attention, she noticed other suspicious behavior. Bags under Ruby's eyes, fewer enthusiastic outbursts, midnight trips that took a lot longer than her usual "cookie raid" missions. All in all, it was enough to make Blake certain she needed to find out Ruby's problem.

Tonight was the night that she had decided to do it. Blake went to bed early, hiding under the covers so her team wouldn't notice she never changed out of her clothes. She didn't bother trying to stay up; there was no real chance Ruby would be able to leave without her notice. Sure enough, she awoke to a small noise as Ruby was trying to silently sneak out of the room.

Trying and failing miserably. She's lucky everyone else is a heavy sleeper.

Blake followed Ruby outside the dorms and onto the grounds, moving silently from shadow to shadow. It wasn't particularly difficult. Even at her best, Ruby didn't have the greatest situational awareness, and she was clearly so distracted tonight Blake could have walked a few feet behind Ruby without alerting her. Her curiosity grew as Ruby left the school and moved into the forest, stopping in the first clearing she found that was out of sight of the school. Blake found a hidden perch in the trees and waited. Her night vision made the clearing as bright as a sunny day, and she could clearly see Ruby standing still with a look of concentration on her face.

Ruby suddenly shot into motion, turning into a blur and a cloud of petals. As she watched her team leader zip around with her semblance, Blake released the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. However, her relief at seeing her leader fighting normally started to fade as she looked closer at the clearing.

Are those…

"Nope! I am NOT dealing with this! This is not my responsibility!" Blake hissed as her rising panic overrode her desire to stay silent. Even if she wanted to, direct confrontation was the only possible way to solve this and that was not her preferred way of dealing with things. Of course, she knew someone who loved that approach…