A.N. So this is based on timemaster40's Don't Be the Tsundere idea of having a self-insert of Rin Tohsaka. This is NOT a multi-cross, and no Kaleido Ruby either. Just another RWBY/Fate crossover like many others on this site. This is just a muse that came to me, and don't expect any updates as this is something I'll only work on the side.

Chapter 1 - Born for Dust

~5 Years Before The Fall of Beacon~

Tukson finally lowered the shutters and finished off closing the shop for the day. It was only this fourth day since he opened his shop in Vale, and sales were… not as bad as he expected. Sure, there were the occasional racists that left the moment they figured he was a Faunus. But Vale was a whole lot better than Atlas and several other villages that come to mind.

Still, even now he made sure to check if the door was locked and his exits were clear. It was after all only a month since he left the White Fang.

At first, he was a bit wary that his departure would be noticed. He wasn't that high up in the chain of command, but he was a well-known person who interacted with a great many Faunus recruits due to his job as a recruiter. Unlike those who went out on missions to free Faunus from camps or fight against Atlas robots, Tukson's job was to gather more members to help aid the cause.

The cause… to help Faunus rights become better, and not just have them treated as lesser beings.

When did it all go wrong? No, he knew exactly when it did. He never knew Ghira Belladonna personally, but Tukson was still surprised when he heard that the former leader of the White Fang was retiring. It wasn't even a full month before the effects of his change in leadership showed for the worst.

His replacement, Sienna Khan, had immediately changed their stance from peaceful cooperation to full-on war against the Humans. No longer was Tukson recruiting for protests and debates, rather he was drafting fighters and terrorists.

The moment he received the report on how many lives were lost during an attack on Schnee facilities, he immediately packed his bags and moved to Vale. It was a suggestion he got from a young black haired cat Faunus he talked to, about how books were for everyone and anyone to love. Somehow, that simple conversation with a girl who's name he never found out left him contemplating on how he, as a Faunus, could help bridge the gap between Humans and Faunus.

His one regret was being unable to talk to the girl before he ran off. With how the current White Fang is going, he dared not to think about how the little girl was doing in a bloodthirsty environment like that. But he did remember her idea of opening a bookstore in the heart of Vale.

And it was the best idea he ever listened to, even with all the racist customers and the deposit he still needed to pay for the tiny shop he rented. And the loan for the first few batches of books he bought. And the fact that several stores refused him service due to being a Faunus. And…

Tukson's thoughts were interrupted when he heard a loud noise banging and clanging outside. Slightly wary and curious, Tukson pried his fingers between the cheap shutters of his shop window to peek outside.

It was dark and hard to see outside… or it was if he was human. His Faunus night vision, however, allowed him to see what was going on clearly.

A young girl, probably ten years old, had collapsed next to a trash can. The lid had just fallen and made the noise that made Tukson investigate in the first place. Seeing that there was no one around and the girl wasn't waking up, Tukson panicked and immediately went outside to check on her.

Having moved closer to her, he noticed that her white shirt was dirtied by the filth on the floor. The girl's eyes were closed, and she occasionally gave heavy breaths. Seeing that she was unconscious, Tukson felt her forehead and noticed that it was too warm to be anything else but a fever.

"Shit." Picking her up in his arms, he immediately left to find a clinic that was still open this time of night. Hopefully, the nurse won't call the police on him for thinking he kidnapped her or something…

}-{

'Who am I?' That was what Rin Tohs— no, Erik thought the moment s—he woke up. That was what he— she thought?

Grabbing hi—her head, Eri—Rin winced as a flash of pain crossed her thoughts. Thoughts and memories were strangely hard to grasp in h—er head at the moment. Er—Rin looked around to see where h—she was.

She was in a room that was mostly white. Cubbies full of various bottles of what could only be medicine lined the top part of several walls. Several beds were lined along h—er side, and she noticed that s—he was in one as well.

"Am I in a hospital? No, something smaller than that." Noticing that his voice was different, for it sounded too young and too high pitched, Er—Rin frantically looked for a mirror and saw a hand mirror at the countertop across from h—er.

'What is wrong with me?!' Getting out of bed, E—Rin tripped and crashed into the ground without warning. Looking down, s—he saw that she was shorter than she remembered.

Already guessing what was going on, it was finally confirmed once she reached for the hand mirror and saw what it reflected.

The face of a ten-year-old Rin Tohsaka stared at him.

"DAMN YOU, ZELRETCH!"

}-{

Tukson finally groaned once he finished the remaining paperwork. When the kid first awoke screaming something about "killing that damn perverted Vampire" Tukson somehow calmed her down and helped the doctor explain where she was and how she was brought here.

Tukson was sitting to the side on one of the beds filling out some paperwork that the doctor thrust upon him without warning. Grumbling as he wrote, he listened to the conversation the doctor was having with the young girl - who introduced herself as a Rin Tohsaka - about her health.

"Hm, the medicine seemed to have helped. In fact, your fever seemed to have gone away already. That's a bit strange since I doubt the medicine is that good…" He stared at the reading on the thermostat he took from her.

"Oh, it wasn't a normal fever Doctor. It was just a side effect from forcefully opening my Circu— er, I mean my Aura," Rin explained.

"Aura awakening? People usually don't collapse from that," the doctor questioned.

"It's something to do with my family. My father was like me as well, which is how I learned to open my Aura on my own," she clarified.

"Still, that seems to be a fairly risky method. In the first place, you should've had your father himself personally supervise your awakening."

"...my father's dead, Sir."

"Oh." The doctor froze from checking out the thermostat he used earlier. "Er… What about your mother?"

"Dead. I'm the last of my family." The simple way she explained it with barely a change in expression spoke to Tukson.

An awkward silence lingered in the air before the doctor painfully tried to change the subject. "Well, I guess I should contact child services for a case like this. Don't worry about your bill. It's all paid for under the Council for those who lost thei— uh, I mean. I'll… shut up now," the doctor lamely finished after seeing the glare Tukson was sending him. The doctor quickly left, leaving only Tukson and the girl by themselves.

"...hey, Tukson. Right?" The girl asked.

"Hm, yeah kid?"

"...what's gonna happen to me?" It was spoken in a quiet voice.

"Well," Tukson pondered over what to tell the girl. "You're most likely gonna be sent to an orphanage. The Council has several of them opened up for victims of Grimm attacks on villages. Usually, kids that end up there are left to themselves though. No potential parent wants to adopt a kid that's carrying baggage like psychological trauma and shit like that."

He took a glance at her and saw that she took it pretty well so far. He continued, "And there's the fact that you're too old. You're what? Ten? Only the young kids get adopted and the older ones don't really have much of a future with the already spread thin budget being what it is."

Rin didn't reply and only sat in silence. Seeing this, Tukson thought about another black-haired girl her age, and how he was unable to help her escape the White Fang. Maybe it was guilt, or maybe his brain was too tired from all the events from working earlier that day. For when he spoke, his next words were…

"Hey kid, what do you think of the idea of me adopting you?"

It was stupid the moment he said it, but even then, the girl looked at him with curiosity. Forging on, he continued, "I'm new into town and I recently started up a small bookstore. I'm too poor to hire a part-timer, and I kinda want some help checking on stock and setting up shop. Even if you're a kid, I'd like someone to at least watch the front while I work in the back. It's not like I'm gonna force you to do a lot of work or anything…" He trailed off, somehow seeing that the way he was phrasing his idea looked really bad from an outsider's point of view.

"Deal." What he didn't expect was for the girl to immediately accept his offer. Tukson didn't know it, but it was this moment that defined how his life changed for the next few years.