Guardian

Chapter Seven

Ghira's office was small, just a desk, a bookshelf, a few chairs, and a single couch off to the side. Yang took in a deep breath and found the smell of incense to be calming.

"Have a seat Yang," he gestured to a chair that sat across from him at his desk. "Do you drink tea?"

Yang glanced at the teapot on his desk and nodded. "I drink just about anything sir."

"No need for formalities Yang. Ghira will work just fine."

She thanked him as he handed her a cup and took a quick sip. "So what is it you need to go over?"

"How filled in are you?"

Yang stared at him questioningly. "Just what the file said. Chief told me your work as a peaceful equal rights activist has put you at risk with both the humans and the Faunus. I recall seeing something about multiple attempts on your life recently. Sounds like you could use the body guard."

"I survived those attempts because I have guards," Ghira sighed. "Saber has yet to fail me. Blake, however, is not as safe as she thinks she is."

Yang set her cup down, worried. "What do you mean?"

"Have you heard of a man named Adam Taurus?"

"I think just about everyone's heard of him by now," Yang growled. "He's a White Fang lieutenant with a bloody history."

Ghira nodded. "He is. He has been a member of the White Fang for quite some time now. He was always a little brash but his charismatic nature always made it easy to forget any slip ups but he's only gotten worse."

"What does this have to do with Blake?"

"Adam and my daughter were...intimate," he grumbled.

"Oh," Yang couldn't help the rising anger in her chest. Anger at a man she had never met over a woman she met two days ago. "If I may Ghira, what happened?"

He sighed and poured himself another cup of tea, he offered one for Yang but she graciously declined. "At first Blake was blinded by her fondness of him to see what he was becoming and despite my and her mother's warnings she continued to do jobs with him for Sienna, my replacement as high leader. One night a job went wrong. They were supposed to simply gather intel on the whereabouts of someone who had been abusing his Faunus employees. They got their intel but Adam killed the informant. Loose ends he said."

"Murder I say," Yang grumbled.

Ghira nodded. "Indeed. After that Blake distanced herself from him and eventually cut all ties. She told us that, looking back, all the signs had been there she just didn't want to believe that he had changed so much. She saw something in him that night. Something that scared her."

"And now you're worried he will come after her?"

Ghira stared at his desk for a moment and when he looked up at Yang she was shocked to see his eyes glassed over with the threat of tears. "He already has," he took in a shuddering breath and wiped his eyes. "After she came home I tried to spend as much time with Blake as I could, I wasn't able to he around as much as high leader. We went hunting together, cleared some Grimm that wandered to close to town, and I took her with me on my travels. About two years ago we went to Mistral for a Faunus peace rally where I was scheduled to make a speech at. When I was done Blake and I were suppose to meet at a local tea shop but she never came. I got worried and myself and Saber split up with a few guards to find her. It took hours but we finally found Adam hovering over her with his sword ready to strike a final blow. Blake was broken, bloodied, and unconscious."

"How did he even manage to take her during the rally?" Yang asked. She could feel her blood beginning to boil.

"We don't know. When Blake woke up in the hospital she had no memory of what happened. The last thing she remembered was giving me a hug before I went up to speak," he glanced at the picture on the corner of his desk. A picture, Yang assumed, of his family. "I want to know what happened to her that night, what he did, but I don't think I'll be able to stand hearing it."