It had taken two full days, but he finally found the tree.
Their tree, Jaune decided, as he sat upon the first branch thick enough to hold his weight.
It wasn't the first branch he tried. The first one had ended with him tumbling face first to the forest floor. Probably the same place he would have fallen and broken every bone in his body the first time he came into the Emerald Forest, during his first semester at Beacon.
And this wasn't the first tree he had climbed either. There had been six others that looked right. They had looked right, until he climbed up into the canopy, running his fingertips across the bark little by little, trying to find the mark, not finding it, then convincing himself it wasn't the right tree after all.
One or two, or fivce or ten more miscues and he might have gotten to the point of reflecting on whether searching a forest full of identical-looking trees for a mark no bigger than a few inches was few short inches from insanity.
And then he had found this one, and this one still had the telltale notch.
He couldn't remember exactly what he felt when his fingertips dipped into the smooth, pale hole in the trunk of the tree where Pyrrha's lance had driven into the bark. It was part relief that the search was over. It was part joy that he had actually found it. It was part embarrassment remembering why it was there at all.
In a forest dozens of miles thick, he had found it.
Maybe that was destiny.
His arm hung limply over his bent knee as he watched the sun come up over the horizon. He didn't seem to notice the chill in the air or the buzzing of bugs. He had barely moved at all. The Grimm either had moved on from the wood, to Beacon or elsewhere, or they didn't pay him any mind. Maybe they didn't sense what he was feeling because, right now, he wasn't even sure what exactly that was.
Jaune? Do you… have any spots left on your team?
Instead, he had kind of just stared at that hole in the tree for hours as if it would answer all the questions and solve all the problems. It didn't.
He leaned forward again, holding his breath as he brushed his fingers across the notch in the wood again for the nth time for reasons that he couldn't totally grasp. His blood raced through him every time he touched it, perhaps only because it was there.
His black hoodie still carried a matching hole in the fabric, one that he hadn't taken the time to fix.
It would be much easier to mend, someday, compared to the hole her death had opened within him.
His arm rattled again as he caught the blow on his shield and severed the arm with his blade.
Bend at the knee. Don't breath in the putrid smoke. Cut back at the waist.
The Beowolf began to disintegrate as the two halves separated, a final, pained growl escaping from its jaws before they, too, broke apart into dust.
Turn. Shield up. Face down your next opponent.
The next Beowolf charged ahead, raising both arms above its head to slash down onto him, leaving its chest exposed as it floated through the air in a leap.
Step forward. Lunge. Shield up to redirect the falling body and throw it away.
The trail of black smoke wafted through his field of vision as he shoved with his left arm, throwing the corpse onto the forest floor. The clawed arms and legs tangled underneath the shadowy body as it gave one final twitch and melted into the grass.
Jaune panted, trying to catch his breath as he stood back up, marching ahead toward the Ursa standing between the tightly packed trees, waiting, and watching. Those red eyes, the white plates of armor and the impossibly black flesh, he couldn't stomach it any more. The Grimm, every one of these monsters, were the embodiment of all the wickedness in the world.
Well done. Your swordplay's improved immensely.
"Come on!" Jaune shouted at the hesitant Grimm, banging the front of his shield with the sword, ringing metal on metal through the forest. "What are you waiting for?"
Its head perked, almost as if it could pick up a scent from the anger that laced his words. Those hateful red eyes seemed to glow just a little brighter, the growl just a little harsher. Then it charged, just like every other Ursa, and pulled up, rising high onto its back legs and raising its clawed arm.
Jaune could almost feel it, almost feel that same magnetic pull on his arm as his shield came up over his head to catch the the blow. He could feel that same solid strength as the force of the Ursa's strike pushed his left foot down into the dirt, his heel anchoring to the forest floor. The sword whistled through the air the same way, cutting the same fluid arc as it tore through the exposed neck of the Grimm, separating the head from the body in one clean, stroke.
His first kill, perfectly replayed.
Except this time, there wasn't a hand guiding him.
He plunged the sword into another Beowolf, turning just in time to stop the golden stinger off the side of his shield.
The next wolf was on top of him even before he had time to slide his feet back, claws raking just out of reach of his right side before his sword took off both arms and he plunged it into the dog's gut.
And then the large claws were snapping trees in two like twigs as the Death Stalker pushed forward again. It wasn't nearly as large or thickly armored as that one, but this one had many more friends as the Grimm seemed like they were being birthed out of the shadows between the trees and spit onto him.
His arms and shoulders ached and his lungs burned as he shuffled backward from the pinch of a claw, sending it skittering back as the sword bit into the bony plate. As the Death Stalker pulled back, another wave of the Beowolves were coming.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he had bit off a little more than he could chew.
Jaune shifted his stance, ducking behind his shield again as he deflected the first to the side, cut the second in the thigh, and took a cut across sword arm from the third. He barely had time to get the shield up as the precision-stab of the stinger came down again, pushing his entire body backward from the force.
The wolf clipped the edge of his pauldron again before he brought his shield across his body, slamming the edge into its neck and cutting its legs out from under it. The other cut him across the back as he was turned, before he could spin and slash and separate it from hip to shoulder. And then the blunt end of the claw hit him across the flank like hammer, knocking him back into the trunk of nearby tree.
The Death Stalker clapped its pincers together, almost tauntingly, as it skittered forward to attack again.
The ping of bullets almost sounded like music as they rattled across the armored plate atop its head, the Grimm shrieking as it pulled back and shielded itself with the large armored claws.
Bouncing from tree to tree, Ren was like a green streak as he bounded over Jaune's head, the trail of bullets from his guns tracing a line across the Grimm's body as it turned to protect itself from the fire. Its tail darted out, trying to pluck him out of the air, but Ren was already flipping away as the Death Stalker turned its flank toward him.
The leaves of the forest all seemed to rustle at once, a straight gale of wind behind the white streak, a single, thin arm bent and braced in perfect technique and holding the thin silver rapier. As the point drove in between the plates of the Death Stalker in its right flank, the spears of ice burst and crept up its side, engulfing its entire right arm.
As Weiss shuffled backward, her fingers traced patterns deftly through the air, as the series of glyphs appeared in a zig zag to the side, spinning and locking into the air.
And bouncing in between each of those like a marble in a pinball machine was a flash of pink and silver and red, and an exhilarated smile that was unmistakable even as it darted between the trees. As Nora's feet pushed off the last glyph, aided by the burst of smoke from the end of her hammer, she spun in perfectly tight circle, the heavy, steely head of the weapon whipping around like a whirlwind.
And when it drove into the frozen wall, everything under it shattered in a burst of icy glass and black smoke as what remained of the Death Stalker curled in on itself into a small, tight, dead ball.
Nora hoisted the hammer onto her shoulder as if it was no big deal, flashed Jaune one of her infectious smiles and a small wave.
"Come on Ren," she said excitedly. "Let's smash the rest of these Grimm."
And before Jaune could say a word to her, she was riding off deeper into the wood with nothing but a poof of pink smoke behind her. With her went the sound of gunfire, fading as it grew farther away and muffled by the thick trunks and heavy canopies of the trees.
Weiss sheathed the rapier and marched over to him, her hands stuck in fists on hips and that cold scowl on her lips.
"Do you have any idea how long I've been looking for you?"
"I-" he barely even got out before she was interrupting him.
"What do you think you're doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"Well-"
Weiss stomped her foot into the dirt as she stopped in front of him. Jaune turned his head, expected to feel the sting of her fingers across his cheek and closed his eyes, bracing for impact.
After a few seconds of standing in a cringe and not feeling anything, he slowly opened one eye.
He couldn't tell if Weiss was mad or scared. She definitely wasn't happy. Even he could read that. And he was terrible at reading girls.
"You can't just run off like that! What if something happened? We…" Weiss stumbled for a second, "I… I don't know what I would do."
If Weiss really was the ice queen, just for a moment, she melted a little bit as her entire body seemed to sag and her voice trailed off so quietly that he could barely catch her last word.
Jaune gave his shield a shake, retracting it back into its sheath form and slid the sword back inside of it, clipping it back to his belt as he tried to hide that fact that he was still winded. And sore. Bruised, too. His left shoulder screamed as he lifted it up behind his head, scratching the back of his hair.
"I guess I got a little carried away," Jaune said, bashfully. "Sorry for making you worry."
"I wasn't worried," Weiss said as she straightened herself and crossed her arms over her chest to save face, turning her nose up to the side as she closed her eyes. Then her left eye slipped open to look at him as she held the haughty pose. "Hypothetically, if I was worried, are you all right?"
Both of Jaune's arms slumped at that question as he kicked the dirt with his sneaker.
"No," he said with a shake of his head. "No, I'm not all right. Not at all."
He could remember watching Beacon grow smaller and smaller between the slits of the locker as it sailed through the air, unable to do anything but wait until it crashed down in Vale and spilled him onto the street. Weiss and Ruby had done all they could. But they couldn't get to the tower soon enough.
"That's OK," Weiss said with a sigh. "I don't know that any of us are all right after what happened at Beacon. Myself included."
Being useless and powerless was a feeling that was so familiar throughout his life that he barely noticed it on a day-to-day basis any more. But both might as well have punched him in the stomach and doubled him over into the street, knowing that there was nothing else he could do.
He still didn't understand it at all.
If Ozpin couldn't stop that woman, what chance would Pyrrha have against her? Why didn't she listen to him Why couldn't she just run away and live to fight another day?
It had only been a few days, but even still, the memory of how her lips felt on his were fading so quickly that he could barely hold onto it at all.
"Nora and Ren were the ones who guessed you'd be out here," Weiss said. "I wanted to come with, because I wanted to see you one last time before my father comes to take me back to Atlas."
"You're, you're going back?" Jaune asked.
"I don't want to, but my father thinks I'll be safer at home," Weiss said with a sad, sour look. "I wish I could stay. I want to help. But I don't really have a say in the matter."
"I'll miss you."
Weiss smiled weakly. "I'll miss you too."
And then, quickly, if not somewhat awkwardly, Weiss wrapped her arms around him and laid the side of her head against his chest. He could feel her timid squeeze.
"Promise me you'll take care of yourself. And Ruby, too," she said, giving Jaune another little squeeze. He thought that maybe he heard her sniffle, but it was probably just his imagination. "And you'll regret it I find out you told her I said that."
Jaune chuckled softly, as he wrapped his arms around Weiss too.
"I promise."
In that moment, Jaune realized that Weiss Schnee was giving him a hug.
Once, that might of set him aflame into some kind of bumbling, melting pile of golden-haired goop.
I guess… you're the kind of guy I wish I was here with. Someone who just saw me for me.
Now, all he felt was arms.
The temporary dormitory was packed full with displaced Beacon students, but there was a noticeably empty ring that had formed around Jaune.
No one seemed willing to break the bubble as he sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his thighs, hands folded in front of him as he hung his head and stared down at the floorboards. There was a quiet hum of conversations being had around the hall, but it all was just an indistinct buzz.
Ozpin was gone. Weiss' father had come to take her home. Ruby and Yang went back with their uncle and father. Blake had run.
Glynda looked exhausted every day trying to hold the broken students of Beacon together while also defending Vale from the constantly encroaching Grimm.
Any and all students who were capable and willing had been pulled into service. They often returned worse for wear than the headmistress. Many came back hurt. Some hadn't come back at all.
They were all alone, with the global network now down for days, they couldn't have called for help even if they wanted it. Jaune couldn't talk to Weiss or Ruby or Yang, his parents or his sisters, even if he wanted to. Even if the communication lines weren't dark, his Scroll, with it's shattered screen, wouldn't turn on anyway.
A moment of sound judgment would have told him not to slam it into the street. But he hadn't had that luxury. Pyrrha was at the top of Beacon's tower and he had crashed down onto some avenue in Vale.
He had begged her not to go. If she truly felt what she said she felt, why did she shove him into the locker and fire him to the city? Why would she leave him behind?
The frame of the cot creaked and the mattress sunk as it depressed next to him. Jaune turned his head, seeing a familiar green tunic at his side. As he looked up, Nora quickly turned her back, but began scooting her feet slowly backward as if she was trying not to be noticed scooting closer.
"Hey Ren," Jaune said. "Nora."
"Hi Jaune," Nora spurted as she spun quickly around. "We just wanted to come by and see how you're doing. You know we're-"
"Nora," Ren said, cutting her off before she could get any steam behind her.
"Right," she said, running her fingers across her lips like a zipper, followed with a wink and a thumbs up to Ren.
Ren turned his head slightly, leaning down on his legs the same way Jaune was.
"Jaune," he started. "I'm just going to come right out and say it. You are one of my best friends."
Jaune couldn't hold back the snicker, noticing how familiar that whole line sounded. He rubbed his hand over his face as he let go of the little laugh. It had been a while, days, although it felt like weeks, months, since he had reason to laugh.
"If this is about girls, Ren," Jaune said, lifting his eyes. "Yes. I think Nora is interested."
"What?" Nora said, her face almost immediately going pink. Ren might have laughed at that, but Jaune couldn't remember ever hearing him laugh. He just wasn't that kind of person.
"I'm not interested," Nora said defensively. "I mean I'm interested, but I'm not interested and…"
She turned her head and bit her lip and turned and even more reddish color when Ren flashed his eyes up at her, as she ran her fingers over her lips again and crossed her arms, not appreciating being teased.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Ren asked.
Jaune shook his head. "No… yes… no… I just don't understand why she did it. I tried. I tried to stop her. But she went anyway."
His finger instinctively went to his lips. He could still barely remember the feeling of her kiss, of her hands holding either side of his head, of the way his heart seemed to stop for a single beat in his chest until he realized what was happening.
And then she was pushing him and the door of the locker slammed closed.
He still didn't really understand what had happened before any of that either. Outside the cafeteria, Pyrrha hadn't been herself at all. Pyrrha Nikos was confident, strong and fearless. But that Pyrrha, that Pyrrha had been… unsure? Afraid, even?
What had happened in the vaults under Beacon, that too, didn't make any sense. Who was that woman in the pod? What did Ozpin need with Pyrrha? Who was the woman that attacked them? And what kind of power was it that she wielded?
"I can't say for sure," Ren said. "But I think Pyrrha wanted to help people and protect people above anything else. Maybe that was her one weakness, that she couldn't not try to protect everyone."
I've always felt as though I was destined to become a Huntress, to protect the world. And it's become increasingly clear to me that my feelings were right. But… I don't know if I can do it.
"But I do know for sure that Pyrrha cared about us all so much, that she'd never want to see us hurt. You, least of all, Jaune," Ren said, giving him a soft pat on the back.
"I just wish… I wish I had realized it sooner," Jaune said, patting his hands against his kneecaps. How incredibly selfless had Pyrrha been, to stand there and listen to him lamenting over Weiss and still try to help him? "I mean, how oblivious was I?"
"Sooooo oblivious," Nora chimed in, unable to hold it in any longer as she rolled her eyes, her head, her shoulders, her entire body seemingly at once in a moment of relief.
"It was pretty painful to watch," Ren agreed.
Jaune could only crack another smile and laugh at himself again as he ran a hand back through his hair. It might have been painful for them to watch, but he would wager it was more painful to live with the realization.
"We're signed up to go on patrol around the city for Grimm," Ren said. "If you want to come with, we're happy to have you."
Jaune sat up, rubbing both of his hands across his cheeks. He felt as if he were half-asleep, barely here. For the first time, he noticed the other students scattered around the room. Some were sitting in small groups talking, eating. Some were asleep. Some were in pairs, sitting close to each other, holding each other. And there were others, sitting alone, their heads down.
"I don't think I'm up to it today guys," Jaune admitted. "But thanks."
"No problem," Ren said, clapping him lightly on the shoulder again as he stood up. "We'll get you for dinner later. My treat."
Ozpin had always reminded them that they were all stronger together. Pyrrha would have known that, most of all. She was the best student at Beacon and would never forget something so elementary.
But maybe, maybe Ren was right. Maybe she couldn't just walk away, couldn't turn her back on a threat no matter how slim a chance she had of overcoming it. She couldn't resist the chance to protect others from the darkness of the world.
She had, after all, wasted her time trying to help a lost cause like him.
The diner was chilly, a little wet and had flies buzzing around room.
The large plate glass window in the front of the restaurant was now roughly covered with a piece of cardboard and some duct tape after a huntsman-in-training had kicked a Grimm through it last night. The broken-down box had a dirty footprint right in the middle of it, in the middle of the hole between the remaining jagged slashes of glass.
Jaune plopped himself down onto the red-cushioned stool at the counter, barely even noticing the other Beacon students who were inside. Ren and Nora were still sleeping after a long night of walking the streets of Vale, fighting off Grimm who were still trying to break the perimeter the huntsmen and huntresses had set around the city. He didn't want to wake them. They needed their rest.
He needed rest, but couldn't find much of it. Between the bars of the cot frame jabbing him in the back and his mind continually replaying scenario after scenario in his head, the only sleep he got was when he was too exhausted to think any more. Even then, his dreams felt like he was running back and forth, unable to affect anything around him.
"What can I get you, hun?" the waitress said. She had heavy bags under her eyes like she, too, hadn't slept since Beacon fell. She probably hadn't. All of the students had been piling into the diner since they didn't have the mess hall any more.
Jaune looked at the small, white ceramic bowls turned upside down on the shelf behind her, just above the hooks and pegs holding dangling coffee mugs. He could almost see his reflection in the curve of the shiny spoon between the knife and fork on the white paper napkin next to his left hand.
"Ummm, do you have any Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes?"
The waitress couldn't decide between wringing her mouth in disgust and laughing at the same time. "I'll have to go check in the back," she said. "But, a young, strong man like you, don't you want something a little more… healthy?"
"I wish I did," he said with a sigh. "If you have any, can you just bring the box out for me?"
The waitress raised an eyebrow, but didn't question it. "I'll see what I can find, hun."
The ceiling fan squeaked with every revolution. The sound of knives and forks scraping on plates gave him chills. The quiet hum of conversation filled the diner, with an occasional too-loud outburst of laughter from some table of students talking over pancakes, bacon and eggs.
Both of the stools on either side of him were empty. As he glanced left and right down the counter, and over his shoulder at the tables, no one seemed to ever look in his direction.
When we met, you didn't even know my name. You treated me just like anyone else. And thanks to you, I've made friendships that will last a lifetime.
The waitress emerged out of the back, carrying an orange and yellow box and a glass of milk. She stopped to scoop up one of the bowls from the shelf and set each piece down one by one on the counter in front of him.
"Here you go, hun. Don't eat too much of that, or you'll get a stomachache," she said and spun away to help another customer.
Jaune reached forward, grabbing the box by the side so his hand covered up the nutritional facts and turned it.
On the front of the box, there was an unfamiliar face looking back at him, a young woman with silver-blonde hair and big, blue eyes, body tilted back, one fist thrust into the air and the other wrapped around a microphone inches from her open lips.
Whoever she was, he didn't recognize her any more than he recognized Pyrrha the first time he had met her in the locker room at Beacon.
He lifted the box and popped the top open, then set it back down on the counter without pouring any cereal into his bowl. He gave the edge of the box a gentle push with his index finger, spinning it until he was looking at the word search, maze and crypto-jumble kid's games on the back of the box.
"Find you way to the sold-out concert!" "Find these twelve music words!" "Unscramble these hit song titles to discover the name of the new, unreleased single!"
Jaune placed his elbows on the counter and let his chin sag into his palms over the empty bowl as his eyes spotted the words "BASS" and "DRUMS" on the word search. "KEYBOARDS" was spells backwards on a diagonal from the bottom right corner, too.
And then the box lifted off the counter as the stool next to him gave a puff of air as another student took a seat. He turned the box around, looking at the front, as he scoffed at the cardboard.
"That Siann Skye is a hack. Can't stand that cheesy Atlas pop," Cardin Winchester said as he glanced at the portrait.
"What do you want, Cardin?" Jaune asked. He hadn't noticed him before, but now saw the rest of his teammates sitting the back booth, laughing to eat other as they knocked the syrup jar back and forth across the table with their forks.
"Just figured you were looking for this," he said, producing a second yellow box and planting it on the counter.
On the cover of this box, the perfect form of warrior, knee bent, left arm outstretched, javelin poised perfectly at her shoulder below a perfectly defined face with a plume of red hair, a golden headdress and bright, fearless green eyes. Jaune ran his fingers across the tagline under the photo.
Eat like a champion!
Four-time Mistral Regional Tournament Champion Pyrrha Nikos
"I love that cereal, but no one ever seems to have it, so I always bring my own to breakfast," Cardin said. "Rots your damn teeth out, but those marshmallow bites are sooo good."
Jaune lifted the box off the counter, pulling it closer to his face as if he were blind. Everything about it was just as he remembered, from the deep red color and the glinting gold accents of her armor, the gentle definition of the muscles in her arms, the curvature of her neck and definition of her jaw. And even in this picture, the camera couldn't help but capture the intense determination in her pursed lips but also the cool loneliness he never used to notice in her eyes.
"You can keep it. I've got another box back in the dorm," Cardin said as he unceremoniously tossed the new box onto the counter, face down.
"Thanks Cardin," Jaune said. He actually meant it, too, as he popped the cardboard top open and poured some the cereal into his bowl.
Cardin leaned on one arm on the counter. "Hey, I'm sure everyone's probably told you this already, but I'm sorry for what happened to Pyrrha. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a teammate."
"Come on! You got syrup all over me!" Russel shouted from the back corner of the diner, as he grabbed a napkin to dab the spilled syrup off the front of his shirt. The small bottle was tipped over on the table, while Dove and Sky both laughed and clapped a high five.
"Even those three," Cardin said, shaking his head with a grin. "If there's anything Team CRDL can do you for you guys, we're willing to help."
"I appreciate it," Jaune said as he poured the milk and lifted the first spoonful to his mouth.
The cereal was a little stale, but overwhelmingly sweet. The marshmallow bits seemed to melt as soon as they hit his tongue. Maybe it actually was terrible, but each bite tasted delicious as Jaune stared at the statuesque picture on the box.
"I gotta say, I feel sorry for the woman who did it," Cardin added.
Jaune swallowed and narrowed his eyes. "Huh? Why you would feel sorry for that monster?"
"You don't remember?" Cardin said, as he shifted on the stool, sitting up straight, then leaning forward a little bit, bending his brows down. And then he quoted:
"'Don't ever mess with my team, my friends, again."
The giant bricks seemed to move as if they were weightless, each setting back perfectly into place as the breach in the wall sealed back as good as new.
Glynda gave a small, tired exhale as she lowered the riding crop and let her shoulders sag. After a brief second of rest, she straightened again, her heels clicking on the streets as she continued down the lane and onto the next thing that needed fixing.
She might have been the only thing holding the city of Vale together, both literally and figuratively.
And she had specifically summoned Jaune, which he didn't understand at all. She hadn't said anything to him except, "Come with me," when he first arrived. That was two hours ago. Together, they had silently walked around the city streets, with Glynda stopping to fix broken things as needed and then continuing along. Jaune followed a few steps behind her, not sure why she called him and even less sure why she hadn't said anything to him.
He had been debating whether to ask about both of those questions. But each time he had considering speaking, he instead closed his mouth and held his tongue. The last thing either of them needed was for her to scold him.
Glynda stopped at the next corner, looked both ways for traffic that hadn't been there in days, and turned left down the sidewalk.
"Don't fall behind, Jaune," Glynda said, without having to turn and look to see that he was still standing on the corner, watching her walk away.
"Ummm, I'm going to check the next block, then I'll meet you at the other side," he shouted down the street toward her.
She didn't answer, except to hold her crop over her shoulder. And Jaune couldn't do anything except swing his arms and legs as if he were suddenly in deep water as she lifted and pulled him over the sidewalk with her telekinesis. He stopped struggling as he floated around her side as she guided him, before softly planting his feet back on the concrete.
Between them was a patch of broken sidewalk and street he recognized all too well.
I'm sorry.
The locker was gone, but the damage it had caused as it crashed down from his unexpected departure from Beacon remained.
"Why did you bring me here?" Jaune asked now, finding his tongue again as the anger swelled out of his heart.
"It's time to mend this wound."
Jaune laughed aloud, unable to stop it as he shook his head, turned his back and threw his arms above his head incredulously.
"Just like that, huh? Time to get better!" he turned back around, mockingly spinning his hand around in a circle. "Abra cadrabra. Poof! There we go! All better now! You know, not all of us can just wave our magic wand and fix everything, Glynda."
She didn't respond, only crossed her arms over her chest and gave him one of her typical, hard glares.
"What do you want from me, Glynda?" he said, putting his hands out to his sides. "What do you want?"
"I want you to be better."
"I'm not better! I can't get better! Pyrrha is dead! I can't do anything and she got hurt because of it. I'm not even supposed to be here."
"Yes you are, Jaune."
"No, I'm not."
"Do you think that because you faked your transcripts to get admitted into Beacon?"
That took the fire out of Jaune as he stopped, caught aback. No one knew that, except Pyrrha. And Cardin. But Cardin had promised he wouldn't tell anyone and, to Jaune's knowledge, he had kept his word.
"Do you think that Ozpin didn't know?" Glynda said. "I can't say I ever understand his ways. But through the years I've learned that he's usually right."
Jaune slumped. Even if Ozpin knew he didn't belong here, then what was it that the headmaster saw in him? What was is that he was waiting for? Whatever it was, Jaune was pretty sure he wasn't meeting the mark.
"I just… it just hurts so bad." He looked down at the broken sidewalk again, remembering the way the wind whistled through the slits in the locker as he sailed through the air until the jarring impact of metal striking concrete and the door swinging open, spilling him into the street.
He put his hand across his stomach as it churned and he felt like he needed to throw up, like someone stuck a wrench in his gut and was twisting it until the bolts stripped and broke.
Glynda stepped forward and put a hand on Jaune's shoulder and peered down over the top of her glasses.
"I know it does," she said, using her thumb to wipe a tear off his cheek that he didn't even realize was there. "Did you know that I was a team leader, like you, when I was a student at Beacon?"
Glynda pulled back, crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at the broken moon in the sky for a moment, taking a deep breath as if to steel herself.
"In my third year, we were assigned to a mission to meet up with some students from Shade to clear out an entrenched den of Grimm on the Vale-Vacuo border. The students from Shade had been out there a week and were worn down. We were called in to assist and hold the line while Shade swapped out personnel.
"On the second night our camp came under attack as it did every night. We easily repelled the Grimm back into the hills. That should have been enough. But it wasn't. I chose to pursue them, to try to take down as many as we could while they were routed.
"A pack of Beowolves surrounded Lux and the Alpha cut her shoulder to hip. Cinna didn't have any time to defend herself before the Nevermore swooped down and knocked her off the cliff. Rhu… Rhu lagged behind to cover the retreat because my leg was cut deep and I was limping. She never made it back to camp."
Glynda's mouth twisted into some wretched shape that was a tangle of sadness, anger, disappointment and regret all at once. She touched the corner of her glasses to lift them on her nose and lightly touched the tightly wound bun of hair behind her head.
"I certainly thought the Headmaster would throw me out of Beacon for doing something so stupid and foolish. Instead, he offered me his condolences and gave me the rest of the semester off to collect my head and decide whether I wanted to go on.
"My final year at Beacon was the worst of my life. Every night, I went to bed in a too-large room with three empty beds in it. All of the underclassmen were terrified of me. But rather, I think they were terrified by the thought that they could become me.
"I didn't travel long in Remnant after graduation before I returned to Beacon. I knew my place was here, that I could do more good teaching than I ever could fighting. I had a place because there was one lesson I could teach better than anyone else."
Jaune clenched his fists together as he looked at the broken sidewalk again.
"Loss," he said quietly.
Glynda nodded once. "Yes. Every Huntsman and Huntress must know it eventually. Many won't learn it until after graduation. Regrettably, some students have to face it sooner than others."
"Why did Ozpin make me a team leader?" Jaune asked.
"That, I do not know," Glynda said. "But he saw something in you. I didn't see it at first, but, I think, maybe I'm beginning to."
Jaune nodded and exhaled. And nodded again. And kept nodding, because he didn't really know what else he could say or what he could do. It just seemed appropriate. It just seemed right, at the moment.
He clamped his hand over his mouth, holding his elbow with his other and just kept nodding. He began to lift his fingers, then clamped them back down. Tried again, and stopped. Threw his arms down at his sides.
"Go ahead and fix it."
"You're sure?" Glynda asked as she slowly pulled her crop and pointed it toward the broken street.
"No. No, I'm not. But just do it. Get it over with."
There was a small glow of white light, the whoosh of dust and dirt and bricks and concrete swirling around him before it all fell back into its rightful place piece by piece until all of the jagged edges and cracks and holes were filled and gone.
When she was done, the sidewalk and street looked like new.
It looked clean. It looked good. It looked empty.
But Jaune could still imagine the outline of the locker and the image of himself, on his hands and knees, screaming into the cobblestone street dabbed with tears. He doubted he'd ever be able to forget that.
He didn't ever want to forget it.
Jaune grimaced and shook the drop of blood off his fingertip.
"We're ready!" Nora declared, one hand thrust high into the sky. "I am sooo excited. I can't wait to see Ruby again. And I cannot believe that we are going to go all the way to Haven. On foot! I mean, yeah, I've been to Mistral before, back when I was a kid, we took an airship and went to go see the Vytal Festival in person and it was, like, the greatest time ever until the Vytal Festival here up until everything went bad and all the Grimm and Beacon and…"
"I'm excited too, Nora," Ren said, cutting her off. Whether he was actually excited, Jaune couldn't tell, because his voice sounded the same as it did all the time. He slug his backpack over his shoulders one at a time. "Almost ready, Jaune?"
"Yeah, just a, owww," Jaune said as he pricked the needle into his finger again. "I don't know how my sisters are so good at this."
He lifted up the hood of his sweatshirt in front of him, checking the criss-crossed, uneven, amateurish stitches and the badly puckered seam. The gold thread stood out against the black fabric of the exterior. On the inside, against the red, it felt much more right.
The hole in his hood was closed, more or less, although with his poor sewing it looked an awful mess. He could add one more item to the list of things he didn't excel at.
Yet, Jaune couldn't help but smile at the jumbled mismatch of stitches. As he looked at the gold thread slashing in and out of the red fabric, it was if he could almost hear a quiet chuckle over his shoulder. If he turned his head, he would see Pyrrha's hand over her mouth, trying to conceal her amusement until she couldn't contain and burst full out into laughter.
She'd say something kind and comforting, then offer to help him. She would sit down next to him and tear out all the bad stitches. She would show him how to sew a perfectly tight stitch and help guide his bumbling fingers until he got it just right.
Pyrrha would make him better, as she always had.
But the tangled thicket of gold thread in his hood seemed precisely appropriate. It smacked utterly and completely of Jaune Arc.
Maybe someday, when he some time to himself, he could tear it all out and try again to mend it more cleanly.
For now, it was good enough.