The sights and sensations around him were so frightening and vivid… He was on top of Beacon Tower, but the sky was red and foggy. Somehow, his ankle was in agonizing pain, as if someone jammed a thick needle in it. He tried to stand back up, but the pain in his ankle was too great for him to put any weight on it. When he looked back at his ankle, he could see what looks like a broken piece of an arrow embedded within it.

Immediately afterwards, he could hear a wicked, yet honey-filled voice, "It's unfortunate you were promised a power that was never truly yours."

He looked up and saw what could only be described as a flaming demon, as it continued to speak to him, "But take comfort in knowing that I will use it in ways you could never have imagined."

He knew something was about to happen, but he felt so helpless. He couldn't move. He couldn't fight.

He heard another voice so clearly, as if it was speaking through him, "Do you believe in destiny?"

The demon's eyes narrowed and spoke one word, "Yes."

An obsidian bow formed in the demon's hands as it aimed it directly toward him. It pulled an arrow back and fired it directly at his heart. It only hurt for a brief moment, and then… everything felt numb. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He could only try as hard as he could to breathe. Everything went black until…

Jaune woke up out of that nightmare, gasping for breath, as if something had been suffocating him. He's been having nightmares like this every night for weeks ever since Haven fell. That particular nightmare was the one that was most frequent, but he also had other ones. Sometimes, he would see an innocent soul wrapped by wires and ripped apart in front of him, and other times, he would feel himself trapped behind a glass pane. It was as if he kept seeing things through… her eyes… before she…

There was a knock on the wooden door next to him, "Sir?"

The sudden knock brought Jaune back to reality. He was staying at the Higanbana Inn for the night after he and the rest of his friends got separated after Haven fell. It was unbelievable! One minute, there was actually a chance at driving back the evil that had taken so much from him and his fellow Hunters (technically, Hunters-in-training anyway), and the next… Lionheart's a backstabber and Salem actually got her hands on a Relic! This is wrong! Everything was all wrong! How much more of thi..?

The innkeeper's voice could be heard through the door again, "Sir? Are you all right?"

This interrupted Jaune's internal angst for the time being. He's been staying at the inn for weeks now. It was one of the places that he and the rest of Team RNJR stopped at before they arrived at Haven, and since he didn't have any idea where to look for them now or even if they are still alive, it made sense to just wait for one of them… or anyone from Beacon to stumble here. After all, this is one of the few villages that were still in one piece after Haven's fall, and with all of the misery that came from that tragedy, there were now more Grimm than ever, and this village needed all the protection it could get. He wasn't the only Huntsman doing this, either. There were many of Haven's former students that ended up here, and most of them ended up this way because they lost their families and have nowhere else to go. Speaking of families, Jaune could only wonder if his family was still alive after all of this. He had no way to contact them after the CCTS went down, and even if he did… what would he tell them? That he had faked his transcripts to get into Beacon? That he failed to protect Beacon and Haven? That this series of events ended up happening because he had that one job of protecting the Fall Maiden and he managed to screw something that simple up? No! He wasn't going to quit now! He had to keep going! He had to live up to his great-grandfather's legacy like his grandfather and father before him… and for… her. So here he was… playing the role of 'defender' because that's all he can do at this point.

The innkeeper turned the doorknob and opened it slightly, "Sir? You're having that nightmare again, aren't you?"

Jaune was still wiping the sweat off of his face from that nightmare, "Oh! Uh… Yea... Guess I was talking in my sleep again…"

The innkeeper noticed the sky outside the window, "Dawn is still a couple hours away. Can I get you anything to lull you back to sleep?"

Jaune still had his mind troubled and turned to lie back down in his bed, "No… It's okay."

The innkeeper took a second to look at Jaune with worry before leaving and closing the door behind him.

Jaune relaxed for a brief moment and was about to go back to sleep before he heard what sounded like the adorable laughter of a little girl. When he did, he sat back up in his bed looking for the source of that laughter. He looked around for another moment and wondered if he was just hearing things due to a lack of rest. He laid back down in his bed and closed his eyes.

That is… until he heard that same voice echoing all around him, "You've got a long journey ahead of you, mortal!"

When he heard that, Jaune quickly reached from the side of his bed and grabbed his sword. When he sat up again, he noticed that his surroundings were completely monochrome!

That little girl's voice could be heard echoing some more, "Aw… You shouldn't be afraid. I've only ever came to collect when it's somebody's time to die."

Jaune jumped out of his bed and frantically looked around for the source of the voice.

That little girl's voice could be heard echoing even more, "And your time… hasn't come… yet. But it's up to you to decide if death shall come for you later… or sooner. How you do that… depends on how well you listen to what I have to say."

Jaune slowly put his back to the wall and grabbed his shield that was hanging nearby. With his shield firmly in his hand, he quietly uttered three words, "Where are you?"

Unexpectedly, Jaune would get an answer from this voice… from directly behind him through the wall, "Right here!"

Jaune frantically turned around to see the mist covered face of a little girl sticking out of the wall!

This little girl's head responded with a cheerful, "Hello!"

Without warning, the rest of this little girl emerged from the wall in a foggy mist and hovered above the floor like a ghost. It looked like a little robed Faunus girl with wings sticking out of her back and loops in her head.

The little Faunus girl looked back at Jaune and talked to him some more, "Who is this little girl? Is she real? Is she dangerous? That's what you're thinking, right?"

Before Jaune had a chance to respond, the little Faunus girl talked even more, "Yeah. You can't play hide-and-go-seek with what you're thinking. You can't play hide-and-go-seek with anything, actually? Not if we're playing... We get to see everything. But I didn't come here to freak your little mortal brain out… even if it is really fun."

Jaune didn't let his guard down for a second, "Who are you?"

The little Faunus girl introduced herself by bowing in midair, "I... am a part of the First Race. You can think of me as a 'Primordial' if you want… but if you're anything like the last mortal I talked to, you'll probably want a little more than that. You see, Primordials are different from humans and Faunus…es…es."

The little Faunus (or Primordial) girl paused after that brief mispronunciation of the plural form of Faunus, "From your teeny-tiny mortal mind, the best way to describe myself is by a title. You should know what a 'Maiden' is by now, right? Well, I'm best described as… the Death Maiden."

The Death Maiden's eyes suddenly glowed in a golden color as she stared right at Jaune, "And I have been looking for you for a very long time."

Jaune wondered to himself if she was anything like the Fall Maiden.

This 'Death Maiden' appeared from a foggy mist next to one of the walls and started walking on it sideways, as if her feet could stick to the wall. She paced in circles along the wall with her hands behind her back and her eyes locked on Jaune, "No, I'm nothing like her or any of the other Seasonal Maidens. They are mortal. They can die. But enough about that…"

Obviously, the fact that this girl was walking on the wall like something out of a horror flick made Jaune even more untrusting of her, "Wait! You know about the other Maidens? You know where they are?!"

The Death Maiden stopped walking in circles for a moment and stared at Jaune from the wall, "Well, my family basically runs this whole world like a game, so we know everything that goes on here!"

Jaune was quickly losing his patience (not that he had much to begin with, given that this girl just suddenly came out of a wall and started talking about Maidens), "Tell me everything! Everything in…"

The Death Maiden made an overly dramatic imitation of Jaune's high-pitched voice, "In the world is on the verge of collapse here! I'm so tired of losing everything! Wangst this! Drama that! Waaaah waaaah waaaah!"

She spoke in her normal voice after that tirade, "Look, we're not gonna get anywhere if I keep playing 'Twenty Questions' with you, so if you value your life, you'll listen to what I'm trying to say 'cuz I'm only gonna say this stuff once!"

Was this little girl trying to threaten hi..?

The Death Maiden interrupted the narration, "No, mortal! I'm not threatening you! I know you don't believe me, but what I'm about to say might just save your life, so if you don't mind…"

The Death Maiden disappeared into thin air and reappeared on the ceiling, walking upside-down, "You have something that now belongs to me and I need it back very soon."

Jaune didn't know whether to be more surprised by the Death Maiden's powers or her declaration, "What are you talking about?"

The Death Maiden thought to herself for a moment before answering, "Hmm… Yea, I guess you really couldn't know. Okay, I guess you'll need some more details."

Then, she pointed at the chair in the room, "You might wanna sit down. This'll take a lot of exposition, and I know how easily tired mortals get from standing for a long time."

Jaune refused to let down his guard by sitting down for even a second.

The Death Maiden noticed this and shrugged, "Okay then… I'll just get right to it. You have a piece of someone else's soul dwelling within you."

Jaune didn't believe this for a second, but played along with her, "And… how did that happen?"

The Death Maiden started walking in circles on the ceiling, "Think back to your time in Emerald Forest… during your initiation into Beacon Academy. You know… the place you used fake transcripts to get into?"

Jaune's guard fell for a moment when he heard that, "W-what? How did you..?"

Jaune came to realize something very quickly and uttered something quietly, "You can read my thoughts."

The Death Maiden disappeared into thin air and reappeared on the wall next to Jaune, "Oh, relax…"

Jaune was startled at the fact that this girl was suddenly standing on a wall just a foot away from him, while she continued to speak, "I'm not gonna blackmail you. I don't care about that stuff."

The Death Maiden bent down so that she was mere inches from Jaune's face, "During your time there, you didn't immediately know how to use your Aura, and so someone else had to unlock it for you. She did that by using her own Aura and linking it to yours."

Jaune's eyes widened as he whispered in realization, "Pyrrha…"

The Death Maiden straightened back up on the wall and pointed at Jaune, "Aura is the manifestation of mortal souls, remember? When she used her Aura to unlock hers, she inadvertently left a piece of her soul behind, and that piece has been dwelling inside you ever since!"

The Death Maiden disappeared into thin air and reappeared on the floor standing upright, "My in-game role is to collect the souls of those that die."

Jaune didn't understand what she meant by 'game', "What game?"

The Death Maiden slouched and shook her head, "Okay, I put these two 'World of Remnant' things on the internet that explains all that stuff. Just look them up when you have the chance 'cuz it'll take me forever to go through all of that again, and I don't have the time or patience to do that."

The Death Maiden straightened herself again, "The point I'm making is that later on after that whole 'immortal shoulder thing', this 'prodigy' had earned herself the award of the most idiotic death of that year!"

Jaune gritted his teeth in anger, "What did you say?"

The Death Maiden ignored Jaune's anger and continued, "And after she died, I claimed her soul and found that a piece of it was missing. I tracked down where the piece was, and… Guess what? It still resides within you, so now here I am revealing myself to you. I need that piece back from you very soon!"

Jaune was getting very frustrated now, "You take people's souls?!"

The Death Maiden was also losing her patience, "Just… listen, okay. I'm kinda like a Grim Reaper to you mortals. When you die, I show up, I claim your soul, and you wake up in one of my domains. Got it?"

Jaune was still frustrated, and spoke after a moment of deliberation, "No! I… I don't get any of this!"

The Death Maiden's mood lightened a bit, "Uh… Figures… Well, it's actually not that easy for me to just take it anyway. You see, that piece of her soul is stuck to you, and I can't just take it without killing you first."

Jaune took that as a threat and unsheathed his sword, while the Death Maiden had an annoyed look on her face. Her eyes glowed in a golden color again as she held out her arm toward Jaune's sword and grabbed the blade end of it. She squeezed the blade with her bare head, which somehow caused it to rust and wither before snapping to pieces, and leaving a terrified Jaune with only a hilt for a weapon!

After that 'lesson in humility', the Death Maiden disappeared into thin air and reappeared on the ceiling directly above Jaune, "I told you! I'm not here to threaten you! Trust me! If I wanted you to be a corpse, you'd be a corpse! Now, here's what you need to do… There's this 'Aura… transfery… thingy' hidden within the ruins of the old Beacon Academy. You need to get there as soon as you can, so you can extract the soul fragment safely."

Jaune was still very confused and cynical about all of this, "Beacon? That whole place is surrounded by Grimm! How am I even supposed to get there…", and then he held out the hilt of his broken sword, "Without a weapon?!"

The Death Maiden took one look at the fractured pieces of Jaune's sword and held her arm out toward them. A golden light came through her fingertips and toward each fragment as they reassembled themselves upon the hilt and repaired themselves, as if it were never broken in the first place.

The Death Maiden imitated the sound of an old man, "It's dangerous to go alone, idiot. Take this!"

Jaune silently stared at the Death Maiden with a scowl on his face, while she spoke in her normal voice again, "I think you've got about… eight to ten months or so."

Jaune loosened his scowl for a moment, "Eight to ten months?"

The Death Maiden disappeared into thin air and reappeared on the wall opposite of where Jaune was standing, "The soul fragment hasn't completely assimilated itself within you yet, so you have about eight to ten months to get to that… 'transfery machine'. If you can't get there by then, that soul fragment will completely assimilate within you, and it'll be stuck to you for the rest of your life. Speaking of which, there are a lot of nasty side effects that come from having a piece of someone else's soul attached to you, including death."

Jaune's eyes widened in terror, "What?"

The Death Maiden took a deep breath and spoke like she was in a pharmaceutical advertisement,

"Sideeffectsofsoultumorsinclude,butarenotlimitedtonightmares,personalitychanges,talkingtoyourself,

paralysis,shortenedlifespan,andmildrashes.

Soultumorsareneverrightforyou.

Contactyourlocalheadmasterifyouthinkyouhaveasoultumor."

Jaune couldn't understand what she was saying because of how fast she was talking, "Whoa! Slow down!"

The Death Maiden disappeared into thin air and reappeared on the floor next to him, "Basically, you're gonna get sick, start hearing voices in your head, have dreams of that other person's memories…"

Jaune tensed with realization, "Dreams?!"

The Death Maiden pulled what looks like a gray and purple Dust crystal out from her robe and handed it to Jaune, "Here! You're gonna need this. When you get to that 'transfer thingy', place this in one of the capsules, and then sit in the other one. It's one of my personal Dust crystals. It's called a Soulstone. And you might wanna bring someone with you to activate the machine from the outside."

The Death Maiden pulled a device that looks like a stopwatch that's attached to other stopwatches from out of her robe and looked at it, "Oh! Look at the time! Somebody's gonna die soon, and I gotta go pick up a new soul!"

The Death Maiden spread her wings and was about to leave until Jaune shouted at her to come back, "Wait! There are still some things I don't und…"

The Death Maiden interrupted him, "You know everything that you need to know. Now, I don't think this whole soul fragment stuff is your fault, so that's why I'm giving you a chance to fix things. That… and I can't directly interfere with mortal lives. Those two reasons are why I didn't just make it easy on myself by just killing you and taking that soul fragment back myself. See? I'm actually pretty fair as far as Primordials go. Bye!"

The Death Maiden flew straight up toward the ceiling, vanishing before she made contact with it. Her adorable laughter could be heard echoing around the room. After that, the room started to regain color again.

Jaune was now alone in the room contemplating all of this. There was so much to take in. These nightmares he was having… They were her memories going through her mind? Jaune noticed that the clock hasn't changed at all since everything around him turned monochrome. That probably meant that this… 'Death Maiden' girl froze everything in time except him and herself to speak with him.

He looked at his shield, which had been tempered with the metal of his fallen friend before Haven fell, and wondered if her soul ended up becoming part of him, "Pyrrha…"