Back again?
Introduction scene:
Jaune Arc wearily pulled the blankets up to cover himself. He instinctively knew that he was not long for this world now.
He did not mind dying. In fact, he had been hoping for it for some time now. But he had never allowed himself to appear weak, to appear as anything but the leader that the people needed.
But it was fine now. He had made sure of it. Remnant, although still not as well as it had once been, was swiftly recovering.
He only hoped that the reforms and bills he had passed would remain in place, although he wasn't overly concerned. The War had the positive side effect of giving everyone a common enemy, something to work against, and that had brought people from different walks of life together.
Productivity in the reclaimed cities was rising and repairs had already been made to most of every city's major districts. Refugee camps were still full, but more and more people had begun to recover their homes.
He made sure that there was always an active force of huntsmen patrolling the borders of the areas where there were still reported sightings of Grimm. Still, most areas were mostly safe now, even with the diminished number of hunters on duty.
Yes, Remnant was quickly recovering.
That didn't mean everything had been solved. Far from it.
Every day people would complain about the number of refugees and they were missing many of the commodities that Remnant had once enjoyed. There were reports of missing persons and deaths every day, but even those had begun to diminish in comparison to the sheer numbers from the years that came right after the War.
There were yet cities to be taken back from the clutches of the Grimm, but for now, mankind was recovering rather nicely.
Jaune sighed with grim satisfaction as he thought back to his life. He had lived his life in service of others until now. He had done all he could to aid others.
It was at once both his greatest shame and pride. Shame, because as his nightmares reminded him, he had committed horrible atrocities, sacrificed countless good lives to ensure peace would come. But pride, because they had won. Against all odds, they had somehow managed to drive back the Grimm.
Although he had his fair share of regrets, he had no qualms about dying right now. If anything, it seemed like a blessing to him, after everything that had happened.
He wearily close his eyes and smiled.
Yes, everything was going to be fine now.
At the age of 82, Jaune Arc, formerly known as Vomit Boy, closed his eyes and his soul left his world.
Then, suddenly, Jaune Arc opened his eyes.
'Where….Where am I?' he wondered. He could dimly hear someone droning on about Aura safety measures and other such things.
He blinked a few times to remove the drowsiness and looked up. The he froze.
'This is…it's not possible!'
Glynda Goodwitch stood before him. And she looked as just as she did when he was still a student in Beacon.
But that was impossible.
He had heard the she had perished when Beacon had been destroyed early on during the war, in an assault led by Roman himself. He had read the after action reports that detailed the many, many casualties suffered by both sides.
Glynda Goodwitch had died that day.
She couldn't be alive. She just couldn't.
"Is there something in my face, Mr. Arc?" she asked him.
Instincts from when he was a student, dormant instincts that had been unused in years flared up and he shook his head.
He heard some giggling and muttering and turned around. The sight left him speechless. Old classmates, old allied and old enemies.
But that wasn't possible. He had seen most of them fall. Hell, he had been responsible for some of their deaths!
"Then I suggest you pay attention, Mr. Arc. You can hardly afford to daydream in class." She berated him.
Jaune turned back to his former teacher nodded mutely. Then he turned around again, looking at the assembled group of people.
None of this was possible. Most of them had died and the few that survived should have been around his age. His eyes caught his reflection on one of the Academy's windows and promptly widened again.
He looked just as he did when he helped a little girl in red after she blew up. He looked just as he did when a fellow blonde had decided to call him Vomit Boy. He looked just as he did when he was eighteen.
His hand rose to his face to determine if it truly was his reflection. It was.
He looked around and saw Beacon as it used to be decades ago, when he was still a student in her grand halls.
'What the hell is going on?'
He took a deep breath and forced himself, through no small effort, to lock away every emotion he was feeling right now. It was one of the most useful skills he had acquired.
He…he had died. Of that he had no doubt. Then…
He looked around as saw a familiar face with silver eyes and black hair with red highlights. She waved cheerfully when she saw him staring at her.
…was this his punishment?
He forced himself to stop looking at his first friend, to stop himself from desperately drinking in her healthy, innocent appearance. He turned his gaze on her sister instead. A fellow blonde who was now smiling at him and cracking her knuckles.
He froze again as he stared at her. Gods, how beautiful she looked, so vibrant and full of energy! So unlike her future-self had been, consumed by vengeance and grief.
He looked away. He couldn't bear it. Couldn't stand to see the many faces he had failed.
It was vaguely ironic, a small part of him mused. That his punishment would be to see the people that he had so yearned to be with.
"Jaune, are you okay?" he heard a voice whispering behind him.
He froze yet again. He had not heard that voice in decades, but he would be able to recognize it anywhere.
He forced himself to look back and almost recoiled. 'Pyrrha…'
She was looking at him with concern, much as she used to whenever he did something stupid. Just as she had right before he had sent her to her own death.
"I…ah…" he managed to stammer out.
"Jaune?" she asked him concernedly.
No. NO.
She had died. Much like everybody else. They had all died! He looked away.
"I'm…fine." He forced out.
She still looked concerned, but she didn't press the issue.
He looked around again. All his friends, all the people he had seen die or that he himself had sentenced to their deaths.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to rage. He wanted to wake up from this nightmare.
But in the end, he once again shoved down all those emotions threatening to explode.
'Take a step back,' he imagined the old bastard telling him. 'Examine every fact, every possibility.'
It was funny that even after all these years he imagined his voice guiding him.
He had died. It was possible this was simply his brain shutting down.
On the other hand, it was also possible that he had simply imagined dying and was now in a coma, although this was highly unlikely.
The third choice, which he thought was downright impossible, was that he had died and gone to hell.
He certainly hoped not. There was a chance of this nightmare ending in the first two cases.
For now, he decided to go along with this mess, hoping that it would end soon.
When the class ended, his feet moved towards the cafeteria along with what he hoped were hallucinations.
He kept looking around as he did. Everything was just as he remembered it, down to the trophies in the walls and the placement of furniture.
"Jaune? Jaune!" he was snapped out of his trance by someone calling him.
"Y-yeah?" he asked.
"Are you okay?" Pyrrha, ever the one to fret over him, asked him with concern.
He nodded. "Yeah…Fine. I'm fine."
"Really? Because I noticed you seemed really, really distracted." Yang interjected with a small glare. "You were staring at my little sister, weren't you?"
What.
"Yang!" Ruby exclaimed indignantly.
He felt a sharp pang in his chest. He'd missed these little scenes. "No, I just…I…"
He looked away. "I'm sorry, but I need to go." He told them before quickly feeling the area.
"Hey, I was just kidding!" he heard Yang call after him. "Well, kind of!"
"Jaune!"
He ignored all of them as he walked away, forcing himself not to look at the familiar walls, the people, the classrooms…
'No. NO! I don't care if this is Hell or a hallucination! I'm leaving Beacon tonight.'
Ozpin
Jaune packed a few essentials into his little bag and quietly left the room. The last thing he wanted to do was wake his hallucinated team mates.
He made it to the courtyard without being seen by anyone and sighed. He'd forgotten how beautiful this place could be at night.
"It's a fine evening, wouldn't you agree?" a voice behind him startled him out of musings.
Jaune turned around and saw Ozpin standing by the fountain, looking up at the moon.
He snorted. "I should've known you'd be here."
"Beg your pardon?" Ozpin asked.
Jaune sighed. "I don't know why I forgot that you used to take walks around the courtyard every now and then."
One of Ozpin's eyebrows rose slightly. "Oh?"
"Well, it was nice seeing you, please don't write." Jaune told him before preparing to leave.
"Am I to understand that you're leaving?" Ozpin asked him with a raised eyebrow.
Jaune didn't even turn around as he walked away. "Yes, yes you are."
"May I ask why?"
This time he did turn around. "I simply don't want to be here."
"After all the effort you put in to get here?" Ozpin asked him incredulously.
"You mean faking my transcripts?" Jaune interjected. Ozpin's eyebrow rose again but he just nodded.
Jaune shrugged. "I simply don't want to be here." He repeated.
Ozpin nodded. "Have you told your friends of your intentions?"
Jaune snorted. "Gods no." he paused. "Oh, hell no, I know what you're doing."
Ozpin said nothing, simply motioning for him to continue. Bastard.
"You're the piece of my subconscious that tries to convince me to stay and face my problems or something, right? I'm not falling for it." Jaune told him. He began to feel a deep weariness seeping into him.
"Are you perhaps drunk?" Ozpin asked.
"No, although I certainly wish I was." Jaune replied tiredly. "Look, I know that I couldn't have foreseen what happened. I know that not everything that happened is my fault."
Ozpin almost took a step back when the blonde looked directly into his eyes.
"So please…Please just go away. I don't need to face my problems. And I certainly don't need this right now."
Those were not the young, idealistic eyes he had seen on the boy not too long ago. His eyes…
The blonde readjusted his bag over his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I…Even though you're all probably just hallucinations, please take care of them."
Those were the eyes he had seen staring back at him from the mirror after his war had ended.
After he had lost everyone he'd ever cared about.
"Wait!" he called out in a rare burst of emotion.
Jaune stopped. "What is it?"
"Tell me more about your hallucinations."
Jaune glared at him. "I do NOT need my own subconscious playing Dr. Phil on me."
"Please. Just humor me." He requested
The blonde sighed. "You sadistic bastard. If you had taken any other form, I would've just told you to piss off. But you just had to choose my mentor, huh?"
"Mentor?" Ozpin inquired. He hadn't personally taught anyone in more than a few decades.
Jaune sat down. "As you already know, it began during my second year here in Beacon…"
Ozpin did not know what to say. The blonde's tale was not one that anyone on their right minds would believe, but the amount of detail, his knowledge of things that he should not have known…
Just the fact that he knew so much about Roman Torchwick was almost enough for him to have the young Arc arrested and interrogated.
In fact, he would have called for security if he hadn't seen what kind of person Jaune Arc was before today.
So Ozpin decided to test him. He began to ask him questions about himself and other events that no one could possibly know.
Jaune answered all of them.
"How do you know all of this?" he demanded.
Jaune stared at him. "You know, for a figment of my imagination, you really are acting like I'd have expected Ozpin to."
"Oh, for-I am not a piece of your imagination!" Ozpin snapped in an uncharacteristic display of emotion.
Jaune snorted. "That's what I'd expect a piece of my imagination to say."
Ozpin glared at him. "Be that as it may, you have information that could prove to be useful as well as dangerous. I'm afraid I can no longer allow you to leave."
Jaune glared back. "You think I'm some kind of spy? My own hallucinations are accusing me of spying?"
Ozpin reached for his cane. "I'm not sure about your hallucinations, but you present a security leak that I cannot overlook."
Jaune's hand grasped Crocea Mors. "Fine. I did always dream of defeating you someday, after all."
The first thing Ozpin noticed as they began fighting was that this could not possibly be Jaune Arc.
His combat style was too fluid, too developed to be Jaune Arc's who was at best, a mediocre fighter.
But…
Jaune lunged and Ozpin easily sidestepped his attack.
…his movements were somewhat sloppy and uncoordinated.
Ozpin launched a counterattack with his cane and Jaune was forced to lift his shield to block before jumping back to disengage.
Jaune grimaced as he stumbled as he landed but launched himself forward almost immediately, shield held in front of him.
Ozpin jumped to a side, swinging his cane in a blow that would knock him out, but somehow, almost as if he had been expecting that, he found Crocea Mors already in position, blocking his attack.
"You fight too well to be Jaune Arc." Ozpin commented as he parried another attack.
"And you're still holding back!" Jaune answered him as he was once more forced to disengage.
They both stared at each other silently.
Then Ozpin lunged, deciding to go on the offensive.
He attacked in a flurry of strikes that connected fluidly into another attack. Over and over he kept his endless assault going, always keeping his enemy on the defensive, slowly forcing him to retreat.
His enemy deftly blocked and dodged all his attacks, preventing any sort of damage, although never given enough time to counterattack.
Had he been fighting anyone else, he would have been impressed.
Jaune grimaced as Ozpin kept up his attack. He knew he couldn't allow this to go on. On the upside, he knew his mentor's combat style and he knew were the small openings were.
'Wait for it…'
Ozpin attacked again, and in that small moment before the attack could connect to another, Jaune lashed out with his foot, hoping to trip him or buy him enough time to disengage, but he once again miscalculated and his kick didn't even come close to connecting.
Worse yet, his failed attempt left him horribly open.
He cursed the fact that years of not fighting had left him rusty. He cursed himself for failing once more, to compensate for his eighteen year old body.
Ozpin saw that the boy had made a mistake, for which he was grateful. Somehow, this boy knew how his combat style worked, and had attacked in the right moment.
Pity he had miscalculated. Ozpin lunged, eager to finish this fight.
Jaune knew that at this point, there wasn't much he could do. He couldn't block, he couldn't dodge and he most certainly could not attack.
The attack connected solidly, making him see stars and sending him flying back.
Ozpin was already charging at him.
Disoriented, Jaune decided to change tactics. "Summer Rose!" he cried out.
Ozpin faltered, and Jaune immediately got back to his feet and put some distance between them.
"How do you know about her?" Ozpin demanded.
"I read all the after action reports in your cabinet, remember?" Jaune replied.
For a hallucination, "Ozpin" acted remarkably like Ozpin might've. He could also apparently cause him real pain, which meant he should not take him lightly
"That aside, I've come to realize that even though you're a hallucination, you're not the kind of opponent that I can go easy on." Jaune told him as he raised his blade.
Ozpin froze. "That stance…But that's impossible!"
"Therefore!" Jaune called out. "Allow me to introduce you to my strongest attack."
Channeling the entire Aura in his body, he forced it into his blade and Crocea Mors accepted his offering.
Crocea Mors, a blade wielded by conquerors, saints and heroes.
His blade began to glow golden, a dazzling light that was almost blinding in its intensity.
Ozpin stared, transfixed. This…this was something he had only seen once in his life. An attack used by…
He shook his head. There was no time for idle thoughts. He raised his cane and aimed it at the blonde before pulling the trigger hidden in the handle, unleashing a beam of highly concentrated energy that had pierced through fortresses in his past.
With some luck, this would knock out the boy, because if it didn't, he was in for a rather trying time.
When the dust subsided, his eyes widened.
Jaune Arc stood before him, shield raised and also glowing.
"This is the end." Jaune, and there was no doubt in his mind anymore that he was truly Jaune, told him solemnly.
Ozpin lowered his cane. "It would seem as though I underestimated you."
With a loud cry, Jaune charged at him and jumped into the air, swinging his blade downwards.
Just as he was about to strike, Ozpin swung his cane upwards. Their two weapons connected and the air around them exploded outwards.
Ozpin's feet sank as the ground underneath him crumbled. He grit his teeth and brought his free arm up to reinforce.
He heard a loud crack and saw his cane beginning to crumble under the intense pressure of Arc's attack.
"Ozpin!" he dimly heard a voice call out. He ignored it. He could not afford to get distracted right now.
An explosion went off right in front of him and Jaune Arc was sent flying back, just as the sudden lessening of pressure made him stumble back.
Ozpin fell to his knees, breathing hard. Someone kneeled at his side, supporting him.
"Are you alright?" Glynda Goodwtch asked him.
He nodded, unable to talk due to his lack of oxygen.
"What happened? Was that…Was that Jaune Arc?" she asked him before glaring at the boy, who was now lying still on the floor.
He took in some deep breaths. "Y…yes…he was."
"But that's impossible. He shouldn't have been able to…His combat prowess…"
Ozpin forced himself back to his feet. "Put him...in…the infirmary."
"Are you sure? He tried to kill you." She told him.
He took another breath. "Yes."
"Very well then."
Possibilities
When Jaune opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a familiar looking ceiling. A ceiling he hadn't seen in years, but a ceiling nonetheless.
"I see you're awake."
Jaune looked at his side, where Ozpin was sitting in one the chairs.
He sighed. "So I lost. Worse yet, I'm still here."
Ozpin shook his head. "On the contrary, you would have won if Goodwitch had not come to my aid."
"Not if you'd gone all out at the beginning. You're starting to get soft." Jaune countered.
Ozpin shrugged. "I don't necessarily consider that bad."
Jaune frowned and looked away. "So what're you planning to do to me now?"
"I simply want to ask you some questions."
Jaune sighed. "I won't answer all of them."
"That technique last night…So you truly are Jaune Arc?" Ozpin asked.
Jaune glared at him. "That has got to rank 12 in my 1-10 scale of imbecilic questions."
"That is a skill that I have only seen people of the Arc bloodline use." Ozpin added.
"Of course it is. Crocea Mors would ever accept anyone else's Aura." Jaune replied fondly. "Wait, where's my sword?" he demanded.
"I have it." Ozpin answered.
"Give it back." Jaune demanded.
"Not until you answer a few questions."
Jaune glared. "I can't believe my own subconscious is holding my sword hostage. Freud would have a field day with this."
"I believe we've been over this. I am NOT a hallucination." Ozpin reminded him with a frown. His scroll beeped at him and he looked at it for one second before refocusing on his conversation.
"So you expect me to believe that I've somehow gone back in time?" Jaune asked with a mocking smile. "It's either that or I'm in Hell."
Ozpin sighed. "I do not yet know for sure. But the results of the DNA test I just got tells me you really are Jaune Arc, and your father tells me that you were never trained for combat, much less that technique you used last night." Ozpin frowned thoughtfully. "I want to ask you a few questions about the near future. If you're right, I'll know that something is going on."
"Do you seriously believe I somehow traveled back in time?" Jaune deadpanned.
"Yes."
"What?" Jaune gaped.
"It certainly beats the alternative, does it no?" Ozpin asked with a small smile. "Now then, shall we get on with the questions?"
Ozpin spent the next hour interrogating the boy on future events.
Interlude
"Jaune! I heard you were in the infirmary! Is everything okay?" Pyrrha asked him the moment he entered the cafeteria.
He forced himself to smile. If Ozpin was right, she wasn't a hallucination, which made dealing with her all the more painful for him.
"Yeah, just a minor case of Aura exhaustion." He lied easily.
"How'd you use up all your Aura?" Ren asked curiously.
"Aura manipulation exercises." Jaune answered quietly. Seeing his best friend still alive...
"Wow, you're really working hard!" Ruby complimented him. "Maybe it's time for Team RWBY to step it up a notch too!"
"Hear hear!" Yang agreed heartily.
"I could use the extra training." Weiss added thoughtfully.
Blake just shrugged.
"Oh, oh, how about a joint exercise?" Nora chimed in.
"Could be fun." Yang nodded.
"What do you say?" Ruby asked him.
Goddamn it. Goddamn it all.
"I…ah…Sorry, I'm tied up at the moment. Maybe later?" he replied with what he hoped looked like a sheepish smile and not a tearful expression.
"Aww…" A dejected looking Ruby and Nora both sighed.
He looked at them both. "I'm…I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everyone." He got up. "I…I have to go. See you in a bit."
"Wait!" Pyrrha grabbed his sleeve. He turned around. "Are you…Are you sure you're alright?"
"Why'd you ask?" he asked hesitantly.
"You look…You look really sad…You're not…You're not doing anything dangerous, right?"
He forced himself to smile. "Don't worry about me. I just…I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."
Unbeknownst to him, Blake began to carefully study him after he said that.
He quickly left them behind.
Lunch Break
"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" Ozpin suddenly broke the silence.
Jaune looked up from his sandwich. "You've never asked me for permission to ask a question unless it's important or personal. So which is it?"
"Both." Ozpin answered.
Jaune shrugged. He was, of course, perfectly willing to share any information that might be relevant. "Shoot."
"This is the third week in a row that you've spent your lunch period here." Ozpin began.
Jaune frowned. It didn't take a genius to figure out where this was going. "So you want to know why, right?" he interrupted him.
Ozpin's eyebrow rose slightly as he nodded.
Jaune shrugged. "In case you need more information." He tried.
"You are already providing me with the information I need. Is there anything else that you believe I should know?" Ozpin asked him.
Jaune frowned again. "Maybe."
"I can always ask you to stop by. There really is no need to avoid your friends." Ozpin replied.
Jaune's frown widened. Perceptive bastard. "Who says I'm avoiding them?"
"Years of experience working with war veterans with PTSD and survivor's guilt." Ozpin immediately answered.
That had been a stupid question. If there was one person in the world that could understand his motives it'd be Ozpin.
Jaune looked away. "You're also projecting. I read your after action reports."
"And you're deflecting. Why are you avoiding your friends?" Ozpin countered.
"You're the great Ozpin. You should know. And don't call them my friends. MY friends died decades ago." Jaune snapped.
"You do realize that what you're doing is not healthy?" Ozpin asked him.
"My health is irrelevant. All that matters is stopping this war. You can worry about my health afterwards." Jaune answered him coldly.
"Have you even thought of what you'll do after this war is stopped?" Ozpin pressed on.
"What?" Jaune glared at the man.
"What do you plan to do in your future?" Ozpin's lips quirked. "Or should I say past?"
"I don't know. The war is my first priority." Jaune shook his head. "I hadn't even thought of afterwards."
Ozpin frowned. "I see. Arc, I may not be your master anymore, but you are not to come here again unless I call you or you have relevant information."
Jaune sighed. "It's not going to work. I don't plan to get too close to anyone in this timeline."
Ozpin shrugged. "Be that as it may, I wager your friends will be more insistent on keeping you around if you can no longer use your usual excuse to avoid them."
Jaune got up. "Oh, do shut up. We both know you're just like me." He told his former mentor as he left the office.
Ozpin frowned.
The Chess match
"Oh, hey , Jaune! Look, Weiss got a chessboard!" Ruby waved towards him. Although he wanted to make up an excuse to avoid them, he found that he couldn't. Not when Ruby was looking at him expectantly like that. And besides, a chessboard?
Interesting.
He walked towards them, feeling nostalgic. Maybe he should borrow this. He'd finally be able to beat that bastard Ozpin.
"Weiss, can I borrow this for a day?" he asked the heiress.
"You? Can you even play?" Weiss asked skeptically. "You're probably just gonna play with them as if they were toy soldiers, like Ruby here."
Ruby chuckled sheepishly.
"I know the basics." He replied with a smile.
"Okay, then how about this: If you beat me, I'll lend it to you whenever you want." Weiss challenged him, thinking he wouldn't even pose a challenge. "And if win, you don't get to ask me out anymore."
Jaune thought about it. On the one hand, he did not want to spend time around them. On the other, he could use the challenge. "Sure."
"Your funeral." She told him. Weiss, as expected, chose white.
That was fine with him. The game began. After a few moves, Jaune had to hide a smile. It had been a good game, but they were nearing the end.
Jaune moved his bishop, taking Weiss's. She frowned and took his knight pawn with her queen.
He forced the surge of glee down and moved his bishop. "Discover check." He announced.
She frowned again examining the board for any possibilities.
"Oh, and incidentally, mate." Jaune added.
Weiss looked at the board incredulously, examining every piece for the better part of a minute.
"How?!" she finally demanded.
He grinned at her, and was reminded of how beautiful she was, and how he'd often tried to ask her out. He froze.
"How could you beat me?!" Weiss once again demanded.
Weiss looked so strong, so...alive.
Jaune stood up. "Got lucky, I guess. I need to go."
"Hey, wait, a minute, come back here! I want a rematch!" Weiss demanded, grabbing his jacket, preventing him from leaving.
"Maybe later. I really need to go." He almost pleaded.
"Jaune, are you sure you're okay?" Pyrrha asked him.
He forced himself to nod. "Of course! Why'd you ask?"
"I get the feeling that you've been avoiding us." She answered honestly.
Jaune internally frowned. "I've just been really busy lately. I'll see you all later, I promise."
And he walked away quickly, before anyone could catch up to him.
The concerns
"Have all of you noticed that Jaune's been acting strange lately?" Nora suddenly spoke up.
"So we're finally going to acknowledge that?" Weiss asked.
"He does seem more out of character." Ren agreed.
"And he knows things that I wouldn't expect him to." Blake added.
"What, you mean the poetry?" Yang turned to her partner.
"It's more than that. He quotes various books and is capable of discussing them at length." Blake answered thoughtfully.
"Oh? You've been discussing much with Lady Killer?" Yang questioned her partner.
A slight blush. "It's not like that. We were simply talking about a shared interest. Besides, he always leaves too quickly." Blake quickly denied.
Yang could have made a joke about that, but she didn't, because she's better than that.
"Okay, so he's more well-read than we thought. Is that really that strange?" Pyrrha mused out loud.
"If it were just that it wouldn't. But Blake's right. He knows things that Jaune Arc could not possibly know." Weiss added.
"Are you still angry about that chess match?" Ruby asked her partner with long suffering look on her face.
Weiss huffed and looked away. "No!"
"So maybe he studied up?" Ruby asked more than answered.
"Without any of us noticing?" Ren gave her a skeptical look.
"What if he was just pretending to be incompetent?" Blake wondered.
Everyone paused.
"So what, he's some kind of crouching moron hidden badass?" Nora asked with an excited expression on her face.
"He did defeat Cardin in that match." Ren murmured thoughtfully.
They remembered that fight.
Pyrrha's eyes narrowed. "Now that I think about it, in that fight…"
Yang cut in, having caught on to the same thing Pyrrha had. "He only got hit in areas where it wouldn't hurt too much, he managed to keep him occupied far longer than he usually does, and it was obvious that he was holding back."
Pyrrha nodded. But she remembered training Jaune. Unfortunate as it was to say, at the beginning, Jaune had been kind of a lost cause. No one could fake that.
She voiced her thoughts.
Yang nodded. She had seen Jaune fight and her insight told her that no one could fake being that bad.
They didn't like this. They had thought they knew the cheerful goofball that was their friend, but they were beginning to realize that Jaune Arc kept many secrets, and they were determined to find them out.
A fine evening
"Lovely night, no?" Jaune looked to a side and saw Ozpin.
"It is." He agreed as he looked up at the full moon once more.
Ozpin stood beside him for a while. "Today's an important day I take it?"
"What gave it away?" he asked.
"You were acting strange," he paused for a moment. "Well, stranger." He conceded.
Jaune snorted. "Looking at your students through those cameras you had installed is a rather creepy habit."
"I also noticed you bought a single bottle of wine. A rather expensive bottle." Ozpin ignored his jab.
Bastard probably wanted his wine. It was a pretty nice brand.
"I'm not even going to ask how you I bought that." Jaune told him.
Silence descended upon them.
"I don't suppose you have a cigarette?" Jaune suddenly asked him, knowing full well that Ozpin did indeed carry cigarettes with him, even though he had never seen him smoke them.
Ozpin reached into his coat and pulled out two cigars.
Jaune whistled as he took the offered cigar. "Nice."
Ozpin frowned at him as he lit his cigar. "Smoking's bad for you."
"Hypocrite." Jaune replied.
They both chuckled.
"My line of work, smoking's the last thing that's going to kill me." Ozpin told him after the laughter subsided.
"You run a school." Jaune interjected.
"I run a school full of hormonal, overly powerful children." Ozpin corrected drily.
Jaune paused. "Huh." A certain food fight came to mind. "Touché." He conceded.
They both stood there silently, observing the moon.
"The wine I bought. Drinking by my lonesome sounds kind of…lonesome." Jaune began hesitantly after they'd finished killing their lungs.
"I accept your offer." Ozpin interrupted him.
"I hadn't even finished offering…" Jaune huffed. "But I graciously accept your offer of company."
The bastard smiled. Jaune was sure of it.
Ozpin reached into his coat and pulled out two paper cups.
"Seriously?" Jaune asked him flatly. "You weren't planning for this, were you?"
"You're the tactician." Ozpin reminded him.
Jaune snorted as he reached for the bottle he had left by his side.
"Today's the day the war officially ended." Jaune murmured.
Ozpin said nothing.
Jaune opened the bottle and poured some into the paper cups.
"But for some of us, the war never really ended." Jaune sighed as he placed the bottle down. "All of us lost something. No one made it out unscathed."
Jaune stared at his cup. "I can't let that happen again."
"And we won't. We'll stop it this time." Ozpin interjected solemnly.
Jaune glanced at him. The headmaster had a somber expression on his face and Jaune remembered that Ozpin too had once been a tactician leading the forces of Remnant against the many horrors that sought to overwhelm them.
Jaune raised his glass. "To fallen comrades."
"To fallen comrades." Ozpin raised his glass.
Fine wine in paper cups with good company.
There were worse ways to spend a night he supposed.
AN: I read in the RWBY wiki that Jaune apparently has a good grasp on tactics, and thought that would be an interesting angle to explore. Then I read a fic on time time travel and this story came about.
I also wanted to write a story about a character that's actively trying to avoid the people that he wronged. Thought it'd be interesting.
I admit that this particular Jaune's relationship with Ozpin is also something that I wanted to explore. I see them (in this fic) as two broken people who coped differently with their respective traumas and those are some of the most interesting relationships to me.
I envisioned that somewhere along the road, Jaune would start reconnecting with his friends, getting over his survivor's guilt, with Ozpin manipulating background events to make this happen and Jaune, in turn, manipulating him into getting out more.