It took a full hour to find Jaune, who had been hiding in Professor Goodwitch's office, and several more minutes to calm him down. Still, he shied away from Weiss for the rest of the week, and growled at Yang, Nora, Ren and Ruby for the whole day. Nobody blamed him. Nora even admitted that if she'd been the one to wake up with Weiss kissing her, she would've gone into a murderous madness and then proceeded to run all the way to Vacuo, where she would've become a serial killer who targeted all the white-haired girls in the kingdom. As usual, no one listened to her.
After they explained him why had they urged Weiss to do such a thing -and Yang received a not-so-weak bite for that-, the next day found them back in the library, this time all eight of them clustered together.
"So, which is our next move?", asked Yang. "Looks like our first try went poorly. Any bright idea?".
Jaune growled a curse at her. The other three Dragonbloods firmly refused to translate the insult to the others.
"I don't know. I mean, we tried for years. Maybe we should just... accept our powerlessness?", proposed Ruby. "Jaune doesn't look any nearer to unlocking his Aura than when he was ten".
"This is not an option", stated Pyrrha, earning a sigh from Jaune. "Let's try to make him experience happiness. Jaune, what do you like? Maybe, if we can mix together all your favourite activities, we can unlock your Aura through happiness...".
"Won't work", replied Yang. "We already tried that way".
"Maybe I could give him meditation lessons and help him with his concentration", said Ren. "Pyrrha did say that his Aura can be unlocked by focus, too. It's worth a try".
"I honestly don't think it will work", retorted Blake, flatly. "Does he have any phobia? We could try with fear...".
"Na, weeknakh!", interrupted Jaune, crossing his arms and scowling.
"Jaune's right, fear is not the right way", nodded Ruby. "It's just that... it's difficult to know what is right, since none of us is a dragonologist".
"Dracologist", corrected Weiss. "And if I'm not wrong, my family does have a few famous dracologist among the family friends. We could...".
"No", Yang cut her off. "We're not letting anyone outside this group know this problem. Do you know that the Council could take action, if they knew of a Dragonblood without his Aura?".
The others paled. They all knew what "take action" meant if the Council was involved: culling.
"So what are we gonna do?", asked Nora, exasperated. "Do you think I like to just sit here and watch as someone of my kind has to go through this?".
"Nora, we all are trying to help", Ren reassured her. "It's just that this problem requires more than just Maghnild to be solved".
"That much's obvious", muttered Nora. "It's not like I can hammer down on Jaune until he unlocks his Aura... right?".
"Right", nodded Ren.
"So what are we gonna do, now?", asked Yang, impatiently.
Jaune sighed and fished out his Scroll from his pocket. Everyone watched attentively as he typed and waited for the translation to appear on the screen before dropping the device on the table, screen up, for everyone to see.
Nothing. You can not help me, so do not wrack your brain about this. It is not worth the effort.
"Jaune, this isn't true", argued Pyrrha. "You are worth the effort, even if we can't unlock your Aura".
Jaune gave her a tiny smile and walked away, not before retrieving his Scroll and pocketing it again. Slowly, the others left, too. First were Weiss and Blake, one off to study for the Dust exam and the other off to read for Oobleck's latest essay. Then went Ren and Nora, just because Nora was getting hungry, and everyone knew by then that a hungry Nora was a terrifying sight even for the bravest Knight. Last went Ruby and Yang, briefly thanking her for the effort she was making just to help Jaune, heading back to their dorm, probably to play one of Yang's latest videogames. Left alone in the library, Pyrrha collapsed on a chair and sighed. 'So much work, and we're back to square one', she thought bitterly. 'How could this go worse, I don't know'. Never taunt Fate, she should've learned that.
"Locked Aura, uh?".
Whipping around, she saw Cardin and his team walking out from behind a shelf. 'Why in the world didn't I checked if we were alone?!', she berated herself as she watched the four smirking students walk toward her. "Cardin. What do you want?".
"I was strolling by and I happened to hear your little conversation", he grinned malignly. "Poor Jaune... I really pity him. You know, I think I will call a specialist to help him".
Pyrrha narrowed her eyes. Nice Cardin wasn't in the natural order of things. "What do you want?", she repeated.
"I bet the Council will be more than glad to help him out with his little problem, you know? After all, it is the law that every civilian should report any abnormality in a Half Dragon as soon as they discover it". His grin widened. "Instead of all those stupid books about history, try and read the Book of Laws of Remnant, chapter thirty-four, section seven, article thirteen, comma two. The whole chapter thirty-four is about the Half Dragon laws".
"Cardin, what...".
"Don't worry, you can do something about it", he said. "But... it would come with a price. A fair price. The life of your pathetic leader seems to be worth quite something for you".
Pyrrha's eyes widened as she realized what did he mean. "You...".
"You know, I really don't have time for Oobleck's essay. Will you take care of it?". Without waiting for her response, he grinned and continued. "Thanks girl. And, of course, don't tell anyone, if you want Jauney boy to go on living, okay?".
As she stood there, dumbstruck, Team CRDL turned and exited the library, laughing and patting each other's shoulders for the well done -vile- blackmail.
#####
"Pyrrha, what's wrong?", asked Nora as soon as she entered the dorm. "You look terrible".
"Nothing", said the taller redhead, quickly changing into her nightclothes and throwing herself on the bed. "Just tired".
Her teammates exchanged a frown. "Na, hiena wer na kheranan", stated Jaune, sitting on the edge of her bed and placing a hand on her arm. "Xal'okh vik hiena narekhan?".
"Nothing's wrong, Jaune, I'm just tired", she replied, and it was partially true: she was tired. But something was wrong, too. And by something, she meant everything. "Tomorrow I'll be perfectly fine".
Jaune made an unsatisfied grunt and left her to her sleep.
#####
The following morning didn't bring good news to Team JNPR. Pyrrha ate breakfast in silence, something that was highly unusual for the usually serene redhead, and immediately after classes she ran off, not answering to her teammates' questions of "Where are you going?!", who knew where to do who knew what.
During lunch Team CRDL seemed even more cocky than the other days, but strangely they left Jaune alone. Not that he complained. But that, together with Pyrrha's unusualness, successfully put the blond Dragonblood on his guard. He passed lunch frowning at Pyrrha, who in turn was looking down at her plate, picking at her food just like Jaune had picked at his own when the others had asked him about Cardin. For a second, he pictured Team CRDL bullying Pyrrha and he almost laughed: the bullies would've a very bad time if they ever tried. Maybe she couldn't take on the whole team if they cooperated, but one by one wasn't a hard challenge for the four times Mistralian champion.
After the afternoon classes, where Pyrrha lost to Cardin!, Jaune got really worried. He asked Yang and Ruby, but they didn't know anything about it. All they knew was that Pyrrha looked really down when they left her in the library, but then again she looked really down even when he left the library, and a simple failure with unlocking his Aura couldn't have made her so miserable. Something had happened. What, he didn't know.
Ren, Nora, Weiss and Blake didn't have any more answers for him, although Nora did promise to help him find out what was wrong with their teammate, and since Nora was in, Ren joined the plan too. Yang and Ruby accepted, too, although more because Jaune asked them than out of worry. Weiss and Blake were dragged along as unwilling accomplices. Very unwilling.
The seven plotters were a force to fear and behold, but unfortunately they hadn't the gift of omniscience, and so they could only do what every normal people could do: wait and see. Under Nora's suggestion -who was elated that one of her suggestion had actually been listened to-, they organized guard turns to check on Pyrrha. The whole plan looked quite suspicious and, frankly, also quite ridiculous, as Weiss pointed out.
"Look at you! You're stalking Pyrrha just because today she looks a bit down!", she berated Ruby during their watch turn. "Can't she just be down for a day? You know, it's common for people to have bad days".
"Oh, shut up", replied Ruby, waving her off. They had had a rough start, but she was slowly becoming friends with Weiss. This did not prevent her from shutting her up every time she thought it was necessary. Namely, half the times she spoke. "At least with this Jaune has something to keep his mind off his... problem".
Weiss was defeated by that argument. She knew that the sisters would do almost anything to help Jaune, after more than seven years of watching him struggle and fail, and she had realized that when Yang had forced her to kiss him, for both of them's utter disgust. Not that Jaune was hideous, but Weiss really didn't want to repeat the experience. And apparently, Jaune didn't, either.
It was only two days after that, during Jaune's watch turn, he discovered what was happening.
He had followed Pyrrha in the library, discreetly hiding behind a shelf to keep her, if not within his eyesight, at least within earshot. And what he heard he didn't like. Barely ten minutes after they had arrived, Team CRDL entered the library laughing loudly and joking among themselves, something they knew shouldn't be done in a library due to the strict rule of silence. Nora had once been banned for two days from the library because of a particularly loud belch. It had been embarrassing. However, there was nothing embarrassing in the way Cardin spoke to Pyrrha.
"How's my best girl Pyrrha going?", he asked, snickering, and Jaune tensed immediately. "I need a small favour. I'm sure you can do it".
"What do you want, Cardin?", asked Pyrrha, her voice as tense as Jaune. "I'm studying".
"Oh, you know, just a box of Grimm Wasps. Just for fun", innocently replied Cardin, but everyone knew that Cardin was all but innocent. "And make sure they have really big stingers. It's important".
"What are you going to do with those?", Pyrrha inquired. Jaune heard a chair moving and guessed that Pyrrha had to have stood up. "Wasps can be dangerous if placed... in the wrong hands".
"Are you doubting me, Pyrrha? I'm hurt!", laughed Cardin, the mocking tone never leaving his voice. "Just have the box ready for this evening and bring it to our dorm. Otherwise... say bye-bye to your Jauney boy".
Jaune tenseness became confusion. Him? He had to have heard wrong. There was no way...
Or maybe there was.
