(Well, I guess this is going to be the chapter where everyone is going to hate me now…)
"Ren, wake up. We're going to be late again…" My eyes slightly opened at the familiar voice that started to shake me.
"Nora…" Nora was already in her school uniform. I can't say that I'm surprised. She's been doing this ever since...
"Is Pyrrha up yet?" Nora shrugged her shoulders. I looked at her bed to see that she was still not awoken yet. I guess this was going to be one of those days again…
"Pyrrha, wake up. We're going to be late!" She would usually wake up to the sound of Nora's loud voice, but…
"I'm up, Jaune…" Yup, it's going to be one those days again. After the both of us had taken our showers, we began to put on our uniforms. Did Pyrrha not sleep well enough again? I can see the bags that are under her eyes and trust me, you don't want to know how she looks right now.
"Pyrrha, not enough sleep again?" She nodded her head slowly. She seemed to be close to closing her eyes while she was standing, but I had been quick enough to tap her on her shoulder to wake her up.
"Huh? O-Oh, sorry, Ren. I guess I wasn't able to get enough sleep again." I wasn't a fool as to why she didn't. No, this had started happening after…
"Ren, your hair's a bit messy again." Looking in the mirror, I noticed that my hair wasn't in the best of conditions. I sighed in aggravation.
"Sigh… don't worry about it. Let's just go to class already."
"Ren." Before I could open the door for the three of us, I heard Pyrrha call my name.
"What is it?" She was looked at Jaune's bed before looking at me. Nora, who was beside it, was looking down sadly.
"When should we… you know, speak to him again?"
"...I don't know."
"Ren, this was my fault, I shouldn't have came up with-"
"No, none of this is your fault. We are all to blame."
" But still, I feel like it was all my fault! I… only thought that Jaune would be better without us. He asked us to train him, but all we did was argue with each other about how we should do that. We were basically throwing all of the experience we had from our teachers, and threw it all over him! And what's worse, is that some of us had started to use our frustration on him! I wanted us to teach him, not make him suffer!"
"Pyrrha, remember, this was all of our faults. I'll admit it, we shouldn't have tried to force our teacher's teachings onto him. No one would be able to improve if you are constantly learning from others who have different fighting styles."
"I want him to improve on his own… but I guess my decisions were not the best. I asked all of you to leave him, to face his own problems on his own, to hopefully do what he thought was right... without us." All of what's happening to Jaune was everyone's fault. We shouldn't have decided to leave on him his own. He must hate us now…and I wouldn't blame him...
"Ren… I miss our leader…" Hearing Nora's sad complaint, I wrapped my arms around her. Nora's personality had changed the most. She wasn't her usual energetic self anymore. Instead, she was replaced with a Nora who was empty on both the inside and outside.
"I know Nora… we all do." I started to rub her back a bit to calm her down. She always acted a child. But right now, I have to make sure that she doesn't actually become one. We've all changed from our decision.
Pyrrha hasn't been doing that much with her training…
Yang had been a bit more quieter in her team…
Weiss… she was actually starting to miss Jaune. I know she doesn't show it, but I could tell she did with the way she was starting to act around all of her friends. Her studies were lacking a bit, and she wasn't yelling at Ruby anymore, in which she had decided to give her space because of the guilt that she was bearing...
Blake was… I don't really know how Blake feels about Jaune. They didn't talk much, but I think she had some respect for him because he didn't care for the boundary that separated Faunus and Humans.
And now, that only leaves Ruby…
She hadn't been talking to anyone recently. According to Yang, every time we were done with our classes, she had been locking herself inside their bathroom, crying until she fell asleep. Again, we shouldn't had convinced her to break up with Jaune. Ruby's fifteen years old, so I doubt she wouldn't be taking this harder on herself than anyone else. She had her first boyfriend, only to have to break up with him shortly…
And as for me, I can't even stop thinking about my our blonde leader. I tried to keep my mind clear in classes, but it's just not the same without our leader. I don't even know where he is right now. But where ever he is, I hope that he's okay.
"Pyrrha, after all of our classes, we're going out to Vale. We're going to bring back our friend again." Pyrrha looked at me with a sad smile. Probably hoping that we could find him again. No, not only just find him. We're just hoping that he could forgive us for our stupidity.
"And what if we can't find him?" Pyrrha asked me, uncertain to the extent where she was thinking that he wasn't even in Vale.
"Trust me, we will find him. I don't care if he doesn't forgive us. All I want to know is if he's safe and okay. Nora, are you coming?" She only nodded her head. Good. I can't stand this guilt any longer. We're all going to have to fix our mistake.
For the better of us all...
Classes hadn't been that much different than any other day. Team RWBY had began to not care for the lessons recently. Ruby always had her head down, Yang was always trying to cheer up her sister, Weiss was always rubbing her eyes from the lack of sleep she had, and Blake was always reading her book, not paying attention to the lesson at all.
As for our team, we tried our best to pay attention to the lesson without Jaune on our minds. We miss him, yes, but we don't want to lack in our studies. Jaune really had this impact on all of us. Without Jaune's presence, the bonds that we shared with one another, will only be broken apart even more. Classes weren't the same, and our friends weren't the same.
But right now, it was lunch time. All of us sat at our usual table with our plates in front of us. For the most part, it was quiet. Usually, when Jaune was here, everyone was happy and cheerful.
We deserved to be quiet.
We didn't deserve to have happiness, not with this painful guilt in our minds…
"Ruby, you should eat…" Noticing that Ruby wasn't eating with her food, Yang decided to speak to her again. She didn't respond to her, only interested with playing with her food with a spoon. Ruby rested her head on her hand with a depressed look.
"Ruby… please." Yang asked her again, this time, she scooped up some of the food and placed it in front of her mouth, only for Ruby to ignore her completely. At this, Yang sighed and gave up.
"Damnit!" After she had placed the spoon down, Yang had slammed her fist on the table in frustration. We were surprised, but Ruby kept up her depressed face. This wasn't right…
None of this was right…
"Yang, please mind that we are in a public area. Don't lose yourself to your now." Weiss, who wasn't even looking at her, had told her this. Yang wanted to say something, but she didn't…
She only calmed herself down in displeasure…
"Everyone, I was thinking… that we should talk to Jaune again…" Pyrrha had mustered up all of her courage to say this. From hearing her announcement, everyone at the table had looked at her, including Ruby.
"Can we…?" Ruby asked her in a depressed tone. She dropped her spoon and looked at Pyrrha with a bit of uncertainty in her eyes.
"Yeah, how would we even find him? He doesn't have his scroll on him anymore." Blake had closed her book to join in on the conversation. I didn't think she would have some interest in this, but I guess she didn't want her team to be like this anymore.
"It might be a bit of a stretch, but… I think we might be able to find him again. Our team is planning on leaving to Vale after classes and search for him. I was wondering if any of you were interested in joining up with us." Pyrrha looked nervous. Was she scared that no one else would want to go out and look for him?
"I am!" Ruby had instantly jolted from her seat and announced her thought. From being depressed, to being instantly interested into our search for Jaune. Even Yang was surprised from the sudden outburst from her.
"Yang, do you want to?" I asked her. She nodded her head in response.
"...If Ruby wants to, then I will go too. I'll admit it, without Jaune here, it's getting a bit boring." Yang started to stretch as she spoke her own mind.
"Do you actually believe that he's willing to forgive us? First we leave him, and now, we're just going to back to him like nothing happened?" I don't want to say this, but Weiss was right. He wouldn't be willing to forgive us easily. But still, I just want to know if he's okay. If I can know that, then I'm satisfied.
"Then what do you want us to do? Just continue to sit here and do nothing until he comes back? Yes, we did leave him, but I can't stand the fact that he's just out of lives now!" Pyrrha was beginning to yell at Weiss now.
I didn't think that this will play out this badly.
"For whatever we do Pyrrha, both of those decisions are bad. It was your idea that got us into this mess to begin with!" Stop it Weiss, stop fighting. Putting the blame on someone else does nothing but hurt them and yourself. I was the leader of team RWBY, and I couldn't even stop my own teammate from arguing.
"Yes, I'll admit it was my idea, but I didn't want it to be like this! All I wanted was for Jaune to find his own way of fighting! We can't force someone to fight like us!"
"So your idea was to just leave him there!? Alone to the point where he will just get put down by his classmates!?" Stop it… I don't want to remember his pained face. He looked at us, practically begging us to help him. But we didn't do anything... I clenched my fist in anger. This was my fault… If only I…
"Stop trying to put the blame on me! We all stood there and watch him get beaten! I didn't want to do anything because he always wanted to fight for himself! He can't continue to rely on us to protect him all the time! Yes, I wanted to help him, but-" Stop it, Pyrrha…
"You didn't right? That just proves how much of a bad teammate you are!" Stop arguing...
"Excuse me!?"
"Weiss! Stop trying to push the blame onto Pyrrha!" Yang joined in the argument.
Stop it…
"Yang, weren't you excited to see how much Jaune improves his skills after leaving him on his own!? I'm sure that he was getting sick of your lessons! Your lessons only involved him getting beat down until you were satisfied! No wonder he left because of you!"
"And what about you? You didn't hold back with the insults every time he failed your lessons! Have you ever thought that he wanted to leave because of you!?"
"I don't understand, why do you care about him Weiss!? I thought you were sick of him trying to make a move you! Hell, after we found about his transcripts, you were happy that "we were finally getting rid of that nuisance!" And now, all of a sudden, you want to put the blame on all of us!" Yang had stood up from her seat. I can't stand this anymore…
Why are we even fighting…?
"...If I knew that I would feel this guilty, then I wouldn't have decided on that as my action! Because of him… because of him…" Weiss didn't know what else to say about him…
Just be quiet, Weiss…
"I thought so. If you don't know what to say, then shut up and sit down!"
"Enough!" I slammed my hands on the table, gaining the attention of everyone at the table. With the loud conversations going on in the cafeteria, no one had heard the slam.
"Ruby?" I heard Yang call out my name. I can't stand this anymore. We argued when deciding on how to teach him, and we're still continuing this nonsense!
"Be quiet Yang! Stop yelling and sit down!" Listening to my demands, Yang sat back down in her seat.
"I'm… tired of this. Tired of this non-stop arguing! We did this with Jaune's lesson's,and we're still doing it even though he's not here! Yang made a mistake, Weiss made a mistake, Pyrrha made a mistake, I made a mistake, we all made a mistake! I was the one who decided to break up with him for Oum's sake! I felt like I wasn't being a good girlfriend when I didn't know what to do to help Jaune! We both weren't ready for a relationship! Just stop… just stop arguing!" I could feel tears on the corner of my eyes, but I didn't want to show them. I was going to be a huntress… I can't show tears in this type of situation…
I can't show tears…
I have to be strong… just like how dad told me about how strong mom was...
A strong huntress doesn't cry…!
Jaune…
"Was it my fault? Was I really not being a good girlfriend? Would he be happy with someone else other than me?" I felt Yang wipe the wet tears off of my face. No,
I'm not strong…
I'm not strong like Yang, and I'm not strong like mom…
"Ruby…" Yang started to comfort me by pulling me into a hug. I didn't want to be treated like a kid anymore, but still, I wrapped my arms around her and cried…
"...Ruby's right. We shouldn't be arguing. I don't want to destroy our friendship with one another." I heard Pyrrha speak again.
"We all had something to do with this, and blaming each other wouldn't help us at all." Ren, who had been quiet for the majority of this conversation, had decided to speak.
"Yeah, all of this arguing is started to make me sad…" Nora, who strangely didn't speak at all, decided to speak up. She wasn't the same energetic Nora that I knew before.
"I'm not saying this like I didn't like Jaune at first, but seeing each other like this has make me want to bring him back." Blake had said this. I started to raise my head up a bit when I heard her say that. I was starting to smile a bit, noticing that everyone was wanting to see Jaune again. Wiping my tears away, I looked at Weiss, who had her arms crossed and eyes closed.
"...Fine, I'll admit it. I… kind of miss Jaune."
"We all knew that." We all said, simultaneously. At this, she opened her eyes in shock. Did she not know that we were watching her too?
"Wh-What? H-How did you all know?" We all began to laugh at her. I think she's wasn't aware of what she was doing after Jaune left. The signs that she gave away only proved that she missed him as much as us.
"So, is everyone willing to look for Jaune after all of our classes?" I asked everyone. Looking at everyone, they started to smile at each other and nodded their heads. We were all coming together again. I don't know if Jaune will be happy to see us again, but all I want to do is apologize. We can't just sit here and do nothing while Jaune continues to suffer.
"Let's go find Jaune, Ruby." I smiled at Yang after she said this. I'm happy that we were all thinking like a team again. But more importantly…
I was happy that I was going to see Jaune again…
All of a sudden, the doors to the cafeteria had opened. It could've been Professor Goodwitch, who usually gives us an announcement, and we all had to silence ourselves to listen to her…
But it wasn't Professor Goodwitch…
But the entire cafeteria had went quiet anyway...
It was… Jaune who came passed those doors…
Along with… a Faunus girl that I've never seen before…
"Is that...Jaune?" I heard Pyrrha ask, as we continued to watch Jaune and the girl get their food and sat down. Was she… his new girlfriend? N-No, that can't be. While Jaune's a bit adorable at some times, but…
Could he have really moved on that fast…?
"Look, his shield... It's… not the Crocea Mors anymore…!" Blake pointed out his shield, which was indeed, not the same shield that he had been previously using before. It was smaller than his usual shield, so why change it?
"Who's that girl? Has anyone seen here here before?" Everyone shrugged their shoulders at Yang's question. We continued to watch the two of them talk to each other in silence. We couldn't hear what they were saying, but I think they were having a good time.
"She's starting to… feed him?" Weiss said in shock. Feeding… each other? I didn't do that with Jaune…
It was until I saw Cardin, who was with his friends, and was also carrying a tray of food towards Jaune, that I needed to do something. Getting up from my seat, I began to walk towards Jaune's table until…
"Ruby, wait! Let Jaune handle this!" I felt Pyrrha grab a hold of my arm.
"What? This is our chance, Pyrrha! We can't just let Cardin do whatever he wants anymore!" I yelled at her. She started to shake her head, disagreeing with my point.
"I-I want to as well, but… what if he doesn't want to be saved? What if he hates us even more?"
"Then I'll take my chances. I won't let Jaune suffer like this anymore!"
"Wait." Before I could roughly take my arm away, I felt Pyrrha pull on my arm harder.
"I'll go with you. I'm not going to let you do this on your own. That bastard needs to have what's coming to him." She smiled. In return, I smiled back.
"Let go!" Everyone at the table heard the screams that came from Jaune's table. Dove… he was starting to pull on that girl's ears! And…
Jaune was covered in food…
Clenching my fist, I started to walk towards Jaune's table. I was starting to get sick Cardin's treatment to the other students. Especially when it comes to messing with Jaune!
"Caaaardin!" Before I could do something, Yang had walked passed me with her hair flared up. I don't know if he could hear us, but if Yang's going towards them, then why wouldn't they notice her?
"Jaune-sama!"
Everything had happened in a second...
Cardin was holding his hand out in pain from punching Jaune, the girl had skillfully twisted Dove's arm, and pushed him away from her. Not only has this stopped both mine and Pyrrha's tracks, but it had also stopped Yang. Was she just as surprised as we were?
"Jaune!" Cardin had began running at Jaune with his other fist raised high stupidly. But before he had the chance to punch him, the girl had instantly caught his arm. While I couldn't hear what they were saying, I could tell that the girl was starting to get pissed off. I knew this because I saw she was starting to put pressure on his arm. Hard enough to put him on his knees. Wanting to get closer, I started to move up a bit.
"He's… a damn liar! He faked his own transcripts, and even dared to come here when he's this weak! What makes you think that Beacon Academy needs this pathetic-"
"But did he harm anyone in the process? Did his lie do anything that could've potentially risk the lives of his teammates? And what makes you think that this school needs someone like you? A person who will only pick on the weak is the closest definition to being pathetic! You might call Jaune-sama a weakling, but from what I see from him, he is a person who's strong because of his kindness…" That's right, Jaune wasn't weak. Sure, he wasn't good at fighting, but I know that he's strong!
After she said this, the girl had taken Jaune's hand and began to walk towards the cafeteria door. Yang, who was in front of her, had moved out of her way. We couldn't see Jaune's face because he was looking at the floor. Does he hate us to the extent that he doesn't even want to look at us?
"I'll get you both back for this! I'll make your life hell, Jaune! Everyone will see just how weak and pathetic you are!" Cardin yelled. Hearing this, the girl had stopped walking. Looking back at Cardin with a serious look, she said:
"If he's pathetic and weak in everyone's eyes, then I would be the truth that would tell them that they're wrong..." After saying that, the two had left the room. But not without Jaune taking a glance at us, with sadness in his eyes. Does he… actually hate us?
"Cardin!" After they left, Yang, who was still fired up, had decided to take on Cardin. Looking at him, he was starting to laugh at her.
"What, finally deciding to take action now?" He chuckled. His friends had backed away from Yang, as they didn't want to deal with an angry Yang.
"You must have some balls doing that to him while we're here!" Her hands were clenched tightly. I knew she was ready to punch the life out of him. I need to stop her, before things get messy…
But what about Jaune…?
I need to speak to him, but Yang is about to go crazy...
What should I do…?
"You're talking about me having some balls, but look at you and your friends! You basically abandoned him! Not only that, you didn't even decide to help him from the others that were also bullying him!"
"...And that changes now! I'm going to teach you a lesson that you'll never forget!" Yang's hands were clenched even tighter. And they were also shaking as well. She was taking all of her guilt, and putting it into her fists
"You think Jaune's going to be your friend after all you've done to him!? Please, cry me a damn-" Yang was getting ready to attack Cardin with her full power…
"Yang, stop!" I yelled for Yang to stop, but she didn't listen. She only continued to add more power into her fist before striking down Cardin.
"Yang, stop!" This time, I used my semblance to quickly get to her. Reaching her in time, I grabbed her arm to stop her from punching Cardin. I have to stop Yang. She's planning on killing him! Feeling my arm, she started to calm down a bit. Because of calming down, the power that was put into her fist had fully vanished.
I could've used my semblance to reach to Jaune, but I didn't. I didn't want Yang to do something that she was eventually going to regret. But before I had to chance to say something, Yang, who's semblance had been turned off, had punched Cardin in the face…
Hard enough for him to be passed out on the floor…
We're going to be in trouble, aren't we...? Hearing the cafeteria's doors slam open, I heard Professor Goodwitch begin to yell at us. I can only hope that the punishment won't be too severe…
Jaune… I wonder what you're doing right now...
