Arc-ventures across the multiverse

by Alvaaron

RWBY and friends gather to watch the adventures of Jaune across the multiverse. A collection of crossovers and one shot ideas for your reading pleasure. Enjoy

16. Chapter 15: Hunter of Hunters

Disclaimer, I do not own RWBY or any of the franchises referenced in this work

Chapter 15: Hunter of Hunters

Inspiration: Bloodborne

As the audience started filing back into their seats, there was a flash of light and three new individuals were added to their numbers.

"Gah, my head!" Mercury groaned and clutched his head as he got off the ground.

"A cinema? Emerald, why the hell are you using your semblance on me?"

"What are you talking about-we're in a cinema? When did that happen and why do I feel like there are ursas dancing inside my skull?" Emerald sat up groggily and looked around the room. A brief 'oh shit' left her mouth when she found herself under assault from several very, very angry glares.

"This is odd, Mercury, Emerald, where are we?" Cinder was the last to rise, once she caught sight of the angry huntsmen and huntresses trying to set her on fire with their glares, she did her best to put on her best innocent façade.

"Don't bother bitch, they know. They know everything." Roman snickered and give the three of them the finger when they turned to notice him. Neo stuck out her tongue and promptly used her semblance to create an illusion of the three of them hanging from a noose.

"Roman Torchwick? What is-oh, so that's how it is. I hope you're prepared for the consequences of betraying me." Cinder glared at her ex-henchmen once she caught on to the fact that the jig was up.

"You can't betray someone you're enslaved to. And I'd worry about yourself first bitch, because those guys really want you dead now." Roman pointed to Qrow who was busy cracking his knuckles. The veteran huntsmen grinned sinisterly and dragged a thumb across his throat.

"Can we please kill them now?" Ren asked in a quiet tone, a slight tremble in it betrayed the burning rage beneath. These three were trying to turn Vale into a warzone, force him to go through a repeat of Kuroyuri and kill his friends. The sooner they were dead and he could piss on their corpses the better.

"What the kid said, can we just finish them here and be done with it, because I need a new drinking mug, one of their skulls should do fine." Qrow said.

"So long as you gimme one of them, I need a new ash tray." Roman chimed in.

The only reason why Cinder's group hadn't already been violently butchered by pissed off huntsmen and or ex-criminals was that Blank had the foresight to wall off another section of the theatre, separating them.

"Ahem, no killing in this theatre. I've already said I'm offering the chance to change your fates to everyone, that includes them as well. Even if they choose not to take their opportunity, they'll just be sent back and you can terminate them when you return. Now an explanation for the uninitiated." Blank said.

(One explanation later)

"Heh, so you're just wasting our time here then. It's good to know that I win and Vale burns all the same. None of this will change anything, I already knew it was my destiny to win, but thanks for confirming it anyways." Cinder smirked and revelled in the glares shot her way, her victory was preordained, knowledge of her plans at this point wouldn't change anything.

"Hardly, and you really shouldn't be that happy about winning by the way. Even in the original scenario where your plans go off as you expected, you still lose half your body in the process. And as to the various futures where you succeed at Beacon? You tend to end up living up to your name, courtesy of your enemies." Blank said, taking some of the wind out of her sails.

"Well, I am the fall maiden, isn't it only natura-" Cinder began, only to be interrupted.

"The problem with picking 'fall' over 'autumn' is that fall has more than one meaning attached to it. When you don't get ripped apart or petrified by Ruby Rose, you end up crushed to death when she drops a building on top of you. Assuming it isn't a world where she just breaks your aura and tosses you to your death. And the name Cinder? Futures where Jaune Arc goes all out to hunt you down usually has him executing you by burning you alive at the stake. And then there're the times where you get taken down by Ironwood, you don't die there, you just get sent to a lab for human experimentation." Blank added on and Cinder's expression wavered momentarily.

"Human experimentation? The tinman? I always figured he'd just put a bullet in her skull. Human experimentation isn't really his thing." Qrow stopped glaring for a moment to glance at the floating ball of light.

"If Cinder were fully human then yes, a bullet to the head, but when she's part Grimm thanks to Salem's machinations, he's more partial to cutting her open and digging around inside to find out what makes her tick. All for the greater good of course." Blank explained.

"Keh, and we're the bad guys? You take a look in the mirror lately? Ah hell, I'll kick your asses any day of the week." Mercury rolled his eyes and put on a show of bravado, no need to show any weakness to them, not with the barrier between them. When they got back to their world… they'd deal with it then.

"We're not at that stage yet, but you lot are really capable of creating mortal enemies. Perhaps in the future I'll show you all a universe where you succeed in driving one of them into becoming a bigger monster than Salem ever was, and one that's hell bent on killing you." Blank chuckled.

"But that day is not today. This will be a familiar universe to some of you here, but I believe this one has something more for Cinder Fall. Power at any cost, right? You might want to rethink that statement a little."

The lights dimmed and the screen came to life, the audience grumbling as they returned to their seats. "Ladies and gentlemen, I understand that their presence here is aggravating, but try to play nice. For all you know, they might change their ways, and if they don't, I believe you'll make good on delivering justice once you're all home."

"They're all monsters already, should have been smothered at birth. Worthless sacks of shit." Qrow muttered, getting Cinder's group to glare at him.

"The same way you should have been murdered at birth along with your sister for being bandits? Well, at this point, more your sister than you but the point stands. And please, don't try to argue with me about degrees of evil." Blank said and Qrow's mouth clicked shut, unable to retort to that. By his side, Summer and Taiyang sighed and shook their heads, remembering their wayward teammate.

Snow crunched underfoot as an armoured boot left a trail of footprints across the snow-covered roof. Jaune exhaled slowly, his breath fogging up in the freezing cold as he made his way towards his destination. Leaping down onto a walkway below, Jaune stared out at the castle grounds below him for a moment before continuing on his way.

Soon, he was out on the roof tops again climbing up an incline. Eventually it levelled out into a flatter section that still bore signs of heavy battle damage. Jaune removed his steel helmet and mismatched eyes stared at the blank wall at the end of the roof. His left eye was still the blue he had been born with, but his right now burned a fiery crimson.

Pulling out an ornate crown from his pack, Jaune slipped it on and waited for the magic to happen. Once the crown touched his brow, a howling wind picked up and a snow and dust were blown into the air, surrounding him in a maelstrom of blinding grey.

Once it faded, the blank wall was gone, instead a new section of the castle had appeared, the open doorway beckoning to him. Without any hesitation, Jaune strode forwards and began climbing the steps within.

"Okay… what the hell was that?" Roman sat straighter in his seat, seeing a building just appear out of thin air distracted him from his glaring contest with Cinder temporarily.

"Magic. It's a different universe entirely." Blank answered.

"That pistol at Jaune's side… I don't like it. It reminds me too much of…" Ruby trailed off with a frown.

"Is something wrong with that gun?" Jaune asked, taking the opportunity to distract himself from plotting Cinder's death with one of the various weapons his alternate selves had created. While they were stuck here, pre-emptive vengeance wouldn't be possible.

"Nothing, it's just… I've seen a gun like that before in a different viewing. It… didn't end well." Ruby stated, trying to push away the gruesome images that surged to the front of her mind.

"It can't be that universe can it? It doesn't fit with any of the others we've seen. And what's with the red eye?" Yang asked, her eyes flickering between lilac and red momentarily as she clued into what Ruby was referring to.

At the top of the stairs was a throne and in it sat a woman with white hair, red and black eyes and veins framing her face. She waited with a bored expression on her face as the knight ascended the last few steps.

Once he was before her, Jaune knelt and bowed his head in respect. "Lady Salem, I have returned."

"So you have closest of our kin, what is thy wish?"

A round of coughing took hold of the adults as Jaune uttered those words, Qrow was the first to find his voice. "You have got to fucking kidding me."

"Now isn't that something? Perhaps you might want to look at your own before pointing fingers hmm? Looks like at least one version of him is smart enough to join the winning side." Cinder smirked and waved away the questioning looks from her underlings. There'd be time enough to tell them about Salem later if she decided they needed to know.

"Different universe, Salem is still immortal and unkillable here, but not a bad guy." Blank spoke up before the audience could descend into a shouting match.

"Answers. About the curse of beasthood. Ozpin insists the curse is tied to the old blood, the more I use it the faster the corruption takes." Jaune said.

"And so it is, that isn't a lie if that's what you're curious about." Salem replied in a placid tone.

"No, I'm asking about the one that plagues the hunters. It doesn't add up, I've seen both the scourge infected Yharnamites and the beast turned hunters, killed more than my fair share. The hunters… their mutation is always worse, more horrific than any others. I… that leads me to think that there's more to it than just the old blood." Jaune explained, one hand reaching up to touch his transformed eye.

"Oh god no, it is that universe." Yang paled considerably before scooting closer to Jaune. Several seats away, Ruby embraced both her parents in a hug for comfort.

"What… what happened in this universe?" Jaune asked, very unused to seeing Yang act in such a way.

"In that universe, you were ill, the treatment used to cure you also damned you at the same time." Pyrrha explained, her face a shade paler than normal.

"The illness was cured by injecting cursed blood into yourself, but in time you would have turned into a monster. To avoid that fate, you became a hunter of those transformed beasts yourselves, to end the curse."

"A-and did it work?"

"It kept the curse at bay for a while, then you met a child version of Ruby." Ren said.

"It didn't end well, not for anyone." A taciturn Nora followed up.

"Was that the universe before we showed up? What happened to my niece?" Qrow asked, seeing that Taiyang and Summer had their hands full with Ruby.

"Ruby's dad was a hunter as well… one in the end stages of the curse." Blake spoke up, her ears flat against her head as she recalled the brutal fight between the two hunters.

"I… I killed Ruby?" Taiyang paled considerably at that possibility.

"No. You um… killed your wife instead, Jaune found you when Ruby asked him to search for her parents. Then you transformed and Jaune put you down." Weiss corrected and Taiyang was left at a loss for words, only able to hug his family tighter.

"T-then what happened to Ruby?" Qrow asked, dreading the answer but needing to know anyway.

"I got eaten alive when I tried to make it to a safe zone on my own. Jaune found my body and broke down afterwards." Ruby spoke up in a small tone, leaving the rest of the audience at a loss for words, save one.

"Too bad, I would have liked to see it in person." Cinder spoke up, getting the full fury of the audience turned on her again.

"There is something seriously wrong with you isn't there?" Roman spat out and Cinder just rolled her eyes.

"Whatever, according to that ball of light, more than a few of my possible futures involve me being either tortured to death or experimented on, excuse me if I don't feel any sympathy for you lot. Still… feeding you all to a Grimm… now there's an idea."

"So you noticed, hunters and members of the clergy tend to become the most horrific of beasts when they turn. Ozpin won't say anything so you've come to us to find out why." Jaune nodded and Salem just sighed.

"Yes, there is a second curse. But trying to break it is a fool's errand. Just ignore it and do as Ozpin bids, free yourself from your own shackles and forget it all when the dawn arrives."

'This is… odd. Salem agreeing with me? When was the last time that happened?" Ozpin grimaced and sipped from his coffee mug.

"I can't do that. I'll turn long before I reach the end of this night." Jaune shot down the suggestion instantly, already one eye burned crimson, should the other change as well, he had the feeling he'd be lost forever.

"Yes, we see that the change is already starting. We are the only Vilebloods left, as queen it does fall to us to look out for our subjects. But know this, your task is suicidal. There are more than beasts to worry about." Salem cautioned.

"Death is an old friend and I fear it not. What must I do to break the curse?" Jaune said resolutely.

Salem did not immediately respond, the queen of the Vilebloods knit her fingers together as though lost in thought. Finally, she made up her mind and spoke. "Before you, we had another knight. An excellent soldier and loyal to the end, we sent him to uncover the truth of the curse. And he found it before he was lost himself."

The queen picked up a black knight chess piece from a nearby chess set and held it up to the light. "They brought it on themselves you know, the old hunters. They damned themselves and all who would follow in their footsteps. They did it all with a smile on their faces. And they have the audacity to call our blood tainted."

"I don't understand, what did they do? Ozpin won't say anything about it." Jaune said, a look of confusion on his face. Salem just chuckled lightly before returning the knight piece to its spot.

"Of course he wouldn't say anything about his sins. An easier question to answer would be what didn't they do. Two things define the healing church, their fanatical devotion to safeguarding their secrets and the willingness to do anything to achieve godhood. The blood of innocents stains the souls of the hunters, and a Great One is more than willing to answer the prayers of the slain that cry out for vengeance."

"A Great One? What… did my counterpart do?" Ozpin asked.

"A Great One is a god in that world, or close enough that any distinction is meaningless. The healing church was founded by yourself and several of your colleagues, an institution dedicated to bringing humanity to the next evolutionary step." Blank answered.

"That's not too bad, right?" Qrow asked.

"Valiant goal, execution needs work." Blank replied drily.

"The healing church is murderously protective of its secrets, and when its secrets aren't exclusive to themselves because someone else got there first, actions will be taken to rectify that issue in a very definitive manner."

"So they killed everyone who knew too much. Like we totally didn't see that one coming." Mercury said with a small laugh.

"So how do I break the curse." Jaune asked.

"You kill the Great One at the heart of the nightmare to end the curse. Do you understand the magnitude of your undertaking now? It's easier to just end this hunt then try to break the curse, just free yourself and let it be." Salem advised but Jaune just shook his head, the image of the first fallen hunter he had to put down still fresh in his mind.

"I can't do that. I… made a mistake awhile back. Disregarding myself, I have to make sure such a tragedy doesn't come to pass ever again."

"It's happened before you know, Yharnam isn't the first time the scourge of the beast has plagued the lands. Just as that scourge has resurfaced here, so too might the curse on the hunters. Everything you do might be for nothing in the end."

"Even so, I have to try. Thank you for your concern Lady Salem." Jaune rose with a bow and stared at the queen resolutely, not one iota of hesitation in his eyes.

"So you've made your choice, go then with our blessing. For the honour of Cainhurst." Salem nodded her head, making no more suggestions that Jaune abandon his insane task.

"One last thing, the last knight we sent, he still lives. If you desire to enter the nightmare, find him. He holds the key. This should help you locate him." Salem flicked a small glass vial containing some blood to Jaune and the hunter caught it easily.

"Thank you again Lady Salem." Jaune bowed once more before turning and leaving.

"This is… unbelievably strange to watch." Ozpin muttered and started rubbing his temples to ease the building migraine.

"No kidding." Qrow agreed and took a long swig from his flask.

Upon returning to the dream, Jaune bid the Weiss doll hello before entering the workshop to switch up his weapons. Leaving his cane and axe behind, Jaune strapped a silver great sword to his back and the Chikage to his side.

As he worked on upgrading the Evelyn, Ozpin wheeled himself into the room to watch him work. "How fares the hunt young hunter?"

"…As well as it can with the scourge spreading inside me. I have a lead now, a way to end the curse on the hunters." Jaune replied after a moment of silence.

"What did you do Oz, what the hell did you and the church do to invite this nightmare on us?"

"I could say I was just following orders, but those words have lost their merit a long time ago. It doesn't matter anymore, everyone involved already paid for it, some things are best left buried." Ozpin said in a tired voice.

"But you're not the only ones paying for it are you? I'm already halfway to beasthood, how many hunters have already been lost thanks to the curse the church invited on us? Punished for a crime committed by their predecessors. How many more will be just as damned if nothing is done to stop the curse?"

"Too many." Ozpin sighed out, his eyes closed in sorrow.

Ozpin matched his counterpart's sigh as he recalled his own mistakes. Idly he wondered which of them had made more mistakes in their life.

"So, alternative Ozpin is just as much of a failure as our own. How quaint." Cinder smirked when the glares came flying her way again.

"Er, Cinder? Is… is it wise to antagonise them like that? He's still the headmaster of Beacon." Emerald shifted uncomfortably, for all her skills, open combat without the element of surprise wasn't where she shined in. And there was no way in hell she'd be able to lock all of them down with her semblance.

"It's already too late for them Emerald. So they know about our plans, that just means we have to move up the timetable. Vale falls either way." Cinder stated with confidence.

"Keep talking bitch, your mouth is writing a check your body can't cash." Qrow growled out.

"If you won't tell me what you did, can you at least tell me why?" Jaune put down his tools and turned to look Ozpin in the eye.

"Why huh? I don't even remember anymore. In the beginning, all we wanted was knowledge, to learn more about the cosmos and how to pave the way for humanity's ascension. Somewhere along the line things changed. Less and less were inducted into our fold, and we ran into more 'opposition', others refused to share their knowledge and when negotiations broke down, the hunters were called in to deal with the unrest. I don't know how the situation devolved in such a manner, you saw the workshop in the waking world did you not?"

"I did." Jaune replied, remembering the abandoned workshop tucked away in a forgotten corner of Yharnam. When he found it, he was thoroughly freaked out at seeing a near perfect copy of the hunter's workshop complete with a Weiss doll just lying abandoned there.

"Before… this dream… that was where the hunters were headquartered. But the church's leadership lies far above, perhaps my old colleagues simply wanted to keep me out of the way. Whatever the case, by the time we noticed the mistakes, it was already too late." Ozpin sighed and screwed his eyes shut again, the pain of the ancient betrayal still fresh even in the present.

"I see, in any case, with the curse overhead, I won't last till dawn. If I'm going down, I'll go down trying." Jaune said as he picked up his finished weapons and left the old man behind.

Exiting the workshop, Jaune nodded to the doll before pulling out the vial of blood Salem handed to him. Kneeling before one of the tombstones, he focused on the vial and closed his eyes, trusting in the dream to guide him to his destination. The world rippled and fell away, darkness rushing in to claim him.

"Okay, what the hell was that?" Qrow asked.

"Reality doesn't work the same where there as it does in your world. There are multiple layers of it, all bleeding over into one another. The hunter's dream, that little workshop and garden functions as a nexus of sorts, allowing individuals to use it to connect themselves to different places. A shortcut through time and space itself." Blank answered.

"And… my head hurts trying to make sense of it. I'm just going to ignore it all." Qrow shrugged and leaned back in his chair.

"If it helps. Some things mortal minds were never meant to comprehend, the people of that world tried and it is one of the root causes of why every thing is so screwed up there."

When Jaune came to again, he found himself standing at the foot of the steps leading to the grand cathedral. Several sleeping church giants lined the steps and he had to blink twice when he noticed the fallen corpses of the church doctors.

He could hear the ringing of blades coming from within the cathedral itself. Guessing that was where the missing Cainhurst knight was, Jaune's eyes narrowed in preparation for a fight and dashed up the steps.

Bursting through the doors, he found the interior wrecked to an even greater extent than after his fight with the transformed vicar. Two individuals were duelling in the centre, Goodwitch was fighting another hunter, one clad in the same robes as herself but wearing the unmistakable helmet of a Cainhurst knight.

Their fight had already reached their conclusion. Jaune was too far away to react in time, and he didn't have a clear shot on the other hunter with Goodwitch in the way. The knight parried Goodwitch's blades of mercy with his own Chikage to create an opening. Drawing his repeating pistol, he shot Goodwitch in the chest, compromising her defences and sending her staggering backwards.

There was a wet 'schlick' as the Cainhurst knight rammed his katana all the way through her chest and extracted it in one smooth motion. Goodwitch gasped out and clutched her chest before falling over with a thud, a pool of scarlet rapidly growing around her.

"Oh." Goodwitch blanched as she saw her counterpart get cut down ruthlessly.

"Wait, why are they fighting? Aren't they on the same side? They even have the same uniform." Roman asked.

"Former colleagues, they're both hunter of hunters. Hunters dedicated to bringing down their own when they stray, to allow them the mercy of dying human. Sadly, they aren't immune either, some have the sense to off themselves or find a way to leave the hunt, the others require more of their kind to end them." Blank answered.

"So who is that supposed to be then? I can't tell with the helmet." Qrow asked.

"He's called the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, so take a guess." Blank replied

"Oh."

"NO!" Jaune cursed and surged forward, silver straight sword in hand and crying for blood. Qrow glanced his way and started shooting immediately, the double barrelled pistol sending multiple quicksilver rounds towards him.

Dodging as best he could, Jaune closed the gap and started stabbing at his fellow Vileblood, driving him back and keeping him from dealing the coup de grace to Goodwitch. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed the downed hunter injecting a blood vial into herself and Jaune just hoped it would be enough to keep her alive.

Returning fire with the Evelyn, Jaune's eyes widened when Qrow dodged away, vanished from sight momentarily before reappearing further away. 'He knows the art of quickening? This is going to suck.'

Qrow's arm flicked outwards and his pistol fired, the two bullets slamming into Jaune and sending him staggering back. The younger hunter swore as he backpedalled, the pain already fading as he jammed a blood vial into his side.

Jaune's eyes widened when Qrow started tossing vials of numbing mist at him, looking to cut off his source of healing. Focusing inwards, he drew on the old knowledge imparted to him and activated his own art of quickening, dodging frantically to avoid the incoming vials and bullets.

Seeing that Jaune was simply dodging everything he threw, Qrow switched back to melee combat. Sheathing the Chikage and charging in for a quickdraw strike, Jaune ducked under the blood-soaked blade as it carved a bloody arc over his head.

Taking advantage of the opening, Jaune slashed upwards with his sword, drawing a line across Qrow and getting drenched in a spray of blood. Slamming the sword into its scabbard on his back, Jaune pulled the great sword downwards and tried crushing Qrow with it. But the elder Vileblood simply danced away, vanishing and reappearing to the side, an empty vial of blood clattered to the floor as Qrow started regenerating.

"The scabbard combines with the sword to make a bigger sword? Interesting…" Jaune trailed off as he started thinking about modifying Crocea Mors. There was a version of his sword similar to that in the testing range but he didn't have the time to try it out, being too focused on the flashier weapons.

"Someone's overcompensating." Mercury jested and Jaune just gave him the finger in response.

After several more fruitless attacks with the greatsword, Jaune ditched it entirely, the weapon was just too slow to be effective against a speedy opponent. When the blade missed for the last time, Jaune used the momentum to sling it onto his back and left it there.

Hands reaching for the katana at his waist, Jaune repaid Qrow in full for all his quickdraw strikes. Slashing with his own Chikage, a wave of poisoned blood helped extend his range and put Qrow on the backfoot for the first time since their melee began.

When the Vileblood dodged away and tried to heal, Jaune tossed a vial of numbing mist and grinned when it connected. An inhuman growl of frustration came from the afflicted hunter as his blood vial had no effect.

Cutting the flow of blood to his weapon, Jaune reverted it back to a normal katana as the two combatants started circling one another. By some unspoken signal, both drew their firearms and fired at the same time.

Jaune's shot missed while Qrow's connected, the younger hunter was sent stumbling backwards and Qrow didn't waste the opportunity. A straight stab punched through Jaune's unprotected throat and the blade was removed with a violent twist, painting the area red with blood.

A wet gurgle left Jaune as he fired Evelyn again and drove Qrow away. Backing off, the wind made a whistling noise as it blew through the bloody hole in his body, Jaune just snarled and injected more blood into himself to deal with the damage.

"Bullshit, how is he not dead after that!?" Mercury stared at the screen in disbelief. Aura or not, a wound like that was fatal, and aura didn't seem to exist in that world.

"I-I would like to know that too." A green faced Jaune managed to get out as he fought down the urge to hurl.

"This version of you doesn't die until you take too much damage. And you can regenerate by injecting blood into yourself or dealing damage to your enemies." A similarly green faced Pyrrha answered.

'My, what power. If I could have that in addition to the maiden's magic, I'd be practically invincible.' Cinder thought to herself as she pondered the possibility of replicating the effect, somewhat reminded of her mistress's own regenerative powers.

Their dance of death continued but slowly Jaune began to get the edge over his opponent. Mind afflicted by the curse, Qrow's self-preservation instincts were severely impaired. The older hunter kept feeding his blood to his weapon even when it wasn't able to reach Jaune, slowly chipping away at his health and remaining supply of blood vials.

Even though Jaune was taking more hits, careful rationing of his blood vials and blood enhancement meant he still came out ahead. As Qrow started to slow down from blood loss, Jaune surged in for the finish.

Dodging a near point blank blast from the repeating pistol, Jaune sliced upwards with the Chikage, cleanly removing Qrow's gun arm at the elbow. Slipping the katana past Qrow's own, Jaune severed the other arm as well, leaving the armless hunter to fall in a spray of blood.

"Uncle Qrow, looks like you got dis-armed eh?" Yang joked, getting a chorus of groans in response.

"Really not the time for that Yang." Qrow shot his niece a small glare and she just shrugged.

"Black humour helps me cope with what I'm watching." She freely admitted.

Jaune knelt and injected one of his last blood vials into Qrow, stabilizing the man temporarily. He couldn't have him die before he got the secret to the curse from him. Reaching down, he quickly removed Qrow's battered helm to see if there was any shred of humanity left in him.

Pale grey skin and a head full of white hair greeted him. Unfocused eyes swivelled in their sockets before some sanity came back to them as he turned to look at Jaune.

"The key to the curse on the hunters, where is it? I need it to end this madness." Jaune asked before Qrow's renewed sense of self could slip away into beasthood again.

"You… Queen Salem… she sent… you?" Qrow bit out with great effort. A small smile graced his face as Jaune nodded.

"I… did not… fail. The key… the key is in… the eye. L-lost original… take mine instead. Amygdala… outside… chapel. F-finish me… don't let… it… take me… again." Qrow's breathing grew more erratic as the curse began to reassert itself and his eyes grew hazy.

Jaune said nothing as he raised his katana and stabbed downwards, piercing Qrow's heart and allowing the fallen hunter to die with his humanity regained. Once Qrow had passed, Jaune grit his teeth and formed his fingers into a wedge, after a short moment of silence, he rammed it into the corpse's eye sockets and extracted the eyeball within. Placing the intact eyeball into his pocket, Jaune repeated the action with the remaining eye.

Jaune leaned over and voided his stomach contents into a bucket that magically appeared. The other students weren't in any better shape save Ruby who had the sense to pull down her hood before the gruesome sight could get to her.

Even the older huntsmen and hardened criminals were affected by the grisly sight.

"Okay… that is all kinds of messed up." Emerald whispered out as her face paled.

"…Disgusting as this is… I fail to see how this is supposed to convince me to change anything." Cinder said, staring at Blank and trying to keep the screen out of her view.

"Just keep watching, it get's worse." Was the only reply that came from their host.

"You're joking… oh god you're not joking." Weiss said when she was finally able to look up from her bucket.

Leaving Qrow's body behind, Jaune rushed over to check on Goodwitch's condition. The woman groaned when Jaune eased her into a seating position to better check on her wounds.

"Oh, is that you again? I'm afraid I've made a bit of a blunder. I'm just going to have a short rest." The aged hunter said woozily as Jaune grabbed his last blood vial and injected it into her.

"You're not dying here."

"Heh you just can't leave well enough alone, can you? Ah… I don't seem to be apt for this life anymore. My glory days were long ago now." Goodwitch coughed out as the blood took effect and her numerous wounds started knitting together. Reaching into her tattered robes, she withdrew the crow hunter's badge and pressed it into Jaune's hands.

"For you. This too is hunter's work, but bears no honour. A burden you may choose to carry. The decision is yours alone."

"There might not be a need soon, I've found a way to end this curse of bloodlust on the hunters." Jaune said as he accepted the badge and the duty that came with it.

"Is that so? That's good then." Goodwitch said with a tired smile.

"But there will always be a need for us. The madness of the dream isn't the only curse on us. All power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. There will always be rogues."

"And someone will be there to stop them." Jaune said.

"Good… good… ahh… my eyes grow heavy. Let me rest awhile… I'll be fine… just wait…" Goodwitch trailed off as her eyes closed. Jaune's initial burst of panic faded when he noticed she was still breathing and in a more stable rhythm.

Picking up the exhausted hunter, Jaune laid her to rest against the far wall of the cathedral. She could get all the rest she needed there since no beast would enter the building with all the incense burning. The roaming church doctors were more of a pressing threat but as far as he noticed, they avoided entering as well, she should be safe there until she recovered enough to leave on her own.

For now, he had a nightmare to invade and a great one to slay.

"So, what happens to the other me now?" Goodwitch asked.

"You leave the city and the hunter profession behind as you should have done a long time ago. At this point in your story, you've already been cut off from the hunter's dream so your next death is permanent. Only duty kept you coming back." Blank answered.

"Hang on, you say that like they can die multiple times." Taiyang frowned in confusion.

"They can dad, Jaune hasn't died here yet but the last time we saw him, he went down more than a few times. Kept coming back though." Yang said, grimacing as some of the gorier deaths came back to haunt her.

"How does that even work?" Roman asked.

"As I said, realities are bleeding over into one another, hunters attached to the dream are unstuck for lack of a better word. They can die over and over and over again because the 'real' world is essentially nothing more than a dream to them. They die and reawaken to fight again." Blank explained.

Jaune trudged down the steps back to Oedon Chapel. Stopping at the entrance, he stared up at the upper levels of the building and could just barely make out the presence of something invisible hanging there.

Steeling himself for the incoming agony, Jaune stood still as a glowing vortex appeared and sucked him in. An invisible force wrapped around him and raised him into the air, bringing him up to the 'face' of the amygdala that held him.

Incomprehensible alien knowledge was forced into his mind and Jaune started screaming as it felt like his brain was turning to mush inside his skull. He blacked out when the pain got too intense and the last thing he felt was the 'fingers' squeezing tighter.

"Curse the fiends, their children too. And their children, forever, true." The words of a prayer crying out for justice burned in his mind just before everything faded.

"Was that the curse?" Blake asked.

"It is part of the prayer that led to it, uttered by the victims of the healing church many transgressions." Blank answered.

A cold cobblestone floor greeted him as he finally came to. A small groan forced its way out as the pounding headache threatened to undo his efforts to stand. 'Fucking hell, it's just like getting drawn into the lecture hall again, and I still have to kill that bloody spider.'

Shaking away the cobwebs, Jaune looked around and was surprised to find himself in a slightly altered version of the chapel. When he exited the building, his headache spiked again as he tried to make sense of the world around him.

It was still clearly Yharnam but twisted completely, as though someone had tried recreating the city from memory and filled in the gaps by folding the landscape in on itself. The sky itself was a riot of colours and the 'sun' if that was what it was, was just plain awry.

His ears picked up the distant sounds of battle and the thick stench of blood was omnipresent. Jaune's face morphed into a frown as he slugged himself in the cheek to push aside the overpowering bloodlust this place was bringing out.

As he picked his way across the treacherous terrain, Jaune could make out hunters fighting beasts in the distance. There was a certain beastly fervour to their movements that made him shoot down the idea that they might be friendly.

The sound of frenzied barking tipped him off to the ambush of several hunting dogs. Jaune quickstepped backwards as the bloody mongrels landed in front of him, fangs bared and drool leaking in copious amounts. Blank white eyes signified that they were already tainted by the scourge of the beast as well.

Shooting the closest dog in the head with his pistol, Jaune drew the great sword on his back and used its overwhelming mass to crush the other dogs in a single swing. As the corpses fell back, an angry cry went up and the dogs' owner leapt down to face Jaune as well.

A quick glance at the twin glowing red orbs behind his veil told Jaune everything he needed to know. Attacking with a saif that functioned in a similar manner to the saw cleaver, Jaune parried the man with a well-placed Evelyn shot and staggered him.

Jabbing his hand into the corrupted hunter's stomach, Jaune fired off a burst of blood magic and ripped his arm free, causing the body to explode in a shower of blood and gore. As the pitiful remains of the corpse fell, they shimmered and disappeared, an itch at the back of Jaune's mind told him the hunter was already reforming elsewhere.

"Is everything I do going to be that disgusting?" Jaune asked once he was able to look up from his bucket again.

"Don't worry, there are others with far more devastating moves, just wait." Blank answered, getting Jaune to stare at him.

"Not remotely what I wanted to hear."

"What is this place anyway? Yharnam was twisted, but this version is even more so." Ren asked.

"It's essentially hell. A never-ending nightmare that all hunters who lose themselves to the bloodlust find themselves trapped in after death. While there are several in this place who intruded without 'dying' such as your friend, nearly everyone here is lost. They fight, they die, they rise again to continue the cycle without end or satisfaction. A simple curse really, if killing is all you want to do, then it's all you will do, forever." Blank answered.

"Well, that's not so bad, kill whoever, whatever you want and you can't even be killed permanently in exchange, a guy could get used to that kind of life." Mercury chuckled.

"Did I mention that you can't ever rest with the curse driving you forwards? If the curse has taken hold completely, you can't stop either, and you most definitely feel the pain of being killed. Some of these hunters have been trapped for decades, imagine that, dying just once every day by being eaten alive for the rest of eternity." Blank's words got Mercury to shut up instantly.

"That's an ironic hell if I ever heard of one, talk about be careful what you wish for huh." Roman muttered under his breath.

Fighting through the narrow streets of the nightmare, Jaune found himself inspecting the weapons and armour of the insane hunters he had to kill. They were old, nothing like the arms and armour he got from the workshop, even Cainhurst's lost weapons were newer.

Ducking under a massive whip cleaver, bludgeon, thing, Jaune could easily see the similarities between the weapon and his own threaded cane. The mechanism in it was cruder, less refined but easily recognizable as a predecessor to his own weapons.

Not exactly liking the implications of that, Jaune shot the hunter in the head, the bullet glancing off his head protection but stunning the man. Kicking his foe in the chest, Jaune sent him tumbling off the roof they were fighting on and into a horde of beasts that immediately started tearing into their new prey.

Distaste in his mouth, Jaune shook his head and continued forwards, not sticking around for the gruesome display. The sound of screaming eventually died away as Jaune pushed away the small tinge of guilt that ate at him, if he could end the nightmare, perhaps all of this would fade away as well.

Fighting his way past more beasts, crazed hunters and a giant with a magic axe, Jaune stepped into the main cathedral. He froze mid step when he noticed a giant flaming cleric beast just lying on the altar at the very end.

Edging forwards carefully, the beast didn't react, just remaining draped over the furniture. A single pendant was hanging from one of its claws. The same intuition that guided Jaune throughout the hunt kicked in again, screaming at him that the pendant was important.

Slowly closing the distance, Jaune took a deep breath before swiping the pendant and backing off. The cleric beast didn't react in the slightest and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"What… is that?" Ozpin asked as he stared at the creature, in his accursed life, he'd seen a lot of things, but nothing quite like the cleric beast.

"That is what's left of this universe's Lionheart." Blank answered.

"What? How? Why?" Qrow sputtered out.

"Self-inflicted mostly, even without the curse, this was always how he would have ended up with his pursuit of power and reckless usage of the old blood." Blank explained.

"The old blood? What is it anyways?" Cinder asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Blood of the gods essentially. Using it grants someone great power, almost all the inhuman feats you've seen so far can be attributed to it in one way or another. Eventually though, usage of it leads to the user becoming a literal monster, and members of the church become the worst of them. If you're curious about where your destiny is leading you, look no further than that."

Mercury's laugh transitioned into a choked cough when Cinder glared at him. Once her underling was sufficiently cowed, she turned back to Blank. "Explain."

"All the magic in this world won't change your greatest weakness, that you're human. Anything good enough to kill a human will work on you. The more power you want to hold, the more of your humanity you'll have to give up, and sooner or later, you won't even look like one anymore. You can only replace so much of yourself with Grimm parts before you're nothing more than a Grimm yourself." Blank said.

Jaune's boots trudged through a literal river of blood as he made a mad dash for cover. The sound of gunshots ringing out constantly as hunters on the bridge above him continuously fired on him with their rifles. Modified lances serving as bullets caused dirt and blood to spray in the air when they missed their mark.

Rushing up the stairs, Jaune began cleaving through the ranks with his blood fuelled katana. Hacking his enemies to pieces with precise slashes, Jaune left the corpses to fade away while he caught his breath.

Intuition picking up again that the bridge did not lead where he wanted to go, he nonetheless pressed on to see if it held anything of value. To his surprise, it lead back to the twisted version of Oedon Chapel and the first sane hunter aside from himself in this nightmare.

"You're a hunter with your sanity aren't you? Must've taken a wrong turn then, eh? Well, we're more alike than you think." Tattered robes and a blindfold hid much of his flesh but Jaune could make out black hair and a flash of pink beneath the blindfold.

"This is the Hunter's Nightmare, where hunters end up when drunk with blood. You've seen them before. Aimless, wandering hunters, slavering like beasts. This is what the poor fools have to look forward to." Ren shook his head as he lamented the fates of the hunters who lost themselves to the nightmare.

"Look Ren! It's you!" Nora pointed out and gripped her partner tightly.

"I can see that Nora." Ren acknowledged and turned to Blank for an explanation.

"You're another hunter trying to break the curse, but you're down to your last life and have been unable to make it past the final guardian." Blank said.

"Last… life?" Nora muttered slowly before squeezing Ren's arm even tighter.

"So, don't be brash, turn back before it's too late. Unless, you've something of an interest in nightmares?" Ren turned to regard Jaune in full for the first time.

"Nightmares are fascinating. Especially when you're trying to unravel them." Jaune replied.

"Ahh, yes, I see… You sense a secret within the Nightmare, and cannot bear to leave it be. As if the spirit of Byrgenwerth lives on within you! Such inquisitive hunters will relish the Nightmare. But beware, secrets are secrets for a reason. And some do not wish to see them uncovered. Especially when the secrets are particularly unseemly…" Ren chuckled as Jaune's face soured instantly.

"Please don't associate me with Byrgenwerth. I'm nothing like those insane researchers."

"Aren't you? You're here after all, trying to end the nightmare eh? Admit it, even without that, you'd still be here, a seeker of truth just like them. And just like them, you'd do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of the mystery, wouldn't you?" Ren chuckled as Jaune's face blackened even further.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself down, Jaune refused to allow the hunter's words to get under his skin. "Whatever you say. So, if I'm here for the truth, are you willing to tell me?"

"No. Form your own opinion just as I did, all you need do is follow the river." Ren chuckled again when Jaune shot him a flat stare.

"Ye, thanks for telling me what I already know. Farewell." Jaune bowed sarcastically and left Ren behind, he needed to return to the hunter's dream to replenish his supplies and fix up his equipment, wasting time chatting with a stranger just meant less time before he joined the ranks of the damned.

"Byrgenwerth? What's that?" Pyrrha asked.

"The original institution that spawned the healing church. Due to irreconcilable differences, a section of Byrgenwerth broke off to found their own organisation to focus on their own research. Eventually, that became the healing church and their 'effectiveness' drew more and more people to them, leaving the original seekers of knowledge behind to rot. Don't be mistaken though, they're just as bad in many areas." Blank said.

When he returned to the nightmare fully restocked, Ren was gone to places unknown. Jaune huffed and readied his weapons. Leaving behind the sword great sword combo, he now held a rapier to go along with his katana.

Reiterpallasch and Evelyn in hand, Jaune started sprinting right out the gate and back to the river. The hunters he killed earlier had already reformed and were eager to take their vengeance. Ignoring them for the time being, he sprinted down the steps and back to the river, keeping close to the bridge and out of their line of fire.

Sprinting past a group of bloodlickers, massive overgrown ticks, Jaune shot one with the Evelyn before ducking out of sight. Enraged by the attack, the bloodlickers began moving in search of their attackers, easily noticing the still shooting hunters and proceeding to mob them.

With his path clear and his enemies too busy slaughtering one another to care about him, Jaune was free to continue following the river unmolested. Further along the river, he emerged into another section of the twisted city.

"Oh fucking hell, what is this?" Jaune took a step back in shock as the bloody rocks piled up near the buildings weren't rocks at all.

They were emaciated bodies.

Some of which were still alive and moving, hands in the air as though crying out for mercy.

"By the gods, what are those things!?" Goodwitch said as her face paled.

"Oh did I forget to mention? The curse isn't very discriminating. If you die after using the old blood and happen to be associated with the hunters, there's a good chance you'll get drawn into the nightmare. If you can't fight, you just get killed over and over until that's all that's left of you, perpetual suffering." Blank said.

"How disgusting." Cinder's words summed up their thoughts, although, unlike the rest of the audience. The grisly sight just reinforced her desire for power, to never end up in such a situation.

Giving the bodies a wide berth to avoid their grasping hands. It saved him from walking into an ambush. Frenzied barking came from the rabid dogs that couldn't wait for him to get closer alerted him to the presence of enemies. Weapons at the ready, Jaune got to work.

Cutting them all down with his rapier and gunning down the ones that lurked in the back with the pistol, Jaune blitzed the area and pressed forwards. The intoxicating smell of blood was starting to get to him despite his best efforts and the sooner he could be free of the river the happier he would be.

Running into a hunter wielding one of the threaded cane prototypes, there was a mechanical clack as the Reiterpallasch switched forms, the blade shrinking in length to reveal a gun barrel. Raising both guns, Jaune shot down the hunter before he could get in range to menace him.

"See? A rapier can also be a gun, just lemme-" Ruby looked to Weiss, finally having calmed down enough.

"No. For the last time, you are not modifying Myrtenaster!" Weiss shot down Ruby's suggestion before she could even finish it.

"Oh come on, you're the only member of team RWBY who doesn't have a proper gun." Ruby pleaded.

"No. Besides, Jaune doesn't have a gun either and you don't see his team complaining." Weiss pointed out, getting Ruby to roll her eyes.

"He has an appreciation for the classics, you…"

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Weiss asked, crossing her arms when Ruby trailed off.

Qrow just shook his head at their bickering, of course it'd take weapons to get Ruby out of her shell, why was he even surprised at this point. At least it served as a distraction from all the nightmarish stuff on screen. "Kid's pretty good at fighting isn't he, how does he even know how to use so many different weapons anyway?"

"One of the uh perks of being a hunter connected to the dream is that he has access to the knowledge of past hunters. If someone has used that weapon before, he has the same knowledge and part of their skill. Not enough to make him perfect but enough to give him a massive head start and allow him to figure out the rest on his own." Blank answered.

"That is both awesome and kinda creepy." Jaune said.

Finally reaching the end of the blood river, Jaune looked around to find himself standing in what looked like a giant refuse pit. Bodies were piled everywhere and literally everything was coated in blood.

"Aah… ahh… please… help us… ah… an unsightly beast… a great terror looms… ahhh… Ironwood the accursed is coming!" One of the moving bodies cried out.

The sound of heavy footfalls reached Jaune's ear as one of the stacks of bodies was pushed over, a hideous creature resembling a horse stepped forth. Twisted, mishappen, abomination, all perfectly apt words to describe the monstrosity bearing down on Jaune. A battered white robe indicating allegiance to the church was the only thing indicating the creature was once a man, and not just a reanimated pile of corpses.

Despite having already run into his fair share of horrific creatures and slaughtered nearly all of them, Jaune still found himself taking a step back as the urge to hurl rose in him. The urge only worsened when the creature's second mouth attached to its neck opened, revealing rows upon rows of eyes instead of teeth.

"I take it back. I take it back! Fill their mouths with teeth for fuck's sake!" Jaune cursed, regretting every single time he wished for the scourge beasts to have less teeth in their maws.

The sound of retching filled the theatre again as even some of the adults lost their stomachs at the sight. Even Cinder who spent years with Salem and had grown used to her more disturbing Grimm was unable to keep from throwing up.

"That's James!? What happened to him." Ozpin asked once he could trust himself to speak again.

"He fell to the curse too when the power he trusted led him astray. And this creature is a reflection of his life's choices. To combat the beasts born from reckless usage of the old blood, he advocated for the creation of larger, more powerful weapons for combat, drafted every willing individual into his army of hunters. When the curse took him, this form reflected that, larger and more powerful than nearly any beast to ever exist, and a body made up of even more bodies." Blank answered.

"How… very foul." Cinder spat out as she tried washing out the disgusting taste in her mouth with copious amounts of water.

"I thought you might want to see where your path is leaded. Is power promised to you by destiny? Yes. Should you be happy about that? Debatable."

"Power is my birth right." Cinder snarled.

"By all means continue, if you do survive you'll likely end up like dear old Ironwood in that universe. Your mistress has no need of weaklings, if you are found wanting, you'll either be tossed aside or she'll make absolutely sure you're worth her investment. You should know what I mean." Blank said before falling silent.

Cinder gulped when the ramifications of failing in her plan came to mind again. Salem was many things, tolerant of failure wasn't one of them. Especially not when she already failed to get the full maiden's powers once. If she failed to bring about the fall… no, she would not entertain that possibility, she'd come too far to fail at this juncture.

An unearthly howl shook the room as the beast charged with blinding speed. The coppery taste of blood made itself known when he bit his tongue in his mad last-ditch effort to dodge out of the way.

Ironwood crashed into the wall with all the force of a freight train and Jaune could feel the ground rumble under his feet from the impact. The beast was unfazed by the crash and just roared when Jaune opened fire on it.

Limbs flailing in all directions as Ironwood took multiple swipes at Jaune, flinging blood and bodies every which way. It was all the hunter could do to keep one step ahead of the beast and avoid being caught up in the rampage.

"His hide's too thick, shit!" Jaune swore when the eye filled mouth opened up, a stream of high-pressure liquid shot out and nearly carved him in two. Dodging again as another limb came close to taking his head off, Jaune was stuck on the defensive, only able to get in a few shots before having to retreat again.

And just when Jaune thought it couldn't get any worse, Ironwood jumped. In defiance of gravity, the beast's misshapen limbs propelled it into the air, almost reaching the high ceiling above them. An unholy screech heralded its fall, right onto Jaune's position.

The hunter just closed his eyes and started sprinting full tilt, not even sparing the energy to swear as the behemoth fell back to earth. Ironwood landed with an earth-shaking thud and Jaune spun around at the last second as his instincts screamed at him to block.

"GRAH!" Bringing his arms up into a cross to ward off the strike, One of Ironwood's legs struck him dead centre, breaking his arms and sending him hurtling into the far wall.

A spiderweb of cracks extended out from where he impacted and Jaune peeled himself off the wall with great effort. Landing on his feet woozily, his vision was blurry from the damage taken but he could make out Ironwood's massive bulk rushing towards him in the form of a hazy shadow.

Throwing himself to the side, a sharp gasp of pain left him as he landed on his still healing broken arms and worsened the damage to his probably broken ribs. Once he had motion in his arms again, Jaune whipped out a blood vial and quickly injected it into himself, gasping involuntarily when the agony suddenly lifted.

Getting back to his feet, he had to throw himself to the side again when Ironwood fired another stream of liquid from his mouth, scoring a long line along the ground Jaune as just standing on.

"Jaune-Jaune's getting his butt kicked." Nora stated the obvious as she glared at the screen.

"I'm just glad we don't have to fight anything like that. Not sure my punches will do anything to it… we uh… don't have to right?" Yang looked to Blank for confirmation.

"A beast like Ironwood the Accursed? No, you don't. But that isn't to say all your fights will be smooth sailing though, there are plenty of strong Grimm out there." Blank answered.

Jaune tuned out the muttering from the audience as he fought down his revulsion to analyse the battle, relying on his lessons from Beacon to help him. 'Right, team leaders can't panic, have to analyse situation and make a plan, the team is counting on you. Nothing's invincible, if standard tactics aren't working, think outside the box…'

His eyes flickered rapidly between the bestial Ironwood and his rapidly dodging counterpart, trying to find a method that could lead to a victory.

"Jaune?" Pyrrha asked when she noticed a look of total concentration slipping onto Jaune's face.

"I think I've got it, Ironwood is too fast and too tough to be fought head on. With that many limbs and that spit attack, he's lethal at every range. But nearly all of his attacks have the same thing in common, they rely on the back legs as a launching point or a pivot." Jaune's eye's brightened as the sounded out his ideas, his excitement bringing a smile to Pyrrha's own face.

"That means, the best strategy to use against him is…"

"Go for the back legs huh?" Jaune muttered as he sidestepped another charging, getting better at noticing the tells. This time, instead of backing off to put distance between them, Jaune rushed forwards and started slashing at Ironwood's legs with the Chikage.

His bloody katana cut long gashes along Ironwood's unarmoured limb and the toxic blood started eating away at the wounds. Ironwood roared in anger at the sudden assault to his hindquarters and Jaune backed off when an oversized limb swiped in to try and crush him.

Sheathing his katana, Jaune pulled out the Reiterpallasch in gun mode and dual wielded it with the Evelyn. When Ironwood's flailing limbs missed him, Jaune sidestepped repeated to get around to the abomination's side.

When he had a clear shot, he started pumping bullet after bullet into the wounded leg, aiming for the open wounds he left on Ironwood. Under heavy fire from two guns and already weakened earlier, Ironwood's leg gave out on him, sending the titan crashing to the floor in a heap.

Dashing back around to the front, Jaune started stabbing away at Ironwood's head before he could rise again and counterattack. When he thought he dealt enough damage to make punching through a possibility, Jaune formed a wedge with his fingers and stabbed forwards, plunging his arm into Ironwood's deformed skull.

Dredging up his Vileblood abilities, Jaune fired wave after wave of blood magic into his opponent, inflicting as much damage as he could by causing multiple blood explosions within the body.

As testament to Ironwood's sheer tenacity, not even that was enough to kill the beast. It just sent it into a mindless rage and it started flailing about, trying to shake Jaune off. The hunter managed to hold on for a few seconds more before he was forced to retreat, lest his arm get torn off by the maddened beast.

"Gah! So close!" Nora squeezed down hard on Ren's arm, and the boy in green winced in pain. Using his free hand, Ren shoved an untouched bucket of popcorn into Nora's hands, giving her that to hug instead while he tried to get the blood circulating back to his numb arm.

"Tch, well at least it just goes to show a mindless beast won't be able to beat a human." Roman said.

"Correct." Was Blank's simple reply.

"Why… does that answer not fill me with confidence?" Blake asked and her sense of unease only worsened when Blank failed to respond.

Ironwood slumped over once Jaune was a safe distance away. a section of his white robes shifted and the hilt of a giant sword slipped out, coming into his line of sight. Unbidden, the blade began glowing green, illuminating Ironwood's bestial face with its radiance.

Slowly, his eyes were drawn to the sword, and the deformed head seemed to shift, some of the damage Jaune inflicted healing away as the face started to resemble its original human appearance.

"Aah… you were at my side all along." Ironwood's voice spoke as one of his pure white eyes shifted back to something more human.

"No. Way. Is… is he pulling himself back from beasthood!?" Jaune could only stare in disbelief as the transformed former hunter did the impossible.

"My true mentor." Ironwood rose onto his hind legs, standing tall in a bastardisation of his human combat stance, the glowing sword in hand.

"My guiding moonlight."

Before any attempt to try an communicate could be made, Ironwood had already closed the distance between them with his speed and swung the Holy Moonlight Sword. The magic blade coupled with Ironwood's freakish strength meant Jaune had no chance of dodging the lightning fast attack.

"GRAHGH!" Caught unaware, he took the blade to the chest and was sent flying backwards. Crashing to the floor in a heap, his vision swam as precious lifeblood leaked from the near fatal wound.

Looking up at Ironwood, he noticed the sword held high in the air, glowing with unparalleled power as energy swirled around it. Jaune's face fell and he prepared for the inevitable.

"Fuck."

Ironwood brought the blade down and a tidal wave of emerald magic surged towards the fallen Jaune, engulfing him in it and disintegrating him instantly, not even ashes left to mark his passing.

"B-but he was getting his sanity back! Why would he attack again!?" Ruby asked, not expecting things to go in such a manner.

"He's not completely back, even now he relies on his blade's magic for 'guidance' even though it's what set him on the path to damnation in the first place. There's some irony to be had in the fact that the weapon that led to him becoming a beast also led to him regaining some of his humanity." Blank answered.

"So, how is he supposed to win now? The good general is a freaking monster and has a magic sword with fuck you power." Roman spat out.

"Attrition." Blank replied.

"Attrition?" Ozpin prodded for more information.

"The thing about fighting an opponent who can continuously come back from the dead and is hell bent on destroying you is that sooner or later, they'll learn everything they need and succeed. But you already knew that."

Once the darkness receded and Jaune returned to life, he found himself in one of the many buildings inside the nightmare. Growling in frustration at his untimely demise, he got back to his feet and dusted himself off.

"Fine, the hard way it is then." Checking he still had a full supply of Molotov cocktails at his disposal, Jaune marched out the doors and headed straight for Ironwood's lair.

Walking through the entrance, an emerald wave forced him to dodge immediately as Ironwood went on the offensive. Double guns in hand, the hunter started shooting for Ironwood's head whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Pelting the beast with quicksilver bullets and the occasional flaming bottle, he began to chip away at Ironwood's absurd defences, the damage starting to add up and he'd eventually bring the former legend down.

Jaune's new tactics were far from perfect though. His next death occurred when Ironwood stabbed his sword into the ground while Jaune was trying to circle around to get out of his reach. A circle of power formed around Ironwood and magic blasted upwards, killing Jaune instantly again.

Moments later, the darkness was gone and Jaune was back alive in the nightmare. Dusting himself off again, Jaune readied his weapons and made his way back to the fight, he had infinite lives to lose after all, Ironwood would fall to him eventually, and something told him that Ironwood wouldn't be coming back in this bestial form the next time he reformed, if he reformed.

"He's determined if nothing else, I'll give him that." Cinder muttered as she watched Jaune die repeatedly against Ironwood. Every time he fell, he rose again and switched up his tactics and weapons, once even lugging in a cannon to blast the behemoth with, slowly making progress in his quest to kill Ironwood.

"How the hell can he do this? Doesn't he feel pain?" Mercury asked when Jaune got bisected by Ironwood's sword, remaining alive and conscious long enough for the monster to stomp him to death underfoot.

"Oh he feels pain alright, he's just able to push it aside and he's used to it at this point, dying hundreds of times numbs you to the experience after a while. Giving up leads to him turning and becoming just as damned as everyone else trapped in the nightmare." Blank answered.

After dozens of resurrections, Jaune finally found his groove. Weaving through all incoming attacks, Jaune kept out of reach and managed to saw through one of Ironwood's legs with the saw cleaver, bringing the titan down to his knees.

Stabbing a fist into Ironwood's exposed chest, Jaune fired off his blood magic again before ripping free, a torrent of blood gushed out as he shredded much of the internal organs inside.

And the abomination toppled over with a groan, falling to the ground with a thunderous crash. Slowly, the main body decayed into nothingness, leaving behind only a fetid stench and Ironwood's head.

"Ahh… good hunter of the church, have you seen the light? Are my church hunters the honourable Spartans I hoped they would be?" Ironwood's eyes opened and the severed head started speaking once Jaune drew close.

The hunter paused mid-step as he recalled the numerous insane hunters he already had to put down and the fact that this entire debacle was a thing because the church hunters were anything but.

Still, the hope in Ironwood's eyes wasn't something Jaune could ignore despite everything, he just didn't have it in himself to crush the man's final hope with the truth. So he lied.

"Yes, they were." He answered curtly.

"Ah, good...that is a relief. To know I did not suffer such denigration for nothing. Thank you kindly. Now I may sleep in peace. Even in this darkest of nights, I see...the moonlight..." Ironwood trailed off and the head stopped moving, slowly decaying away as well, leaving behind only a smaller version of the Holy Moonlight Sword in its deactivated state on the ground.

"Oh, he's well and truly gone, now. A tragic figure. But he will shame himself no longer. He died with his ideals untarnished. He was a true hero, and earnt that much, at least. Ironwood's guiding Light is yours now. The blinding thread, that lead, and mislead, that consummate hero. The poor brute." Jaune was distracted from his analysis of the sword when Ren came up behind him.

"You were watching!? Couldn't you have helped!? Jaune glared at his fellow hunter in anger, with just one more person helping, the number of required deaths could have easily been halved at least.

"I'm just a watcher now, only one life left I'm afraid. Combat is no longer my strong suit. I thank thee for freeing Ironwood from his curse. Perhaps at the end of this, my old friends can finally find peace." Ren said.

"Old… friend? How long have you been here?" Jaune asked in a whisper, from the bits and pieces of knowledge Ozpin let slip and some of the notes he found in the waking world. Ironwood belonged to the first generation of hunters in Yharnam, their time passed decades ago, for Ren to be one of their contemporaries…

"Long enough." Ren replied with a mirthless chuckle.

"Do you know why the Hunters are drawn to this Nightmare? Because it sprouted from their very misdeeds. Things that some would rather keep secret. A pitiful tale of petty arrogance, really.

High time someone exposed the whole charade." Ren pointed to a doorway hidden in the back, a section of the wall hiding it had fallen away with Ironwood's defeat.

"Now, now, go on ahead. You seek nightmares, and the secrets within, do you not? You're getting closer to the truth. Don't stop now." Ren knelt down to pay his respects to the fallen, not reacting when Jaune sighed and continued on his path forwards.

"Well at least he'll be remembered as a hero?" Qrow offered quietly.

"Hopefully he's in a better place now." Ozpin sighed out.

"Oh, he's probably still suffering in the nightmare as he deserves to." Cinder callously called out, getting the audience to glare at her.

"Can you just shut up and off yourself? You're an eyesore." Qrow spat out.

"What's the matter? You heard what they said, he brought it on himself. What, so quick to condemn me but so eager to brush aside the misdeeds of your own? How very hypocritical of you."

Advancing deeper into the structure, Jaune found himself in a dungeon and immediately beset by enemies lying in wait. After killing everything in his path, Jaune took a side passage down leading to a lower cell. Staring through the bars, he found a hunter seated against the wall at the very end, ringing a silent bell continuously.

"Are you a hunter? Well, that's very odd. Do you hear the toll of the bell?" Cardin asked when he noticed Jaune at the door.

"I hear nothing." Jaune answered honestly.

"Very well. The beasts you seek will not be found here. Go back to your hunt, and if you have the chance, put this night behind you. Places better left untouched, secrets better left alone...only a fool would so brazenly roam..." Cardin said with a laugh and it immediately gave Jaune a bad vibe.

"I'll keep your words in mind." Turning on his heel, Jaune left the locked cell behind to head upstairs.

"Cardin, what's he doing there?" Nora narrowed her eyes at the screen, fingers itching for a missing weapon.

"He's an assassin of the church, there to prevent secrets from leaking out." Blank answered.

"Oh, so we're going to fight then?" Jaune stated.

"Eventually."

Emerging into a medical ward, Jaune noted grimly that the corpses on the beds clearly did not die painlessly. A woman in a vicar's uniform was praying at the altar at the end, as Jaune approached, his instincts warned him of an incoming threat and he quickstepped to the side.

A bullet passed right by his head as he dodged out of the way, a second church hunter garbed in black started attacking him. And then the vicar joined in.

Fighting them both off at the same time proved to be a challenge, but after Ironwood, they were practically a cakewalk. Burying the saw blades of his cleaver into the head of the hunter in black, Jaune ripped the weapon free and nearly split her head in two.

As the corpse started disintegrating, he dodged away from the magic projectiles fired his way while keeping out of range of the vicar's whip. For her in particular, Jaune just emptied his remaining supply of bullets, forcing her into a corner and then filling her with holes and leaving her to die where she lay.

With all threats taken care of, Jaune approached the altar and examined it. There was a stone statue of a skeleton on it and its skull was hollow. A closer look revealed an opening that was a perfect fit for the pendant he retrieved earlier.

Carefully slotting it home, there was a click as a switch activated. The platform rumbled as ancient machinery came to life and it started to ascend, revealing itself as an elevator. When it finally came to a stop, Jaune was surprised to find Ren leaning against a wall waiting for him.

"How did you-"

"I've my ways. Not a pretty sight, is it?" Ren pointed into the room beyond, Jaune could make out deformed individuals in patient outfits milling around. Skinnier than should be healthy, bloated lumps of flesh replaced their heads yet they were still able to find their way around without crashing into things.

"The true face of the blood-worshipping, beast-purging Healing Church. But that's not all. You seek the secrets field by the Nightmare, do you not? Then here's what you must do. Climb the Astral Clocktower, and kill Weiss, she hides the real secret to this damnable nightmare." Ren instructed and chuckled before falling silent, only urging Jaune to hurry forwards when probed.

"I'm sorry, kill who!?" Weiss shot up out of her seat at the unexpected words.

"Wait, isn't Weiss inside the hunter's dream with the workshop where the headmaster is? What do you mean kill Weiss at the top of the clocktower?" Jaune was just as confused.

"Umm, Blank did say the Weiss in the workshop is a copy of the original and the real one was elsewhere, I assume the real one is here then?" Pyrrha opined.

"Indeed, the true Weiss resides at the top of the tower. Once one of the church's most loyal hunters, she grew disillusioned with the leadership after witnessing the lengths they're willing to go to for 'progress'." Blank explained.

"But if Weiss-cream is against the church, shouldn't they be on the same side? Why would Jaune need to kill her?" Yang asked.

"She guards the greatest secret of the healing church from everyone equally in an effort to prevent anyone else from trying to abuse it and repeat the tragedy of the past. Negotiation is impossible since she doesn't believe anyone could resist the lure of such power, not to mention once the seal is broken, anyone else can simply go on through, including agents of the church." Blank said.

"That's just great, guess I'm joining the watch myself die club." Weiss threw her hands in the air and sat down frustrated.

"Look on the bright side Weiss, it can't possibly be worse than mine." Ruby said morbidly.

Blank just coughed sheepishly in the back.

Fighting through the research halls of the clocktower was a frustrating experience and progress grinded almost to a halt. The numerous patients wondering the floors were more akin to beasts than humans, despite their frail forms, the strength and speed packed in their frames were beyond anything a normal human should have been capable off.

"More human experimentation… no this must have been the original research hall after the church split from Byrgenwerth. Pulled into the nightmare or a recreation? What the hell were they doing here?" Jaune poured over some notes he found lying on a table while incensed patients tried breaking down the door he locked and barricaded behind him.

When the glass windows shattered, Jaune's left arm snapped up with Evelyn in hand, two shots later and several squeals could be heard as the mortally wounded patients fell to the ground. Returning his attention to the notes on the table, the hunter became more and more disturbed with every document he read through.

"Communion with the great ones by creation of artificial ones? Harvesting brains? Transformation into full kin… oh…" Jaune staggered back, temporarily overwhelmed by the information he just absorbed.

'These notes are old, decades old, no updates since… small mercies… but what about the church in the waking world? What are they hiding in the upper levels of Cathedral Ward?' Jaune was sickened to the core as he glared at the pile of notes, wishing they would just catch fire and burn to ashes along with everything in this accursed place.

A crash signified the door being broken down at last by the horde on the other end. Jaune's pistol snapped up as he gunned down the charging patients, falling back as he did to an elevator at the end of the room.

Stepping aboard, he allowed the contraption to take him up further, watching as several of the test subjects fell into the empty elevator shaft in their eagerness to tear him limb from limb.

"Poor bastards." He shook his head in pity, according to some notes he found earlier, most of the patients in this place had come to the church for the miracle of blood healing. Instead they were kidnapped and forcibly experimented on until they lost their minds. There was nothing he could do for them now.

"How could they do that? Couldn't anyone stop them? Didn't anyone try?" Blake asked, unable to comprehend the scale of the abuses committed. Faunus in the SDC mines lived like kings in comparison to these tortured souls.

"The healing church is one of the most powerful entities in that world, at least prior to the current hunt. Having a miracle cure for all illnesses that also serves to increase a person's base stats means a nigh infinite amount of funds and backers willing to turn a blind eye to all ethical conundrums. Most who tried either got swayed with money or the promise of godhood, those that didn't were silenced by those who did." Blank said.

A loud rumble filled the entire research hall as Jaune pulled the lever to shift the main staircase in the centre. He watched it slowly turn until it was connected to the double doors leading out of the hellhole.

Confident that whoever this Weiss person was awaited him on the other side of them. Jaune knelt amidst the pile of corpses he created and focused inwards, allowing his connection to the dream to draw him home.

Opening his eyes again, he was back in the hunter's dream. Stopping by the doll to exchange his blood echoes for greater strength, he marched up the steps to the workshop in search of Ozpin, the research notes from the nightmare clutched tightly in hand.

"Back already? How fares the hunt?" Ozpin greeted one Jaune stormed in.

"You tell me." Jaune growled out as he shoved the papers in Ozpin's face. The old hunter's face fell as he read through the papers.

"So. What are you going to do now that you know?"

"Go deeper into the nightmare and end it at the source. This… is insane what you've all done. And something tells me this isn't even the worst of it is it? I can see how someone would hate you all enough to curse everyone even remotely related to you to eternal damnation. What, nothing to say in your defence?" Jaune's tone was full of venom as he glared at the old man.

"When we started out, we had the best of intentions, everything we did, we did to advance humanity. We found the Pthumeru ruins, an ancient civilisation of super humans who were closer to the gods than anything before… or since. We found that we weren't alone in the universe, and that we humans were so hopelessly insignificant that we were beneath notice to beings who could erase us all just by thinking about it. We were afraid, and so we sought a way to elevate humanity, to remove that threat, and we made contact with sympathetic great ones who were willing to help us try to ascend." Ozpin said in a tired voice.

"Yeah well, you know what they say about good intentions and the road to hell. When the hell did you start experimenting on the unwilling? How could you even justify that!?"

"To safeguard humanity's continued existence, no sacrifice is too great. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… that was what we believed at the time." Ozpin replied.

'Haah… some things I can never get away from.' Ozpin rubbed his temples to ease his building migraine. Once upon a time he believed that too in his fight against Salem, multiple lifetimes of following that philosophy and having it lead him nowhere except into unnecessary conflicts with former allies changed his opinion on it.

It was one of the points he always ended up arguing with general Ironwood over. James was in a sense a reflection of his past, too willing to do whatever it took to complete the mission no matter the cost elsewhere.

The problem with trying to sacrifice others for your own goals was that the sacrifices tended to object to the plan, more often than not through judicious applications of violence.

"Despite our efforts, everything went wrong in the end. Perhaps we could have done things differently, but what's done is done. It's too late now." Ozpin sighed heavily as Jaune shook his head.

"Maybe for you, but I don't intend to give up here. I will break the curse or turn while trying, it's the only path left to me thanks to all of you. Who is Weiss anyway?" Jaune asked as he turned to the worktable and switched out his equipment again in preparation for another hunter to hunter battle.

"Weiss?" Ozpin's eyes widened at the sound of her name.

"Ah, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. She was my best student once, then one day she tired of the church's misdeeds and took her own life. The doll was crafted in her image, a way to remember the student I failed."

"I killed myself? But Ren said… oh, I'm trapped in the nightmare too aren't I? I'm… not a monster like general Ironwood… am I?" Weiss asked in a small voice as Ruby scooted over to give her partner a tight hug.

"No you're not. You resisted the curse by effectively sleeping through much of it, putting yourself into a coma so you couldn't succumb, only waking when an intruder arrives." Blank answered.

"Not quite dead yet. She's in the nightmare too, guarding something evidently." Jaune said.

"I… see… then I presume you're going to lay her to rest?" Ozpin said, a conflicted expression on his face.

"If I must. If she's anything like Ironwood, then death is mercy. What was it you said, freedom from a doomed existence?"

"Haaa… you will do what you must. You are a hunter after all." Ozpin sighed and closed his eyes.

"Yes. I am." Jaune confirmed as he buckled the Chikage and Reiterpallasch to his waist and refilled his supply of blood vials and bullets. Throwing out one last curse at the situation they were stuck in, Jaune stormed off and knelt before the headstone that would lead him back to the nightmare.

Returning to the research hall, Jaune fought his way past the numerous victims of the healing church's vile experiments until he stood before the doors barring his way forwards. Taking a deep breath, he pushed them open and stepped through.

Finding himself standing in the middle of a lumenflower garden, the sunflower like plants waved gently in the breeze as the rest of the twisted version of Yharnam could be seen from his vantage point. A single giant tree covered in lumenflowers stood at the centre of it all providing shade. It was a surprisingly peaceful image considering everything the nightmare had thrown his way thus far.

It didn't last.

The ground cracked open as blue limbs punched through the surface and pulled the rest of the body attached to them up. Looking like larger even more deformed versions of the clocktower patients, Jaune recognized them from several of the research notes.

"The living failures huh, the first attempt at creating celestial emissaries that ultimately resulted in failure." Jaune muttered as the living failures did as expected and started attacking him.

Dodging arcane blasts sent his way, Jaune drew his katana and started hacking away at them. The failures were a lot tougher to kill than the patients but hit them enough times and they went down anyways.

Ducking under flailing limbs that promised multiple shattered bones should a hit connect, the hunter fired his Evelyn to stun his enemy and blew it to hell with his own blood magic. As the creature's remains rained back to earth, the sky darkened and Jaune sprinted for cover behind the tree.

All around the garden, the blue humanoids were raising their arms to the sky in prayer. Space itself warped in reaction to them and a vision of the cosmos formed in thin air. Blue meteors poured out of the gap in space time and crashed harmlessly against the tree in the centre, the thing shaking under the assault but holding firm.

While the barrage was going on, Jaune wasn't standing still. Taking pot shots at the stationary targets, he downed several of them before they started to move again. "They're not hard to knock down, but there's just so many of them!"

Continuing to fight on against the still emerging monsters, slowly he whittled away at their numbers until only one remained. No more poured out of the ground and Jaune was free to cut it down with his katana, having long exhausted his bullets against the sheer volume of enemies.

As the beast fell over and started disintegrating, Jaune surveyed the once beautiful garden. Everything in it had been ruined, the flowers that hadn't been uprooted in the living failures emergence had been trampled into oblivion, the giant tree that probably once provided comfort to the damned was barely standing, much of it blown to splinters.

He could only sigh at the unnecessary destruction brought about by the church's actions and offered a small prayer for all the innocent souls caught up in this mess.

"It's kind of tragic really. How did things get to such a state? Did no one at all think that their plans weren't working?" Summer commented.

"I'm sure they noticed, problem with corrupt power mad assholes is that when they notice things aren't going their way, they have a habit of doubling down instead, like that will make things any better." Roman said and stared pointedly at Cinder's group.

Neo typed several things into her scroll and showed it to Roman, the master thief just shook his head.

"No, stabbing her in her sleep when we get back is too risky. With her magical bullshit she might survive somehow, we've still got dust in the warehouses right?" Roman asked in a conspiratorial whisper, a grin spread across his face when Neo nodded.

"Good, fire bitch had us steal all that dust and didn't even have the professional courtesy to use it all at Mount Glenn. She's definitely getting her memory wiped, just call her out for a meeting about future plans or something and explode all the dust. Give Cinder and her gruesome twosome a proper firework send off to hell." Roman said and Neo gave an eager thumbs up.

"What are you two whispering about?" Qrow glanced over to the two of them when he noticed their hush hush conversations.

"Nothing much, just some plans for a little fireworks display to celebrate our turning over a new leaf when we get back." Roman said, the perfect picture of innocence, getting Qrow to stare at them blankly and shake his head.

Moving forwards, Jaune opened the doors at the other end of the lumenflower garden. A large chamber awaited him on the other side, at the far end stood a giant clock face with indecipherable markings in place of numbers.

Right in front of it sat a fresh corpse in a chair. With head bowed and covered by an old hat, Jaune couldn't make out anything about the corpse save that it had white hair. A bloody stab wound in the abdomen left no doubt as to the cause of death.

"Okay, was not expecting this." Jaune advanced cautiously with weapons at the ready, waiting for whoever killed the hunter to leap out and menace him. Reaching the corpse unchallenged, he reached out with one hand to investigate it.

He was caught off guard when the corpse moved and grabbed his outstretched limb with an iron grip and pulled him close. The familiar face of the doll greeted him when the 'corpse' raised her head to look him in the eye.

"A corpse… should be left well alone." Weiss intoned before releasing Jaune's hand, allowing the hunter to back off slowly.

"Oh, I know very well. How the secrets beckon so sweetly. Only an honest death will cure you now. Liberate you, from your wild curiosity." She rose from her seat and drew her weapon, a twin blade that split into a saber and dagger. Splitting the Rakuyo into its components, Weiss assumed and combat stance as Jaune did the same.

"So, you're Weiss then. I'm here to end the nightmare, not perpetuate it, let me pass." Jaune said in a last-ditch attempt to avoid conflict.

"How droll." Weiss shook her head and started attacking immediately, silver glinted in the light as their weapons clashed. The two hunters separated with rapid quicksteps and fired their pistols at the same time.

Neither found their mark. Jaune's eyes widened in surprise at the sight of another Evelyn in Weiss hands. "You… that gun!"

"A relic from my past." Weiss said and fired again before switching back to her blades.

"Whoo boy, ice queen junior is taking after ice queen senior here eh?" Qrow commented, seeing some similarities between Winter's fighting style and the Weiss on screen.

Weiss herself was busy taking down notes for future self-improvement. Her rapier was fine for now but having more options in the future never hurt anyone, especially not when it was close to her sister's.

Jabbing a blood vial into his side to heal up a nasty gash across his eye, Jaune parried the incoming blows with his rapier, sneaking in shots from the two guns in hand as he forced Weiss to back off. In both strength and experience, Weiss clearly outclassed him, the sole advantage he had in the fight was that he had blood vials to heal with while Weiss had nothing.

Sparks flared as his bullets were struck out of the sky by Weiss's twin blades and Ozpin's former start pupil closed in again, unwilling to give Jaune the time to catch his breath.

The cycle of clashing and disengaging continued until Jaune got in a lucky hit with Reiterpallasch and stunned Weiss. Dashing in, he stabbed her in the chest with his hand and activated his blood magic, dealing heavy damage and sending Weiss tumbling back with a spray of blood.

"That's… messy." Yang said with distaste as her on screen friends continued trying to murder one another.

"I wish we didn't have to fight like that. I thought we were supposed to be on the same side." Jaune groused.

"Conflicts can happen even when everyone has a common goal, trust me on that Mr Arc." Ozpin said as he sipped his coffee.

"So you are a Vileblood after all. Pity." Weiss said as she got back to her feet, the wound inflicted by Jaune already ceasing to bleed.

"And what about it?" Jaune asked, sensing that Weiss was about to kick things to a new level and keeping his distance until he had a better gauge of what she was about to do.

"You have a long way to go." Weiss said as she stabbed both saber and dagger into her stomach, burying them all the way up to the hilt and hunching over in pain.

"Okay? Last I checked you stab your opponents to kill them, not yourself." Mercury said, weirded out by what he was seeing.

"Not entirely so, there are people who can kill others by stabbing themselves." Blank said, thinking of homicidally insane, evil god worshipping ninjas.

"In any case, this is blood magic, and blood magic usually involves blood sacrifice."

With a cry, Weiss ripped the weapons free from her body in an explosion of blood. Jaune covered his face to avoid the spray getting into his eyes, when he looked up again, he noticed that Weiss's weapons were now coated in her own blood and their reach had been extended greatly.

"So much more to learn, pity you won't live long enough to do so." Weiss stabbed forwards and a bolt of blood lanced outwards from her saber, striking the unprepared Jaune head on.

"GAH!" The strike was forceful enough to lift Jaune off his feet and sent him tumbling back. Coughing up his own life fluid from having a sizable hole punched through his sternum, he got to his knees and retrieved a blood vial, trying to inject it into himself.

"None of that now." Weiss slashed again and a wave of blood left her weapon, lopping off the hand holding the blood vial and causing the precious bottle to shatter on the ground.

"Urrghh!" Jaune clutched the stump of his right arm close to himself as he glared at Weiss. The lady of the clocktower merely approached in an unhurried manner, blood enhanced weapons hanging at her sides in a loose grip.

"There is nothing for you here, the beasts you seek will not be found on this level. Go back to your hunt." Weiss said in a patronising tone.

"I'm here to end the curse on the hunters, I will get past even if it means climbing over your dead body." Jaune snarled back.

"You fool. The difference between us should be clear by now. Come however many times you like, I'll kill you every single time.' Weiss raised her blades and prepared to finish off the downed hunter.

"Heh, death is an old friend. I only need to win once." Jaune said with a bitter smile on his face.

"We'll see." Weiss slashed her weapons in a scissor like motion, twin blood edges fired off and cleanly decapitated Jaune. The headless corpse thudded to the ground and the head followed a split second later. As they started fading away, Weiss returned to her seat to await his next challenge.

"Alright, magic blood swords are a perfectly legit reason to stab yourself." Mercury nodded to himself.

'What I could do with such power.' Cinder contemplated the possibility of blood magic via the maiden's powers before shelving the thought, there were always more avenues of power that didn't involve self-harm.

"It's still disturbing how easily he can just die and get back up over and over again like there's nothing wrong with it." Blake commented.

"No matter disturbing it is, repetition builds normalcy huh?" Ozpin muttered under his breath.

Every time he died, Jaune would resurrect and immediately rush off to challenge Weiss, doing much the same as he had with Ironwood, using repeated lives to slowly eke out all of Weiss's techniques. Constantly switching up his own weapons prevented Weiss from returning the favour.

"You are persistent, aren't you?" Weiss said as she rubbed her forehead, her gloves came away bloody from where Jaune had scored a scratch with the Chikage. Retaliating with a series of slashes and stabs, Jaune evaded all the incoming blood attacks with practiced movements.

"I have to be. You can't win this you know, sooner or later I'll kill you and continue on." Jaune called out as he sheathed the katana and drew the sword he obtained from Ironwood earlier. Swiping his hands across the dull grey blade, it glowed green and its form shifted into its magic form.

"Why do you insist on this path? There is nothing for you here, no beasts for you to kill, can't you just let the secrets of the nightmare remain buried?" Weiss asked, tiredness evident in her voice.

Jaune shook his head and removed his hat, pulling down his scarf as he did so. glaring at Weiss, he pointed to his eyes, his one blue one now looked purplish as a tinge of red started spreading in it. "Look at me, do you think I have a choice in the matter? Your actions led to the curse on all hunters! We are forever damned because of you and your precious church! If I don't deal with the nightmare once and for all, then I'll become a thrice damned beast. I, and countless others!"

"Even so, I can't let you pass. Maybe you speak true, but even so, the church claims the secrets here. If the seal is broken, they'll come in force to reclaim it, and make all the same mistakes. The nightmare will repeat itself again, and I cannot allow that." Weiss said.

"I've seen enough to know that the scourge is worsening in the waking world. Every hunt is longer and more violent than the last. The death toll won't stop climbing, if you think whatever dark secret of the church your protecting is unique… I question your sanity." Jaune said as he returned his hat to its resting place and raised his great sword.

"It is one of a kind… but I suppose it's impossible to expect those fools to not try and find a new one. Even then, I still can't let you pass. You've seen the research hall and the poor souls within, letting the church through will only cause their tragedy to be repeated to a degree beyond anything you can imagine. And so we're at an impasse."

"No. We are at an end. No more secrets! I'll see the church answer for everything they've done!" Jaune grit his teeth and surged forwards, the art of quickening helping to mask his movements as Weiss responded in kind.

Blood blades locked against an arcane one as the two hunters sought to overpower one another, each believing in the justness of their cause.

Arcane blasts and blood bolts filled their arena as both hunters started pulling out everything in their arsenal to win.

"Grr… who am I supposed to root for here? They both have valid points." Yang complained.

"That stupid church can't get away with this right? Fearless leader is gonna stomp em all flat right?" Nora asked Blank.

"Rest assured, at this point, the church is mostly finished already. They're currently locked in a civil war between the two largest factions and most of their leaders are either dead, trapped in the nightmare or in exile. The few who remain aren't long for the world either." Blank replied.

"I hope they pay for their sins in full." Ren said quietly.

"They do."

Jaune slammed the holy moonlight sword into the ground, cursing when Weiss simply sidestepped out of the way. Throwing himself into a tumble to avoid the wave of blood coming for him, when he came back up he fired off an energy wave of his own.

"Guh… tenacious." Weiss staggered back when the emerald wave cut a line across her shoulder, not having dodged away in time. Raising her blades, she began channelling more of the blood magic she detested and started floating in the air.

The copious amounts of blood spilled during their fight surged off the ground, pouring into Weiss as she absorbed it to power up further. With a blast that shed the excess liquid, Weiss resumed the offensive with even stronger and faster explosive blood attacks.

A blood jab scored a line across Jaune's cheek and the hunter had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming when the blood combusted inside his wound, causing pure agony to engulf his face.

A quick blood vial injection later and he was back on his feet, dodging rapidly to keep away from Weiss's quickdraw attacks and all the explosions she was sending his way.

"Combusting your own blood now?" Jaune asked as he stabbed the great sword into the ground, drawing knowledge from the blade and copying Ironwood's magic circle attack. Only this time, the circle of arcane energy formed a barrier that Weiss's attacks broke against, leaving him unharmed.

"A last resort move for Vilebloods. I'm burning through my remaining life force for this. This, is everything I've got. You say you want to end the nightmare, and force the healing church to account for their sins?" Weiss queried and Jaune nodded.

"Very well then, come at me with everything you've got. Show me your resolve."

Jaune obliged. Charging back into the fray, he closed the distance to erase the range advantage Weiss had over him and reduce the possible attack angles of her blood blades.

In response, Weiss leapt into the air before crashing down in a burning blood explosion. The burning wave of heat and light seared Jaune but he simply powered through it, his last blood vial already stabbed into his thigh to mitigate the damage.

While Weiss was recovering from her failed attack, Jaune had already reached her. Arcane energy swirled around his sword as he slid into a stance right in front of Weiss. Pulling his sword arm back and bracing the flat of the blade against the palm of his free hand, Jaune thrust the weapon forwards as though it were a lance with all of his strength.

Weiss backstepped but it was already too late. The swirling arcane energy blasted outwards at the end of his stab, even though the blade never reached her, the shotgun blast of magic ensured a direct hit all the same.

With the magic ripping through her already damaged body, both of them knew the wound was fatal even before she collapsed to the ground twitching.

"And looks like lover boy wins after all. Then again it's hard to beat someone who just won't stay dead." Yang shrugged her shoulders, at least she wouldn't have to watch them continue fighting.

"That's unfair! Arc, I demand a spar after this." Weiss glared at Jaune, fingers twitching in frustration.

"Whoa what!? I had nothing to do with that! And other me didn't have a choice." Jaune frantically waved his arms in denial, his face paling at the thought of having to face an angry Weiss.

"Not sure I care right now."

"Uh… guys a little help here?" Jaune looked to his friends, all of them suddenly finding their nails or the seats in front of them very interesting.

"Sorry Jaune, you're on your own for this one." Yang grinned and slapped him on the back.

"Uh… go easy on me Weiss?" Jaune pleaded, seeing no help coming from his treacherous friends.

"I'll think about it…" Weiss said in a tone that clearly indicated she was more concerned about finding the best way to put him in the dirt.

"Oh come on! You killed me like ten times in exchange!"

"Kuh…" Weiss coughed in pain as she pushed herself over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling with blurred vision.

"Looks like you win after all."

"Was it worth it? Everything you did for the church?" Jaune asked, needing to hear her answer for himself even if he could already guess it.

"No, not at all. I did end up committing suicide after all. Heh… couldn't even die right." Weiss's laughter transitioned to a choked cry as her wounds caught up with her.

"I tried making up for it, I really did. When I woke up in the nightmare and found the victims of the experiments here, I tried to give them the comfort the church denied them. But it was all for nothing in the end wasn't it?" She asked with a sad smile.

"Maybe, but I don't think the effort was wasted. Tell me, what is the secret hidden here anyways?" Jaune asked.

Weiss stared at the ceiling for several seconds before answering, the truth would come to light eventually anyways, no need to put it off any longer. "The corpse of the great one Kos and… her living child."

"That's impossible, great ones cannot have children." Jaune denied, having found documents indicating as such in various places, including the abandoned workshop in the waking world.

"Yet Kos did. Kos made a new great one from nothing, if that can be done then surely you can turn an ordinary human into a great one as well. That was the secret, one so jealously guarded the church committed genocide on the fishing hamlet that discovered it. They killed every last man, woman and child there." Weiss said.

"So that's why… they cursed us, they cursed us all for their unjust slaughter and the great one answered the cries…" Jaune whispered, everything coming together for him now.

"Damn, just damn." Qrow muttered as he took a large swig from his flask.

"And suddenly the Vale council doesn't seem quite so corrupt in exchange." Roman shook his head, unable to believe he just uttered those words.

"Question is, did they succeed in turning any of their own into gods?" Cinder asked.

"No. It can be done, they just don't get the chance to succeed at it." Blank answered.

"Pity, so much wasted effort." Cinder sighed and shrugged.

"Of course that's what you focus on, did you miss the part where they slaughtered innocents or… oh, why am I even asking, you plan to destroy Vale just for some paltry power." Jaune sneered at Cinder.

"I'd hardly call becoming one of the most powerful beings to walk the planet paltry, but whatever. If you're going to put in that much effort into something, then you might as well succeed at it."

"Here, key to the seal." Weiss held out a disk that Jaune accepted.

"This… is the end for me, give Ozpin my regards would you?"

"I will."

"Good… don't let this ever happen again. Promise me." Weiss looked Jaune in the eyes, waiting for his response.

"I promise." Jaune nodded and Weiss exhaled slowly, her body starting to fade away. Having kept herself anchored to the nightmare through nothing but sheer force of will, she let go once Jaune gave his word and she could find no dishonesty in his eyes.

Once Weiss had faded away completely, Jaune did as his intuition beckoned and raised the disk up. Once it caught the light pouring through the glass of the clock face, the clock rumbled to life and it started moving. Eventually, an opening appeared in the centre, the path forwards now clear.

Stepping through, Jaune was instantly reminded of the twistedness of the nightmare. Whatever source of illumination had lit up the clock face was nowhere to be found. Instead of a sunny expanse as he expected, a dull and dreary landscape met his eyes as heavy rain poured from the heavens.

Damaged boats lined the sides of his walkway as an endless sea appeared to stretch into the horizon. Slightly weirded out by having a sea meet him despite walking out of the top of one of the tallest buildings in nightmare Yharnam, he took a closer look at the waters and was further disturbed.

The water was murky and choppy waves made visibility poor but he could still make out the twisted version of Yharnam deep below the waves. "I'm… standing on the sky right now? Still… those buildings in the distance… this must be the fishing hamlet the church destroyed. It got pulled into the nightmare too?"

"Is that the original place or a copy like the city below the um… waters?" Ruby asked.

"It's the original. While the city is a copy made from the collective memories of the hunters trapped in the nightmare to punish them, this place is the original fishing hamlet, pulled in by the power of the great one." Blank answered.

"Okay, so what happened to the people that used to live there? Their corpses get pulled in too?" Roman asked.

"In a manner of speaking. The original inhabitants are long dead and their souls gone, but their bodies have been reanimated by the nightmare and twisted into a new form." Blank said.

"That's freaky." Emerald whispered with a small shiver. She had no intention of dying any time soon but when she did eventually meet her maker, she preferred if her body was left to rest in peace thank you very much.

"That's encouraging." Jaune murmured as he stared up at a corpse hanging upside down from an overhead beam. Rotted and decayed, enough of its clothing remained to identify it as someone from the church. That the corpse had its head removed and was posed in a manner to resemble the hunter's mark did not bode well.

"Isn't everyone here supposed to be dead? Ah what am I saying, the nightmare must have more guardians of its own." Jaune brushed the rain out of his eyes and continued forwards.

He ran into the guardians soon enough as he traversed the dilapidated hamlet. Fishmen wielding crude spears and covered in barnacles burst out of the buildings to harass him and impede his progress.

Repeated ambushes were an annoyance, visibility in the rain and fog was poor and his enemies good at using it to their advantage. Despite that, Jaune was thankful for the rain that most would have seen as an annoyance.

It washed the blood of him, cleansed him of its taint. The smell of fish was overpowering in this place but compared to the overwhelming stench of blood in the city or the odour of vile chemicals and disease in the research hall, the fishiness was a breath of fresh air.

"I think… I'm going to stave off fish for a while." Blake pushed aside her plate of sushi as the camera had some unfortunate close ups of the deformed fishmen.

"No kidding. Does everything in this universe have to be so disgusting? It keeps one-upping itself." Weiss said, her face a tad paler than normal.

"Can we please see something normal after this? I'm trying to move away from the name vomit boy you know." Jaune asked once his stomach quieted down.

"I'll think about it." Blank said in a non-committal manner.

Jaune ripped his katana free from the eye socket of a giant fishman, his path cleared for the moment. Taking a moment to just let the rain wash away his aches and pains, Jaune gave thanks that the inhabitants of the fishing hamlet didn't trigger his bloodlust even if they did give blood echoes.

He'd already died several times here so far, mostly due to ambushes he failed to spot. Like the time a giant fishman just jumped out of the well and belly flopped right on top of him, squishing him flat. The fishmen and their fishdogs were also nigh impossible to detect with his nose since they smelled the fishiness and the downpour masked everything. Being held in place by rapid fishdogs and then skewered by multiple spears launched out of the mist was certainly a novel way to go.

Continuing on his path, he found himself inside a larger building with a locked door. A groan of pain got him to look at the floor where a 'corpse' he overlooked was still moving.

"Hey, are you… it's you again!" Jaune turned the body over and found that it was a badly wounded Ren lying there instead of some other random hunter.

"oh, you, I'm afraid, I've made a botch of things… I can hear the bell, now…the beast-hide assassin, he's after me… again and again… it never ends…" Ren grunted out with great effort, the many grievous wounds making it hard for him to speak.

"Hold on I have-" Jaune froze in place when he reached for a blood vial and his pouch came up empty, having already used the last of it on himself earlier.

"Out of blood are we? Heh… it doesn't matter… this body can't heal with blood anyways…" Ren coughed up and smiled wryly at Jaune's stricken face.

"No…" Nora said quietly and gripped Ren's arm tightly for support.

"How could this happen? Damnit all." Jaune cursed and clenched his fists tightly, having to watch Ren die again sucked to hell and back.

"Beast hide assassin? Cardin did this?" Pyrrha growled and narrowed her eyes, thinking of the encounter in the dungeon cell earlier and how Cardin was wearing a beast hide on him.

"Indeed. He is an agent of the church in this universe after all, he's here to safeguard the secret until retrieval teams can secure it. And since Jaune and Ren are both trying to destroy it to end the nightmare, they're on his list for termination." Blank answered.

"Please, I need you to do something… this village is the true secret. Testament to the old sins, it feeds this Hunter's Nightmare. Please, bring to an end to the horror…" Ren gripped Jaune's arm tight and begged with tears in his eyes.

"So our forefathers sinned? We hunters cannot bear their weight forever… It isn't fair, it just isn't fair…" His grip slackened and fell away as he passed. Jaune bowed his head in respect as Ren's body went limp, not fading away unlike all the other hunters who died in the nightmare. He left behind only his weapon and a small key, both of which Jaune picked up and put away.

Exiting the hut, he walked over to the edge of a cliff and stared down at the beaches below. In the distance he could make out what looked like a giant white squid washed up on the shores. "That must be Kos, the cause of all this needless suffering. Time to end this."

As he made his way further in, searching for a way down to beaches, the chime of a bell reached his ears. "What the? A bell?"

Space warped in front of him as a blood red portal formed and a spectral figure stepped out of it. Unable to make out his features save that it was a man wearing a beast hide, he held a mace in hand and Jaune could sense the hostility from where he stood.

"So you're the one who killed him. And now you aim to silence me, dog of the church." Jaune muttered as the figure rammed the mace into his own stomach, the weapon passing through clothes and flesh without resistance, when he ripped it free, the weapon had changed into a giant club made out of blood.

"So be it." Dashing in to get the first strike, Jaune struck the first blow with his own blood weapon, the katana far faster than the oversized club.

Jaune also landed the next hit, but it was deflected when the enemy hunter downed a lead elixir. The blow struck true and dealt damage but still bounced off as though he was striking rock. The opened him up to a counterstrike and Jaune was sent flying back when the club struck him in the chest, the blood spikes on its head easily puncturing his armour and the soft flesh beneath.

"Keh, what a cheap trick." Jaune got back to his feet and wiped away some blood at his mouth before throwing himself back into the fight. Avoiding any needless attacks that would leave him open, Jaune resorted to quick jabs and the occasional gunshot when he found an opening.

After fighting Weiss who excelled at high speed combat, this church assassin was nothing more than a snail in comparison and Jaune found dodging the incoming blows to be a cakewalk. Eventually the elixir wore off and Jaune was able to start attacking in earnest before he could drink another.

"Go to hell." Jaune staggered his opponent and finished him off with his favoured arm stab and blood burst move, allowing the corpse to fall over the side and disintegrate.

"That takes care of that, now… onwards."

"Is… is that it? Did I avenge Ren?" Jaune asked as Cardin's corpse vanished.

"Not yet." Blank answered.

"What do you mean not yet? Jaune just killed him!" Weiss folded her arms and glared.

"Uh, maybe he's like Jaune and can come back repeatedly?" Ruby offered.

"Maybe… but I didn't come back though. Is there a difference?" Weiss asked.

"Not entirely correct. Winchester is the same as you in that you both have only one life, problem is what your friend killed wasn't the real one. Just a copy he can control, Ren did find the key to the cell where he could kill the original but didn't survive long enough to do so." Blank explained.

"So that thing… it's similar to the uh phantom system in the last world?" Pyrrha asked.

"That is a pretty apt comparison."

His quest to find a way to the beach took him into a warehouse, processing plant like building filled with even more fishmen and now fish shamans who could summon lightning bolts to smite him. The first time it happened, he got caught off guard and led to another mark on his still growing number of deaths.

The next few deaths happened when the toll of the bell rang in his ears and the beast hide hunter returned to harass him. Fighting him off on slippery platforms was a chore on its own, lightning bolts that zapped him every few seconds opened him up to more punishing blows that spelled his demise.

At least they died as easily as their more 'normal' counterparts. As he descended a ladder to the lower levels, Jaune wondered if this was where the fishermen would process their haul at the end of a day before the healing church stepped in.

Whatever it was in the past though, it was a place of horror now. Instead of fish, countless slugs served as the catch, and somehow, they were being burned for illumination instead of proper candles.

"Must have something to do with the great ones… phantasms are they? No matter, it doesn't concern me." Jaune mused as he picked his way past the piles of still moving slugs and avoided ambushes from snail women hiding inside their shells.

"And the disgustometer keeps on rising. Oh… I won't be sleeping for a long time after this." Yang growled and rubbed her eyes, trying to erase all the disgusting images plaguing her.

"Why couldn't it be fish!?" She bitterly cursed on screen Jaune for bothering to take a closer look and shattering the illusion.

"For the squeamish, I highly recommend closing your eyes for the next part." Blank said and his audience just stared at him in disbelief, Cinder and co included.

"Are… are you for real? Now you warn us!? Couldn't you have done that before!?" Weiss shrieked, on the verge of tearing out her hair.

"I thought you could handle what you saw. But what's about to come is just needlessly repulsive, so I thought I'd give you a warning." Blank said.

"Right… you won't find me arguing with that." Roman shrugged and reclined in his seat, pulling his hat over his eyes to block his view. Neo simply opened up her parasol to do the same.

Jaune was surprised to find that the warehouse only exit on the lower floors was into a cave system, but he chalked it up to more of the nightmare twisting things.

Walking through it was strangely calming, there was no rain or fishy smell down here. No blood or chemicals or poison or anything of the sort, just a normal cave system. Sure, there were still snail women who tried to kill him but it was nowhere near as hectic as the levels above. It set him at ease.

Until the singing started.

"Singing? Who's singing down here?" Mercury asked. At this juncture, it was really just Cinder's group who disregarded the warning, everyone else had their eyes screwed shut and covered to resist the temptation to open them.

"If you just shut up and watch, maybe we'll find out." Emerald spat out, internally wanting nothing more than to follow the rest and close her eyes but her need to not appear weak in front of Cinder was stronger.

"Oh god no. Winter lanterns." Jaune paled and whispered out in a horrified voice.

He could see the orange glow in the distance as the singing grew louder. Pressing forwards was a no go since it led to a dead end and the winter lanterns were now blocking his path.

"Sedatives… sedatives… okay… three left, it will have to be enough." Jaune closed his pouch and readied his weapons. Chikage in one hand and Evelyn in the other, ready to shoot at whatever came around the corner.

The first abomination rounded the corner, headed straight for him. A feminine figure in a bloody dress reminiscent of the doll's own, a bloated head seemingly made up of the decaying corpses of hundreds if not thousands of messengers. A single giant eye stared at Jaune and unholy pain assaulted his head instantly.

"HOLY FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK! FUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKKK! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!" Mercury shot up out of his seat and tumbled over backwards upon getting a close up of the abomination. Emerald was babbling nonsensically and Cinder was pale and shaking like a leaf.

"What? What is it?" Ruby asked despite herself.

"Don't! Don't look at it sis! Whatever you do, don't open your eyes!" Yang lifted her head to shout to Ruby before burying her face in Jaune's neck again for cover.

"I did warn you." Blank said in a placid tone.

"GRRHAGAHGHAH!" Jaune screamed in pain as he pulled Evelyn's trigger repeatedly, sending countless bullets hurtling towards the lead winter lantern. The quicksilver bullets tore through the unarmoured target easily but it didn't go down, continuing to advance as the other one rounded the corner.

An burst of pure agony surged through Jaune's skull as the frenzy effect took hold, his brain literally melting from the overload, dealing near fatal damage instantly when he was too slow to down the bottle of sedatives.

Jabbing himself with blood vials to regenerate and avoid excruciating death. Jaune fought back the pain, trusting in the old blood enhanced healing to keep him alive long enough to kill the winter lanterns.

Consuming a bottle's worth of pills to push down the second proc of frenzy, Jaune dashed close and started hacking with his Katana, desperately trying to chop them to pieces.

As twin arms made out of more dead messengers erupted from the sides of their heads, trying to grab him and bring him in close where they could eat him alive, Jaune sidestepped and hurriedly threw back the second bottle of pills.

Pushing the madness back down with the numbing medicine, he resumed the attack. Watching with panicked glee as the first one went down, before turning his attention to the second.

As the winter lantern surged forwards with its arms, Jaune held it off with his sword, keeping away from the snapping teeth that sought out his flesh.

Pushing it off with a sudden burst of strength, Jaune chugged the last bottle of pills and tossed aside the empty container. Sliding into an iaido stance to avoid the grasping arms again, Jaune struck and cleaved the winter lantern's oversized head in two with his attack, letting the corpse fall and cutting off the damnable singing once and for all.

"No. Nononono… it's still building! Argh! Get out! Get out of my head!" Jaune yelled and pressed his hands to the sides of his head as the winter lantern's insanity attack continued even after their deaths.

Retaining enough presence of mind to inject himself with another blood vial, Jaune regenerated enough to survive frenzy occurring a second time. Screaming in pain as his brain literally imploded a second time, He collapsed next to the dead winter lanterns, convulsing as the old blood in his veins fought to keep him alive.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Jaune's senses finally returned to him. Coughing once, he injected another blood vial into himself before crawling away, his mind too frazzled to attempt standing.

"Alright, you're in the clear, you can open your eyes now." Blank said once the winter lanterns were dealt with.

"You're not bullshitting us are you?" Qrow asked, his eyes still tightly shut.

"No, I'm not. Well, there is one more fight after this against an ugly bastard but it's tamer than the Ironwood battle, so you're good."

"Alright, I'll trust you on that." Ruby said and cautiously opened her eyes, sighing in relief when she noticed Jaune was back in the hunter's dream and resting instead of fighting some abomination.

"We good? We good. And uh… what happened to them?" Jaune asked when he noticed Cinder's crew were still borderline catatonic.

"Note to self, certain mental effects when dealing with multiple reality universes can bleed over into theatre audience… good to know." Blank said softly.

"What? What was that?" Jaune asked and got no reply.

"Was she at peace then?" Ozpin asked as Jaune worked on repairing his weapons and armour.

"I think in the end she was, she didn't blame you for any of it by the way." Jaune replied as he shoved more sedatives into his pocket, not wanting to be caught off guard by more winter lanterns again.

"Ah… that's good then… at least one of us is at peace…" Ozpin said as he wheeled himself out of the door.

"I've found Kos and her child." Jaune said just before Ozpin could exit the workshop proper.

"Haah… so you have. You're going to kill the Orphan then." Ozpin stated.

"Yes, it's the only way to be free of the curse. But first, I have to deal with the fucking church assassin, I'm sick of him showing up to hunt me." Jaune said and picked up his repaired equipment.

"Free of the curse huh… that makes one of us." Ozpin closed his eyes and sighed as Jaune returned to the nightmare to resume his hunt.

"I'm cursed too?" Ozpin raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, the first to be cursed actually. You were the first hunter to make contact with the Orphan in the waking world, and when you made contact with the moon presence, you became damned to the role of the hunter's helper. For as long as there is to be a hunt, you shall remain in the dream to guide and assist the next generation." Blank said.

"So the workshop is actually a prison for the headmaster?" Goodwitch asked.

"Indeed, that universe is particularly fond of ironic hells. Once upon a time, the workshop was his pride and joy and guiding new hunters was a calling, now it's a prison from which there is no escape. And he is sick and tired of seeing hunter after hunter march to their deaths or beasthood, most of them fall cursing his name and everything associated with the hunt."

"Depressing." Ozpin grimaced and drank from his mug, too many parallels there, but he supposed that was because it was still him even in another universe.

Stalking through the underground dungeon above the corpse pile where he slew Ironwood. Jaune cut down the spectre of Cardin that rose to challenge him in order to protect the original. Forcing the shade to its knees by stabbing Reiterpallasch into its leg, Jaune jammed Evelyn into the shade's mouth when it opened in a silent cry.

Pulling the trigger, the shot removed the top half of Cardin's head instantly and the phantom faded away. Storming forwards, Jaune marched down the steps that led to Cardin's cell.

Fishing out the key Ren left behind, it fit the lock perfectly and with a click, the doors swung open silently, allowing Jaune to enter. Cardin made no move to rise, perfectly content to sit in the back and await his executioner.

"Well, well, look who's here. Welcome to my quarters. I've never entertained a guest before. Are you going to kill me? After all you've done, kill me, as if to right your wrongs?" Cardin chuckled as Jaune's face took on an ugly expression.

"Fuck you asshole." Jaune raised Evelyn and aimed it squarely at Cardin's head.

"What's done is done. Nothing ever changes… such is the nature of men, some secrets were best left buried." Cardin leaned his head back and waited, not a shred of worry on his face, somehow that just pissed Jaune off even more.

"Oh yes, the healing church and the lengths they're willing to go to just to protect their secret. I've seen it all, relax, no one will be getting the secret. Not even the church." Jaune said.

"Oh?"

"By the time I'm done here, the Orphan will be destroyed along with Kos's corpse. There'll be nothing left for your precious church, and soon enough, I'll be destroying them too."

"Heh, good luck then. I'm tired of it all, so very tired. Go on. Finish it." Cardin closed his eyes and a single gunshot rang out.

"And Ren's been avenged… why do I not feel satisfied?" Jaune asked, an unwelcome emotion in his chest.

"Revenge rarely does. Maybe you get some satisfaction in the beginning, more often than not, you just feel empty afterwards. From what it seems, Mr Winchester didn't have much of a choice in the matter either." Ozpin said.

"I… yes headmaster." Jaune nodded.

Returning to the fishing hamlet, Jaune took the elevator he found back to the depths of the cave. Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly to steel himself for a fight against a literal great one, he began following the path so obviously marked.

Countless unresponsive snail women prostrating themselves on the ground, bowing in reverence to their god. Not one made a move to stop him, either because they believed acting would invite divine punishment or because they believed a single puny hunter could not possibly pose any threat to the Orphan.

Whatever the case, his approach to the beach was unimpeded. Right at the edge of the sea, next to the corpse, Jaune could make out his target just kneeling in the dirt, staring into the distance.

"The Orphan grown old…" He whispered softly as he noted the being having the appearance of an old man despite being only an infant great one.

Threaded cane in hand, Jaune switched it into whip mode and rubbed it down with bolt paper, infusing it with lightning. The crackling of lightning and the crunching of sand and seashells beneath his feet finally drew the attention of the Orphan.

An unearthly scream of rage emanated from the Orphan and it leapt into the air, a giant placenta in hand as a weapon, it came back down to earth swinging. The fight was on.

"Is that a placenta, okay, ew." Blake recoiled in disgust.

"I thought you said we were in the clear."

"I believe my words were to the effect of less disturbing than Ironwood. I don't think I lied." Blank said, and despite wanting so badly to call him out on his bullshit, the audience did have to admit he had a point.

"It is still disgusting." Yang said with finality, getting nods of agreement from everyone.

The once silent beach was now engulfed in an unending cacophony of gunshots, explosions and screeching. The Orphan was even faster and stronger than Weiss had been, as expected of a great one.

"Bombs nex-whip!?" Jaune backpedalled as the Orphan defied his expectations and used the placenta as an whip or flail to attack him, instead of tossing grenades his way.

Retaliating with gunfire and his own serrated whip, Jaune drew blood before the Orphan got him good. The placenta weighed a significant amount despite being flesh and blood, when it struck him in the chest, Jaune was sent flying.

The great one howled to the heavens and waves of electricity surged outwards from it, an electrifying wall of death that Jaune barely managed to jump over.

"I can't predict it?" Jaune frowned in frustration as the Orphan's moves were too erratic for him to predict. Unlike the hunters he faced in the past, this humanoid had no fighting style honed by training, no patterns to exploit. It was operating on pure instinct and defying Jaune's ability to read it.

"Fine, two can play." Abandoning his attempts at reading the Orphan, he focused all of his attention of absorbing as much information of the Orphan's actions without processing them. Trusting his own combat instincts to guide his reactions.

The result was far from perfect but still a far sight better than before. Ducking under a wild swing, Jaune cracked the whip and tore through the Orphan's eyes, blinding it temporarily and causing it to start swinging all over the place in search of an opponent it couldn't see.

It was young, untrained, inexperienced. All those factors lead to its unpredictability but at the same time it saved Jaune's life multiple times. Without training, it's ability to press the offensive when Jaune showed an opening was hampered and its mounting rage on worsened its focus.

Sure, the Orphan got in a few good licks, killing Jaune several times, but he returned without fail, each time more determined than the last to end things once and for all.

Their duel in the pouring rain could only end in Jaune's victory, especially once the hunter figured out that the only reason he was winning was because the Orphan was expending its strength to sustain the nightmare.

No matter how it went, the nightmare would come to an end. Either the Orphan gave up and allowed the nightmare to end for self-preservation, or it continued fighting in its weakened state and eventually Jaune would wear it down enough to kill it. Either way, the end result was already decided.

In the end, the Orphan chose to go down swinging. Every last move in its arsenal it threw at Jaune, and the hunter gladly returned the favour.

And finally, a well-timed bullet staggered the Orphan, allowing Jaune to close in and pour every last scrap of blood magic in him straight into the Orphan's exposed body. With one last piercing scream, the Orphan of Kos fell over dead, nearly all of its internal organs ruptured and destroyed by the repeated assaults.

Jaune staggered backwards, not quite believing it was over. But it was, the Orphan's corpse moved no longer. Instead, its essence formed a shade over by its mother's corpse. The true source of the nightmare was exposed at last.

"You didn't deserve this either, sweet child of Kos. May the ocean take your essence home, and your curse with it." Jaune switched the whip back into cane sword mode and slashed down, dispelling the shade and allowing the essence to bleed back into the sea.

At once, the nightmare world shifted. The unceasing rain in the hamlet stopped and the skies cleared up. The moon hanging overhead had also vanished.

A shock ran through Jaune's system as he ripped off his hat and scarf. Drawing a silver knife from his boot, he stared at his reflection in it, marvelling at himself as the redness in his eyes faded away. The pupils returning to the sapphire he had been born with.

The endless thirst for blood and the howls for him to kill faded away almost completely. No more did he have to fight with his own instincts, now there was just a very muted feeling, one attributed to the scourge of the beast itself rather than the nightmare.

"It's done… the curse is broken. At last… I'm… sorry I couldn't do it earlier, I could have saved so many… I wouldn't have failed Ruby… but…" Jaune turned and looked directly at the screen, smiling wryly as he did so.

"I suppose, not every version of me has failed, it will have to be enough." Shaking his head, he walked off into the dawn, just taking a moment to get away from it all.

"Did… did he see us!?" Jaune said in shock, the screen had gone dark and the lights came on after that last bombshell.

"He did. Insight allows him to discern hidden truths about the world, and he has enough of it to look beyond his own." Blank answered.

"He's still broken up over his failure to protect Ruby huh?" Weiss asked.

"Indeed, he considers it his greatest failure. So the fact that a version of him like the one in this theatre who didn't fail his friend exists, is quite heartening for him." Blank said.

"So what happens to the other Jaune-Jaune now?" Nora asked.

"He rests, and then he returns to the hunt. There's still a fair bit left in his journey, until he puts the final nail in the healing church's coffin, he will not truly be able to rest."

"Please tell me we're not going to see a continuation of this world right now. I don't think I can take another viewing like that." Pyrrha pleaded.

"We'll see, I do hope you got at least something from that Cinder Fall." Blank addressed the still recovering villainess.

"I got that you are a disturbed individual." Cinder spat out and glared hatefully at Blank.

"I'm gonna ignore the hypocrisy in that statement, this is for your benefit you know. Your fate can be summed up with 'power at a price', and you can't afford that price. If you insist on continuing and somehow avoid being killed on return to your world, you'll end up sharing that Ironwood's fate."

"That won't happen. I won't allow it!" Cinder declared.

"A woman can dream I suppose. Maybe you'll change your tune with a few more viewings, maybe you won't, your fate is in your hands. If you want to continue walking your path, you'll have only yourself to blame for your inevitable destiny. In any case, take a short rest people, next world will be ready for viewing soon." Blank said as the audience dispersed.

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Author's notes: Late update since my muse died on me and university is starting again so life is pretty hectic now. Here we go, a return to the bloodborne universe and the introduction of the three evil musketeers. Obviously, I've taken some liberties with the bloodborne story to make the story flow so I'd appreciate not being crucified by the lore experts. Orphan fight is kinda anti-climatic yes but the main focus of this chapter is the interaction with the other hunters in the world, not much interaction to be had with a great one that just screams non stop. And a guy can only write so many battle scenes before he goes mad. For those of you who've read my one shot Ashes, I don't think I'll be putting it into this story, I can't think of a good way to make the audience react to it and it's just plain depressing overall.

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Cast list:

Jaune Arc as the hunter

Ozpin as Gehrman the first hunter

Weiss Schnee as the doll/Lady Maria of the Astral Clock Tower

Salem as Annalise Queen of the Vilebloods

Glynda Goodwitch as Eileen the crow

Qrow Branwen as the bloody crow of Cainhurst (duh)

Lie Ren as Simon the harrowed

Cardin Winchester as Brador

Leonardo Lionheart as Laurence the first vicar

James Ironwood as Ludwig the accursed/holy blade

Orphan of Kos as itself