Adrain woke up and when he tried to move a loud groan came from his lungs as his wounded body protested.

"I should expel you while you're still in this hospital bed." a stern voice to his left said. When he turned to look he saw Headmaster Rose standing there looking very cross with him. He was about to answer when she cut him off. "one sentence Adrian, eleven words only six of which mattered. Do not leave, do not engage. tell me what part of the eluded you?"

being scolded by the normally upbeat professor forced Adrain's head down in shame. "I thought I could take him," he said.

"do you know why you are still breathing?" Ruby asked him. before he could answer she again cut him off. " Because whoever it was that did this decided to let you live, you are alive for no other reason than the fact that whoever you fought didn't feel like killing you.'' The severity of the discussion was made all the clearer by her worried tone.

"did you at least get a good look at who did this to you?" Ruby asked, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

Adrian was about to answer when a new voice from the door said. "What the hell happened to you?"

it was professor Xiao Long, she was his favorite teacher. before Adrian could answer once again Professor Rose cut him off. "You tell me," she said as she handed Yang the clipboard that had all of his injuries recorded on it.

"Hairline fracture on the T10 vertebrae, three cracked ribs, once missing tooth, shattered collarbone, hyperextended right knee with severe bruising on the inside of the leg, major concussion." Yang looked up at her sister with a confused face. "who the hell did all of this and then left him alive?"

Ruby handed her a new report, it was the one from the Hunter involved Killing that started all of this. Yang's eyes went wide as she read and looked at the photos. looking back at Ruby she said. "there are maybe five people on the planet that I know who can do this I'm one of them and three of them are dead so what was dad doing here?"

"wasn't him," Ruby said. "One of those other three aren't dead."

Yang knew what she meant but wasn't convinced. "He's been gone for over a decade. What makes you think he is either alive or if he is alive why would he come back now?"

"It gets worse," Ruby said, pointing to the name of the owner of the building this all started in.

"Cinder Ash, that can't be an accident. you think he's found her?" Yang asked her sister.

"they're both supposed to be dead so I'm not ruling anything out yet. The report says that after dealing the HIK the hunter said he was going to look into Browne and left." she she said Ruby gently wacked Adrian on the knee, making his groan. "That was probably where your favorite student decided to go and try to get himself killed."

Yang looked at Adrian sternly, "I thought you were smarter than that?"

"I told him not to," Ruby added.

"I thought you were smarter than that?" Yang now asked her sister. when Ruby looked at her confused she explained. "You know who his uncle was, did you really expect him to listen to that?"

Ruby shrugged and returned to questioning Adrain. "you were about to tell me what you could about the person who did this to you,"

Adrain nodded and explained. "he was bigger than anyone I have ever fought before. he must have been at least six foot seven maybe more,"

Yang cut him off asking. "did he have an impressive set of sideburns but no mustache?" in a sarcastic way.

"yes actually he did, rather large ones." Adrain explained stopping when he saw Yang face cycle through confusion, shock and then anger.

"that son of a bitch lied to us!" she yelled in anger, her hair almost lighting up before she managed to reign it back in. That was good since Ruby was thinking about going for the nearest drug cabinet and looking for some haldol.

"That isn't news," Weiss said from the door. "I told you he was lying about that years ago."

"yeah but he had a harder time lying to you than the rest of us," Yang pointed out, hinting at the fact that after the death of her sister Weiss found herself in the awkward spot of still working with Jaune on a regular basis. his guilt had caused a few problems where he would try and protect her over the mission.

"would someone please tell me what's going on here?" Adrian asked confused.

"No," Ruby answered. "you are going to stay in this bed and when you are cleared you will go back to Beacon, we will determine what to do with you then," before leaving with her sister and Weiss to discuss what they knew.

Once they were at the hotel room that was being used as the operating point Ruby asked Yang, "could Hazel have been the one behind that HIK I know that the ID number was Jaune's but that doesn't mean much?"

Yang looked back at the evidence and shook her head. "no, some of the things here are too specific to Jaune."

Weiss suddenly cut in. "Jaune's alive?"

"Looks like it," Yang replied before continuing. "All the hunters that can take on a car do it in different ways. I come up from below the engine block, Nora comes down on the engine block, Jaune used to go head to head with one of the headlights, make them spin out." she pointed to the woman who Jaune had knife handed. "and of course there's that, I've only ever seen three people who can do that, Ren clearly didn't do it, one of them's dead, and the other is Jaune," she was talking about Winter but she wanted to avoid stating that in front of Weiss. It was an old wound but it still stung all too often.

"so Jaune's alive," Weiss stated.

"he isn't the only one," Ruby said, spinning around the laptop she was working on. It was a picture of the Ash Martial arts studio class posing for some sort of celebration. one of their students had won a large competition. standing at the center of the group was Cinder Fall with her hands on said student's shoulders grinning ear to ear with pride.

"No fucking way," Weiss snarled. "she can't be alive,"

"She seems very alive to me," Ruby said.

Yang had been silent in thought for a second before saying. "This is a self solving problem, Jaune knows that she's alive, he has to. all we need to do is step back and wait, he will come to us while trying to kill her."

Ruby nodded in agreement looking for Cinder's address. writing it down she handed the paper to Yang, "go check the house if she isn't there then sit on the house, let me know when you find something." Yang nodded and without a word left.

"You think he is going to come back?" Weiss asked honestly. Jaune was alive that much was certain but if he was alive then he faked his death and if he faked his death then he must have been doing it for a reason. maybe he wanted out.

"I don't know but we won't find out by doing nothing, lets go talk to Browne, see what he has to say about this"

...

Cinder sat in the living room of Jaune and Ferro's house in a suffocating silence. She had just gotten Ferro and Emerald inside when Ferro started to wake up. He was alive but exhausted. she understood given how much of his aura he drained in one day. She carried him up to his room and laid him down so he could sleep.

She stayed by his bedside until she was sure he was asleep and went back downstairs to find Emerald waiting for her looking very angry.

"Are you okay, Sweetie?" Cinder asked moving to hold her daughter only for Emerald to lurch away from her.

"don't touch me, those men were there because of you, they shot Ferro because they were arguing with you!" she snarled.

Cinder was stunned by the rage in her child's voice. "Emerald there is more going on than you..."

Emerald cut her off with venom to match her previous anger. "You could have stopped them but you didn't, you made Ferro's dad do it, and then Ferro got shot." when she saw her mother's shock she kept going. "I know how to use the computer, I know what you used to do, even the things that Ferro's dad wouldn't tell me. I've seen the people you killed, no, murdered!"

Cinder stepped back still too stunned by the hate coming off of her daughter to respond. Emerald must have misinterpreted the silence and with her own fear from almost losing her best friend mixing with the stress of the day she was whipped into a frenzy with her mother as the target of what is effectively a overcharged fight or flight instinct that finally seemed to have kicked on.

"you got him shot, you almost killed him!" she yelled running over to the stairs leading to Ferro's room. "I wish ferro's dad had killed you when he had the chance!" she screamed before running away leaving her mother to stagger backwards with tears falling from her eyes as she sunk into the couch.

she was still crying when Jaune came through the front door with a newly acquired side arm on his hip. when he saw her he rushed over to her side wrapping an arm around her and pulling close to him. "Cinder, what happened? Are the kids okay?" he asked, worried just as much about them as he was about her.

she nodded in silence and once she did Jaune's attention turned to her in full. moving so that he was kneeling in front of her he mentally kicked himself for not doing an injury assessment on them all after the fighting was over. He made sure she wasn't bleeding. He reached out and gently grabbed both sides of her face "what happened?" he asked.

"Emerald, she said somethings and they were, they were more real than she understood," Cinder answered finally getting her composure back.

Jaune seemed to understand and reached up to pull her head forward resting her forehead on his own. " She is a scared child, she doesn't know as much as she thinks."

"Jaune those men were there because of my connection to Brendan, he wants the area to start paying extortion money, if I had just paid them."

Jaune shook his head in a silent no gently convincing her to stop. "no they weren't, those men didn't work for Brendan."

Cinder looked up at him in disbelief so he explained what he had been doing. "I paid Brendan a visit," the connotation was clear. "When I found him he was furious, someone had attacked the three blocks he didn't take payment from, they did it in his name trying to get the local law enforcement to come down on him."

"Do you trust him?" Cinder asked not sure if she did.

"He had no idea I was there and he explained everything to his enforcer. He also ordered his head enforcer to hire a team of former Atlas spec ops types to clean up the scumbags who did this." Jaune reached for the pistol at his side and explained. "I introduced myself and when I made it clear that I was going to deal with these people myself he gave me this and asked me to make sure that it ends."

"Are you going to?"

"Yeah," Jaune answered somberly. "Me and Hazel are going to clean these guys out tonight. but first I need to see Ferro and talk to Emerald." kissing Cinder first on her forehead and once on her lips he stood up and headed upstairs.

Just as he expected he found them both in Ferro's room with Emerald sitting and watching over her sleeping friend with dried tears in her eyes. when she saw Jaune she ran over and wrapped her arms around him trying not to cry but still adding to the tears on his shirt.

Jaune picked her up and went over to the chair she had been in and sat down with her in his arms. "You must have been scared?" he asked, looking over at his sleeping son.

"Yeah," she answered, clinging a little tighter to him.

"I was too," he said, when he saw her look at him confused he knew that he was getting the reaction he wanted.

"But you're so brave?" she said.

Jaune adjusted his arms so that she could relax more without falling down. " of course, being brave isn't about not being afraid, it's about being a afraid and doing what needs to be done anyway." he explained

"I wish my mommy could be brave like you," she said just like he expected her to.

"Your mother is brave in her own way," Jaune answered.

"no she isn't she could have stopped those men today and she didn't." Emerald seethed quietly.

"Yes she could have, your mother could have very easily stopped all of those men before I even made it up the stairs, but your mother isn't like me, she is ashamed of what she's done, she didn't want to hurt people anymore. you might not fully understand yet but it takes great courage to refuse to fight when you easily can. your mother wasn't able to let herself attack those men, not because she was afraid of them. but because she thought she was the only one in danger. your mother was willing to get hurt if it meant that nobody else did."

Jaune could see in her eyes that his words were starting to make sense. Emerald would never see her mother the same way she used to but she would learn to understand her better. Jaune stood up and set her back down in the chair and after giving Ferro a kiss on his forehead Jaune went back downstairs.

Cinder was also down there in the kitchen trying to figure out how to feed the soon to be hungry children. "I was about to start doing that myself," Jaune said, wrapping an arm around her and liking the way she leaned into his show of affection.

"I think I can work with this," Cinder said pointing to the pantry. She knew that Jaune needed to deal with the people who attacked them and if she was honest the more she thought about it the more pity she almost felt for them.

"I will be back as soon as I can. Listen, my old team might be on their way here. If any of them find out about that report that the detective filled today then it won't be long. we need to be ready to move."