"Come on, Jaune-Jaune! Get after him!"
A gentle hand rests on Nora's shoulder, desperate to calm the orange-haired hyperactive as she almost jumps out of her seat. Even with fingers applying more than enough pressure to make it obvious what needs to happen, she's still standing tall and blocking half the audience's view.
"Nora, please. Let him focus."
"Well… a-…"
Every muscle is screaming at her to ignore his words, to burst out into the heavens with a flow of gushing support never-ending, but Ren's firm, commanding tone is just enough to keep her merely bubbling with energy instead of constantly releasing it.
She reluctantly sits down with the rest of NPR, them along with Team RWBY, CFVY, and SSSN watching the blonde of the hour duel with yet another student in the sparring arenas. This field is no stranger for either of them, but especially not to Jaune Arc, who has been here, fought here, and crashed here no less than six dozen times.
At first, losing barely hurt him a bit. After all, not everyone can start off swinging, can they? He knew that as much as anyone. Granted, it was still… not a fun time to get outmatched by every single person he faced, but it was all growing pains. Ones that he would surely come out of better off.
Ten losses in a row? Not too much skin off his back. Pyrrha was there to intervene, trying her absolute hardest, moving heaven and earth to impart upon him all of the knowledge and ability that she had within herself, and for a brief flash, everything seemed to look up.
The failures became less and less overwhelming, the time that he lasted in the ring was stretching longer and longer, and then finally, the dam broke.
Against Cardin, of all people, he got a win. The amount of tension that was relieved in that room on that beautiful Tuesday was enough to shatter every window in the Academy. He could barely even stand, not because of the tiredness that crashed over him after his victory, but because of how much time he spent off the ground as huntsmen and huntresses of all different colors lifted him into a crushing hug.
It was perfect.
️
Until it wasn't.
He expected to lose again immediately after to someone still far out of his league, what he did not expect to happen was to have the well dry up before he could take another drink out of it.
The losses began to increase once again, that exceptional struggle against what was at the time his greatest nemesis becoming smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror. Another ten were piled up like candy before he even knew it. Then twenty. Thirty.
More and more people were crowding themselves in his corner. The kitchen sink was already being dragged out of the wall as the red auras continued to pop up without mercy.
The year was becoming longer and longer by the day. Jaune would always say it was perfectly fine, and that one day it would all click into place and he would rise faster than a phoenix, but his eyes could never betray his true feelings like his words could. Day after day they were slightly less vibrant. A blue that could once pierce souls was now merely a normal hue.
But at this moment, the end of the year and a long, long break on the horizon, his eyes are grey. They have been almost lifeless for at least the past month, but something inside him was still carrying the torch. Keeping him upright.
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—The large swing of Feather's Edge is scraping against his hoodie, mere millimeters away from unwinding the strings and taking the bunny rabbit with it out of his reach. Jaune pops back out with a swipe of his own, the shiny blade of Crocea Mors only just scraping his right arm. He's been out-competed almost from the opening launch. Shield comes up to the top of his chest in waiting for another swipe, and it comes! But not in the way he was expecting. The wide end plate of the halberd, despite his shield successfully keeping back most of the blow from his upper body, still lands a deep hit against his chin, nearly sending him flying up several feet in the air.
His metal-laden right hand has to rush to the ground to keep him upright, and Sky is already looking to pounce on his vulnerable form. He gets up just in time to block it, momentum successfully deadened, but before he can take advantage of the pause the blue-haired opponent is already somersaulting his way out of view. His eyes caught just enough of him to turn the right way and land another block, and this time, he's ready to press forward.
Both his legs are pointed in an unmistakable stance, acceleration charged up as he launches himself to undercut the halberd's deadly head before it can slice through him twice. Sky's reaction time is just one moment too slow, Jaune ducking under the metal and breaking through with a bash just as he starts to turn. Aura leaves him, but the control of the blade does not, and the half-turn is the perfect angle change to force the halberd back right where he wants it.
Jaune doesn't see what is going on until too late, the push on his opponent's left arm not enough to stop the halberd from absolutely nailing him right in the back, this time leaving the blonde stuck in the trap between the axe and the armor. He can barely stumble over to the free side, but the blade is following his every twitch. A quick flip of the handle inside his hand gives all the momentum Sky needs to keep pressing, another set of repeated hits never allowing the chance for Jaune to regroup. He's on the edge of the arena before anyone can blink, and the bell sounds to stop the fight shortly afterwards.
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"The winner is Sky Lark."
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Even Glynda's normal aura of neutrality is showing cracks for him. But, the rules are the rules. Jaune's Aura dropped into the red zone before his opponent's did, giving Sky the win as his own levels barely dipped into the yellow. It's another of the 12th letter on the scorecard.
"Sky Lark, you did very well in using everything at your disposal to keep the battle on your terms. It will serve you well against a towering Grimm to keep doing so. Your defense still needs to be worked on, but overall it was still more than a satisfactory performance."
"As for you, Mr. Arc, you were again showing off your intentions too often. It might work out against a Grimm, but in any serious fight those signals will only make things worse for yourself. Your confidence in attacks is still refreshingly high, but backing off when things aren't quite going in your favor is a skill you still aren't in tune with yet. Having to balance everything in the heat of the moment and knowing when to retreat is something that can only be learned with experience. You two may go."
The cheers from the rest of Team CRDL dominate the crowd watching, but the rest of his own team is already at the edge of the stairway, more and more of his friends crowding the left edge of the audience as he walks up to them, the defeated, unfortunate look once again front and center on his face.
"It's alright, Jaune. You looked really good out there! You'll get it the next try."
"Yeah! You were all like 'boom boom' when he was trying to get you! Do that again and you'll beat him in no time!"
Ruby is jumping up to hug him in no time flat, arms already totally wrapped around his torso and pushing him as close as she possibly can. A few others join her with much less aggressive hands and forearms, but his eyes are still almost completely devoid of color.
"Ehh… Thanks Rubes."
"Oh, it's nothing for her. Can you let someone else have a chance at 'em for once?"
"Yang!"
A smile only just makes it through to his face. Pyrrha is there to stand next to him with her own gentle, soothing smile, and the rest of the eight-person group stands up, the rest of the day still yet to be wrangled.
"How about we go to the carnival today! It's the longest day of the year, so that means we can spend all of it outside!️!️!️!️!"
Wrangled is the only proper word to describe what is about to happen, especially if Nora is to be the one leading it. Any objections by anyone are kept to themselves, and not two minutes later all eight of them are exiting the halls for another day spent inevitably rushing around Vale doing anything and everything.
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The concept of 'the day' almost ended up being a lie too, as the time went well past 11:00 before they all came back, Nora with several Beowolf plushies, Ruby with a massive bag of cotton candy still not opened, Jaune with a single leftover ticket and a pair of sunglasses glued onto him, and Weiss, against all odds, the winner of the day, a fully equipped castle bulging next to her stomach as she walks along at the back of the group.
The sets of four immediately diverge upon reaching the doors, everyone in the JNPR side setting their prizes down on the beds, Nora's standing out as always with the gaggle of Beowolves all over the bedspread.
"That was absolutely awesome! Gods I am tired…"
It wouldn't be Nora without one last show of exaggeration, the other three left to merely watch as she falls onto the bed without even changing clothes, already looking well on her way toward lovely dreams with the largest of the wolves tucked into her arms.
Ren can only stare before a yawn overtakes him as well, hands setting out his pajamas for his own time asleep. One would think he would be tired, what with a lifelong partner seemingly incapable of relaxation to contend with, but he's learned by now that there are times where one has to keep their controlling urges at arm's length.
"I guess we're going to sleep then. Goodnight everyone."
"Good-night!~"
"Night."
Not a word leaves Jaune's mouth. Not a word has left it since he was in the sparring room.
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While everyone else readies themselves for resting, Jaune is sitting on the bed staring into the edge of the bed frame opposite him, hoping against all hope that he will fall asleep tonight. His set of pajamas are over in the closet just like the others', and he's over there with barely any thought, reaching down to grab his neatly-folded set of night clothes. As he pulls his arms back out of the door's reach, his hand brushes against a pile of what looks to the unknowing eye to be some scraps of metal.
If one could think of something, anything at all, he has had his hands on it. The useless remnants of a good dozen generic weapons are scattered here at the bottom of the closet, all different shapes and colors in pieces on the ground. Every one of his friends had given their own weapons off for him to try in a prayer that he could figure out something with them, even Anesidora was put into action, wrapped snug around his neck in hopes Velvet's extensible copying would rub off on him, but not one seedling bore fruit.
Jaune himself was the one who wanted to leave them there in the first place, just as a reminder for him to look back on when he would inevitably break through and realize himself… but that date on the calendar still hasn't arrived. He sighs when he looks at the mess yet again, his eyes all too happy to linger at the bottom…
It almost becomes too long before he can finally snap out enough spare thoughts to turn away from the garbage heap. The other three of his lovely teammates are finally sneaking under covers and waiting for him to turn out the lights, Pyrrha especially waiting expectantly, looking over at his empty bed, making sure he dives in and makes it to sleep before turning off her own eyes for the night.
He makes it into bed and goes through all the motions, dragging the sheets up to his neck and laying down flat, taking his moonshot and trying to release his mind from everything. After five minutes of Jaune's form being as unmoving as a statue those mystifying emeralds are finally satisfied, turning off and letting the Mistralian go into her own set of dreams. Ten more minutes pass over him before he finally gives up the mask, eyes opening back up only to face the sleeping, cotton-covered bodies of his three best friends before eventually settling on a wall opposite them.
Two hours go by with no change. The place he's staring into would be completely broken through by now, if only there was any power behind his irises to shine onto it. Every spare brain cell not caught in the web is begging for the storms to go away, just for once to be able to relax in a calm for longer than the lucky thirty minutes of the eye...
All he can do is watch the clock on top of the wall. Watch ever so slowly, as if the paint was drying on the wall behind it. It isn't any use. Even if he would force his eyes to close and turn his vision darker than black, he wouldn't gain anything. He would just be sitting there, all but blindfolded as the world inside of him kept churning and churning, the thin layers of skin not doing a single thing to lessen the damage.
The second hour of the new day is spent slowly building up strength, the drive to move a single muscle out of his current crater taking all sixty minutes plus to cobble together. A digital LED flickering over to a one from a zero is what finally drags his bones up into action, looking one more time at the satisfaction on all three of their faces before carefully stepping forward on the carpet and towards the door to the hallway.
The door is closed so precisely that only the tiniest muffled clicks of the lock make their way out of the chamber. From there it gets easier. At this late hour, there's no need to muffle footsteps. Two sets of stairs are the only things in his way, and one minute of climbing brings him up to the rooftop.
When he opens the metal door, he sighs in relief. It's still empty. The lack of… anything this high up has been more and more of a blessing compared to the bustle of Vale back on ground level. Silence has been the only thing allowing him a moment to process, allowing him a single fraction of time where he can gaze into the sky and wait out the thoughts that keep rushing up and down, back and forth, constantly keeping him on the very precipice of capsizing.
The air, for once, is perfectly still, no wind, no awkward bugs dancing around his ears to annoy him.
Moonlight and the occasional star twinkling down onto the world is the only thing that his senses have to keep occupied.
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It's the only area of Beacon that seems to be of any use anymore.
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He didn't come here to kill time with some brand-new friends. He didn't run away from everything he ever knew because he wanted to hang out with some people that looked like him and spend his four years chilling out and going nowhere. He came here to be a huntsman. He violated the law to be a huntsman.
And it's just not coming together for him.
But that, in and of itself, is not what made his eyes lifeless. It's not the only piece that sent him up here, staring into the shattered moon for the third night in a row, wrestling with himself on just how much more suffering he can outlast.
The clouds used to be contained. Yeah, he might be turned away from victory whenever he stepped onto the battlefield, but at least there was something else to get lost in. The instant he left that room, all the worries about whether he could truly make it could be pushed off, and right there to fill in was NPR, RWBY, SSSN, even CRDL had slowly started to come around to him and not be quite a nuisance. A good two or three days were single-handedly dragged out of the muck by an explosion of flour, sugar, and eggs, Nora's antics being so outlandishly insane that he could never be lost anywhere else.
Ren would head off and try to contain her only for it to balloon right up against his face. Ruby would come around and see what was happening and she would start jumping around as if it was a candy store, and before he could think he was thrown into a round of video games and OOOH! There's a new movie coming out! Superheroes and everything! We've all gotta go! And then the entire afternoon was just overrun with buzzy little bumblebees, the revving of Bumblebee and the raw rush of being allowed to drive it just that one time out miles beyond the city limits…
The losses were just a number he could ignore and cross his mind into only when they came to him. He even got another win! Against Nora, too! He faced her grenades and oh-so-frightening power head on, and came out on top by the end! Yes, it's true!
...
No it isn't.
He saw it on the third swing, or rather, lack thereof. That wasn't Nora Valkyrie he was fighting against when he went into that arena. She was replaced with a doppelganger that day, one that just happened to be a tiny bit more hobbled than he was, one that happened to be just weak enough for him to plow over and '''earn''' his ''victory'' over. But yet, despite it being plain as can be to absolutely anyone with two eyes that Nora wasn't putting in her all, everyone still cheered for him. Pyrrha still hoisted him in the air with pure adoration, all of his friends kept bombarding him with praises and some boldly announcing that he was bursting into the upper echelon, finally rising above and claiming his rightful spot among the field of his fellow classmates as an accomplished huntsman of his own creed…
That was the moment his eyes started to lose their color.
But he couldn't say anything about it. They were just trying to make him feel better, after all. He was still down in the dumps after getting handed more losses against people like Velvet, so it would be natural to want that gone, to zap that feeling away and try to buoy him up, wouldn't it? Even if it was… fake… …He wouldn't do that. He could never do that to the ones that had been giving Gods know what out of them to make him feel happy, to genuinely spend time with him and make him feel like the friends that he never quite had in the time before coming here. They might be letting him win, but it's for a good reason. It's not real, but you know it's not real. Just enjoy the flow and keep on going forward.
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Even if it happens a second time.
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Even if it starts to happen every other fight.
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Even if you have to ignore the black mists that are lifting your shield the way it should be going.
Even if her punches screech to a blazing halt just before they make true contact.
Even if the round-and-round blares of a gun almost never seems to be centered quite right.
Even if the arc of her scythe doesn't fully wrap back around to trip you as you go in for a stab.
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He may have 'won' thirteen out of the last thirty fights, but they aren't victories to be proud of, to show off to the world and say 'Yes! I achieved this! I beat them, and I can go toe-to-toe with almost anyone!'. The whole baker's dozen of them were fabrications. Just to make him feel happier.
Would he ever get an actual confirmation of skill? The other spars his eyes would be dragged into were an absolute blast, attacks parried off, people zipping from edge-to-edge, muscles burning hotter and hotter until some of them couldn't even stand, a feast for eyes and ears on display every single match. But he's not getting that chance anymore. He's rarely feeling that same exhilarating mood of tiredness and drive when his body is the one inside that circle.
All he's getting is the hollowness. All he can think of is those cheers, those cheers that have completely lost their sway on him who cares how long ago, the words slowly taking shape as anchors that keep the lack of tangibility at the forefront, keep his mind stuck firmly at the bottom of the ocean. Even a glance at them is slowly but surely starting to drain the color from his eyes too, the sheer insurmountabilty of how far he has left to come even close to looking up at them only releasing its dreadful hold when he falls to sleep. The tides are becoming harder to keep down every single day. Especially as the help he was all but wasting continues to pile up, more trials and tribulations making the piece of the pie bigger and bigger.
But there was no release. Not without completely destroying everything, not without surely being taken out to the front doors and left to figure out things without a hope, without a single sliver of a chance at making his way forward. He can't just turn his dream into ashes. He's gone too far in to quit now. He has to keep going, no matter the cost. No matter the weight of the anchors. No matter the height of the mountain. After all, it's what he needs to be a huntsman! If these are the walls he has to break through, so be it!
It's all going to be worth it at the end!
It's all going to be worth it when he harness his inner potential!
It's all going to be worth it when he can go back home and prove his worth!
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The polarizing thoughts have kept his brain at boiling for hours upon hours. Even right now, alone on this rooftop, they're still raging. Thinking about anything else has become a gargantuan task that only a volcano or a sudden invasion of Grimm could shake him into. And at no time is the water warmer than than right here, right now.
Two pebbles are resting just in front of him, and his right foot, completely without thought, kicks them off into the air, eyes staring into the stone ground below as it tries to track their fall. They drop out of view long before they make it to the bottom, the hits against the floor never reaching anywhere close to his ears. He only sighs in a deep, deep discontent once he realizes the waves aren't coming.
Everyone else seems to be picking themselves up, ascending the ladder and making themselves better than they ever thought possible. But not him. Months of what has increasingly become, at best, a boring slog to wade through, and at worst an experience that toes the line of torture is still leaving him stuck at the bottom rung. And even if, even if, by some stroke of luck so broad that all of Remnant could be drowned in golden paint, he truly got his wish and pulled out a real, unambiguous, fully-weighed victory against another, what would he get out of it? What would his friends do when he came out of there with his head held as high as he could stretch it, when the color finally rushes back and he is able to see just what is truly possible with his tactical mind and well-sculpted physique?
Jump around, hoist him into the air, and give him all the nice words he could ever ask for.
️
His eyes are as unnoticeable as they could ever be. He turns his head back for a last check, making sure that the door is still closed tightly shut. The metal handle isn't wavering a single inch. All that is left for him is to let the anchors finally pull him down to the ocean floor one last time. All he needs to do is cut the rope.
Crocea Mors fits snugly inside his palm just like it always has. One more look down at the trusty white sheathing only pushes more conviction onto him to go with his gut feeling.
These two pieces of metal hold everything. His memories of his very first look at the sword hidden inside when he was seven, the desperate pleas to be trained that ended up stomped upon like dirt by his father at thirteen, the sights and sounds of his first trip into the Kingdom of Vale four years later, and… the sounds of being outmatched. The sounds of joyous words and high-pitched exclamations. The sounds of happiness that will never be caught out of his mouth again.
He releases his grip. It tumbles down through the sky, every single rotation whipping the air into a frenzy as it approaches the ground forty feet below. The crash that comes from what is almost certainly the sword inside being cracked in half floats up to the top of Beacon like it's being carried by angels, the sickening crunch of stressed metal focusing his attention even more on the ground far below him. He has to squint, but he can just catch that little blotch of white laying free toward the sky on the stone floor.
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Follow your dreams.
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And so he does. His legs shift like his great-great-grandfather's did before him while fighting against the hordes, leaving his body free to be dragged down under the weight of gravity.
His speed begins to increase, every moment making more and more wind, the sound of air resistance taking over his ears in no time flat.
The last streetlight rises out of his field of vision.
The only thought in his mind is the final comfort he can manage for himself, the last smokescreen he will fall under…
It's just the final hit on the most powerful Grimm.
His hands stretch down as far as they possibly can, as if Crocea Mors is still in his grasp, sword pointed right into the eye of the beast, the monster only left to stare as the sword plunges into its brain, the last thing it ever feels being a sharp, unfathomably intense shot of paaaIIINIJODOGNFNCREEEEE/EE/EEEEEE/E/️/️/️/️/️/️/️/️/️/️/️/️/️/️/️/️️/️/️/️/️/️/️/️️/️/️/️/️/️
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AUGHLECH
AUGH
AUGH
AUGH
He can only see black.
He can only feel fire.
He can only touch ground.
️
With struggle that he had never, ever, ever thought he would endure in his darkest nightmares, he forces his eyes to open. Colors of every sort cloud his vision with rainbows on top of rainbows, but the underlying picture of dark red and black slowly dawns upon his mind. His right arm took the brunt of the fall, more pieces of bones than he is supposed to have on the inside poking out into the air.
That arm doesn't respond to his attempt to move it. Jaune's left arm creeps inch by inch, eyes having finally spotted Crocea Mors, still fully inside its sheath and painted by multiple blood splatters on the floor seven feet away. Every nerve ending is sending signals of screeching pain. Every little maneuver his left arm tries is another hundred knives stabbing him.
It wasn't supposed to feel like this. It was supposed to be a quick cutoff. It was supposed to be one sharp crunch into the ground, not a ragged, unsustainable breath forcing itself out of his mouth. His lungs are already starting to weigh down with fluid.
He didn't want to go out like this.
He didn't want to go out a failure.
️
He didn't want to go out as a bloodstain on the ground.
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you fail. It's hard to accept that when it's the only thing you know, though. That's all he came here for, one dream. But some dreams are meant to stay in the realm of fantasy.
No one can go on forever with the carrot just out of reach, as much as the world would like to think that one could. Jaune wanted to be a huntsman despite having no training of the sort, and this is what happens when reality finally breaks that last wall of hope.
️
There is one thing that I personally loathe more than anything in the world: Faking.
It's cruel to warp someone else's reality for one's own conscience to be satisfied, just because you can't bear the thought of seeing them the way they currently are. It's cruel to lie to someone, words or actions, just so they think they are better than they really are at something, or that they actually have a connection to someone that doesn't properly exist. It's Russian Roulette. Maybe they never see it. They live their time in a fake world, where important facets of the self are all a sham, but they can't tell the difference.
But more people than you want to believe can see through it. I promise you. They see right through it, almost every single time. All it does is create a bigger house of cards that makes the fall from the top that much higher. That much more painful.
I would never want that for myself. I would rather stay alone, confident that no one is swindling me and forcing me to live a life that isn't true rather than be happy, be ignorant, or, god forbid, know that I was lied to by the people that I thought were a rope to grab onto instead of a noose to strangle myself with.
Tell the truth to whomever you might be leading on, intentionally or not, in your life. Please.
A part of me wants to put down another chapter, and a part of me thinks this should stand alone. I'm not sure what I want to do with this yet. If I do decide on just the one, I might cut out the ending.
ᵛ¹·⁰¹ ʷᶦˢʰ ᴵ ᶜᵒᵘˡᵈ ᵃᶜᵗᵘᵃˡˡʸ ᵍᵉᵗ ᵃˡˡ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ᵈᵉᵗᵃᶦˡˢ ᵗᵒ ˢᵃᵛᵉ ᵖʳᵒᵖᵉʳˡʸ ᵃᵗ ᵖᵒˢᵗ ᵗᶦᵐᵉ· ʰᵉᶜᵏ