Disclaimer: I own nothing of RWBY.


Charcoal

By: Imyoshi

Stay confident.

Ozpin was nothing more than the Headmaster of Beacon Academy.

Nothing to have a heart attack over!

"Something you must tell me?" Ozpin mussed while sipping away at his ever-present chocolate mug. He sat comfortably behind his desk, working on what appeared to be papers. Hindsight said those were the expulsion papers. "And may I inquire what that might be?"

Ozpin hummed at the way Jaune stilled. The hapless child appeared to be moments away from falling unconscious with such a tattered appearance. So he overlooked Mr. Arc showing up randomly to his office—without an appointment—just this once. Everyone got one freebie. Besides, might prove entertaining to listen what the young man had to say. Positively beat filing expulsion papers.

The leader bit his lip and summoned every ounce of courage he could muster. Confidence lessons from his father surfaced back, and he used those to push on forward. Stay calm and never back away. Those were merely a few of the Arc's most promising oaths. Even if those lesson failed in the love department—how his father managed to marry was beyond him—they still had pushed him to walk into Beacon Academy with nothing but hopeless optimism and a stolen heirloom not fit for his hand. So misguided hope existed.

Hope always existed.

"Yeah." Jaune sighed pitifully, lowing his head in shame. Time to see how lucky he was. "I'm afraid I have some bad news. It's about my stay here at Beacon."

"Oh?" Ozpin's brows reacted, and he put down his chocolate mug to rest his elbows calmly on his desk. Now Mr. Arc had his full attention. "Do tell. What horrible news are you referring to and how does it affect your stay here at this school?"

The leader braved a look up and walked over to his desk and stood directly across the Headmaster. Humph. Good as time as any to put everything on the line. Not for himself, but the three braving away in history.

"It's about my transcripts."

...

Tick-tock.

An hour earlier, Pyrrha Nikos sat in her history lecture, drumming her fingers impatiently over her desk as she waited for both her partner and Professor Oobleck's arrival. Time tick-tocked on by from the old-fashioned clock dangling on the wall. The sharp ticking worked on her nerves. Like tiny needles and just as the little hand and the big hand met, their professor arrived right on schedule with his glasses shining and posture impeccably perfect, but where was her partner? Doctor Oobleck was notorious for giving out detentions with Ruby being the prime example. Somehow someone with a super-speed Semblance always arrived late to class. None of it made sense to her, just like how none of it made sense to her about her partner's sudden disappearance.

Unless Jaune arrived in the next few seconds, then she predicted a Saturday detention for her irresponsible leader. Then again, he might possess miraculous luck, and their professor might not notice his missing presence. The thought made her snort.

She would sooner believe in magic.

Vibrate!

A vibration in her pocket pulled her thoughts away, funk all gone. She was about to reach down and check her new message, thinking perhaps it was her careless partner, but Oobleck chose that exact moment to resume last week's lecture. His mouth moved fast, his feet quicker, but the champion knew better, those eyes of his were the genuine contenders. The very instant she reached down and pulled out her Scroll, Doctor Oobleck would checkmate, cement his move, and push a detention slip onto her desk before she had the chance to hit the reply button.

Pyrrha Nikos couldn't have that on her permanent record.

Nope! Unlike her absent leader, the threat of Saturday morning detention loomed over her like a plague. She would sooner throw a sparring match than get stuck waking up at an ungodly hour on a Saturday morning to wait impatiently in a classroom for a couple of hours until their professor released them. Not on her watch. So instead she hunched over and took quality notes, writing to the best her troubled mind could follow. The message would have to wait. Hopefully, it was from her missing partner.

On the other hand, her irritable mind hardly granted her the comfort of notetaking. How could she focus? Drumming her pencil across her notebook, she briefly wondered if Ren and Nora noticed Jaune's absence. If anything, they should have since they sat closer to him than her, but the champion wasn't holding her breath, not while knowing Ren's hands were busy controlling an easily distracted and destructible Nora. Keeping an eye over their vanishing leader fell into her lap. Who knew? Her partner might just be showing up fashionably late, whatever that expression meant.

By the time fifteen minutes have passed into the lecture, she figured Jaune wasn't showing up to history. A worrisome situation. He had never been more than a couple minutes late, but with an hour left to go, she doubted he would make an appearance now. Oobleck would without a doubt give him a detention. Maybe even two? No. The smarter move was to hide and not show up at all. So she was forced to wait the remaining hour before venturing out to find her missing leader.

Preferably, knowing how her leader worked, it was probably nothing too serious. As stubborn as Jaune was, he had reasons. Were they good reasons remained to be seen, but he had them. None of that sadly helped make the time move faster. The clock's insufferable ticking moved too slow for her liking. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. It drove her mad. To make matters worse, she couldn't focus on the ongoing lecture for any given time.

The hour—one of the longest she'd ever felt—passed painfully slow. She must have glared at the clock at least fifty times, heard the tick-tock clicks more than a hundred times, and her pencil's lead presumably snapped just as much. Why Doctor Oobleck owned such a contraction escaped her.

Beep! Beep!

Pyrrha practically jumped out of her seat the moment the final bell rung. She never wished for anything more than to escape the confined space of this dusty classroom, but Destiny mocked her because Professor Oobleck zoomed right in front of her the second she stood up. He stood tall, blocking her path while everyone else, except Nora, Ren and her, ventured out to dinner. When the room was barren, the professor enjoyed a quick sip of his ever-warm coffee, glaring through the lens of his spectacles in slight earnest. When no one said anything, Oobleck sighed.

"Are you going to force me to ask?"

Nora blinked innocently. "Ask what?"

Sipping more of his coffee, the professor towered over the little Valkyrie. "I couldn't help but notice your leader's absence! So? Out with it. Where is Mr. Arc?"

Nora only blinked more, slowly coming to the same realization. "Jaune-Jaune's missing?"

Knowing a lost cause when he saw one, Oobleck zoomed over to Pyrrha instead, still towering over the prudent champion. "Miss Nikos? Do you happen to know where your leader is? I would assume so since you are his partner." Pyrrha couldn't lie. She shook her head, and Bartholomew hummed in concentration. "Hn? I see! Very well! I shall confront Ozpin and report Mr. Arc's unexcused absence. Excuse me!"

He was gone in a blur before they could defend their leader, putting Ruby's super-speed Semblance to shame with pure skill. A dust cloud was all that remained of Oobleck's vanishing act, leaving a very confused Team JNPR in his wake, and when their wits finally caught up to them, they were a tangled limb of emotions and confusion. Nora, predictably enough, voiced her outrage first.

"It's not fair!' Nora pouted, cheeks puffed and arms firm. "How come it's okay for Jaune to play hooky, but when I do it, Ren gets all mad and disappointed?"

Ren refrained from humoring her, flicking his hand over Nora's hair in a light-hearted attempt to cheer up the pancake lover. She wasn't amused, not entirely. "Because our leader takes notes, Nora. He's paying attention in class. Besides, it's not okay it sounds like he's going to get detention for it."

She only heard one thing, frowning adorably at her stubborn friend. "Hey! I pay attention! It just gets so boring! But my mind's like a steel trap! Nothing gets in or out! Checkmate, Ren!"

"Oh? Really?" Ren gingerly smiled and booped her on the nose. Then he crossed over to inside her bubble with his lips teasing. "So then you'd have no problem telling me what today's lesson was about, it was quite exciting."

Backing away with her cheeks flushed, she wisely decided to hang close to Pyrrha. "So... Pyrrha! Why isn't Jaune-Jaune here?"

Pyrrha paused. How was she supposed to know? "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure. His disappearing, while getting less common, have become kind of routine now."

"That is true..." Ren remarked, letting Nora slide for sleeping through class again. "But he must have his reasons. I'm sure he'll tell us why he skipped class. It's not like him to miss a class."

Nora's cheeks puffed out a bit more, still wishing justice for the unfair treatment her leader received. Her stomach then rumbled. "Whatever, this is getting us nowhere, and I still wanna learn how to make pancakes! I'm sure we'll find our Fearless Leader later. He's always somewhere around here." Grabbing Ren by his sleeve, she swiftly dragged him toward the Mess Hall's kitchens. "C'mon, Ren! Let's make some pancakes!"

The Lie offered no resistance and allowed for the tiny girl to drag him across the hall. A funny sight to see. Not uncommon, but still good for a laugh. At least for anyone, not Pyrrha Nikos. She regularly engrossed herself with whatever antics Nora managed to drag Ren into, finding them cute, but not this time. Too much on her plate to gorge herself in her guilty pleasure.

Sighing in the open, she walked after them in a brisk pace, wondering what happened with her partner. A pointless endeavor. Nora was unmistakably right—as frightening as that sounded—Jaune would make himself known when he felt like it. She would be lying to say she wasn't used to that. A hurtful truth and she wasn't entirely comfortable lying. One of her weaker points on her Moral Compass.

How else was Jaune able to see right through her fibs?

Another wisp of air escaped her. She quickened her pace in hopes of stopping whatever mess Nora might create. Against popular belief, Ren honestly held no control over the overactive girl, folding like a house of cards at the smallest sign of sadness. A quick wobble of the lips, maybe some puppy-dog eyes, even a petite arm-hug, and he practically allowed Nora to destroy to her heart's limitless content.

Again. It would be cute in a non-exhausting sort of way.

The champion wasn't saying Ren wouldn't prevent Nora from blowing things up. He did. The Lie only acted once enough collateral damage had been implemented to satisfy Nora's growing needs. Then, and only then, would he intervene to stop her half-brained schemes with one to two worded responses, and as manageable and regular as that was, the champion couldn't handle that right now.

Not on her watch!

So she walked. She put Jaune's disappearance aside, figuring he would show up sooner or later. She silently hoped for sooner, like at the Mess Hall, stuffing his face for all the skipped meals, but a voice in her head doubted such a chance. Either way, she couldn't wait to hear his excuse for cutting class. Oum knew Nora was jealous of the lack of restraint he appeared to own. No point of throwing any more fuel into that growing fire.

Passing through the Mess Hall, she headed straight for the kitchen, knowing Nora's mission to provoke the chefs. She saw her teammate's noticeable tuff of orange hair enter the flipping doors with Ren still dragged by the wrist. Good. They were only about a minute walking distance. How much damage could Nora cause in only sixty-seconds? Plenty she would learn as Pyrrha only just stepped into Beacon's kitchen before a dust cloud of white preemptively attacked her in a hail of flour. In less than the span of a second, her entire front body got covered from head-to-toe from the not-so-random explosion, leaving a floury silhouette of her person on a nearby wall. A magnificent frame that caught her body's physique flawlessly, right down to the curve of her hair and all natural expression from the sneak explosion. A genuine work of art no one would be able to appreciate.

Such was the curse of flour.

Without even saying so much as a word, she calmly blinked away the flour from her eyes, knowing the culprit for this delicious crime, and unsure if she should be slightly amused at her teammate's antics, or a tad exhausted like Ren most likely was. Pyrrha often wondered how Ren made it this far in life with Nora beside him. Other times, she pondered how Nora's antics never seemed to push Ren away. Such thoughts puzzled and kept her up during the nights Nora snuggled into Ren's bed, crushing the poor man under her strong and firm hold, contrasted to her ordinarily drooling and sleeping expression. Again, Pyrrha had plenty of questions, but no answers to fill the slowly growing gaps in-between.

Wordlessly, she settled to blink once more, effortlessly trying to flick away all the flour off her arms. Troubling enough, it wasn't coming off.

"Nora."

"Yes, Ren!"

A third blink.

Her head tilted up, and Pyrrha saw two figures standing in the center of the room with their flour silhouettes portraying what had transpired before everything went wrong. Nora allegedly had not-so accidentally pressed the wrong button on what appeared to be a mixer. Then the other layer of flour on the wall told a tale of Ren trying to stop her before the flour bomb exploded with his hand thrown out. A fruitless endeavor by the messiness scattered all around the kitchen, and unlike her, they were covered head-to-toe in flour.

Foolish Ren.

"Why did you add flour to the mixer?" Ren wiped some flour off his eyes, glaring lightly in a skin of white. He then cleaned some flour off her eyes, making sure to ignore the mischief poking through the layer of white that was Nora Valkyrie. "Well?"

Grinning a flour stained smile, Nora booped him on the nose, hugging the mixer still in her hands. "Mmm, I don't know. Isn't that how you make pancakes? You always add something to the mixer when you make them!"

He felt a migraine coming on, best to look passed this and clean her up. He sighed and leaned forward, showing his height and began rubbing her flour-covered cheeks while fighting the slight tug on his lips all at the same time. It was practically impossible for him to stay mad at her when she acted so innocent, but that was all it was. An act. Fortunately, this Lie knew better. She was nowhere near spotless. Not by a longshot. Like the flour staining her skin, she was filthy. Mischievous in every sense of the word. Guilty or not, though, it still made it unthinkable to be angry with her, and she knew this.

"I don't only add flour, Nora. You also need to add other ingredients before you can begin mixing." Nora responded with mumbled gibberish as he wiped more flour away from her cheeks, eyes bright with joy as he moved the mixer away to the nearest table. "There's a lot more to making pancakes than adding flour."

"Like what?"

He rubbed more flour from her cheeks and regarded her question in gripping thought. Pink stared intensely into a blend of turquoise and green. Lips thinned in concentration as a gentle hand lifted her chin to glare at the exposed curiousness that was Nora Valkyrie. Yes, his height over her smaller frame became more discerning the more she had to look up.

"Well, first, you need to add some baking powder." Ren trailed smoothly like velvet, moving even closer to clean away the trace amounts of flour on her face. "Not just flour."

"Is that all?" Nora mumbled, realizing how close he was getting. The air began turning lukewarm. Her cheeks boiled under his dancing fingers, and she idly wondered if this was how a pancake felt on the frying pan.

"No..." Ren's voice dropped, enjoying the way his fingers dance on her soft, flour-covered skin. "You also need salt."

"What else?" Nora's voice cautiously lowered with her hand resting nervously on his chest. It was shaking, and his calm heartbeat lulled her back to safety. "What else... what else do you add?"

He still held her chin and her eyes closed somewhat when his chest pressed against hers. The heat from her skin might bake this flour into delectable sweets first before she burned out. Not that she complained. She cherished desserts made by Ren.

"Some sugar."

"Sugar?"

He used his thumb to gently flick away more flour, all while moving her a bit closer. "Yes, a lot of sugar."

She offered no resistance to when he pulled her body in. Quite the opposite. Nora couldn't stop her body from sliding closer if she tried. Now she was resting her other hand on his chest with her fingers digging into fabric. A dangerous amount of red peeked through her flour-stained cheeks, and he pretty much stopped rubbing his thumb across her face to focus solely on her. His firm arms wrapped around her tiny waist, and pink eyes pierced through the wall of flour separating them from the delicate shade of green staring back. Whatever self-control she had was gone. Good, because her legs felt like jelly. Also good. Jelly went well with sugary sweets.

"... I do like sugar."

He pulled her closer still, leaning skillfully down. "I know."

Hiding quietly in the background, Pyrrha remained as silent as humanly possible, not wishing in any way to interrupt this budding moment, more than happy to act as a fly on the wall. Now she appreciated her flour-based camouflaged, content to blending into her silhouette's flour-work. Not one cell in her body wished to ruin this blooming moment. She grinned like a love-struck teenager, overpowered by the scenario happening before her. Nothing surpassed this moment. No soap opera or movie. Guilty pleasure pushed to the max!

Beep! Beep!

Pyrrha thought Ruby Rose moved fast.

Nora shoved Ren so violently back that the champion had trouble following their agile movements. The separation was quick, precise, and clean, nothing like the filth stained kitchen. Nora fought back a wordless scream as Ren fell face first onto the flour-covered flour, creating another mini-explosion in the kitchen. Pyrrha was yet again covered in flour, only this time her entire body took damage, and she coughed away the white powder while waving her hand as a fan to push away the random flour particles still floating in the air.

"Pyrrha?" Ren calmly spoke, not at all bothered by her intrusion, deliberately picking himself up from the floor as if nothing happened. He went as far as to smother away flour from his sleeve in nonchalant-ness. A hint of emotion hinted from his thinned-lips, but the flour mask hid all. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Yeah! Haven't you heard of knocking?" Nora added all flustered, pointing at her accusingly with her lips wobbling. Her hand couldn't stop quivering with her cheeks exhibited in a vortex of red. "I mean—when did you get here?!"

Pyrrha felt her heartstrings pulled. A sense of dread lulled to her. Nora had probably dreamt that moment for Oum knew how long, and her pesky Scroll ruined it. No other way around it, she owed her explosive teammate an apology and maybe some act of retribution later? Anything to repair the heartbroken girl and cease her endless humiliation.

Deciding to spare her teammates the colorful embarrassment, Pyrrha grabbed her Scroll, ready to open the new message that strained the atmosphere around them. Her eyes fluttered upon regarding the hour-old letter, reminding her of the unread note her Scroll still contained. Now things somewhat made sense. Her Scroll's features alerted her to an unread message and nothing more. Couldn't very well blame the sender for this one—more partly her fault—but hindsight and yadda-yadda.

She tapped the email with mild interest but stopped from reading it to send a sly smirk at the cardiac Nora. First things first, some light teasing, followed by ignorant denial and topping it off with a promising I-saw-everything cherry.

"Oh? Me? I just followed you two to make you didn't destroy the kitchen, which you did, Nora. Then my Scroll alerted me to a message and the next thing I know... all of this happened."

Hearing her answer—and knowing the champion was above petty lying—Nora relaxed with her heart slowing, sighing in blissful relief, but Ren's stare met hers. He remained stonily silent, scrutinizing his pupils accusingly at the boastful redhead. Recognition flashed before him. No lie got passed Lie Ren, and Pyrrha was just pitiful at it. Still, she remained headstrong, and over time his glare withered while he fought that same tug on his lips.

"Well?" Ren remarked, blowing a stray strand of black-and-white hair away from his nose. "What's the message?"

"Yeah!" Nora grinned, getting slowly back into the groove. "What's it say?"

Taking a moment to enjoy the awkward atmosphere dissolving away, Pyrrha wiped off some flour from her nose, opening up the email in a slight hurry. Gosh! How much flour did Nora use in that mixing bowl, anyway? The whole darn bag? She would be hacking out lungs of powder for a week. Never mind the shower she so desperately wanted. She had flour in places flour wasn't ever supposed to be.

Being the rational thinking member of Team JNPR came with both perks and headaches. Greetings, headache!

"It's from Jaune, and it says..." Pyrrha quickly scanned through the splotches of four, coughing up more. "I'm not going to class. Something came up. Team meeting later—!"

"Whelp!" Nora hurried toward the door from the mere mention of a team meeting. "I'm off to take a shower and—!"

"Make sure Nora knows she has to be there." Pyrrha finished, much to Nora's dismay. A tiny smirk sprouted, but it died as she recalled wanting Jaune to tag along, he had been so secretive lately.

Ren noted Pyrrha's mismatched frown. "What's wrong?"

Her shoulder sagged with disappointment. "It's nothing, just, I was kind of hoping Jaune would've shown up, he's been so distant lately and a team activity isn't as fun without the whole team."

"Oh? You mean like these past few months?" Nora snagged Ren's recently cleaned sleeve to wipe off some stuffy flour from her nose. He made zero attempts to stop her. "I know. Ever since he cheated on our bet, he's been extra-extra sneaky. The rascal!"

A cold atmosphere frosted the room. Pyrrha and Ren found Nora's stubbornness astounding. To hold onto a meritless grudge for so long deserved praise, but she received simultaneous sighs instead. Nerve-wracking didn't come close enough to describe the situation, not remotely close regarding the level of grudge. Who knew what Nora was like when holding onto a mean grudge?

Ren knelt forward, coming up from behind the pancake lover to wipe away flour from both her hair and ears. "Nora, how could've Jaune cheated on dust counting? I don't see how it's possible."

"That's what I haven't figured out yet!" Nora giggled, unable to control herself with Ren messing with her ticklish ears. She admitted being guilty of leaning into his touch. "But I just know he did, and him not telling us—telling me how he did it is so unfair!"

"You must learn to pick your battles, Nora." Pyrrha beamed before frowning. She rubbed her arm with a slowness not fit for her. "Still, I don't like it. It's the Cardin problem all over again. I don't mind that he's keeping secrets, we all have them. I'm just hoping it's not hurting him. The last one didn't exactly help."

"Maybe he has a reason?" Ren argued, dutifully ruffling up Nora's hair and spilling a cloud of flour all over his partner. He ignored her squirming, payback for his Weiss ponytail. "We all have our secrets, and if it's important, Jaune will tell us when he's ready."

"But when will he be ready?"

His tongue clicked, trying to find the right words. None came to mind. "That... is up to him. I wouldn't fret over it too much, Jaune's always been a secretive person. Since the first day we've met, he's kept to himself a little. If he's got a secret, then unless he's in big trouble, he's not going to reveal it. It's kind of in his nature. Next to always sticking by his word. We all know that."

"Yup!" Nora added, swaying in place similar to a powdered donut. "We got to trust in our Fearless Leader, except for dust counting. Then he's a big fat cheater, and we shouldn't believe a dirty word he says, ever!"

Pyrrha looked away to be silent. She brushed some of her hair behind her ear, spilling flour. Jaune's promise to become stronger came to mind. The more she grieved over it, the more what Ren said was ridiculously right. Her leader always committed himself to his word. The Arc promise—his family's oath—meant a great deal to him. More than that, he believed in keeping a promise. Nothing valued more to him than keeping his word. An admirable quality. One of Jaune's more qwerty, but shining quirks of his.

In all, things appeared okay, but then things took a turn for the worse.

Rooftop training came to a complete halt with him no longer improving. All of his progression stayed standstill. Things changed—he changed—and his utter lack of concern over it hardly sedated her nerves. She chewed her lips on the thought of him skipping lunch and dinner far too many times. All of it had been so random, so out of the blue that she didn't know what to think. Didn't know what to say or even how to voice out her concerns. Nothing made sense anymore, and she hated it with a burning passion.

The entire team knew he hid something from them—from her—and such a thought hurt. Honesty to Monty the secrets hurt. Some part of her had hoped they have gotten past this, passed all the secrets. She wished for him to trust her, but yet again, Ren brought up a fair point. If nothing else, her partner had a history of acting like a secretive person. From day one he kept his secrets hidden, thoughts bounded tightly, insecurities bottled up, and his fears downplayed from everyone, including them. Never wanting others to worry about him or for him. A flaw in his personality, but no one was perfect. She certainly wasn't.

Far from it.

So she shouldn't be surprised for his hidden motives, and she wasn't, but knowing that hardly eased the pain in her chest.

"How can you two be so calm about this?" Pyrrha probed, wanting some answers. She would take anything at this point. "He's keeping a secret from us, and you two are so... okay with it. What if it's doing more harm than good?"

Nora stayed uncharacteristically silent with a wobbling resolve. She remained unsure of how to answer her question. Parts of her smile broke with a haunting memory clawing at the recesses of her mind, but Ren, fortunately, took the full brunt of Pyrrha's inquiry while taking the time to stand protectively in front of the flour-covered marshmallow. Her smile returned full force, and she resisted the temptation to lean closer into his protective bubble.

"Let's just say Nora and I..." Ren stopped to look at her. Images of their haunting past came back to haunt him, but he shoved them back. "Know what it's like to keep secrets and how valuable they might be. Sometimes they're better left alone, other times you're forced to deal with them. It might not be easy, but at the end of the day, you have to trust in Jaune."

"That's just it... I don't know if I can trust Jaune." Pyrrha finally admitted, ridding Nora's flour-grin and his stoic expression. "He's been skipping meals, and now he's skipped class. I'm not so sure I even know who our leader is anymore."

Nora paused in a stubborn resolve. She looked over to Ren, hoping for more of his infinite words of wisdom to change the tides of this conversation and make everything better, but he fell short and said nothing, so she instead forced a smile and hopped right into Pyrrha's personal space. No more second guessing!

"Hey, cheer up, of course, you know who our Fearless Leader is." Nora threw her hands up. An unyielding hum resonated loud from her throat. "So what if Jaune-Jaune's hiding something? Then let's make it our super-secret mission to find out what it is. We can follow him around if you want? That way we can find out what's bothering our hush-hush leader."

"Nora, that's an invasion of privacy and defeats the purpose of what I just said."

Ignoring Ren, she shook in place, excited by her plan. Finally! She would have her revenge. First, she would catch him and his thievery ways. Prove once and for all that he cheated on their dust counting competition. Oh! Hehe! It made her shake just thinking about it. Plus they could help Pyrrha cool off. The cereal girl was all about the busting.

Nora tugged Pyrrha toward the door. "C'mon, let's go spy on our Fearless Leader!"

Something forced the girl to follow, but only until she saw her flour silhouette in the background, allowing her to remember what she had walked into before she got covered head-to-toe in flour.

"What about the kitchen and the mess you've caused?" Pyrrha suddenly pulled back, scanning the flour covered room. Her eyes slightly narrowed. "Actually? Where are the chefs? Or the kitchen staff?"

Laughing, Nora waved off the question. "Oh! They're on break!"

"And they let you in here by yourselves?"

"Uh..." Nora turned to her source of infinite knowledge. "Ren?"

Hearing the Valkyrie's plead, he folded immediately and glanced around the dirtied kitchen, noting the many flour covered appliances and the untold amount of clean-up duty they would be stuck with if Beacon's chefs came and caught them red-handed. No. The sight of wasted flour broke his spirits in more ways than one, diminishing the glow of his soul. Every corner of wasted gluten and contaminated food almost brought tears to his eyes, and if this had been anyone but Nora, then he would've been angry, furious even for the blatant waste of food, except he was far too lazy to be bothered with any of that frivolous nonsense.

Why clean up someone else's mess?

Lie Ren had no such plan to. Going for the not-so-subtle, he pulled Nora away from the champion which only led to her latching onto his sleeve and promptly released bits of his Aura. She smiled innocently enough with a grin that screamed guilty. Ordinarily, in the grand scheme of things, he acted more reserve when it came to food and anything wasteful that followed alongside it, but the sugary-tart happened to be a bold exemption to his citadel of responsibility. A dilemma, he knew. One that required him to look the other way and push his peeves aside, for the greater good or some nonsense of that caliber.

Not that any of the subtexts mattered.

Now onto their leader problem. He had mixed feelings about it. Whatever issue pushed Jaune into hiding again was still an unknown to them, what was known to them—or at least him—was that Jaune was a secretive person, but not on purpose. To put it into words, it was similar to a self-defense mechanism he built up over his life. Before all this, he noticed the warnings his leader had with dealing with personal issues. Sneaking into Beacon, having no combat skills, hiding Cardin bullying him, in the end, it all came down to lying.

Jaune Arc was a liar. No two ways about it. An honest to dishonest liar. Fortunately for Team JNPR, Ren knew a thing or two about lying.

His leader was a person who retreated into his skin whenever something pushed him too hard. Confrontation, getting injured in the pride, not being good enough, ridiculous standards, all of those pushed him away. Away from his team and away from the truth, which only left the Arc to follow the path of a liar, and truth be told, Ren wasn't convinced his leader knew he did just that. Again, it was a self-defense mechanism. A way to hide away the pain. People kept secrets for many reasons, and his leader wasn't any different.

They were only human.

In simpler words, Jaune followed the footsteps of a recovering alcoholic. The only difference being lying versus hitting the bottom of the bottle. To compare, first, they had a problem, then they fixed it, then something terrible occurred, and they regressed to their initial problem to relieve stress. Hn. It was all too easy to see and all too simple to fall back into, and until the issue revealed itself, not much could be done to resolve it. So whatever cataclysm that had pushed Jaune into this path of lying again was the source of his invisible pain.

Problem not yet solved, Ren thought about the other source of issues brewing underneath the surface of Team JNPR. Pyrrha Nikos. The way he saw it, it was next to impossible to stop her now. As of this moment, against her lip biting, she was seizing the opening presented to her, knowing Nora would be the potential she needed to follow through. Her push to her shove. A troubling situation. He knew he had no chance of stopping her, not with Pyrrha fueling her curiosity like a dried up sponge in the middle of a forsaken desert.

His only choice now was to do damage control and prevent the inevitable.

Ren sighed. Focusing on his new task at hand, he glanced over to the troublemaking Nora who was looking at him like he hung the broken moon and concentrated on his control to a higher degree. No matter how hard he tried, any negative emotions tying to her and him were nonexistent.

"First things first, if we're going to go through with following our leader... we better leave before the chefs return from their break. We'll be stuck here for hours if they see us, and I for one don't feel like getting stuck on cleanup duty." Ren skillfully pointed out, earning an approving tug on his sleeve from Nora, and a disapproving glare from the champion.

Now, in-character Pyrrha would've argued at doing something so dishonorable, but when the kitchen sink suddenly sprang a leak, and the fridge door fell apart in ways she couldn't quite comprehend, she was the one to push both Ren and Nora out the kitchen, all the while, completely ignoring the smoke detector going off in the background.

...

"Well, that happened."

The elevator down from Ozpin's office moved too slowly for Jaune. The Arc had trouble thinking straight in the confined box. One of his hands held onto the railing while the other pulled out his Scroll, waiting for the elevator to reach the ground floor. Everything that happened in that office had been unexpected. Not good nor bad, just offbeat. The meeting, from his predictions and fearful gut-churning, went differently.

Meeting?

That word bashed against his head like a migraine, puzzling him to why he cared so much for it. Then, by looking down at his Scroll, eyes widened. "Oh! Right! I called for a team meeting later, huh?" Jaune almost forgot. The encounter with the Grimm and Ozpin made it slip his mind. "Good thing I remembered— and now I'm talking to myself. I've been doing that a lot lately."

Ha.

Gripping his Scroll, he idly wondered what to tell his team. After the talk with the Headmaster, his priorities had shifted. Skewed and realigned to a different path than the one he originally was set on walking. Things changed, and he wasn't so sure if this new path set upon him proved to be a blessing or curse, but he did know one thing, his team wouldn't be left to follow him in the dark. No more. All things him, including battles and Aura discoveries, would be new chapters for Team JNPR. A fresh new start!

Time to come clean and rid the lies weighing him down.

Sigh. Speaking of Aura, he felt practically drained from his fight with the Death Stalker, barely finding any residual Aura in his body. Muscles strained. Mood worsened. A tiny flicker of ember remained. The cold emptiness reminded him of his earlier discussion with Weiss and Dust crystals, and his so-called idea for said Dust shards. The lack of warmth hurt in ways he had never considered, never felt, and he found it strikingly odd. The more he got used to Aura, the more he noticed the little things whenever he hit close to zero. Being warm and comfortable for one.

Little to no Aura meant a colder body. How odd.

Ding!

The elevator's ding robbed him of his thoughts, and he stepped out and glanced out the nearest window in the narrow hallway. A fair amount of sunshine peeked on through, although the sun was slowly going down. A drag, too, because he preferred to head to Vale to get started on his newest idea. While seeing no harm in waiting until tomorrow, his restless feet disagreed. Why wait? Early Nevermore got the human.

His feet dragged him across the hall and toward the Bullhead landing station. During the way, he met Doctor Oobleck going the way he came, most likely heading for the Headmaster, but he stopped to share with him a critical glare that startled the fatigued leader. The strict doctor zoomed over to him, preventing any escape or sudden movements.

"Ah! Mr. Arc! It appears I've had the good fortunate of bumping into you." A quick sip of his infinite coffee. "You missed my class. May I ask why, what could've possibly compelled you to do such a thing?"

Jaune blinked. Crude and direct to the point, the official trademark Dr. Bartholomew Oobleck. The threat of Saturday detention hung over his head like a rope. He wasn't sure what to say. Sorry for missing your class, but I was busy killing a Death Stalker with the power of Aura didn't sound like reasonable enough excuse. He could half-truth it. Leave out the part about Emerald Forest and tell him about Professor Ozpin's meeting. It might not buy him enough leeway, but it could at least throw off suspicion. The Arc didn't need eyes on him.

Laughing awkwardly, he rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I had a meeting with the Headmaster. It took a lot longer than I expected. Sorry for missing your class, I'll make sure to get the notes off of Blake or Pyrrha. I promise it won't happen again."

Oobleck loomed over him, regarding him for all he was worth, and like a flip of the switch, his intense frown was replaced with a good-hearted smile. "That is quite alright! If you had a meeting with the Headmaster, then your absence is excused, but next time I will require a handwritten note, do I make myself clear?" Jaune timidly nodded. "Good! Very good! Now if you would excuse me, I have papers to grade!"

A gust of wind followed the professor as he vanished in a burst of speed. Not a single drop of coffee spilled from his mug. How that worked, nobody knew, certainly not this student. Still, he sighed and wiped away some strands of sweat from his forehead.

"That was too close."

If only Doctor Oobleck had gone up to clarify his story with Ozpin, things would've turned out differently, much differently. Good thing neither of them asked why he wasn't in uniform. Chalk one up for dumb luck.

A small laugh threatened to escape, but he scoffed tiredly instead and resumed his walk, heading for his true greatest foe. Not combat class, but the Bullhead! Darn airship and motion sickness. He desperately had to make this Dust idea work, or his Aura exhaustion was going to become a dangerous problem in the foreseeable future. Moving his body on limited Aura, a dilemma he noticed growing through the days, tested his limits. Limits he didn't know existed until forging Shooting Star. A ride on the Bullhead couldn't possibly benefit him in any way, but science required sacrifice.

"First a quick trip to Vale to pick up some Dust and then I'm off to find my team."

The Arc never noticed his team hiding in the shadows with chunks of flour on the flour, spying on him from a hidden corner as he walked out of Ozpin's building and toward the landing pad.

...

Curse airships!

Who needed them?

Aura could work all the miracles it wanted on his body. Increased strength, faster speeds, weapon crafting, but curing motion sickness proved too impossible a task for the limitless power. Go figure.

After running up and throwing up all the stuff in his stomach in a nearby trashcan, Jaune wobbled and wiped his lips with his forearm. Disgusting. Cough! Oh well. He breathed and then headed for the nearest Dust store, From Dust Till Dawn, a cozy cornerstone Weiss recommended. He carried some leftover lien from the dwindling amount he brought from home. Hopefully, it was enough to purchase at least a few Dust crystals. Lien didn't grow on trees, or he believed they didn't. Nonetheless, the leader only had so much to spare.

Trailing behind the lackluster leader, the remaining members of Team JNPR spied from their backward newspaper. Nora wore a top hat and fake mustache she had bought on a whim with a pair of shades. Ren solely wore shades. Pyrrha felt utterly ridiculous in her disguise glasses and detective's hat. Why her teammate had these items was beyond her.

"How did I let you talk me into this?" Pyrrha grumbled, still cleaning off bits of flour in her hair.

"It was pretty easy!" Nora answered with a teasing smirk. She then lifted her specs, grinning mercilessly. "Anything having to do with Jaune usually gets you to fold!"

"That's not true!"

"Is that why you're hiding behind a newspaper, wearing a pair of sunglasses, and stalking our leader?" Ren calmly countered, fixing his shades. They fit pretty well and made him feel way more mysterious.

"I choose not to answer that."

Nora pushed her shades down and hovered close to Ren. That made the cereal girl think with her grabbing her pair of shades. "Nora? Why did you purchase these glasses?"

She attempted to fix her amber colored shades. A fruitless endeavor. Everything about it made her feel so silly that she couldn't even begin to imagine what would've happened if Ren hadn't talked Nora out of her fake beard and monocle idea. It still almost happened, but then she offered him a sailor suit with a cute hat and everything went downhill from there.

"They were on sale! Four-for-one!" Nora whispered-yelled, fixing her pair of turquoise specs ecstatically. "I even got Jaune a pair. They're some shade of blue."

"Speaking of colors, why are mine pink?" Ren flipped the newspaper the right way, actually curious about the article of half-off orange shampoo.

"Because silly! That's my favorite color!"

A reasonable answer from an unreasonable girl. By default, he accepted the easy-going answer with an offhanded hum, diving deeper into the newspaper, and favoring the article on his favorite health bars. A few people have complained and sent angry letters about their lack of taste, flavor, and overall boorish texture. Some even boycotted them. Those heathens! Didn't they understand healthy food made the world spin? Their taste buds were unquestionably underdeveloped and couldn't appreciate and comprehend the authentic power and one-of-a-kind taste of his deliciously nutritious health bars.

Pyrrha tilted her head. "I thought you preferred pink for a different reason? Right, if I recall, wasn't it because it reminds you of Ren and—?"

"Ah!" Nora cried, cupping her hand over Pyrrha's mouth. The bubbly girl looked over and sighed in relief when she saw Ren was too busy reading some article on one-hundred-and-one ways to sleep better. She then shushed Pyrrha. "I never said that."

"But—!"

"I never said that!"

Taking the hint, Pyrrha nodded silently, enjoying her payback and shyly offering Nora a rare smirk that the trigger-happy girl pretended to ignore. She, instead, settled on following their leader behind her partner's shoulder, eventually wrapping her arms around his neck and hanging on his back instead of walking.

Like a sloth.

Ren didn't seem to notice or mind the weight difference, too fixated on the deals and coupons the paper had. Fifty percent off orange-scented shampoo? How could businesses stay open with deals like that? They practically shoved the product into his arms and told him that they were free.

The following of Jaune Arc continued for a while longer. The trio every so often wondered to Monty Oum where he was heading. Sometimes, they thought their leader was lost with his constant head twirling and Scroll checking. Other times they considered the idea that he knew they were following him, which, in turn, had him leading them on a wild goose chase until they gave up. Finally, though, he stopped at a Dust shop called From Dust Till Dawn, and Nora promptly jumped off Ren's back to point accusingly at the Dust store.

"Ah ha! I knew it!" Nora squealed, shaking Ren in her victory screech. "Dust shop! See! I told you so!" This time Nora grabbed Pyrrha, peering back and forth between her and the shop. "We've found Jaune's secret hideout where he's been learning how to count dust! I rest my case!"

"Nora." Ren countered, pointing at the sign of the Dust shop. "This is a Dust shop that sells Dust. Not a shop that helps you count dust. There's a difference."

She doubly countered. "How do you know that? There's no way to tell!"

He lowered his shades, looking super mysterious. "This is where I buy the Dust for your grenade launcher. You didn't think it magically filled up on its own, did you?"

"It doesn't?" Ren shook his head, and she burst into a set of tears, hugging her best friend for all he was worth. "Aw! You're so good to me, Ren! You're the best! The bestest!"

He felt that same tug on his lips again, and wrapped Nora in a one-armed hug, using his other arm to hold the newspaper up and hide them. "I try to be."

Pyrrha bit her lip. For now, she must ignore the scene before her. "It's still odd. Jaune doesn't use Dust. What reason could he have for coming here?"

The champion crouched ground level to the shop's window, watching her partner walk through the store and inadvertently bump into things. A smile broke on her lips. It was amusing to observe and see her old partner still act the same. A sigh of relief escaped her for that one. Then he made his way to the shop owner, asking for assistance and was pointed in the direction of a display case of Dust crystals. A quick thank you later, and her partner walked up to the display case, but not before tripping again. He shot up, back up on his feet before anyone noticed, minus her, and tackled the display care with renewed vigor.

When he staggered from the sudden movements, using the case to balance himself, she worried. He looked downright exhausted with his hair a mess. His shoulders sagged, his movements slowed, and where was his armor? He never left without it. Upon closer inspection, she saw a dried trail of blood marks from his mouth that went passed his jawline.

Did he get into a fight?

Too many things weren't adding up. Some were ignorable, but most weren't. Like why was Jaune shopping for Dust in the first place? He didn't use Dust. Worst yet he had never been very proficient on the subject matter, and his weapon lacked the design to utilize the substance in any way, shape, or form. So why was he shopping for some now? None of it made a lick of sense to her.

On the other side of the window, he was noting the different varieties of Dust crystals—hopelessly lost.

All of this went beyond his scope of understanding. His recent knowledge on the small shards from Weiss' tutoring only carried him so far. This fact was apparent as the shopkeeper came up to him when he spent the last few minutes staring aimlessly at the display case. When another minute passed, the owner grunted and leaned forward.

"Any particular Dust crystal you're looking for, lad?"

Glaring down at the taunting case, Jaune recalled bits and pieces of the Dust lesson about the assortment of colors and properties that a Dust shard contained. He frowned, blinked, then he remembered the reason he bothered with Dust in the first place.

Aura exhaustion.

Weiss had mentioned that some Dust crystals contained bits of Aura within them, and his insane idea needed shards that could accommodate Aura. Looking back at the case and the assortment of colors, he probed and trailed until he spotted a snowy white Dust shard. Compared to the rest of the color wheel, this white shard was vastly different. It narrowly avoided any of the colors of Dust, but Weiss had never spoken about white Dust shards, and she had gone through the whole color prism.

Maybe the shop owner had something similar to a Dust crystal with no extraordinary properties.

Poking his finger on the display case, he prodded. "What's with that Dust shard?"

The owner walked over to see the Dust shard he pointed at and shook his head. "Oh? Don't worry about that one, sunny. That one there has lost its power. It's pretty much worthless. More for decoration if you're into that."

"Lost its power?"

The owner reached in and took the Dust crystal out the display case. He handed him the shard, allowing him to test its hollow shell. "Afraid so, the poor thing ran out of juice. That's what happens when it's not used for a long time."

"So in other words?" Jaune said slowly, choosing his words carefully. "It's empty?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

Hearing the owner's words, he stared at the crystal in his hand, coming to an abrupt and impulsive decision. "How much?"

"Pardon?"

"How much for that crystal?" Jaune formed a fist, trapping one Dust shard while tapping his finger against the display case to the others. "I would like to buy some. I want to know how much for each."

"Really? Well, let me think," The owner rubbed his chin, thinking hard over it. He wasn't sure how much those almost worthless crystals could sell for, or why the boy wanted to purchase them. If anything, he was grateful someone wanted them. "How about five for each? I'm never going to sell them, anyway."

"Five lien each? Really?" Jaune couldn't fight off his smile. When the owner nodded, he pulled out a hundred-lien bill. "Do you have any more?"

Later, the Dust shop owner would never accurately figure out why a young man bought out all his worthless, white Dust crystals. The youth had come a bit short to buying all of his supplies, but he figured that no one else was even going to glance at those gems a second time, less purchase them, and allowed the youngster to have the extras. Nothing ventured, nothing gained the old-timer always said.

...

Jaune Arc waltzed out of the shop with a kick in his step. He hitched his complimentary From Dust Till Dawn bag over his shoulder with a broad grin. The sun had set some time ago, and it was dark outside now, so he needed to get back to Beacon for his mandatory team meeting, but his troubles remained sedated for the time being. That was more than he could ask for after following today's events.

With a team meeting haunting his thoughts, he sighed under the moonlight. "That's going to be a nightmare."

What fun.

Oh well, he took another step while using his remaining Aura to keep himself upright after the stressful day, not understanding why he had trouble moving so much, might have something to do with the Death Stalker fight, and stopped when an intense amount of Space hit him. Out of nowhere, it embezzled his body with an unseen force only noticeable to him. What was even stranger was that he somewhat recognized the Space hitting him.

"Blake?"

He might have only recently discovered this Aura technique, but he knew enough to figure out that Blake was using her Aura to fight if the other unknown Spaces colliding with hers had any indication. He didn't recognize any of the other Spaces, not feeling Ruby's or Yang's either. Which meant that Blake was currently brawling without her teammates to back her up, or her teammates weren't actively using their Aura. A third option could be the range of Space—something he knew nothing about—limiting his scope. For all he knew they were there, but he failed to feel them.

Curse his rotten luck.

Not knowing whether or not she was in danger, he ran toward Blake's Space with a fast sprint, hoping for all this to be some huge misunderstanding. He liked to think they have become somewhat friends ever since she seized his room to read. Even if it had only been for a couple of days—literally—she already burrowed herself into his team's dynamics in such a short time that he feared for the bookworm's safety.

Unbeknownst to him, his team followed him with them hot on his trail.

"Where's Jaune going?" Nora asked Ren, wanting more of his infinite wisdom.

"I don't know." So much for infinite wisdom. "But he seems to be in a hurry. We better follow him. There could be trouble."

"Agreed." Pyrrha increased her speed.

The run lasted for a few minutes with them impressed with his endless stamina. Then they made it to the outskirts of the loading docks and noticed off in the distance an airship being torn apart into two by a beam of green energy. The ship spun in the air and crashed into a cargo tank that ended up hurling toward an unsuspecting Jaune as he was too busy running beneath it to notice.

Pyrrha threw her hand out, about to yell out to her partner, warning him to watch out, but that all ceased when they all saw him fire a ball of white light at the cargo tank from his hand. A sphere of white crashed and destroyed part of the metal container, pushing it out of his trajectory. Some words were spoken but were too mumbled to be heard from them. The exploded metal tank fell hard on the floor with cement cracking and metal bending. Jaune followed its example, clearly showing signs of exhaustion with his hand resting on the heated iron.

Team JNPR stopped to stare at their Fearless Leader.

What was that?

"Move legs! Move!"

Seconds before, Jaune ran toward the docks while still feeling Blake's Space strong with many of the smaller Spaces weakening or ceasing collectively. However, from good news existed unfortunate news, and there were two other stronger ones as well, and right now he was running very low on Aura and could barely manage a step into the cargo bay before a crash from above alerted him to a tanker soaring toward him.

Whelp. That wasn't good.

Pure instinct fueled him. He lifted his hand into the air, forging Shooting Star and focused his remaining Aura into ammunition. He fired. Heightened control granted him the ability to quickly transfer the spare Aura from his body to his hand in a quicker fashion. Not the best use of his burning embers, and it still deemed slower compared to storing spheres into his hand separately, but he wasn't complaining.

"Soar, Shooting Star!"

Luck was on his side. The Aura sphere damaged part of the tanker and drove it away from his body, but the impromptu use of his previously limited Aura reserves left him using the cargo tanker to support on before he fell to one knee. He had barely flinched from when the pile of steel landed right beside him, too drained to even care about the smothering damage he had done to it. The leader had far more pressing matters to fret over. So he stood, or at least he attempted to, but his body refused to obey him, stuck in a proverbial tomb of sand. Muscles ached, and his breathing choked with fatigue. He almost feared he might pass out right then and there.

Damn it! He never felt so utterly exhausted. Breathing alone took a considerable amount of effort.

None of it made sense to him. How come he never felt this exhausted before he started all this Aura manipulation training? Even Pyrrha's sparring lessons hadn't pushed him this far, and she had only been pushing and pushing harder every night. That fight with the Death Stalker must've taken more out of him than he first thought, but his Aura focused mind said otherwise.

By logically break it down, the process only worsened as his progression in Aura manipulation grew, hence the reason for his trip to Vale to fix Aura exhaustion, and today, of all days, his control had improved exponentially. Did better control have adverse effects on his body? He didn't know. He didn't care to comprehend. He hoped that proved not to be the case, but the less Aura he had, the weaker he felt, and not when it came to weariness, but a lack of energy. Almost like that pitch-black had done something to his body. If, and only if, it existed.

He stubbornly refused to believe it.

He frowned, trying to stand up. He honestly attempted, but could barely move more than a few inches. At the very least he no longer felt Blake's Space alone with what he guessed to be Ruby tagging along. Thank Oum. Two others dropped in, but they weren't actively striving to subdue either Blake or Ruby's Space, so Jaune dropped it, but one of them did, however, feel strange, foreign compared to the other three, and not unknown as he hadn't a clue to this person's identity. Alien as in something off, unnatural, not standard, but he stopped himself. How was he supposed to discern what was natural when it came to anything Aura?

Besides, the good news was Blake was safe. Nothing else mattered.

"Gosh, I'm tired." Jaune joked, finally unearthing some essence of strength to pick himself back up. "I don't even think I can glow or create Excalibur if I tried."

He took a step back and leaned on the hot metal with his breath running ragged. The leader gave up on channeling his Aura since Blake was safe and his instincts agreed with him. No point in doing the impossible anyway, not with his measly Aura reserves. Crisis averted, he pushed himself away from the tanker and turned around, prepared to head to the nearest Bullhead, only getting in one step before coming face-to-face with his team. For a frightening instant, his heart stopped, and the blood in his veins ran cold. Then his balance wobbled with his feet shaking, and all of hell broke loose.

Each of them bore a different expression that pierced his thumping heart, but all came close to edging curiosity, and why they wore sunglasses during the middle of the night was exceeding him. He wasn't even going to question Nora's ridiculous outfit. Somehow that hardly phased him. When it came to Nora, she appeared the most normal of the three.

"Guys? What are you doing—?"

"What was that?" Pyrrha cut in, moving closer to him. A sense of longing captured her eyes. "What was that thing you just did, Jaune? With the glowing light?"

"Uh-huh, Jaune, and what's an Excalibur?" Nora added with her eyes shining in absolute wonder. "I have to know."

Ren refused to mutter a word. He figured he owed Jaune the chance to explain himself, and regarding that whatever secret his leader independently kept locked up, had been exposed for all to see. Guilt clawed away at him. It was to be presumed since he discovered this secret without his friend's permission. Secrets were secrets for a reason, and this was the second time one of his leader's had been pulled out from the mud, but if the Lie was being honest with himself, it was bound to happen sooner or later. This charade—this game of hide-and-seek—had gone on long enough.

Jaune knew this from the second Nora uttered the word Excalibur.

A hapless grin sprouted on his face like he wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. The leader breathed, inhaled, and exhaled, and inhaled again.

Yes, irony, the perfect word to sum up this situation. What ill-timed luck. Only an hour! Maybe even less and he would've revealed his Aura secrets to his team during the meeting. Yeah, no doubt about it now, Monty Oum must be out to get him. The observable universe had it out to get him. Okay, that conspiracy theory undoubtedly held some weight under it now.

Placing his bag of white Dust shards down, he pushed his hair back, wondering where to begin. Probably the best place was the beginning, and even then he had trouble forming the right words. His tongue tied itself into knots with his stomach doing the same. Didn't help his body felt like a stuffed animal filled with water.

"It's my Aura." Jaune watched their mixed reactions. None of them quite understood what he implied. "To put it frankly, I've learned to turn my Aura into a weapon. Like I'm sure you saw with Shooting Star back there."

Ren lowered his shades. "Shooting Star?"

He laughed awkwardly and tapped the burnt tanker. "My Aura handgun. It shoots out balls of Aura." They blinked. "Here, take a look, I'll show you what a ball of Aura looks like, but fair warning, I don't have enough to maintain it for long." Bringing out his palm, he forced his remaining Aura to build a small sphere in his palm, close to his chest and away from prying eyes. "Ta-da."

Ugh, numbness crawled all over his skin, it was all he could manage at the moment. Shoving his remaining Aura away forced him to level his forearm on the cargo tanker, sulking without strength. He ignored it firmly. Pyrrha didn't. She noticed every one of his pained movements with eyes sharper than steel.

"Whoa!" Nora chimed, moving slower to get a better look. She had to put on her shades to not get blinded by the little ball of Aura. "That's so cool!"

Moving to touch it, her leader willed away the Aura ball before she could make contact. The bits of Aura restored some sensation. "I wouldn't do that if I was you, Nora. It's not exactly something you can touch without getting hurt. Trust me, I think? I'm not exactly sure what would happen if you touch it, I can touch it, but the Grimm I've attacked today with it will vouch that it hurts!"

"Really?! Wow, Jaune, this is so—!"

Stopping her energetic rant, Nora and the rest of Team JNPR turned to look at Pyrrha who adopted a mixture of both sadness and hurt in her eyes. Her body was rigid with tenseness, and there was an underline of emotion beneath it all. Their Fearless Leader appeared worried, distressed at his partner's sadness. There was no sense of happiness anywhere on her.

He stepped forward. "Pyrrha—?"

"There's dry blood on your face, Jaune." Pyrrha cut off, pointing out the dried splotches of blood on his face, watching as he rubbed his cheeks for an honest reaction. She glared accusingly at him. "Is that how you got that? By fighting a Grimm with your Aura? By fighting without your team?"

His silence was all the confirmation she required, and she whipped her head away. Jaune froze in place, not able to understand what ate away at his partner, and Nora was about to intervene, but Ren pulled her back with a shake of his head. No interfering, this was a problem they must work out between themselves. An ambiguous boiling point considering fighting Grimm with Aura was the foundation of Huntsmen history, but she weaved that fact to make it sound downright awful. Not that he blamed her. Fighting without his team against humanity's threat was asking for a tongue lashing.

Pyrrha huffed. She stared heatedly at the burnt cargo tanker with parts of its metal structure ripped to shreds, and her thoughts drifted through the recent months. Between all the skipped meals, sudden absences, and out-of-character behavior, their training regime became the central memory her mind focused on, and upon witnessing how efficiently he dispatched such a high quantity of metal, it made her wonder many things.

Dangerous and heart-wrenching things.

"So, this whole time..." Forming a fist, she finally glared back at her leader. "You've been practicing with your Aura? Making weapons and fighting Grimm." Jaune didn't know what else to do but nod his head. The small silence only lasted so long. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Tell me?

Those honest words made him think. He had reasons for doing all this. He did.

"At first I only wanted a weapon of my own, but as time passed, it became I wanted to get stronger, and my Aura gave the chance to make that happen." Jaune looked up the cloudy night sky feeling the world vanishing from under his feet. The truth behind his words felt soul lifting. "I wanted to be accepted here at Beacon. I didn't want to drag down the team and be a burden, anymore. And the only way to do that was to practice on my own. You guys had problems of your own to worry about."

"You were never a burden—!"

Slam!

"Yes, I was!" He had slammed his fist against the tanker, acting unbendable on the matter. His residue Aura responded and eased his sore muscles and granted him the ability to move. Still, an atmosphere of sadness clouded him. "I was weak! I was a burden to our team! I was only going to hold us back! You all deserved a better leader, and I wanted to be that leader—needed to be that leader. And a team with a weak leader can't last too long!"

She stepped forward, accepting the challenge thrown her way. "Then why didn't you ask for help? We all could've helped you?"

The strength in his voice abandoned him. "Because I needed to do this on my own. That's why I trained alone." He gestured to the rest of their team, no longer trapped in their little bubble. "I had to prove it to myself and the Arc family name, or what good was I? We both knew I wasn't getting any better training together. We both knew that. I had to find another way to get stronger.

Silent for a moment, she was unsure how to think. "You could've gotten—you did get hurt."

Pain?

Touching his cheek, he rummaged his fingers over the rough edges of the dried blood, scratching bits of it off. She was right. He remembered the moment when the Death Stalker tried to crush him between its pincers. He did get hurt but failed to see the issue at hand. So what? He was alive. He was breathing. What was the point in trying to inspire to become a Huntsmen if he feared a smudge of blood? Fighting and surviving were what Huntsmen were all about, and he attempted to tell her that, moving forward, but of course, his Aura exhaustion had taken its toll on him, limiting his movements as his lingering Aura burnt out.

Still, he tried to smile through the pain. "It's not as bad as it looks."

That set her off. "Not as bad as it looks... not as bad as it looks! Look at you, Jaune! You can barely stand on your own two feet, and there's blood on your face! And for what, just so you can get stronger, become a better leader? Who cares!" He couldn't say anything, Pyrrha's voice died in her throat. "We already accepted you as our leader. You lied to us, to me. Again."

He sighed, unable to meet her in the eyes. "Yeah... I guess I did."

Something fractured in her. It tore her soul in two, and she stepped back. Her feet carried her before they could calm her down with them leading her away from her team in a full sprint. Sadness and something else fueled her to run away, and Jaune attempted to reach out and stop her, but it was all in vain.

"Pyrrha! Wait! Ugh!" Ren caught him before he fell, holding their leader up by the shoulder. Nevertheless, he willed to move, but his body finally gave up and had enough. That last attack with Shooting Star robbed him of his residual Aura. "Well... that didn't turn out anywhere near as I expected."

"Well, what did you expect, Jaune?" Ren calmly grabbed Jaune's Dust bag from the floor. A hum passed his lips. "She just learned that you lied to her, again."

"I don't know I kinda guessed she would've been surprised, happy, and maybe a little mad, but not that angry."

"I think Pyrrha's more hurt than mad because you lied to her." Nora poked with a sad smile, grabbing Jaune by the other shoulder. "She really trusted you, Jaune-Jaune, and you let her down."

He relaxed into their hold, flaring a bit. "Why? It's not like I was doing it to be mean. I wanted to be accepted. Besides, she lied to me too! Not telling me about my horrible progress in training is just as bad. But I didn't get mad at her."

"Yeah..." Nora agreed but hummed sadly anyway. "But your Jaune, you're not supposed to lie anymore. Pyrrha only didn't want to hurt your feelings."

"And let's not overlook the fact you almost got crushed to death. Seeing that, on top of your secret training, fighting Grimm on your own, having dried blood stains on your face, and the fact that Nora and I have to carry you back to Beacon probably pushed her a bit too far." Ren hiked Jaune upright on his shoulder. "She's been worrying about you for a while now. Do I need to mention the times you skipped lunch or dinner?"

Sighing under his breath, the leader offered Ren a condescending smile. "You know, you're pretty good at raining on people's parades, you know that, Ren?"

"It's a gift."

Their leader said nothing to that, both hating Ren's sarcastic wits and enjoying a few minutes of peace walking back to the airships for Beacon, too tired to even think of a proper explanation for his partner. Minutes passed with the night air growing chilly. Once they saw the Bullhead landing station, Jaune threw both of them a sideways glance. Might as well bring this up. They, too, saw him using his Aura handgun. Their lack of initial surprise made the night air chillier anyway.

"Well, you're both taking this surprisingly well? What's your secret?"

Nora laughed once again, patting their leader on the back. "Ren figured you had a reason for keeping a secret and expected you'll tell us when you were good and ready. But then we kinda saw you, you know."

Sigh. "Yeah, I know. Can you do me a favor and not tell anyone about this?"

"Sure, Jaune."

Ren sent a sideways glance to his partner-in-crime, making sure she got the memo. They spent the last few minutes walking toward the Bullhead in silence, mostly due to Jaune's weakened body keeping them distracted, but Nora got anxious and pressed her cheek to his.

So?" Nora grinned and rubbed their cheeks. "Aura weapons? That sounds awesome! I can't wait to see them!"

"That was the plan for the team meeting."

"Speaking of the team meeting... do I still have to go to that?"

...

Pyrrha Nikos' feet carried her to parts unknown. To where she ran she hadn't a clue. Nor could she fully comprehend why she was unsettled. Her emotions scattered in the wind and she was hurt, torn in the inside all over the place. A string of tears leaked from the corner of her eyes, and she had to wipe them away every few seconds.

All this time—all this worrying—and for absolutely nothing. Nothing!

All those smiles of his hadn't been fake. They were real! Real and true! She saw that power of his. That amazing and one-of-a-kind power. Of all people, it turned out that she was the only one who had been fake smiling. Hiding behind a barrier, proving once more of how much of a hindrance she had been to her leader and partner. Maybe that was why she was mad and mostly disappointed in herself.

So? Jaune had been doing nothing but bettering himself? She frowned, disappointed at the thought that she was the one not lending a helping hand, trying to use a tactic that, in the end, achieved zero results. Consequently, he had been forced to take matters into his own hands because he couldn't trust her to help him accomplish the results he desired. What a hurtful truth. He had even called her out on his terrible training progression with complete understanding and acceptance. Why he was the one not angry at her was beyond a mystery to the champion. The champion knew she deserved it, knew it instinctively like the back of her hand.

However, he smiled at her, anyway. Waving it off with no concern, like he always did to whatever life decided to throw at him.

The alone spoke volumes to her how strong he had gotten.

She should be proud. She was. Very much so, but it still hurt, hurt more than she ever thought possible. Her partner managed to get stronger without her or her help, but the question remained. Had he gotten strong enough? That annoying query ticked at the back of her mind, smashing at the inside of her skull like Nora's hammer to an unsuspecting victim's legs over and over again until her head threatened to burst. She might have failed as a teacher, but she wished to help him on his journey. She wanted what was best for her first real friend.

If nothing else, the least Pyrrha Nikos could do was test Jaune Arc and determined if his strength proved vast enough for the Vytal Tournament. At least strong enough to compete and not get seriously hurt. Because angry or not, she still cared for the lovable goof. Seeing him get hurt wasn't something she wanted to see. Even in their field of profession.

Stopping her run, she wiped away the beginning tears, wondering on a thought that irked her to no end.

Did Jaune Arc ever really need her?

...

So it was safe to assume that Pyrrha wouldn't be waiting in their room when they returned. When they were right, it did little to soothe Jaune's aching feelings.

Entering their room, their leader scanned the bedroom for any signs of his partner, hanging his head in defeat when there were none. He coughed, too tired for this nonsense. His Aura had only slowly recharged since the incident with the Grimm and that strange black Aura.

Hn? The pitch-black Aura almost slipped his mind. A close one. He would have to look into that phenomena later. His partner's intervention, along with the rest of his team, robbed him of his Aura-fueled thought process, but luck gambled for him. Still, testing anything related to that enigma of an Aura would be to see if had or had not crossed the line that stemmed from Nora level insanity and rationality.

The leader gritted his teeth.

"She's not here..." Jaune attempted to stand, but fell and Ren released him for Nora to hold. He busied himself by tossing his bag of Dust shards beside his bed. "Where could she be?"

Nora grinned, carelessly tossing their leader straight down onto his bed, acting as the greatest teammate in all of Remnant. "Don't worry, Jaune! I'm sure Pyrrha's just going for a nighttime stroll!"

He held back a snort. Yeah, sure. Nighttime stroll.

He wanted to roll his eyes at the assumption but decided against it. So far Nora had been nothing but helpful today and figured she didn't deserve the gesture. Ren positively wouldn't if he saw, not after helping him get back to their room. The guy was as dangerous as he was mysterious and lacking in the taste buds department. Made Blake look like Ruby and Ruby look like Zwei. Besides, with no Aura left he hardly felt like acting brave, but once he had Aura, all bets were off.

"Maybe." Jaune rolled with it, not even in the mood to change out of his clothes as his eyes began to drift from Aura exhaustion. "I'll just talk to her tomorrow. Too tired right now."

"Kay! Goodnight, Fearless Leader!"

A few minutes passed, and he hadn't been able to properly settle down and sleep with Nora constant moving in the room, but he was going to let it slide. Nora got a pass today for her wild shenanigans.

"I hope Jaune doesn't know it was my idea to go spying on him, Ren!" Nora suddenly whispered-yelled in the room.

Scratch that!

Grabbing a fistful of his bed sheets, Jaune took it all back.

He was going to steal Nora's pancakes tomorrow.

...

In the morning, Jaune woke up to find Pyrrha's bed sheets rumpled from sleep, but no partner in plain sight. Her school uniform was missing, too, and both Ren and Nora were still sleeping. An oddity since she beat them up, a usual contender for sleeping in like Nora. When no sounds came from the bathroom, he knew she wasn't around.

So she was avoiding him?

Message received.

The thought made his insides clench a little, forcing the blond to sit up on his bed and touch his chest. His fingers traced the fabric of his battle-worn hoodie, gripping thread. Commonly, the guys woke up before their partners, meaning Pyrrha was pushing this avoiding thing to a new level. Fair game. He felt his Aura acting up to his emotions and honestly, it worried him. Aura—his Aura—shouldn't be acting like this. Possible expulsion? Meeting with Ozpin. Emotional outbursts? Unknown Aura techniques? Partner problems? When did his life spiral out of control? Everything was fine yesterday.

Exhale!

Getting off his bed, he rubbed his neck and checked the time. Classes were starting in an hour. Plenty of time to ambush his partner, get some quick breakfast, steal Nora's pancakes, and talk things through with her before beginning the day with Professor Port's class. Maybe even ask her why she's so upset about everything?

Still didn't make much sense to him?

Checking his outfit and fixing his dreaded tie, something Pyrrha made for him every morning, he quickly extended his arm out and created a small sphere of Aura. A content smile pursed his lips. Good. He felt fully energized and restored. No more soreness. No more aches. That improvement of control did wonders, and that was saying something since creating an Aura sphere was the simplest thing he could manage, next to glowing. Why it happened, he still had to figure out, but he wasn't complaining in the slightest.

Now if only Pyrrha saw that.

Grumbling, he willed the Aura away along with the recent turn of events. He had more pressing matters to fret over. Like finding and talking to his partner, and with that goal in mind, he walked over to the sleeping Ren and a snoring Nora and considered the idea of waking them before recalling Nora's not-so-unknown confession from last night.

Payback time.

Shifting his eyes between the drooling Nora and the door a few times, impulse took over and he slowly tip-toed toward the door. A slow turn of the handle later, with the quietest shut on his way out, and he chuckled. There was a full-blown smile breaking across his face as he walked down the halls of Beacon, fighting back a boisterous laugh that might wake up his victim.

Nora had no one to blame but herself.

Missing breakfast and her precious pancakes, plus the possibilities of her first couple of classes should be punishment enough for her. Sadly Ren was an acceptable loss. Waking him up could've gone two ways with him either joining in on the fun or waking her up before they made it out the door. Couldn't have that happening. Too risky. Not to mention the whole situation surprised him. Ren regularly woke up around the same time as him, an early riser such as himself. Poor guy must've burned more energy than he realized yesterday while he had been carrying him back to Beacon. Regardless, early riser or not, he might be the leader of Team JNPR, but Ren's loyalty to his Pancake Queen overthrew his by a wide margin.

Sincerely, it was mutiny at its finest.

"Sorry Ren, not my partner, not my problem. Look on the bright side, more sleep."

Between him and the floorboards, dealing with Pyrrha currently overshadowed every one of his actions and motives, except for getting revenge on Nora. There was always time to extract revenge on the trigger-happy short-stack.

Naturally.

...

Finding Pyrrha became somewhat of a chore. Not more than a few minutes confirmed he wouldn't find her either in the Mess Hall or courtyard. Any doubt washed away before it spouted. Hard not to with her Forever Sap mane as clear as day. She was nowhere except for Professor Port's class when he walked in early and saw her sitting across the room with a rigid posture. Eye contact happened, and she narrowed her eyes, humphed from afar, and looked away, suddenly finding her notebook more interesting than him. A joke existed there somewhere with his Aura notebook and her copying him, but he wisely forced down the grin. Instead, he not-so-wisely brushed off her pout and sat next to her anyway, poking her on the side of the shoulder.

"Pyrrha?" Ignored. He rolled his eyes this time, shaking her shoulder. "Hey, c'mon, why are you so mad? I can explain if you just ask me!"

She made no effort to tear her eyes away from her notebook, rereading notes from Professor Port's ravenous lectures of his dashing youth. She almost seemed interested in those tales. It was pretty convincing actually. The subtle nods helped. Guess all those Pumpkin Pete cereal acting roles were paying off, but this Arc was no fool.

No one enjoyed reading about Port's Spiral Stories of Man versus Not-man.

Beside the point, he shook her shoulder harder which she acted out by scooting away from him. Him! There was irony in there somewhere. Maybe if he looked hard enough, dug deep enough, he would find it, next to common sense and sanity.

"Can you at least talk to me?" Jaune begged.

Nope!

Beep! Beep!

He couldn't get another question in as other students walked in, at least not without making some variety of scene. So he settled to fall back in his chair, hanging his feet out in pure laziness. Maybe he could get her to chat in Dust class? There was no way she couldn't talk to him there! It was foolproof!

As Professor Port walked in, jolly and all, Jaune paid zero attention in class that day and Pyrrha didn't once snap at him for it.

...

So it turned out she could avoid him in Dust class, and there was no such thing as a foolproof plan.

The clumsy leader forgot they chose their partners for Dust class, spicing it up as others said. She had picked Ruby again, leaving him with Weiss. Even worse, Nora spilled a few vials of Dust on the floor, creating a hole within the hardwood after arriving late to class with a much better rested Ren tagging along, and he just knew as the leader that it was his responsibility for any team-related mishaps, acid floor included. Which, in turn, meant Professor Goodwitch was going to be looming over him in the imminent future.

Even now Nora tormented him.

"What's wrong with you?"

Putting down a vial of Dust he had zero interest in, he turned to his side to see Weiss lightly glaring at him, adorable and all with her cheeks dimly puffed. Ah, he blinked at the obvious. The Ruby Rose disease. Cure unknown. No immunity and symptoms included doing cute things like trying to appear taller than possible and shaking of the arms. He would like to say it was an improvement if anything.

Not wanting to talk about it, he lightly shrugged. "Nothing."

Scoffing, she snatched the vial out from his hand while humphing all at once. "Fine, don't tell me."

Later she kicked him in the shin for lying.

It was a healthy relationship.

...

Eating lunch in their room, Jaune chewed slowly, not feeling the mood to eat. Not that the food helped his appetite. The meal was bland, tasteless, and hardly appealed to the eye. Presumably, Beacon's chefs had decided to go on strike for some flour related mishap, so the food was unhealthy and just plain unpleasant, but he had been skipping meals recently—something his team poked him about—and decided it was best not to starve himself or Pyrrha might get angrier at him and then feel guilty about it later. He did not need to add anything more to his plate, pun intended.

"You okay?"

Page Flip!

Swallowing his food, he frowned over to Blake, who was looking over her book at him from his bed, eyes peering barely over the cover in cat-level curiosity. One would almost think she was a feline with her dog hatred and calm personality. Now wouldn't that be funny?

"Kinda..." Jaune didn't understand why, but speaking to Blake was easier than Weiss. As if she could be a counselor of some sort? "Teammate problems."

"Oh..." Blake lowered her book more, studying him. "I know how that this. Just dealt with some teammate issues of my own, yesterday."

Tilting his head, he couldn't help but wonder if that had something to do with the problem at the cargo bay the day before. She regularly didn't pause her speeches like that or even talk much at all, always calm and collective. Must've been important? Funny. He could relate to that. Such a thought made him smile. He relished the fact that someone else understood his problem. Having it be Blake made it all the sweeter.

"But I've atoned for my crimes." Blake continued, getting up from his bed and sitting beside him on Ren's.

"Atoned?"

Shut!

She closed her book. "Atone, it means to make amends or reparation. In other words, to make up for past mistakes that eat away at you."

"... Like lying?"

"Exactly."

Placing his lackluster food down, he glared at the poster covering the hole in the wall where he first shot Shooting Star. One of the starting points for his first steps to becoming a better Huntsmen and leader, to atone for his weakness. Hn? Atone? That word had a pleasant ring to it. Rolled right off the tongue.

"... Atone?"

"Yup." Blake nodded, popping the P.

She then reopened her book, lying down on Ren's bed now. She was getting surprisingly comfortable in Team JNPR's room, having stashed away a few books of hers in their closet for later reading, but none of Team JNPR needed to know that. Must be the orange-scented sheets and the quietness she didn't expect from this team.

Looking down at Blake, Jaune smiled. "You're acting awfully nice today, even being the first one to talk."

"Don't get used to it. I'm just in a good mood."

Page Flip!

...

Combat class passed uneventfully with Jaune not having the will to fight and Pyrrha still not uttering a word to him. The reason for her anger eluded him, but he did know he didn't want to be the poor fool to challenge Pyrrha Nikos during class today. That was plain suicidal.

At least he managed in some practice with Space and learned Weiss' Aura color—icy blue, like a winter's glow. Should have seen that coming. So far between most Auras, hers was more formal and defined if he must choose a few words to describe it. It clung firmly to her body like a tailored dress, flowing on the bottom and tight-knit between her torso, and the amount of Space she emitted was on par of that of her partner. Too bad that said little about Ruby's level of skills and Aura levels considering Ren beat her easily enough but forgetting that, he took what little notes he could manage on Weiss' Aura without a table to write on. Best to wait until Oobleck's class to finalize any data. Heck, he still had to add in Space's data and stuff related to that pitch-black Aura.

Beyond that not much else.

He got to see how her Semblance worked to an extent, noting on how and when her Semblance's Glyphs appeared, her Aura concentrated on the point of destination before materializing. Like a beacon of sorts.

Ha!

A second pun for the win.

Beat that, Yang!

...

History proved to be no different.

So the saying was accurate then, history did have a nasty habit of repeating itself. Pyrrha kept ignoring him, and Doctor Oobleck rambled on about stuff. Same routine, different day.

No matter.

Doctor Oobleck's class offered him the best opportunity to write and have zero attention drawn to him with his out-of-control rambling. Data. Notes. Table of contents. All of it! Here, Jaune added in Aura notes, ranging from discoveries and updates on Aura-based techniques to including the ones from yesterday. Space and that pitch-black stuff got a page of their own. Anything discovered needed to be documented, and he was meticulous when it came to Aura. Now, though, Ren noticed him writing in his notebook, perplexed by his dedication to writing, more so than Nora's refusal to pay any attention to the lecture.

Ren drummed his pencil on his notebook, eyes narrowed. Ask his leader now or later? Whatever notes his leader wrote in that notebook intrigued him, more so if his hunch was correct and that happened to be all Aura-related. Now the question was whether to ask after their fracture team was repaired or before? Maybe sooner if his friend decided to bring it up, but who was he kidding?

He had rotten luck.

...

Dinner came and passed.

Pyrrha had taken her meal to go. Sarcasm had edged mockingly from Nora's mouth throughout most of dinner. What goes around comes around, Jaune was her words, not his. Ren had added nothing and stealthily pushed lettuce into the girl's mouth when she laughed at the irony biting back at him. The gagging was suitable payback at the time. Then Nora skedaddled to hunt down Pyrrha with Ren tagging along—not by his choice—leaving Jaune to fend for himself against a hovering Blake.

All and all, a decent dinner.

It wasn't until Jaune returned to his team's room, around sundown, that he received a message from Ren telling him to meet him in the courtyard by the fountain. By then Blake was already lazing around the room, reading some ancient book about fairy tales of the past on her stomach, feet pressed against the wall. She preferred those types of stories, besides smut, of course. Why? He couldn't possibly fathom.

He let himself out, telling her to enjoy herself and not to touch anything Nora related. The usual go-around.

She answered with a simple nod and got lost in a tale about a girl walking through some wolf-infested forest in a red hood. Jaune didn't know. Book reading wasn't his thing, storytelling either. He only knew of the Arc tales his parents told him about his ancestors. They made sure he knew them by heart by the time he could run and lift a sword.

Walking toward the fountain, he found Ren hanging beside the water, staring at the reflection. It was only moments later that he realized that Ren was missing Nora. Strange? They were always together. Not together-together, but together.

"Hey, Ren!" Jaune waved, running up beside his fellow male with a joking tone. "What's up? What's the emergency?"

"It's Pyrrha." Ren answered strongly, severely killing the joke. "She's in Emerald Forest, training. Nora's with her and she says Pyrrha's pushing herself hard."

The smile died from Jaune's face. "Oh?"

"We best go stop her."

Meanwhile, at some edge of Emerald Forest, Pyrrha swung her weapon across the air, practicing her stances and muttering incoherent things. Nora sat on a rock, a small frown accompanying her usual joyful face, watching her Fearless Leader's partner push herself too hard.

"Pyrrha!" Nora yelled. "Shouldn't you take a break?"

The champion either ignored her or didn't hear her through her stances, muttering things like lying fools or careless leaders over and over again.

Only when her partner entered the clearing and yelled out her name that she stopped practicing. "Pyrrha!"

Her attacks all halted. She gripped her weapon and shield firmly and turned to confront to confront her running partner. Ren broke away mid-run to seize his rightful spot next to Nora, sitting on the same rock, but as far as she was concerned, only Jaune stood right before. Judging by the crease of his brows and longing frown, he worried for her.

He moved toward her, but her hand stopped him. A sigh escaped him. "Pyrrha, c'mon... you haven't talked to me all day, and you've been avoiding me. Just tell what's wrong. I'm no good at this."

Studying his innocent face, she lowered her head, and tightened the grip on her weapon, not wanting to meet him in the eyes. Seconds passed before she finally breathed again, allowing her voice to come forth.

"You lied."

At that, he breathed in relief from hearing her talk to him, smiling somewhat. Then he rubbed the side of his neck, looking guilty. "I know I lied. Look, I'm sorry for not telling you about me learning how to control Aura. I just wanted to—!"

"That's not the lie I'm talking about."

Pausing, he tried to think over what she said. "... I don't understand."

She looked up with eyes burning with hurt and fury. This time she took a step forward with the memory of her partner practically destroying that cargo tanker flashing before her, only fueling the intense heat in her chest, reminding her why she acted so furiously. Why this all mattered to her! Why she was doing this and not quietly letting it go! Her clueless leader had garnered that power from white lies, and she hated that. Nothing good ever came from lying, or so she believed. It both awed and questioned her resolve.

"You want to know what I'm talking about, fine then. Earlier you promised me you've gotten stronger. Told me not to worry. Then prove it to me." Lifting her weapon, she pointed Miló directly at him. "Show me how much stronger you've gotten! Prove to me that you're not a liar!"

The champion had but one goal in mind, she ached to see if all the lying proved worthwhile. See if it was worth mixing a lie with one's word.

No one uttered a word. No one moved.

All remained frozen from her sudden request with wide eyes and held breaths. Nora Valkyrie gripped Lie Ren by the neck, hugging her arms while using him as a wall to lean on. Jaune Arc endured the energetic atmosphere with his mind racing. Time passed, and Pyrrha Nikos was about to lower her weapon and walk away from his lack of response, heartbroken, but her partner stopped her by taking another step forward and pressing Miló back up with an ironclad grip to match her steely gaze.

Silent, Team JNPR watched in amazement as their leader's Aura seemed to revitalize around him, gripping close to his body in a color of abstaining white before it burnt out. The entire time, Jaune recalled all the pain he must have caused for his partner. While he remained hesitant to what distress he created, he knew it was partially his responsibility, and she deserved none of it.

If fighting her was what it took to get her to talk to him and fix all this—then fine!

He accepted the challenge! He would fight her!

Reaching out with his right hand, Jaune Arc slowly concentrated until an Aura sphere condensed within his palm, glowing brightly for his team to awe. Moments later, it shined brighter, disappearing in a flash of light before a blade of pure white Aura glowed in his hand, glaring a radiant sword of innocent snow.

"Atone... Excalibur."


Author Notes: Rewritten.