Chapter 6: Awake

The first thing Jaune noticed when he woke up was the blood. Before he even opened his eyes he felt the liquid pooling around him. When he did open his eyes he observed that the sun was out, which meant he wasn't out for too long. Looking around he saw an unconscious Blake to his left a couple feet away, and the sisters to his right farther away than Blake. Jaune, without getting up, took off his shirt and carefully examined where the sword went clear through him.

The hole had started to close, but it was still slowly letting blood out. In order to stop the bleeding he took off his hoodie and shirt, (both having holes in them) and tied his shirt around his waist so he could start applying pressure with his hands. He looked over himself and noted that that was the worst part of his injuries. The remaining were just cuts and bruises from the branches.

Once the bleeding stopped he put his hoodie on over his bare chest and decided he should wake the girls up so they could figure out a plan of action.

He walked over to Blake and then paused, looking for any blatant injuries. He didn't see anything besides a bunch of cuts and bruises so he decided to wake her up. Jaune knelt down and gently shook her shoulder. After not getting a response he shook her harder, hoping to wake her up.

When she still didn't up he began to grow frantic, thoughts of her going into a coma flashed through his mind and he panicked. In his final attempt, he grabbed her shoulders and violently shook back and forth, waking her up with a start.

"Jaune? May I ask why you scared the living shit out of me?" Blake said, confused at the blonde holding onto her shoulders and looking relieved. Said blonde looked at the ground before replying.

"Well Blake, I woke up and saw that you three were still out, so I went to wake you up. However after my first two tries with no effect I began to panic, thinking you had somehow gone into a coma and began to freak out and shaking you violently. Then you woke up and here we are." Jaune said, articulating his words. He was slightly embarrassed at how he had overreacted. Blake chuckled at the boy before responding.

"Jaune, you're fine I only asked because it was pretty jarring, don't worry about it." Suddenly she winced and grabbed her head. "Speaking of jarring, I'm pretty sure I hit the side of my head hard on impact." Jaune looked at her, obviously concerned. She returned it with a look saying 'I'll be fine'. Jaune moved on from the topic at that glare.

"So besides that, anything hurting more than the rest of your body since you literally flew through a forest canopy?" Blake shook her head and stood up. Jaune followed suit and pointed towards the rest of their friends, signaling that they had to wake them up. The faunus didn't even respond and began to walk over towards the passed out duo.

The knight and the assassin looked at Yang, she had a bunch of cuts and bruises like his and Blake's, the obvious difference was her knee it was bent inwards. She wouldn't be walking for a while. That was the worst part of her injuries, he would get back to her but he wanted to see how Ruby was doing first. She was sporting her fair share of cuts and bruises he guessed Yang shielded her as long as she could, she probably let go when her knee injury happened. Jaune wasn't sure what to do next so he asked Blake.

"So uh Blake… what do we do now, we're stranded in the middle of the forest Yang's in bad condition, and with just our weapons and whatever extra stuff Ruby or Yang might have?" Blake simply nodded in response then went over to the scythe-wielder and started to wake her up. Jaune was thinking of what to do with Yang. He already knew waking her up would be a bad idea since no one likes waking up in immense pain. What he was trying to decide was how he was going to carry her so that he didn't agitate her knee. His decision was a fireman's carry since it wouldn't bother her legs at all and leave them to dangle and have no pressure on them.

He flipped Yang over grabbed her, and heaved her over his shoulder, but when he stood up he felt a burning in his chest, followed by pain. He swallowed the ache and walked over to Ruby who just looked at Jaune with puppy dog eyes.

"I'm so sorry Jaune, if I didn't wait so long to retreat this whole thing wouldn't of happened, and now look at Yang. It's all my fault." Jaune looked down into Ruby's silver eyes before responding.

"No. If you didn't stay back and lay down suppressing fire, one of them could've hit us going into the Bullhead and we would be in worse condition than we are now, so your decision was the best decision you could have made." He patted her head reassuringly.

"Well, now that most of us are awake, let's find somewhere to stay for the night." Jaune had no idea where they were in regards of how close they were to leaving the forest, so he chose to just go forward and hope for the best.

They walked in silence for about half an hour, until Jaune felt the weight he had grown accustomed to on his shoulders begin to move. Yang looked around for a moment confused, until she saw her friends and allowed herself to calm down.

"Where are we?" Jaune thought for a moment and was about to respond when Blake began talking.

"Well sleeping beauty if you would like to know, we have no idea. All we know is we crashed through some trees and now we're walking in a random direction in hopes of finding a way out." Yang almost laughed at how direct Blake was, which was to be expected from the faunas.

"You're never afraid to speak the truth, and be as blunt as possible, huh?" Blake acted as if she didn't hear the banged up blonde, instead redirecting her attention to the blonde boy currently carrying her. Yang poked his nose surprising, the boy who looked at her questioningly. She looked at him before saying.

"Jaune, while it was nice of you to carry me all this way, I can walk." Jaune shook his head before responding.

"Do you not remember falling? Your left knee is really fucked up." Yang did remember the fall, but she didn't remember hitting her knee, she assumed she just blocked out the memory. She tried to bend her knee, and was met with a wave of hurt. She yelled out in pain, surprised at how much it hurt and wondering why she didn't notice it earlier.

"Fuck that hurts like a bitch, the trees hit like a truck." Jaune laughed, which in turn made his side hurt worse. He winced in pain before trying to play if off as if he wasn't hurt. Yang saw through him and narrowed her eyes suspiciously before just chalking it up to pain from the fall through a forest canopy.

"You're right I can't walk, but could you at least carry me in a more comfortable position." Jaune quickly apologized and stopped walking so he could focus on moving her without hurting her knee but it was inevitable. When he tried to get her set on his back he hit her knee, causing her to wince. He apologized profusely before Yang reassured him by telling him it was fine and it was bound to happen. Jaune put his hands on her thighs cautiously since it would make it easier to carry the blonde on his back. This elicited a laugh from Yang at how carefully he was acting.

"Don't fly too close to the sun there Icarus, you'll get burned." This only caused Jaune to panic, he was unsure of what to do as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He had no idea on how to respond so he just moved his hands down and responded with silence. Which confused Yang greatly, most boys would be drooling at the chance to cop a feel. But Jaune was trying as hard as he could to not upset her, she knew he was a gentleman but was he scared of her still? She decided that sitting there doing nothing was pointless so she just outright asked him.

"Are you scared of me, Jaune?" She asked quietly, startling the boy who had just begun walking again.

"No Yang, we went over it in the tree, I consider you a close friend. Why do you ask?"

"Because every time I joke with you, you act as if I'm gonna hurt you. Even now I'm trying to tame down my jokes about you. So if you're not scared of me, what is it?." At this Jaune's expression grew serious and he turned his face to make eye contact with Yang. The knight sighed, knowing there was no way out of this.

"I'll give you the full explanation at a better time, but to put it short, there's been a countless number of times where those jokes weren't jokes. So I'm having a hard time adjusting to these jokes, I'm sorry Yang." Yang was genuinely sad, she might not have known the full story but she knew it wasn't gonna be a happy story when he told her. In an attempt to comfort him she tightened her arms and leg around him.

This motion caused her to accidentally dig her heel into the hole in his sweatshirt which happened to be the closing hole from his sword wound earlier. Black entered Jaune's vision as he tried to fight it back, but he simply didn't have the energy to keep walking and collapsed to the ground. Yang yelped in surprise as Jaune hit the ground. She rolled off of him, being careful to not touch her knee. She looked down to see Jaune face down on the ground. He was thankfully breathing. She needed to flip him over, but with her leg she didn't have good leverage.

Yang had no idea what happened, one minute Jaune was opening up to her, and another minute he was face down on the ground not responding to her calls. To her relief, Blake and Ruby were rushing back to where they were since Jaune was slowed down from carrying her. Ruby took charge immediately.

"What happened, Yang?" Yang shook her head, unsure as she answered.

"One minute I was comforting him, then the next he's unconscious! Now flip this boy over so we can take a look at him." The two girls answered by flipping him over and taking off his sweatshirt. They were surprised to see that he didn't have his shirt, but only for a moment until they saw it tied around his midsection. Upon further inspection they noticed that it had dried blood on the outside, and after untying the shirt they saw that there was fresh blood beginning to pour out. It was Ruby who broke the silence that had formed while they inspected the boy.

"Shit! Reach into his pocket, Yang and grab his scroll see what his aura's at! Blake put pressure on his wound to try and stop the bleeding." Both girls complied quickly as Yang fished his scroll out of his pocket and opened it. The password had thankfully been taken off due to a mission rule and she was immediately greeted with red. His aura was at 20% and seemed locked there. His body probably couldn't generate more aura because of his injury. Ruby, called out to them.

"Alright, Jaune's overexerted himself so let's make our way to the cave Blake and I saw up ahead before Jauney keeled over. I'll help you Yang. Blake can you drag Jaune over there it shouldn't be too hard since we're close." Blake sighed internally, cursing at Jaune as she hooked her arms under his shoulders and began pulling him towards their destination. When did he get so heavy? Must be this surprising amount of muscle I can feel.

After about a minute of pulling Blake made it to the cave, and pulled the boy in. The cave wasn't very big. In fact it was about a deep and wide as Jaune was tall. Blake laid the boy down across the far wall and went over to the two sisters that had already entered the cave. Blake looked outside as she came over and saw grey skies overhead. She knew they had no time to waste so she went to talk to Ruby.

"We need firewood before it rains, or else it'll be one cold night." Without waiting for a response from the redhead, Blake left the cave and began collecting firewood. Ruby darted out and soon sound of metal swinging was heard as the two girls went to work on the forest around them.

Yang, left stranded, decided to drag herself over to her unconscious blonde companion who was snoring pretty loud in the back of the cave. With a little bit of effort she reached the boy, who was still shirtless and alarmingly pale. Then again, when would he have time to work in a tan at beacon?

The brawler shook her head, focusing on the boy in front of her and not something as random as why Jaune wasn't tan. Said pale boy was shivering from the wind coming in through the cave entrance. Why are all boys cute when they're asleep? Yang wondered as she got closer to the shaking boy. She now was over his torso and examining the claw marks that had scarred over and the shirt Jaune used to stop the bleeding in the hole from the sword.

She was now sitting down, legs to her side and looking over the sleeping boy in front of her. He was letting out loud snores while she looked over his form. His left pec had a jagged scar across it that seemed like it was from glass. She found it odd not because of look, but just the fact that it was there since aura can make scars disappear. Jaune must've wanted the old scars to stay, she had no idea why but that would be the only way for him to have an old scar. Looking up, she saw a small circular scar right on his collarbone; it was white and faded but still noticeable.

With Jaune still shivering, Yang leaned back onto his bare chest and began flaring her semblance to create heat. While it used some aura it wasn't enough to cause her worry as she used her semblance. It was at this point the rain started to pour down, the calming noise put Yang into a relaxed stupor which wasn't broken until a wet Ruby came dashing into the cave, wood in hand and followed shortly by Blake who was also soaked. Thankfully they had managed to keep some logs dry by shielding them from the rain. Quickly, they set the logs down and before Yang could say a word they had a fire going and were warming up from the bone chilling rain.

The girls looked over towards Yang casually leaning against the shirtless Jaune. Blake smirked.

"Have fun with your boyfriend, Vomit Boy?" Yang laughed before responding with a bit of sarcasm present in her voice.

"No, but I had fun with Jaune Arc who's actually pretty nice when you get to know him and you don't call him by names he doesn't like. Now come over here kitty cause I'm sure I'm warmer than that tiny fire." Both girls were at her side in an instant one on each arm trying to absorb the warmth emanating from the blonde girl. Yang hugged Ruby tight, glad she was holding up pretty well even in this high stress situation, plus she was just glad her baby sister was in good health.

They decided that Blake would take first watch since her head was hurting and she wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. Before the others went to sleep, they warned Blake not to let Jaune take watch if he woke up. They all knew how that had gone over last time.

Despite the fact that it was one in the morning, Professor Ozpin sat at his desk wondering if it was going to be a long night. The reason for his late night was the two students in front of him, Miss Pyrrha Nikos and Miss Weiss Schnee, who were asking about tracking their scroll for the thousandth time since they returned from their mission. Not that he blamed them. He too was concerned for his missing students, but he chose not to show it outwardly. He focused on the girls, telling them the answer he had said since the start.

"Their scrolls seem either to be malfunctioning, or they were dragged into an area with no signal. There's nothing we can do besides send Bullheads to look for signs of them. I'm sorry girls." Weiss looked annoyed and it was obvious she was rather worried for her teammates.

"Surely with the Schnee Dust Companies wealth we can get them back by dawn." She stated, once again throwing her wealth around like it was nothing.

"If there was a way to get them, no matter the cost we would have them here Miss Schnee. I assure you. Plus we can't give up any military force with the chance of Cinder doing something bold while we're divided. I apologize." Ozpin said sincerely. He sighed and went for a sip out of his mug as he saw Miss Nikos began to talk. Tonight was definitely going to be a long night.

Sorry for the delay I had a real hard time typing this one, most of it was set up or later chapters and I just couldn't type. If you have any questions about the story don't be afraid to ask, I'll answer (if it doesn't spoil anything!).

As always don't be afraid to leave a review or favorite it really helps me write!

P.S my beta reader/editor was on vacation so this took a while, and with high school starting they won't be able help out, so if anyone would like to beta PM me I'll check out any past stories, since I'll only need one and message you? maybe I don't know how this stuff works honestly, see you next chapter!