Chapter 22: Reflecting upon Self.
Man's true nature is unsightly, primal. And when confronted by it, it turns out very few of us possess the affinity for handling animals.
"So, explain to me. Why are we up so early again?"
Under a threat of tearing her jaws apart with a yawn of epic proportions, Nora stretched for what would have to be the sixth time in the last half hour, somehow finding yet more spots to crack in her rigid frame, yet miraculously never missing a step and keeping perfectly in sync with the rest of Team Juniper as the four of them were currently striding past the campus' main square in full gear, following Jaune's lead.
"Nora, it's six in the morning. That's when we usually wake up," in the utmost pedantic manner, Ren rebuked his partner's unfounded accusations.
"Not on Sundays, though."
"Darius asked us to meet him at the Beacon cliff in about ten minutes," their leader elaborated. "You could ask him when we get there… you know, if you still care at that point."
"It might have something to do with the ritual…" Pyrrha spoke up. "Typically those are conducted precisely at noon. But… that does beg a question where it is we're going if he's giving us six hours' worth of leeway."
"I see we're already past the point of asking ourselves how that even makes sense," Nora continued her inquiries, raising her hands to the sky in a sign of exasperation. "'You guys seem in a bit of a bind with that sudden activation of your Semblance! Let me just go talk to my good friends at the Church, they'll be happy to have somebody they've never even heard about!'"
"There are a lot of decorated war veterans in the Arc family," Ren noted. Due to him walking behind Jaune and Pyrrha, he could not see the teeth of the former attempt to grind each other to dust in a cramp most unpleasant. "They're obviously not as… renowned… as say, the Schnees or the Silvas, but they're not completely unknown. Surely the Church has resources to at least glance at Jaune's family records."
"That's not what I'm talking about! I'm asking how the Grimm he knows about any of this! Or how the Grimm he can just convince the Church to let you jump the queue on this as he implies! Or, you know, why we're trusting him on any of this in the first place!"
For a few seconds the team walked in silence. Yet as Jaune couldn't help but feel his guts screaming at him that something was amiss, he turned around to look at the two of his companions, only to realize that both were staring at him. Quite intently, at that.
He sighed.
"Why are you guys staring at me?"
Ren raised his brow in pretend confusion.
"As if you don't realize. Jaune, you're gonna have to help me out. I don't have the answers to cover for you. Do you?"
"Like you don't know," he grumbled. "But you can't argue that I don't have many options left after what happened yesterday."
Much to Jaune's and Pyrrha's fears, but, alas, precisely as the Silva warned, it did not take long for his aura to start acting up when activated. Admittedly, it was tolerable at first, for the most part manifesting in nothing more than an unusually bright white glow that Jaune could get under control by concentrating on it. What began to happen when he couldn't focus his attention on that matter alone, however… Suffice to say that, contrary to his usual style of apparel, Ren had to don an eyepatch for a day after their last spar. The only positive that came out of that was that Nora was absolutely ecstatic at the prospect of all the pirate jokes she could make. Which she did.
Ren didn't mind, though.
"I'm not the one arguing," his comrade shook his head. "I trust our leader's judgement. For that matter, I also don't think Darius would just lie about something like this. Not his profile. I just hope you are aware of whatever repercussions this might bring."
Jaune did not respond.
True, he appreciated the trust vested in him by his teammate. Equally true, however, was that he himself considered said trust to be horrifically misplaced. Simply by the fact that he completely and utterly failed to see a virtue in himself that would warrant this kind of trust. Deserved trust, at least. It's not like he was chosen the leader of this squad by something other than the headmaster's whimsy. Having gone almost an entire semester in this academy, there was little doubt in his mind that Ozpin saw right through his forged papers, especially if there were, in fact, drones watching them during the Initiation as he claimed. Maybe making him team leader was his way of having a laugh at someone else's expense before that someone got booted from Beacon.
Or maybe it was him giving you a chance of making something out of yourself. Squaring up before responsibility.
Then I sure am seizing the opportunity.
Quite frankly, he was not enthused by the prospect of once again having to be essentially bailed out by an outside force that just so happened to see him in a benevolent vein. Yet by the same token, what sort of alternative did he have available?
A boot out of Beacon and several months of being shackled in dimeritium, along with me returning home to the understanding smiles from my family, that's what.
Anything but that.
Slowly raising his head and purging it of such defeatist thoughts, he attempted to sneak a peek of how Pyrrha was handling it all, only to realize that she, too, had been looking at him for some time now. One did not have to be a telepath to clearly read concern in her eyes more than anything else.
"So…" Jaune managed a weak smile. Gotta keep the morale high. "What are you thinking? Think he's bullshitting us?"
His partner slowly shook her head and shrugged, her body language admitting to the same cluelessness befalling the rest of the team.
"To what end, though? If this is indeed all a ploy, it seems too contrived even for him… and I don't get what he'd be getting out of it. Seems like too much effort putting all this show on for questionable payoff. Besides…" she shuddered. "You heard how he spoke. If I didn't fight him as much as I did, I'd think he was with the Church himself."
"Hm-m…" Jaune scratched his head, eyebrow raised high. "Whadya mean? What's so different?"
"…right. You never actually fought him," stated Pyrrha, blinking a couple of times, suddenly more aloof than anything. "Well, Ren and Nora can back me up on this. When you fight him… for real, you know… and when he starts losing it, you can feel every step and move of his scream of anger and hate." She shuddered again, rubbing her left shoulder as if the morning's frigid temperatures finally got to her. "It's like every cell in his body desperately wants you dead. It's… kind of demoralizing, honestly. The Church isn't like that. I mean, have you ever seen a priest of the Light use sickles?!"
"Actually, I once managed to catch a glimpse of a Church regiment training while in Atlas, and I'm pretty sure a couple of them used war scythes," a new voice cut into the conversation, slightly to their right. Unbeknownst to them, they had made the trek to the cliff under the conversation, currently confronting a lone figure in black armor standing near a row of the familiar launching platforms. "But yes, the overall sentiment is correct. I'm not with the Church… wouldn't make the cut."
At the sight of Team Juniper, Darius slightly stretched himself to get rid of the slight stiffness induced from standing still for some time now and tugged on something on his right shoulder, adjusting the straps of, unsurprisingly, a black backpack of sizeable proportions hanging from his back. He slightly bowed, greeting the team members by names:
"Jaune. Pyrrha. Ren. Nora. Good to see you rested…" his eye fell upon Nora's gaping maw, once again succumbing to the irresistible urge to yawn. "Relatively, at least. We have a long hike ahead of us."
"Yeah, about that. Mind telling us where we're going?" Jaune inquired.
"The Emerald Forest," Darius threw his arm behind him, pointing at the landmass of white behind him. "I did some digging beforehand. Turns out the temple where Ozpin put our relics once belonged to the Church. A very… very long time ago. At that point it really was just a fort where somebody decided to erect a shrine, but it'll do fine for our purposes."
Jaune snorted. Admittedly, the explanation made enough sense to be believable, as the old fortress was in a rather defensible position, reflecting the early Church's militant nature, located on a cliff with only a bridge to cross the void beneath it. He didn't envy the defenders of that outpost as it was overrun by Grimm, though.
"Before we go," Darius continued. He pulled the backpack off him, zipping it open and extracting a scroll of exquisite white paper bound with a red sigil: a circle with eight conic protrusions facing outwards; a rather schematic depiction of a star. The Church wasn't known for its love for intricate imagery. "This scroll officially confirms your status as an initiate to the Church. Should you successfully undergo the rite of initiation, you shall sign it with your auric imprint, whereupon I'll deliver it to Providence and it'll be archived. Upon completion of your training as a Hunter, you will begin your service to the holy Light. Admittedly, since a Hunter in the Church's ranks is a rather rare occasion, I doubt they'll chain you in a church to preach sermons. Most likely they'll probably just let you do your thing… just fitted out with a bunch of their regalia and a quota for converted nonbelievers. But before we make another step…"
The abruptness with which Darius ended this short insight into the bureaucratic machine of the Church had forced Jaune to avert his eyes from the scroll and look at Darius in silent inquiry… only to see the weight of the Universe itself reflect in the grey eyes.
"While I know what happened yesterday… Even saw the consequences myself," for a millisecond, the Silva shot Ren a mocking stare, to which the latter responded with a barely perceivable snicker, before locking eyes with Jaune again. "I give you, for posterity, this last chance to pull out. Say 'no', I'll destroy the scroll, never mention this again. You'll be able to enlist yourself at a later date, of course, but this time through the conventional instances for all new recruits. Of course, that'll also mean you won't be staying at Beacon for long."
For posterity, eh?
Jaune stared at Darius. Darius stared at Jaune.
Then Darius returned the scroll into the backpack.
"With that said and done, I believe we have sixty odd kilometers to walk," putting on the mask, Darius turned towards the vast expanse of snow-covered treetops laying before him, continuing in a slightly muffled tone. "Well, fifty seven. We should be there after several hours of relaxed jogging, just in time for noon. If you have any questions, there'll be plenty of time for me to answer them. I owe you that much."
"Hold up," Jaune raised his hand. "Are you sure we can even go there?"
"We were expected to find our way there alone, or, at best, in pairs. Surely the five of us will have an easier time?"
"No, I mean: is this even legal?"
"Does it matter?" Darius shrugged. "Legal or not, Ozpin will probably know regardless. He didn't look like someone who punishes success."
"I don't think this is the appropriate attitude for something like this…" Pyrrha remarked with ever growing suspicion in her eyes.
"Pyrrha, have mercy! Believe me, I'd love to handle all of this legally, but even my resourcefulness has limits! Unless you just so happen to have an idea under which angle I should start breaking the news to Ozpin?" he pleaded, just barely retaining his footing and withholding himself from falling to his knees in a display of theatric desperation. "Should I start from the point where we discover Jaune forged his papers or from the point where I try to keep him from getting rightfully booted from Beacon by getting him under the Church's wing and out from his?"
"Guys," the unfolding drama of outright Shakespearian scale was oh so rudely interrupted by Ren's most reasonable suggestion. "If we really want to get this done before noon, we should probably start moving. The longer we wait the faster we're going to have to run to make up for the lost time."
"See? Ren's got the right idea."
If there's one thing a Hunter can do regardless of skill, strength, or experience, it's running. Whether on a smooth road or through debris, sand or snow banks, under scalding sun or frigid rain, a Hunter that cannot maintain a consistent tempo of twenty kilometers per hour is no Hunter at all, but actually just food for Grimm. It was, therefore, not really much of a surprise for the small party of five to arrive to that fateful temple about two and a half hours ahead of schedule following Darius' confident lead; the snow banks did little to halt the quintet of superhumans tearing through them at breakneck speed, and what little creatures of Grimm had the misfortune to cross their path were disposed of with ruthless efficiency.
It was in that stone rotunda, which, surprisingly enough, was barely touched by the winter's grasp, that they decided to wait out the remaining time by congregating around a bonfire and indulging in some snacks, courtesy of the Silva's foresight. Of the two and a half hours left before noon, the first one was spent by what looked eerily like a rerun of the conversation between Jaune, Pyrrha and Darius, but now involving Ren and Nora instead, rightfully beset with suspicion and doubt. In the end, however, the debate came to the same conclusion as a similar one did two days ago; the two conceded that, indeed, undergoing the ritual was about the only way Jaune would keep his place in this academy, although, of course, neither felt their concerns fully alleviated. But then again, who can truly trust a Silva?
As the second hour began to tick, the small patch of stone began boiling with commotion and activity as Darius wrangled three of the four members of Team Juniper to begin preparations for the ritual. And while he himself contributed fully to the deed, he insisted that Jaune be left alone with his thoughts, which did nothing to improve Jaune's already grim demeanor. At some point between clearing out the snow, placing candles of various size and caliber, along with several other types of utensils, and burning incense, he simply stood up and walked out of the temple under claim of taking in some fresh air; a pitiful excuse, in retrospect, as even with the bonfire in the center burning at full strength, the temperature of the air even a couple steps away from it did not exceed minus two Celsius. Jaune couldn't tell if Darius intentionally wanted him to keep rebounding back to the questions gnawing at him in the back of his head, but with nothing else left to do, those thoughts slowly but surely occupied more and more of his limited headspace, leaving a more than unpleasant hollow sensation in his chest. Even the chill wind outside the temple did nothing to cool him down.
"You have doubts," a hand landed upon his left shoulder, squeezing on it, more to attract his attention than to reassure him. Already recognizing the voice, Jaune turned around to see Darius looking at him. Yet contrary to what it usually felt like to be under the piercing glare of those steel-tinged eyes, this time he did not feel them drilling straight past him and into the depths of his mind. In fact, he couldn't quite make out what he saw in them, although he was certain it wasn't disapproval. If anything, it was… understanding?
"Thought you were still prepping the place for the ritual."
"We're done," he shook his head. "We've about twenty minutes before we start. Only one that needs preparing now is you. Talk."
Jaune sighed.
"What are we even doing, Darius?" He turned around and raised his arm, pointing at the remainder of his team still sitting in the rotunda. "We're in the middle of a Grimm-infested forest preparing some ancient site for an equally ancient ritual for me to go through that will supposedly let me use my aura without fear of accidentally also activating my Semblance. I still have no idea what that ritual entails or how it even works, but from what you've described to me, it can't be pleasant."
"It won't be. But it will be worth it if you succeed," Jaune saw the edge of Darius' lips slightly pull up in a smirk. "Did you decide to lose faith in me now, of all times?"
"No…" Jaune mumbled, shaking his head. "No, that's… not what I wanted to say with that. I… I guess what I meant by this was: what's my part in all of this? You know… back at the roof, when I said I wanted to be the 'damn hero'…" he nervously laughed. "That's honestly not how I saw it happening. For that matter, I also don't see how the situation's going to change after it. I mean… I haven't seen you at all yesterday, so you must've been running around Vale all day, right?"
Darius nodded.
"See? I… I just feel like I'm being bailed out. Again."
For a good fifteen seconds Darius stood silent, seemingly gathering his thoughts and rolling around words in his head. From what Jaune managed to gather from his time with him, this generally preceded a long tirade on his end.
"You feel like you're not in control of your life. You thought that becoming a Hunter would be your chance to take your life into your hands, yet were met with disappointment as every major decision in the last four something months had to be supported by someone else in order to make it possible. You had Pyrrha unlock your aura at the Initiation in order to even have a chance to succeed in it, you had your team pretty much carry you through training for the last semester, and you feel the same now that I'm helping you with this. Putting it in your own words, you feel like a damsel in permanent distress. Am I correct?"
Jaune nodded.
"So it's not really being a hero that you want. After all, a hero is what others call someone who sacrificed for a cause, regardless of how much say they had in it. Any soldier on the battlefield is a potential hero, but exactly how much control do they have over the events unfolding around them? What you want is agency. The ability to set goals and accomplish them without outside help. Never having to worry about not measuring up because you know you can, if you choose. Is that not right?"
Jaune nodded.
"Well, then let me tell you something about agency," Darius' visage grew dark. "Namely that it's a zero sum resource. We're not born with any innate agency; we have to either earn it or be granted it. In both cases, it comes at a cost. Anyone who's given agency becomes dependent on the giver, thus losing agency towards them. Accruing agency on your own, on the other hand, requires a significant investment of resources. Time, effort, money, connections, you name it… and those don't come out of nowhere, either. Anything sacrificed into increasing your own agency – in whatever respect – is something that won't be spent on something else. Only potentially repurposed later. Wouldn't you agree?"
Jaune nodded. So far, he wasn't quite getting what Darius was getting at. But knowing him, he would eventually arrive to the point, so he didn't interrupt.
"Now, our society isn't monolith. It consists of classes, castes, circles… Whatever you want to call them. The point is that different groups of people, be it white or blue collar workers, businessmen, corporate elites, military, politicians, or, for that matter, Hunters, all provide a different level and type of agency to those that are among them. And when I say that the high-ranking politicians and Hunters are the classes that arguably provide the most agency on Remnant to its members, you'll probably agree with me. After all, isn't it the reason you decided to become one?"
Jaune nodded. Darius was correct. In fact, he may even have been underplaying things. For while there were people aplenty that despised and criticized the practitioners of the so-called 'art of the possible' for shady dealings and the ambiguity of morals, a Hunter's service to mankind was universally recognized and respected. With simple logic, it was easy to deduce that said respect granted Hunters great agency towards the common folk… as long as they espoused the high standards and ideals they were held to.
"Quite obvious, isn't it? Besides, with the ridiculously high agency ceiling that being a full-fledged Hunter entails, accruing agency towards other spheres of life becomes much easier. Case in point: the physical capabilities of a Hunter allow one to dedicate that much more time towards educating oneself in… whatever, not to mention that our academies do give us a pretty good education. And the respect we get from common folks would make the council itself weep tears of jealousy. Granted, the financial allure isn't that great, bu-ut that's the drawback. Even then, it's not like someone with a Hunter's abilities would have trouble raising some quick cash. However…"
In a matter of a second Darius' tone shifted from his normal speaking tone, blindsiding Jaune and freezing him in place as he was pinned under the Silva's icy glare.
"Since there's an agency ceiling, there's also a so-called agency floor: the minimum requirement for being able to function as a member of the class-slash-caste-slash-whatever and through that, raise our agency further. In our case, one has to have enough agency over one's body and soul to endure the grueling training regimen. And that…" Once again, Jaune felt himself be impaled by the grey discs of steel that Darius so mistakenly called his eyes as the latter continued, the metallic undertones in his voice accentuating every word that much more. "Is where you lack. Since you mentioned what happened on Thursday, let me do the same. You wouldn't happen to remember the analogy I made during our talk?"
"The one where you compared me to a guy who'd never run stretches longer than between the fridge and the sofa?" Jaune chuckled as the image involuntarily popped up in his mind, slightly easing the arisen tension between the two.
"Yes, that one," Darius failed to contain a half-smile as well. "Now, you know it's unlike me to brag, but look at me."
With that, he slightly raised his hand and clenched it into a fist, letting Jaune marvel at how even under the nanofiber vest, he could clearly see his entire arm harden into a relief that rivaled steel in its density. From personal experience Jaune knew that despite his preference for obscuring clothing, Darius spent just as much, if not more, time on honing his body as any gym dwelling dudebro.
"Now look at Pyrrha. Or Ren. Or even Nora," he continued. The half-smile was completely gone. "And then look at yourself. There are things in life that are plain impossible. One cannot create energy from nothing, nor can one destroy it… conventionally speaking, at least. A camel can't pass through a needle's eye. A guy with average physical characteristics and four months' worth of experience with aura with no combat training cannot manage the training at a Hunter academy all on his own. Not unless you're a protagonist in one of those stupid shows they make about us on TV. So I'm giving you the necessary agency to at least make the minimal cut. From there on out, it's going to be almost all you. So if it's the lack of effort involved so far that you bemoan, don't. At least try to get through the rite first. Believe me, it'll take more than reciting a few oaths while looking high and mighty. Understand now?"
"I… I suppose, yeah," once more, Jaune nodded, hopefully the last time for a while, as his neck was slowly starting to hurt from excessive bobbling. "Doesn't answer why you're doing this. I mean… arranging all of this couldn't have been easy. What do you get out of this?"
Darius shrugged, proceeding to his answer without ever breaking eye contact with Jaune. Jaune couldn't be sure how he knew that, but something told him that his friend had put a lot of thought into this answer beforehand. Could be the fact that Darius barely paused to consider his answer, could be something else.
"I get to keep a friend, Jaune. I typically have a hard time acquiring new ones, so the ones I do have are far too valuable to just let slip away. Doubly so if I had the ability to help."
I wonder why that's the case.
"Ten minutes before we have to start," Darius beckoned towards the temple. "Let's go. Gotta get you properly dressed up."
"Huh?"
"The ritual does not tolerate the presence of conflicting energies. I've brought several white robes for us, but so far we're the only ones not in them yet. For that matter, I'll also have to be wearing dimeritium for the duration of the ritual, so it's a good thing you brought Ren and Nora along."
"Huh," Jaune insightfully remarked, following his friend to the rotunda. "You know… we've talked for what? Ten minutes?"
"About as much, yes."
"Then why don't I feel any clearer?.."
"I don't know, Jaune," Darius smirked. "In my opinion, I've made your job at least thirty three percent easier."
"Really now..."
"But of course. I've explained to you, quite concisely, I hope, what it is you wanted. All you have to do is realize why it is you want it and what it is you're ready to give for it."
"Five minutes. I… I suppose it's a bit pointless to ask you if you're ready?"
"Several hours late for that, Pyrrha. Let's do it."
"True. On your knees!"
As his partner's voice grew stark and demanding, Jaune sunk to his knees before what little remained of the firewood for the campfire their company had assembled in the middle of the stone rotunda, his sword firmly lodged in the middle of it as tradition demanded. As the blade was thrust deep past the flimsy, charred branches and into the stone floor, he could feel it subtly resonate with the ancient walls of the temple, now almost brimming with energy. Seconds before starting, Darius pointed Jaune to a plate in one of the pillars that would otherwise be completely indistinguishable from the other hunks of rock comprising the shrine, and had him empty almost all of his aura into it. Yet as the last drop of energy left his body and entered the stone, it was almost as if life itself was breathed once again into this decrepit site, briefly returning it hundreds of years into the past, going so far as to evoke…no, not visions. Not even glimpses. Brief, almost ephemeral and completely alien shards of memories that never even belonged to him. Of deep, far-reaching quarries being dug out and of stone from them being hauled here, from which this fortress and the temple would be built. Of iron being struck with hundreds of hammers and softened with raging flames, forging thousands of swords and sets of armor. Of entire armies kneeling here just as he was now as priests howled their blessings at them, their minds lost completely to the fire of fanatical exaltation. It would seem the incense was doing its work.
As it stood, there were no actual, tangible changes to his immediate environment barring a soft argent light that permeated the area around him and Pyrrha, as if the very air began radiating white. And yet, through what he could explain with nothing other than some sort of sixth sense, he could feel the overwhelming amount of energy almost sparkle on his skin as everything around him was softly pulsing in an indiscernible, fleeting rhythm, beckoning something to answer the call of its faithful. And from the brief glimpse he caught of Pyrrha's eyes, she felt the same way.
"The rank of the priest of the Light is a burden of responsibility. It is a pledge towards the world that shelters us and to the people that inhabit it. It is an oath to fight against the scourge that would raze it of all life, and against the corruption that festers in the hearts of men, turning them against one another. Are you willing to give this oath?"
In retrospect, the responsibilities of the initiate during the rite did, in fact, boil down to saying various iterations of 'yes' several times while looking high and mighty, at the very least during the ceremonial part of it. Yet as it was, in medias res, with the rhythmic pulsation of energy overwhelming his senses and slowly syncing up with every fibre of his soul, Jaune was slowly succumbing to the sensation of his head being gutted of all previous thoughts and doubts, instead giving way to the realization that the pact sealed here could not be undone until his dying breath. With that new understanding, every word of affirmation felt to him like a layer of chains willingly imposed upon himself… yet did nothing to shake his resolve.
"I am."
"Swearest thou to serve the wellbeing of the people of Remnant, no matter their kin or creed?"
"I do."
"Swearest thou to protect them from any and all enemies that would see them dead, be it Grimm or otherwise?"
"I do."
"Swearest thou to uphold the principles of our faith, in letter and in spirit, until your finest hour?"
That one might be an issue.
"I do."
He heard Pyrrha sigh as she steeled herself for the conclusion of the ceremony.
"Then may the Light deem you worthy of bearing the sacred flame onward."
As the sun slowly reached its apex upon the celestial dome, Pyrrha, equally slowly, reached out for the star, hands raised high towards the Sol's shining light, which it was, to Jaune's surprise, dispensing with generosity uncharacteristic for Vale's winter. Indeed, despite it being mid-January, at which point winter usually managed to fully grasp its Valean domain, the sun's light was nothing short of blinding…
It was at this point that his mind turned off.
...Or so he thought. Fact of the matter was, his basis of comparison was rather paltry, consisting of but a singular example of him blacking out due to his ribs being pummeled into fine paste. Just as the unfortunate incident that had jumpstarted the bizarre chain of events that led him here, he found himself standing in the middle of actual nothingness, with his vision obscured completely by white light as far as he could see in any direction. Admittedly, this time his chest cavity was not inconveniencing him with agonizing pain, but overall, the situation was rather familiar.
He looked around.
"Eh… Hello?"
Wait, wasn't I kneeling a second ago?
Although he was, rightfully so, not expecting anyone to actually answer his call born of pure confusion, the answer came from behind his back. And from this answer, he felt the blood in his veins freeze over in an instant.
"Why hello there. Great time as any to have a bit of a one-on-one talk."
Now, to be entirely fair, the contents of the reply were perfectly normal, if a little ambiguous with the premise… were it not for the fact that the voice addressing Jaune was his own.
Overpowering himself through an exertion of will of titanic proportions, Jaune eventually managed to turn his still frigid-feeling frame around… Only to meet a pair of eyes of strikingly blue color looking right back at him. As he managed to glance over the remaining features of the shape standing in front of him, the paralysis befalling him strengthened tenfold, robbing him of air. For before him, in about five steps' worth of distance, he himself was mockingly looking at him, arms crossed, right eyebrow raised ever so slightly over the left and the right half of his lips stretched in a smirk. Yet despite the phantom mimicking Jaune's appearance in every little detail, something was off still. And in a second, he realized what it was. The facial expression, the very stature that the apparition assumed, albeit something Jaune could definitely mirror, reeked of a foreign, utterly alien emotion that Jaune could never see himself exuding towards someone else. Whatever stood in front of him felt nothing but overwhelming contempt towards the very person it was mirroring.
"Why so silent, though?" the phantom continued, breaking the pose for a short time and parting its (his?!) hands in what one could mistake for an inviting gesture, yet came off more as mocking. "Never argued with yourself? You know you have."
"What. The Grimm. Are you?" Jaune managed to mutter a response, his throat suddenly afflicted with an awful dryness that made an already weak-sounding inquiry even more miserable.
"What's it look like? Cardin? Ren? Maybe fucking Darius?" the doppelganger allowed himself a chuckle, his voice dripping with malice Jaune never knew he was capable of. "You're talking to yourself, idiot. Wouldn't be the first time, and you better believe it's not going to be the last."
"You… don't really sound like me."
"Really now?"
"Yeah. You kinda sound like a douche."
"Well..." the phantom burst out laughing, taking a good thirty seconds to get himself back into talking shape. "That is entirely your problem. Even you don't respect yourself enough to not be an asshole towards yourself. Justly so, granted, but nevertheless."
Wow. Talk about victim blaming.
"What about it?"
"You read my thoughts, too?!" grasping onto his head, Jaune shrieked as the crippling paralysis finally broke its hold of him, replaced instead by utter shock.
"You're talking to yourself, you cretin!" escalating the tonality of the conversation in lockstep with his real counterpart, Jaune's asshole-ish twin slammed his hand into his forehead, evidently cursing fate for ending up with such a terrible consciousness. "Of course you'd know what you're thinking!"
Jaune slowly blinked. He wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was a desperate attempt to ward off this uncannily natural-seeming hallucination, perhaps an effort to combat the weariness that suddenly piled upon him from nowhere. He then rubbed his temples.
"Alright then… So, if you're just a part of my subconscious..."
"Oh, you usually hate on yourself quite consciously," the phantom hissed, rudely interrupting him. "It's just that you tend to stave this off with a heavy dose of denial and unwarranted self-importance. But sure, go on."
"Whatever," Jaune shrugged off, palm on forehead to at least somehow cool off his frying brain. "Point is, you're in my head. What are you and what are you doing here?"
"'I' am you," he replied, the first word taking him a considerable effort to get out, and even that simply seeped fakeness. "Or to be precise, what you'd be like if you dropped any illusions about yourself. What's going to happen is you're going to exercise in futility for some time before accepting reality slapping you in the face with facts."
"You know… that's not how I saw this initiation happening," Jaune scratched his head. "Definitely didn't see this coming."
"Really now?!" his counterpart inquired, its tone full of fabricated shock and its mouth torn apart by an ear-to-ear smile that only further unsettled him. "Did you expect to just be handed power on a silver platter? Did you really think you could just say 'yes' a couple times while having done nothing to earn this kind of strength? Did you really?!"
"I mean..." Jaune stuttered, taken aback by the ferocity with which the apparition presented its case, almost screaming the last phrase at him. A short pause he used to come up with a proper rebuttal to his inner schizophrenia yielded no results, much to his dismay. "I… it's not like there was anything I could have done..."
"Precisely!" his adversary finally snapped, breaking into shouting while simultaneously taking a step towards the flustered boy, left hand pointing at him in accusation. "You've done nothing to deserve this! Normal recruits to the Church spend years in training, years of breaking themselves over the knee in order to dedicate their lives to Remnant and you just waltz in expecting… what again?"
"But..."
"Shut. Up," the order came, and Jaune's lips froze all by themselves, obeying the phantom's suddenly shifted tone and squelching whatever meek reply he was attempting to muster. "You're not going to be talking for a while here," it spoke, and Jaune could swear he felt the overall temperature of whatever environment he found himself in drop by at least half. "Now. The Light, in its infinite wisdom, realizes that not everybody may have had the opportunity to constantly better themselves. Intent, after all, is equally important."
Jaune felt a glimmer of hope break through the icy binds that held him in place. Yet before he managed to even open his mouth, it was crushed into dust by the specter's continued tirade:
"That is, however, in no way relevant to you. Those who plead to the Light for power have set goals the scale of which would not even fit in your tiny little head. Their plans, their ambitions would make the world itself go round! You?" he sneered, moving ever closer to Jaune, now within an arm's reach. "You're just scared of facing due punishment and never actually growing into something greater than the mediocrity that you are. So that's out of the window, too. So, what other option do we have that could feasibly justify giving someone like you the blessing of Light itself?"
Jaune didn't answer. He plain couldn't.
"Well, there are some, albeit very few, people that have plain earned it by virtue of… you know, living," the phantom began to quietly snicker, clearly amused by the fact that not even Jaune himself could consider himself a member of that group, as he was already suspecting what it would say next. "People who may not have been the fiercest warriors or the most ambitious planners, yet have wholly dedicated their lives to embody the values and the principles that the Light professes, whatever the cost to their own well-being may be. Paragons of virtue, they would rip their last shirt off their body if that meant keeping somebody else warm through the night and give away their last loaf of bread to save somebody from starvation, those people are revered as saints today. I'm sure you'll agree yourself that you really don't qualify for the last category."
Jaune remained silent.
"So let's sum it up. No matter what angle we try to look at this from, you just aren't making the cut. Even from the perspective of a normal human, you're above average at best when it comes to mastering yourself, and compared to even the meekest of Hunters you're outright pathetic. Though, admittedly, you could make for a decent long-distance-runner, because boy have you been trying to escape reality for a long time," he laughed.
Having now stepped close enough to reach out and touch, something Jaune was far too crushed to even try to do, he began circling around his prey, continuing to whisper.
"When it comes to ambitious undertakings, you couldn't even be bothered to look up the lingo of the environment you were trying to worm your way in; for fuck's sake, you found yourself in this situation because you just couldn't be bothered to ask somebody infinitely more competent for help earlier and had to get yourself propped against the wall to even realize you had to do something, and when it comes to virtue… well, it's doubtful you could even virtue-signal properly, much less exhibit actual virtues. Unless you could call an unparalleled capacity for self-delusion a virtue, that is. Look at yourself!" it screamed, suddenly grabbing Jaune's shoulders and turning him around to face it, its face contorted by rage and its lips parted in a neurotic sneer. It then forcefully shoved Jaune a couple of steps away from itself and ripped the breastplate off of itself, revealing the black hoodie with a caricature rabbit head underneath, one of the main components of his 'combat attire'. "Look! You are a prime example of mediocrity! The kind that sixty percent of the planet's population are made up of! You are the statistical average trying to reach the top percentile without any actual effort put into it! What in the world made you think you deserved even a shred of what the people who have sacrificed magnitudes more than you get?!"
And so Jaune looked, powerless to even make any kind of sound, much less come up with a retort. He felt his entire body shaking as adrenaline rapidly flowed through his veins and was equally rapidly dissimilated having found no violent release, as there plainly was no one to release it upon other than himself. And yes, despite the… more than superficial differences in their approach to conversation, there was not a shadow of a doubt in his mind that the specter haunting him was, in fact, himself. Simply… a more disillusioned version. Somebody painfully aware of his own numerous shortcomings, and even more aware of his own complete inability to compensate for them.
Unbeknownst to himself, he found himself sunken to his knees, shaking with his entire body, yet unable to avert his gaze from the glaring assortment of character flaws that was himself. Or rather… it wasn't that there was something glaringly abhorrent about him. Much more jarring was the complete lack of anything truthfully remarkable about his persona, good or bad. As painful as it was to hear it from himself, there really wasn't anything he could see that could warrant even the power that a regular Huntsman possessed, much less what he was pitifully attempting to bargain for.
"By the Light…" he whispered, feeling a painful tingle in his eyes. "What… what was I thinking?"
'You haven't forgotten you have a responsibility before your entire team, have you?'
In the ringing silence of the bottomless light the two Jaunes were standing in, one of them slowly raised himself back up, wiped a tear rolling down his left cheek, and turned around, proceeding to slowly walk away, holding its upper torso with unnatural stiffness as the full weight of chains he had put upon himself slowly came down on him, leaving a new, grim realization crystallize under the pressure.
"So. You get it now?" he heard his voice quietly speak up to the left of him. Not mocking, not angry, not even seeping contempt with every syllable, but tired and weary, reflecting accurately how he himself felt.
"Yeah. Good job on getting me to face reality, I guess," he answered plainly.
"Oh really? I'm flattered," the phantom exhaled through his nostrils, walking beside Jaune. "And what conclusion are we drawing?"
"That all of this drivel you just pushed down my throat is completely irrelevant to my current situation," Jaune said, facing away from the amalgamation of shortcomings walking to the left of him. This time, he was the one feeling contempt. "Fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter whether I deserve this power or not. I may be mediocre, I may be weak, I may be gray as a mouse. But at this point I've got a whole pile of responsibilities that I have to carry, otherwise people around me will suffer as well. So I guess if I'll be walking out of here empty-handed, I have no choice but to square up some other way, whatever this may cost me."
"That sounds like an extremely healthy outlook on life."
"Seems like now it's you who doesn't get it, huh?" Jaune turned towards himself, righteous ire giving him new resolve and slowly starting to bleed through his voice. "My life, it would seem, is pretty much fucked either way. I'm either trudging through it as the nothing I was born as or die trying to become something greater. Problem is that in the first case, my team are guaranteed to suffer the consequences of me chickening out of responsibility, and this is not something I want to live the rest of my life with. So I guess if you've got nothing else to do here, leave me be. Seems like I've got my work cut out for me."
"So what? You're willing to throw your life away because you got stuck with the responsibility of a leader?"
"Yes? They have vested their trust in me. Doesn't matter whether this is what I wanted, doesn't matter whether it is what I deserved. What does matter is if I fail, I'd betray it. That is not an option."
"Even if it means death is your only way out of the deal?"
"Then such will be my damnation," Jaune shrugged, continuing his walk into nowhere. Yet before he could make another step, his shape appeared once again before his eyes, arms crossed just like the first time and eyebrow raised in the same manner, yet its eyes weren't mocking him. If anything, the phantom was evaluating who it was he was trying to mirror for the second time.
"I think you might be getting a tad fatalistic. Encouraging such behaviour would be dumb of me, because if you do, in fact, kick the bucket, I'm going as well. However, dedication is good. Dedication is virtuous. Dedication is something we can work with."
With that, the apparition extended its hand towards Jaune, who looked at it with suspicion and a hint of disbelief.
"What? Just like that?"
"It's clear that you are willing to make sacrifices to uphold both the oaths you just gave and the responsibilities your post as the leader of your team entails. That, I'd say, is something worth encouraging."
With his eyebrow raised, Jaune shrugged once again and raised his arm to reciprocate to the gesture. Yet a millisecond before their palms touched, he felt a thought pierce his mind that, albeit sounding in his voice, did not belong to him.
But remember: I'll hold you to that.
And as his eyes reflectively darted up to meet his twin's, he found himself gazing into the hearts of two stars bursting with radiant light.
And then creation itself unraveled before him.
In a singular, infinitely short, yet simultaneously infinitely long moment, his mind had departed from the fragile shell of his body and took flight, traveling around the farthest fringes of the known Universe in an instant at the speed that dwarfed that of light like the speed of light dwarfs those we are used to traveling at, taking in every single micron of the countless light years of this constantly expanding plane of existence. Every galaxy, every star cluster, every planet, every subatomic particle, even, all pieces intricately arranged in this ever growing, infinitely vast and incomprehensibly complex mosaic of creation, every smallest strand woven into the fabric of existence, became glaringly apparent to him in this shining moment of clarity, and for a brief, almost unnoticeable fraction of a nanosecond, he had attained understanding. Understanding of the harmonious flow of energy in the Universe, what it took to constantly maintain even the smallest piece of the interdimensional fabric that made up this terribly fragile, yet unbearably beautiful weave, and even what the purpose of the imperceptibly tiny particle on this little speck of cosmic dust that was himself was in keeping this pallid, yet such vibrant canvas from simply… disappearing into the nether. From falling apart under the weight of the sum of those ethereal strands. And it was glorious.
Yet as much as he desperately wanted this moment of simultaneous peace of mind and ecstasy of spirit to never end, or, at the very least, last just one more, equally long second, a human's feeble mind was never meant to comprehend the vastness of existence for a stretch of time longer than the one he had already exceeded by far too much. And as he reveled in this newly achieved understanding, he could feel his consciousness, his very personality, slowly wear thin, succumbing to the raging cosmic winds, covered in thin webbing of cracks, falling apart in the void of the cosmos…
And then, all of a sudden, it all came back together in a single frame, the sensation of being self once again akin to a bucket of cold water spilled upon every cell of his body, knocking him right back into the waking world. Still reeling from his astral voyage, Jaune recoiled from his kneeling stance with a short shriek of shock and landed directly onto the stone flooring of the temple, hitting his behind in the most unpleasant manner, streams of scalding sweat running down his face and his chest heaving back and forth from a lack of oxygen. Yet as much as he desperately wanted to cling onto the liberating feeling of complete lack of self and further surf the edges of the Universe, the dull pain in his derriere cruelly reminded him that he was, in fact, back on Remnant, once again confined to the restraints of his mortal flesh. The clarity, the understanding, was also all but gone without a trace, replaced instead with… no, not emptiness. A faint, yet nevertheless lingering realization that somewhere out there, the author of this infinite canvas had placed their eye on him, now watching him intently. And as reminder…. And incentive… left a bit of a farewell gift. A tiny stroke of the brush, giving that tiny piece of the painting that would otherwise go completely unnoticed in the larger picture that much more detail. And if it were pleased with the way Jaune went about fulfilling his part of the bargain… well, there's a lot of paint left.
It took him some time to come to terms with the fact that this trembling sack of flesh jailing his consciousness was, in fact, his body. It took him some more to get a grip on it and muster enough strength to lift himself up from the cold tiles of the rotunda, his motions tentative and uncertain, as if he was relearning the basics of how to move oneself around on this mortal coil. Finally, he sighed, wiping off the sweat that was slowly freezing over on his face. And as he raised his head to face the brave old world around him, he saw Pyrrha leaning on one of the pillars in exhaustion, her stature as uneven as his own, breathing heavily and sweating bullets, looking at him with the same expression of shock that he imagined he himself was donning when he first regained consciousness. And in her gaping eyes he saw flickers of the same understanding slowly fading away.
"So… I guess you saw this too," he stated, too tired to add any inflection into his voice that could indicate either surprise or inquiry. Not like it was necessary at this point. Her eyes were telling him everything he needed.
"M… mostly," she stammered, her tone hoarse and her throat very evidently dry. "I… saw you arguing with yourself… and then… then I…" she started quietly muttering, unable to think of words to properly describe everything that was unveiled before her eyes. "I saw it… but I think even that was only a glimpse of what you saw. How… how much did you see?"
Jaune blinked.
"I'm… I'm pretty sure I saw everything at once," he slowly rubbed the entirety of his face with his palms. "...Yeah. So… was that it?"
"Yes," she nodded, letting go of the pillar and straightening up. "The ritual is complete. Now… now we get to work on that promise of yours. Speaking of which..."
Pyrrha looked at him and Jaune saw her right lip angle ever so slightly in a warm smile. "I'm proud of you on that one."
Unbeknownst to him, he felt a smile chisel its way across his own mouth. "Thanks. Something's telling me it'll be worth it."
With that said, he walked over to the remains of the bonfire they had made over two hours ago, pulling Crocea Mors out of the crack between the two stone plates. Studying his own reflection in the glistening steel of the weapon for a second, some hidden, basic instinct caused him to channel a tiny fraction of his aura through his arm and into the sword. Obeying his command, a wave of blindingly white flame burst from out of his right palm and washed over the length of the blade, soon slightly toning down its intensity, yet still making the weapon look forged from solid light. Jaune thought it was fitting.
Squelching the flame with but a thought, he hilted his weapon on his waist and turned around to the sound of heavy footsteps echoing off the floor. Having already ditched the white robe, Darius stood near one of the pillars, looking at Jaune with nothing short of pride in his eyes and an ear-to-ear smile across his face, an exceedingly rare occurrence.
"Judging from your looks, I imagine the two of you are rather spent after the ritual," he stated, throwing a glance at Pyrrha and then back at Jaune. A reply from either of them was clearly unnecessary. "So we'll spend another couple hours here and let you rest, then get back to Beacon. We can handle the formalities en route. For now," he stepped towards Jaune and put his hands on his shoulders. "I welcome a new brother into the fold."
"I must thank you for your role in helping Jaune with this… issue. Honestly, I was not looking forward to potentially having to deal with a new leader… much less trying to get Nora to come to terms. She gets attached rather easily."
Although it was barely half past one, the surrounding landscape of the Emerald forest had already begun to slowly go gray as the short winter day was about to transition into an even shorter winter evening. Having comfortably dispositioned himself near the bonfire and in front of Darius, Ren threw a passing glance at Jaune and Pyrrha to his right, currently in the tight clutches of heavy, dreamless sleep.
"Not an issue, Ren," the Silva shook his head, putting down the scroll he was actively perusing beforehand. "Admittedly, I may not have had as much at stake as you three, but I'd still rather have Jaune be around."
"Hm," Ren held a short, tactical pause, taking some time to put his recent qualm into proper verbal package. "Apologies if this seems… uncalled for, but for someone who just saw the fruit of their hard work come to fruition - and let's be real, this couldn't have been easy to arrange - you don't look particularly happy."
"You are mistaken," Darius allowed himself a brief smile. "I am very much happy for Jaune. What he has achieved here will be a tremendous boon in the next four years for him. However..." he sighed, conceding before Ren's insightful observation. "That is indeed, not the whole story. Happy as I may be for him, at the very same time, I am also green with envy."