Heavy breathing. A broken left arm, and a sword.
With blood dripping down his left eye Jaune stood up once more.
Behind him were the rest of his former team. A burnt body of a man and a bisected body of a ginger-haired girl.
It has been hours since the fight between them began.
There were no cheesy lines, no one-liners. No questions. Nothing.
All Jaune felt now is rage, there would be no one to save Cinder this time.
Maiden powers be damned, she's just as injured. If not more than him.
Her left leg was broken by Nora, a sort of last hurrah on her part. Her Grimm arm was taken care of by Ren.
The three members of a team once called JNPR all worked together. While she might have had the upper-hand with the powers of both the maidens and the Grimm. She was still human, a human who ran out of aura.
His stare sent a chill down her spine.
This man dedicated his life for this one purpose. To take down the woman who took his partner, to kill off the person who decimated his whole team.
A white glow emanated from his sword.
He smiled as if to say "Come at me."
Cinder, taken in by that stare and what she perceived as a taunt rushed forward. With a machete-like sword in hand the two clashed.
With no aura left, Cinder relied on her maiden powers to fly across the battlefield. She needed to end this. Fast.
She might have all this power, but the injuries she sustained could spell the end for her.
She saw her opportunity soon enough as she targeted his normally shield wielding arm.
A disgusting sound of metal cutting through flesh.
"Finally ran out of Aura Mr. Ar-"
He baited her.
He sacrificed his already broken arm to deal a satisfying slash at her rib cage.
She gathered all of her remaining strength to cauterize the wound but try as she might. It was already too late for her.
"NO! I CAN'T DIE! M- MY DESTINY Y-YOU FUCKING-"
He sent a kick her way as he moved forward. His left arm was bleeding out, he has a punctured lung and it is obvious to anyone that he's on his last legs.
He couldn't talk anymore. All he did was walk over to her struggling form. He raised Crocea Mors over his head. Ready to deal the final blow.
She kept on screaming. Yammering on about fate, her destiny. How she's going to Kill him and survive.
She raised her arm, sending a blast of fire his way. His sword glowing once more, cleaved through the beam of fire. Saving him from a brunt of the damage but clearly damaging him. He was pushed back slightly.
But that look never left his eyes.
"STAY BACK!"
He thrusted the blade straight to her heart. His blade finally served its purpose.
Through the multiple fights going on in Salem's Castle, his is a fight worthy of remembrance.
A tale of a party of 3, on the warpath to vengeance. A story of a boy who just wanted to be a hero.
Yang, having defeated multiple Grimm busted open a door to see the aftermath.
All three of her friends from team JNR were dead, to the right is. Jaune still standing as the head of one Cinder Fall stared at the figure in fear.
Yang took in the sight, she nodded at Jaune's figure. "Good job, vomit boy."
She ran up the staircase to join the last fight. The job isn't over yet. They needed to end Salem's reign.
With all sorts of sustained losses, Ozma's side of the war would win this time around. The story of one Jaune Arc would turn into some sort of fairy tale, much like other heroes from the past. In the eyes of many he is a war hero, in the eyes of his peers he was a lovable doofus who had a good head on his shoulders and in the eyes of history he is the man that stood against all odds.
A man who died having reached his goal.
A bronze statue of him and the rest of team JNPR can be seen erected right outside of Beacon. Each having a different quote engraved at the bottom. Yang took it upon herself to quote his unsaid last words.
"Against the powers of a Maiden, the hero stood. With his sword draped in aura he looked at the demoness with no hint of fear in his eyes. Before their last clash what did the hero say?"
One of the kids stood up, he ran all the way to the statue of the hero. His smile was bright before he quoted the statue.
"I'm still standing."