Oh my, two months. I bet you thought this was dead, didn't you? Well, I was pretty busy for about a month and half there, distracted totally by another project. As such, my ability to work on this was put on hold. I finished my other obligations a few weeks ago, and I've just been enjoying summer since then. Anyways, I'm back now, and that's what counts, right? Better late than never, I suppose.

I've also realized that romantic angst and therapy sessions aren't exactly the most adventurous scenarios. After a few complaints, I've thought it over and changed the category from 'romance/adventure' to 'romance/hurt/comfort' just to fit better. I feel that, when viewing the story in its totality, then one can definitely classify it as an adventure, but we haven't really completed it yet, have we?

Anyway, let's get back to it.

"Ack!"

"Be careful!"

Jaune winced and blew on his thumb, the tip of which had been slightly scalded by a stray electric spark. He put it in his mouth to let the saliva soothe the pain, smiling as he did so. The connection had sparked to life, after all, marking a crucial step in their project's advancement.

"You okay?" Ruby asked. She leaned across the workshop table, abandoning the tools before her to check in on him.

He only chuckled and waved his hand, letting his thumb cool off. "Yeah, I'm alright. Just caught me by surprise. Would have been a lot nastier without aura, but I'll be fine in a bit." He looked back down at the work he'd now completed. "Pretty sure we're getting close to done."

He'd just successfully wired up his tesla coil to an electric dust converter. Now, the coil could be powered, and that electric energy could then be channeled through the barrel attachment of mirrors and fractals they were constructing. It'd be a far cry from the powerful Tesla Cannon that had been Enclave's Bane, but it'd still be formidable nonetheless. The original had been able to recreate all the power of a lightning blast straight from the heavens, ripping apart an enemy in power armor with ease. This one, however, was smaller and less powerful, given the fact it was powered by the far weaker and less efficient electric dust, rather than nuclear fission. Still, it would be able to channel bolts of electricity down through Metal Blaster's old tube and shoot out a crack of electricity formidable in its own right.

"Man… a lightning rifle," Ruby said. The name had been one of her own choosing, which he couldn't disagree with. "I've read articles about prototypes and stuff, but I never thought I'd actually get to see one in person, let alone work on it. This tech you've got is nuts!"

Well, it's from a different universe, so there's that.

"Yeah, we had some real innovators back home. Had to, given how dangerous it was."

Ruby let out a long whistle as she examined the complex array of mirrors and capacitors that ran down the rifle's barrel. "This stuff can give even Atlas a run for their money, and that's really saying something."

She pieced the barrel together and set it down. Then she checked the time on her scroll.

"You've got your appointment at noon, right?" she asked.

"Yup… wait, what was time is now?"

"Eleven-thirty."

"Hm, better get going."

He started diffusing the potentially dangerous aspects of the projects, dismantling it for now so that they could get back to work on it later. Probably wouldn't be able to work on any more of it today, considering the armory was always more full on the weekends, when people had greater free time to work on their beloved weapons. That's why he and Ruby woke up early to beat the rush, getting there just after breakfast.

"We're really close," Ruby said. "Like, really close. We should have it done by the end of the semester."

"Hopefully," he said, packing it all away into his bag, Ruby handing him the pieces she's just been working on. "And it's all thanks to you."

She blushed. "It's nothing big…"

"It really is," he said. "I had no idea how to work a lot of this equipment, and the gap between how things worked back home and how they work here was so big… I'd have been a goner if you hadn't been there to teach it all to me." He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you."

Ruby turned away and chuckled stiffly. "Haha… no biggy." She pushed off her stool, keen to get him to stop touching her; it made her uncomfortable, for him to touch her like that. Not because she didn't like, but because she really liked it. The skin were his fingers had been seemed to tingle.

"And you know… I've been thinking something over," Jaune said. "About names, you know?"

"Hm?"

"Like, all these weapons have names right? Crescent Rose, Crocea Mors, Mysterious Magnum, Ember Celica, on and on and on. Well, this doesn't have a name yet."

Ruby frowned and looked at the parts lying in the bag. "No, I guess it doesn't."

"Well, I was laying bed last night and my thoughts started wandering— you know how that happens sometimes, right? Just get kept up by random stuff that pops in your head for no reason?"

"Yep I know."

"Well, I started thinking that this needed a name, and I think I figured it out." He smiled wide. "I think it's kinda clever, if I do say so myself."

"Do you so say yourself?"

"I do."

She giggled. "Alright then, cough it up."

"So, my last name is Arc, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, this is a lightning rifle running on electricity, and electricity travels in arcs, right?"

"Think so, yeah."

"And I thought about how your last name is Rose, and your weapon's name is Crescent Rose, so that got me thinking maybe I could sorta base the name of this off of that, too."

She blushed a little. In huntsman culture, naming one's weapon was quite an intimate and personal process, since the weapon required so much work on the wielder's part, both for making it and then mastering it. That he was taking direct inspiration from her? Well, it was flattering.

"And then I thought a bit more about how much you've helped make this, so I figured I should commemorate you a bit with the name."

"O-oh? Really?"

"Yeah, so I sorta want to make the name something with a bit out a shoutout to you. Right, I was thinking about Crescent Rose's name, and I just thought of 'crimson' because, you know, it sorta sounds a bit like crescent and it's red, and you're all about red."

"I am, yup."

"So how about this: Crimson Arc." He placed the last piece of the rifle into the bag and zipped it up. "How do you think that sounds?"

Wow.

For a moment, she wasn't exactly able to formulate words. Having his weapon's name be so directly related to her like that? He probably didn't understand, not being fully assimilated into the huntsman culture… but that was a surprisingly intimate act. Your weapon was your life, as you relied on it for your job and your survival. You put innumerable hours into working with it, caring for it, learning with it. It was a particular bond, the bond of a huntsman and his weapons. Anyone else who heard the reasoning behind the name would think—

Well, they'd think she must be pretty special to him.

She smiled.

"I love it."

He opened the office door just as the clock struck twelve. Peach smiled and said hello, a greeting he easily returned. He passed off the notebook she'd given him, and she quickly opened it and flipped through the pages.

He picked up the slinky from the knick-knack table and slumped down into the sofa. The slinky compressed and extended in his grip as Peach spent a minute scanning that week's entries of positive affirmations. She smiled and nodded, then closed the notebook and let it sit on her desk.

"Nice, Jaune, nice. You know, I actually want to start this session off with an activity," she said. She reached into her desk and pulled out a small bag of candy: strawberry-flavored gummies. The vibrant, childish sweets seemed a little out of place, carried in her hands tipped with pitch-black nails, matching the rest of her outfit. She tore it open and pulled one of them out, passing it between her charcoal lips and chewing it down.

"These are pretty good," she said. "You'd like them." She stood up and strode across the room, placing the bag on the table of knick-knacks against the wall. She walked back and sat down, the chain wrapped around her midriff clinking as she settled once more. "Could you go stand on that side of the room there?" She pointed to the wall opposite the one where the candy was now placed.

He shrugged and got up, leaving his favored slinky back on the couch. He reached the wall and leaned his back again it, looking at Peach for further instruction.

"Alright, so I want you to imagine you're not you for right now. Like, your someone else talking to you. So you're basically gonna be in third person. The goal of this exercise is to get the bag of candy." She pointed across the room to the prize. "However, the only way for you to get there is to give yourself compliments. One compliment equals on step."

Huh? As usual, Peach continued to have him do things that he never expected to do in therapy. He'd figured it would just be lying back on a sofa, talking about his mom or something, not playing games. Whatever, this could go by pretty quickly if he just took really long strides—

"And they have to be normal sized steps," Peach added, leveling a look on him that said she knew exactly what he'd been thinking.

Damn.

"So basically, I want you to say stuff to yourself that's nice as you advance across the room and get the prize." She cleared her throat. "Here's an example: Jaune, you're a pretty cool guy." She clapped her hands together and smiled. "Not so hard, okay?"

"Okay," he said with a sigh. This was going to be easy. I mean, just give himself compliments? How hard could that be?

He opened his mouth to speak. "Jaune, you are…" he said, trailing off, unable to finish the sentence.

His mind was blank. Nothing came to him, nothing at all. It felt as if a gust of wind had blown into his skull, brushed out any other thoughts, left emptiness only. There was inactivity.

"I… Jaune, you are…" He glanced at Peach, who only raised one eyebrow, beckoning him to finish on his own. He looked down at his feet, unable to move them.

A minute dragged by.

Another minute more.

There was just… nothing he could say, was there? What did other people say about him? They said… did they ever say things?

What do other people say to me, to be nice? Do they? They must… do I listen? I don't know…

Suddenly, a recent quip from Miss Goodwitch struck him, and a simple sentence popped into his mind.

"Jaune, you do good job handling Crocea Mors." Goodwitch had told him it was definitely a harder weapon to master, but he wielded it with excellence. A light smile twisted up onto his face, and he took one step forward.

"Good, good," Peach praised, "now let's get another one."

A minute more passed in silence.

"Jaune… you… you…"

Another minute, before another brief epiphany; he recalled his time earlier that day with Ruby.

"Jaune, you're pretty good at making and fixing guns," he said, taking another step. Another minute, another step, another minute, another step.

Eventually, he got across the room. Every compliment had come hesitantly, and not without struggle. None were of his own making, being ones he remembered from others. They were all about his abilities or his looks.

He triumphantly picked up the bag of gummies and smiled, falling back into his couch and popping a few of the little candies into his mouth. His smile grew a bit more as their taste yielded to him.

"Man I love strawberry stuff," he told Peach after taking his first swallow. "I never had any of it growing up, but ever since Ruby introduced me to it, can't get enough." He took another handful of sweets in his mouth, feeling pretty good about things.

Peach smiled a little bit as she watched him. He was happy. That was nice. He was in a good mood right now… so what comes next will be cushioned a little bit.

"So Jaune, I would like to talk a little bit about that exercise you just did," she said.

"Hm? What about it?"

"Well, the point was to try and get you to think over some good things about yourself. A lot of people have a hard time with compliments, especially giving them to themselves," Peach said. "You took twenty minutes. That's a while."

"Hey, I'm not an asshole," Jaune replied with a shrug. "I don't go around thinking about how great I am usually."

"Yes that's good, though I also think that there's some room for improvement."

"Is there? What, am I supposed to start writing love letters to myself or something?" he asked with a chuckle.

The laughter died when he saw the serious look on Peach's face.

"Jaune, you've been seeing me for several weeks now, and I think that we've gotten fairly comfortable, no?"

"It's not bad," he said.

Peach nodded. "Right, well I think it's time we pushed that comfort a little bit."

Jaune's muscles tensed.

"I'm not talking about anything severe, just that maybe it's time we take this process a bit more seriously from now on. Remember a couple weeks ago, when I noted that you haven't committed to this yet?" She held his gaze and didn't let go. "I think it's time we change that, don't you?"

Jaune scowled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean recognizing some of the uncomfortable things you want to avoid."

"Uncomfortable things? Like what?"

"Like how you very much hate yourself."

Jaune did not move, nowhere, not in the slightest.

"All of your compliments just now came only with a lot of effort, and you hardly sounded genuine while listing them off." Peach's eyes were unwavering. "And I doubt you thought up most of those on your own."

She was right, and he knew that.

She knew it too.

"Jaune, everything I've seen from you, ever since I first got your file, has pointed to self-esteem so low it's more apt to classify it as self-hate. You actively despise yourself, more than anyone else alive. Don't you?"

He continued to hold her gaze, saying nothing.

"Am I wrong?" she asked.

He broke the stare, eyes flicking desperately toward the clock mounted on the wall. It told him that a half hour remained. His eyes flicked back.

"You rebuff every attempt by others to tell you that you're worth more than just your actions. You've done it enough times here with me, that I can only imagine you do it with everyone else in your life, don't you?"

Again, his eyes flicked towards the clock. Not so much as a minute had passed. He brought his eyes back to hers, but was unable to keep level with her gaze. He focused on the choker around her neck, instead.

"You often feel 'fake' don't you? You feel like you don't deserve things. Most of all, you feel like you don't even deserve to get better, and that's one of the things holding you back. Am I right?"

Again, his eyes flicked to the clock. Only a single, grueling minute had passed. When his vision flashed back, it fell to the floor, unable to look at Peach in the slightest.

"You want to be happy, you really do. But something inside you keeps saying that you shouldn't be happy, that you should be sad, or miserable, or upset. It's the same thing that gives you nightmares. Am I right?"

Jaune's eyes flicked to the clock again—

"You can leave whenever you want," Peach said. "I see how you're looking at the clock over and over."

He swallowed.

"I can't force you to stay here. Everything here is done with your consent, so yes, you could leave whenever you want. Before you do, however, you need to ask yourself: why?

"Why do I want to leave?"

She looked at him, and he only looked at the floor.

"Is it because I'm right?" Peach asked. "Is it because you know I'm telling the truth, and it's hard for you to confront it out here in the open? Much more difficult to cope with such an intimate, painful process when it's being exposed instead of repressed.

"So, am I right?"

Jaune considered taking her up on her word. Leaving. He could just get up out of this office and walk out the door and never talk to her again.

But then what would his friends say?

More importantly, what would he say? When he woke up in the middle of the night, panting and sweaty, would he think to himself and curse himself and say, 'god damn it, I could have done something about all this'?

Slowly, he nodded.

"What am I right about?" Peach asked.

His throat was tight, constricted. His eyes stung, and no small measure of control was required to maintain his own composure while he finally spoke: "Everything."

Peach hummed and leaned back in her seat. "You're a troubled young man, Jaune. And the only thing I want is to help you get over those troubles. Trust me, I understand what you're facing—"

"Do you really?" he snapped at here, suddenly the taut control he'd had over himself cutting off and falling apart with a snarl and a sneer. "Do you really think you have any idea what I've been through? Just because you read about it in some books or seen some other people who are just as crazy as I am?"

Peach did not so much as blink as she held his gaze once more, unflinching, unfazed. Her black lips moved, and she spoke:

"In order to graduate from Beacon, you need to pass a final mission. It's supposed to be more difficult and more demanding, in terms of logistics, time, scale, quantity and quality of Grimm faced.

"I led my team out to a town on the Vale frontier. We were supposed to help protect it from a large Grimm incursion spotted in the area. We were assigned to advance scouting duty, actively hunting through the wilderness, looking for Grimm, trying to sight the main horde and report back to make sure defenses would be prepped.

"Well, night had fallen. Aerial reconnaissance was grounded for the weather. We made camp and prepared to hold out until the morning, when we'd head back to town.

"But that was when the Grimm came.

"We'd done everything we were supposed to do. No fire. No food. No noise. Covered our scent with aroma traps. Every precaution. That didn't matter. In life, you can do everything perfect, and there's still no guarantee things will go your way.

"The next day, I made it back to the town. I was covered in blood. As you know, Grimm blood is black and dissolves while it's still wet. Well, this blood was brown and dry. Some of it was mine. Some of it was my team's. I still remember the taste and smell of iron.

"So when I finally graduated Beacon academy, the school of my dreams, my greatest goal since I was a little girl, I had to walk up on the stage alone. Normally, a full team would walk up there together.

"I couldn't do anything for the next few months. I stayed in my room, hardly talked and hardly ate. All the muscle I'd built in school degraded and wore away. My skin got paler. My weapons got covered in dust. Eventually, my family shipped me off to an intensive inpatient care center. Therapy every day, depression meds. Things cleared up with time, but it took time, and a lot of effort.

"So yes, Jaune, I think I understand what you're going through."

Her eyes did not leave his own. Her voice, her expression, it was all very calm, far calmer than Peach ever usually was.

Jaune felt incredibly small, and a little cold.

"If you work with me, then you can get through this. I can personally attest that it gets better, that it will get better, but only if you really commit. You want that, don't you? You want things to get better?"

He nodded.

She smiled. "Then just work with me. It'll be hard, but I can tell that you're a really, really strong person. You've already made it this far, even after everything. You can finish it. There's a lot more out there for you."

"You… you really think so?"

"I know so." She shrugged. "I mean, I got over it."

He winced and shook his head. "There are a lot of things…"

"Well you and I have a lot of time, as much time as we need," Peach said, her little smile growing just a bit more. "And I can tell you're the kind of person who can stand up to this."

"His hands balled into fists. "I have my friends here… I want to settle. I want to be happy."

"I know that," Peach said, "and to do that, you've got to really double down and focus on this, okay? That means trusting me, okay? You trust me, don't you?"

He looked up at her face for the first time, saw the kindly smile there, remembered the help she'd already given him. It was tantalizing, the thought of all the help he could yet receive from her.

"The only thing holding you back right now are forces within yourself," Peach said. "That's the only thing you need to deal with. Here in Beacon, you're safe. As long as you're here, and as long as you're with me, you're in a safe space where you can focus on yourself. You can recover, from whatever it is that happened to you.

"But you're going to have to commit." Peach's smile faded, face becoming more serious. "It'll be hard, and it'll be painful, to dredge up everything within yourself. I know that."

And she really did, didn't she?

"You just need to get serious about this, Jaune. That doesn't mean a total change from how things have been, though. We'll still go at your pace, but I'll push you to open up about the things that haunt you, okay? We'll just be getting more intensive with the same sort of stuff."

He looked back down at the floor. It was only then, as the quiet settled, that he realized his lips really hurt. He'd been biting down on the inside of his mouth quite hard.

Eventually, he nodded.

"Right then. Like I said: I'll never force you to talk or do something. I'll push, but I won't, can't, force. This is all about you, after all. But I really want you to start pushing yourself, alright? To do better both by yourself, and by your friends."

His head perked up.

"That's right. By focusing on this, you'll be doing your friends a lot of good too. They won't worry about you so much if you can get better, and they'll be happy to see you better, since they care for you. Not only that, but you'll be better equipped to help them out during times of crisis too."

"Yeah… yeah I will."

"You will," Peach said, smile returning. She swiveled around in her chair, then kicked off the floor to drive herself across the room towards him. She stopped just a few feet in front of him, turned and held out a fist. "Now give me one of these, and we'll call it a deal."

He looked hesitantly at her hand. After some time…

"Okay,'' he whispered, tapping his knuckles against hers.

"Three days a week now?" Pyrrha asked.

He nodded. Jaune looked down at a pile of papers in his hands.

"Well, whatever you think you need," she said with a smile. She patted his shoulder. "So long as you're working on it." She sat down on the bed beside him. It was technically her own, but both she and Ren's beds, being the bottom bunks, had become unofficial couches for the whole team and any visitors who may come by.

"Peach is nice," Jaune said. "I don't mind seeing her more." He rifled through the papers he'd brought, sighing slightly as he skimmed the stack.

"What's all of that?" Pyrrha asked him. She leaned over to take a peek for herself, saw lists and diagrams.

"Peach said it's all mental health theory," he answered. "Lots of stuff about how people process stress, pressure, emotions, trauma. Lots of stuff on how to deal with that. Just… a lot of stuff." He sighed and set it down on his lap. "Basically, just more homework." He chuckled despondently. "Homework for going to therapy… it's practically a whole new class at this point."

"Well, whatever you need to do, do it," Pyrrha said, patting him on the shoulder gently. "We're all proud of how far you've come, Jaune." She giggled. "I mean, you're a world apart already from who you were at the beginning of the school year."

"I suppose…" He cringed, memories of his old actions invading his mind. "I'm sorry…"

"What's done is done, and over." Pyrrha shook her head. "You were in a lot of pain, and I don't blame you—"

"Doesn't make it okay that I did all that," he said.

"No, no it doesn't. But I forgive you. We all do."

She patted his shoulder again.

Jaune shifted a bit closer to her, enjoying very much the feeling of her friendly touch. Enjoying very much the feeling of having her beside him. A true partner.

"It's just that… it was all on purpose," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"It was on purpose. Everything I said and did… I thought it through. I did it because I knew it was the wrong things to do, that it would push you back. I did it because I knew it was mean." He shook his head. "There were other people, some adults and people I had to work with, who I wasn't mean too. Because I could control it. That doesn't mean I was nice to anyone… but I was only really, deeply mean to you all, to everyone who might get close to me. That's what's really messing with me. It was all on purpose."

"Did you talk to Peach about any of this?"

"Yeah, actually. That's why it's still on my mind."

Pyrrha reached her arm around his shoulders and scooted over into a half-hug, which leaned into with reserved enthusiasm. Feeling his friend beside hm… it felt good. It felt very, very good to have a friend with him.

"What's done is done," Pyrrha said. "We've got the whole world ahead of us, and plenty of time to make up. You already have."

"If you say so…"

"I do. And even if you don't believe what I'm saying, at least know that I believe it. Is that enough?"

"Sort of…"

Pyrrha giggled. "You can be a little funny sometimes, Jaune." She let go of him, walked across the room and rooted through her desk. She pulled out a couple of purple cans, which he recognized as a popular brand drink.

"Normally I avoid sweets and the like, but what can I say, people like grapes," she said, laughing as she repeated the brand jingle. She sat back down on the bed, handed one to him. "Though you like strawberry, right?"

"Yeah, it's my favorite. Though grapes are pretty good, too."

Two snaps and two hisses sounded as they each opened their drinks.

"You use strawberry scent to help fall asleep too, right?"

"Yeah," he answered. He took a sip, immediately flinching. He resisted the urge to cringe at the disgusting, sour taste, instead eyeing his partner as she happily took a full gulp of her own drink, which frankly tasted like something that was a year expired, and felt like it was literal acid with how much it seared his taste buds. She liked this stuff?

He took another sip.

"Pretty good," he said.

"It is, isn't it?" Pyrrha said, happy to see her partner enjoying her favorite drink.

For him, that was worth it.

"But about strawberry…" Pyrrha said, trailing off a little awkwardly.

"What about it? Do you not like it or something? I can turn of the vaporizer if it bothers you."

"Hm? No, no, not at all. I was just wondering: doesn't Ruby really like strawberry too? I think I remember her mentioning that sometime."

"Yeah, yeah she does." His smile was warm. "She loves the stuff. She's actually the one who got me into it."

"You don't say…" Pyrrha smirked coyly, a cute kind of secrecy providing her entertainment.

"Hey, what's with that look on your face?"

You're incredibly easy to read, Jaune, and it's frankly adorable.

"Oh nothing."

"Nothing?"

Heh, definitely something.

"Indeed, nothing."

She shrugged and got back to drinking her soda, while Jaune dismissed his partner's behavior and placed his own can on the ground, resolving to covertly throw it away later when she was out of sight, hoping she would never offer him some more ever again.

But damn, this was nice. He had a partner again! The last time he had someone like this was… well, that would have to be Fawkes. The twins had been great, but Fawkes… the big guy was something special. They would sit around and talk with each other about all sorts of things, well into the night. The super mutant had been curious beyond belief, and always willing to have a good conversation about just about anything. He was a good friend…

"Jaune?" Pyrrha waved her hand in front of his face. "Remnant to Jaune, are you still here?"

"Huh? Wuh?" He shook his head. "Yeah, yeah sorry, just sorta spaced out a bit there."

"You seem to do that a lot."

"Eh, just get lost in thought." He shook his head again, banishing the hazy nostalgia. "Did you say something?"

"Yes: I was wondering whether or not you'll be seeing a psychiatrist."

"Huh? Yeah I'm already seeing Peach."

"No, Peach is a therapist, a counselor," Pyrrha said. "She's not a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist is the person who'd be able to prescribe you medication."

At that last word, he scowled and looked away, directing his ire at the floor. "I don't like meds. I'm not crazy or anything…"

"Okay, okay," Pyrrha said hesitantly. "I was just wondering, since medication did my family some good."

"W-what?" He looked up at Pyrrha, face filled with a new kind of curiosity. "You…?"

She shook her head. "Not me, but my father. He suffers from bipolar disorder. I'm sure you've heard of that, right?"

He nodded.

"Yes, well… while I was growing up, he didn't take any medication." She glanced away. "That made things at home difficult, since he acted so erratically… sometimes shuttering himself away, not talking, sometimes trying to be so involved it was suffocating. He'd make all sorts of plans and preparations when he was manic, then fall into depression and never follow up on any of it. Things always felt either flat or bumpy. That's how I got into competing."

"Really? How?"

"A family friend came by when I was very young, and he was a professional trainer. He offered me some classes for free, I think because he noticed how I could use a bit of escape. I developed a taste for it, and signed up.

"Training, fighting. It was something to work on, to commit to, a source of stability, since I could never count on my family or home being stable. My dad just… never quite functioned right. It was hectic, having him around. There was a lot of disappointment, and even a little fear.

"Then my mom finally convinced him to see a psychiatrist, and he got some medication. That was just a few years ago. Things have been so much better ever since. It really feels like I have a cohesive family now."

She looked at Jaune, naked concern in her eyes.

"I see a bit of that in you. If you can forgive me for saying… there's just something a little off about you. I think that medication can just help you find your footing, like it did my father." She reached over and squeezed his hand in her own. "It did him a lot of good; maybe it can do you some good, too?"

She sighed and looked down at her can of soda once more, as if looking to it for some kind of backup, some form of assistance. It said nothing.

"But if you don't want to, then you can abstain. I'm hardly qualified to tell you what's best for you. It's just a suggestion."

"Hmph… I'll think about it." And maybe he actually would. But for now, he just picked up his can of soda again, reached over and clinked it against hers to create a tinny clang, a sweet little cheer.

He nodded and smiled, then drank the rancid liquid while his partner did the same.

"Ah, good stuff," he said, happy to see her satisfaction.

"It really is, and I have plenty more stocked in my desk. I'll keep sharing it with you."

"Oh, you really don't have to—"

"No, it's my treat," she said, and the charitable smile on her face almost made him flinch. "You can have as much you'd like."

He looked down at the disgusting concoction in his hands, and honestly, the thought of drinking that crap on a regular basis made him a little nauseous. He looked up at Pyrrha again, saw the smile of his friend. And seeing that, it replaced his urge to grimace with an urge to grin.

"Thanks Pyr."

"When do you think it'll be done?" he asked her.

Ruby hummed and looked down at the parts disassembled before her, spread out on the armory workbench. The chassis was complete, but they were having trouble connecting the power source to it in a way that was still streamlined and would allow for proper heat ventilation.

"I dunno. A few weeks?" She bit her lip and stared at the gun under construction. "It's just that all this tech still isn't like any of the stuff I'm used too… so you're guess is probably as good as mine."

"Well, we're still using tech from around here, too, which is as familiar to me as my stuff is to you…"

It was hard, combining the technology of two different universes into one device. Electric dust and tesla coils and a complex transmitter array were proving difficult to deal with indeed.

"Sometime this semester," Ruby said. She nodded her head, resolute. "We'll have it done by the of the semester, in time for the missions. I swear it! You'll be able to test this bad boy out in the field."

"Heh, I certainly hope so. Come on, let's pack up for today."

They had the parts broken down, deactivated and placed back in his duffel bag soon enough, having gotten used to the process by now. It was satisfying for both of them; Ruby's general obsession with weapons left her more than pleased to be making one so unique, and Jaune's wish to learn more about the weapons of Remnant had been fulfilled as well.

Plus, they each got to spend more time with the other. For that reason alone, it would have been worth it.

The got back to their rooms. Jaune quickly threw his things into his own, then strode across the hall into team RWBY's dorm. It would be just him and Ruby, playing video games. Strangely… he felt excited at the thought of just being alone with her. In a room. With beds. A bedroom. Alone. It made him jittery for a moment, though just a moment, before the unexplainable sensation dissipated, replaced by the simpler and innocent glee of playing video games with someone so close to him.

He entered her room, just in time to see Ruby finish hooking up the games. He closed the door behind them, and she idly meander over to her desk.

She gasped.

His head snapped in her direction, saw panic on her face. She was looking down at a plastic container, one marked with different days.

"Crap, I forgot! I forgot!" She pried open one of the slots of the container and pulled out a few pills, then looked around the room, darted over and stole a water bottle off of Weiss's desk.

Man, it must be pretty important if she was willing to risk the ice queen's wrath.

"What is that?" Jaune asked. "Are you sick or something?" His stomach tied up a bit, forming a heavy knot at the thought of her being unwell.

She gulped, taking both the water and the pills. She shook her head. "No, no I'm not sick. This is just my anxiety medication."

He felt blank. "Your… what?"

"My anxiety meds," Ruby said with a sigh. She meandered back to her desk, set down what he could now clearly make out as a pillbox. "I get really neurotic and nervous without them, and I'm a lot more likely to have panic attacks, too. Used to have them all the time." She shivered. "They're not fun."

"No… no they're not… I didn't know you took medication," he answered. He looked down at the floor, a blank sheen in his eyes.

Ruby shrugged and meekly rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah… I had a lot of problems with stuff like that when I was younger, especially with Signal. That's why I had a lot harder of a time back then, just because I didn't have any of my medication or my therapy, so I was a ton more awkward and anxious than I am now." She shook her head. "You guys tell me that I'm not half bad, and that's true… but I used to be a lot worse."

"You don't say…"

"Yeah, the very first day of school at Signal, I had a panic attack when introducing myself to the rest of the class… wound up in the nurse's office and had to take a few days off. That was my first day. No wonder those other kids never actually cared about me." She scowled a bit, before shaking her head and letting the thoughts subside. "But having some stuff to help mellow me out did a lot of good," she said. A smile split her face. "But hey, now I've pretty much got a hang of things. Haven't had a panic in a while, and I've gotten a lot better at handling social stuff just because I can be more calm now." She padded over to the tv, flipped it on. "It's not so big a deal anymore, and I don't even have to take as much medication now as I used to. It was really just about helping me get my footing." She looked back and smiled to him.

"You ready to play?"

"Yeah... think so."

"I'm glad that you reconsidered," Peach said. She flipped through Jaune's little notebook, making sure he'd recorded affirmations for the last couple days since their latest session. Most of the entries were about his friends, and at least half were about one person in particular.

They walked outside, treading along Beacon's sidewalk towards the sports fields. He'd arrived at her office, only for Peach to then direct him on a walk outside the building. What she had planned, he couldn't even begin to guess. Before they'd gone walking, however, he'd informed her of a change of mind.

"Normally, it'd take at least a couple months to get an appointment with a good psychiatrist, at least. But I know plenty of psychs back from university who are good at what they do; I'll reach out, see if I can't get you a meeting sooner." She handed back his little notebook, smiling sweetly as she did. "What made you rethink?"

"Just had a few chats with some friends… they said it might be good for me."

"Figured as much," she said. "You always seem to have a soft spot for your friends and what they say."

"They're important to me."

"I know. Was Ruby one of the people who told you about it?"

"Yeah."

Hm, I figured that too.

Her smile drooped slightly, but she brushed off the feeling and quickened her pace. She wasn't exactly excited by the prospect of this session's contents, just as she hadn't been excited by the last.

"So where are we even going?" Jaune asked. "Should I be worried that you're not telling me?"

"Not at all, nothing to worry about." She pointed out ahead of them. "Actually, you can see it from here."

He followed the direction of her finger and looked forward, seeing Beacon's sports field complex. From the angle they were approaching, he noticed a rather large sled-like device. He knew what it was, a weight puller designed to test out just how much mass a person could drag. Given that aura could hugely enhance one's strength, it only made sense to rig situations for more and more weight, more and more challenging. As it were, there were massive sleds on which great weights could be placed, then dragged forward across a track, far more than normal human could hope to handle.

He'd been there once with Yang, and while he'd been able to haul an impressive amount, she'd pulled several tons, certainly more than him. And if he were to believe her talk of her semblance, then she could haul even more. As it were, one of the sleds was fully loaded with more than even Yang had pulled.

"You're going to drag that," Peach said. "And while you do, we're going to talk."

"What?"

"You're going to drag that," Peach repeated (though now she formed the words much more slowly). "And while you do, we're going to talk."

"Why…?"

"It's an exercise, like the one we did last sessions with the compliments and the candy."

Jaune eyed the massive weights. It was easy enough to divert one's aura for brief bouts of extreme power, but it was another thing altogether to strain one's spiritual power to influence physical power over a longer period of time. Fighters like Yang were a master of that, practicing especially in concentrating the power of her aura into her strength, whereas Ruby focused on using it to further enhance her speed and maneuverability and Weiss used it to help her manipulate dust. He'd personally taken a path based on endurance; with formidable strength that could be upkept for a while, he could outlast most opponents. Or at least, that was the plan.

He'd been practicing with the weights sled, but never with as much as Peach had now stacked on.

"This is pretty different from saying nice things and getting candy," he said.

"Well yeah, of course it is. When you go to the gym, do you do the exact same exercises over and over again? Of course not, since you need variation to get a well-rounded workout. It's the same thing here. So come on, grab that chain."

A heavy steel chain was connected to the front of the sled, and Jaune only sighed and surrendered. He didn't much see the value of all this, but if Peach wanted him to do it… well, that was the agreement, wasn't it? He'd assented to doing what she wanted him to do, trusting that she knew best.

He took hold of the chain, getting a good grip on it before pooling his aura in his legs and pushing, hauling himself down the track.

The sled moved a couple feet, before he stopped.

"So, why don't you tell me a bit about how you grew up?" Peach asked.

"Are you seriously going to try and have a conversation while I'm doing this?"

"Absolutely. Now come on, I'm interested in your younger years. They can often have a lot of insight into who we are today."

"Heh, you sound a lot like Freud."

"Who?"

"Nobody," he said quickly, having forgotten that common knowledge in one universe wasn't so common in another. To cover his lapse in lying, he grunted and hauled the massive weights another few feet, before stopping once again. This much weight required a surge in aura, which wasn't necessarily his forte, at least not in keeping up for extended periods of time. Yang, Pyrrha or Nora, sure, but not him. He could call forth great strength, like the time he'd stopped the Deathstalker in its tracks, or braced himself to be smashed by a giant falling crane, but stamina was more his suit. He shook his head and hauled again regardless.

"Aren't you going to tell me about how you grew up?"

"A little hard to focus on that," he replied when he stopped hauling once more.

"Well then try a little harder."

He sighed. "I grew up in a little place, just a thousand people. We were separated from the outside world, had a better quality of life since we kept to ourselves, had a nice little thing going—"

"You're not pulling," Peach interrupted.

"What?"

"You've stopped trying to pull the weights."

"Well yeah, that's because I'm talking. To you."

"Do both," Peach said. She crossed her arms, making it clear that she very much expected him to haul the many tons of steel weights while conversing.

Again, he sighed and pulled. This time, he opened is mouth as he did so. The words were strained, but they were there nonetheless. "It was a nice place to live… right until it wasn't."

From there, he told her more about how things had went to shit. The draconian laws of no one being allowed to enter or leave, which his father had broken, put him in hot water. He escaped, barely. He had to leave behind his only friend, Amata. They talked a bit about her, and a bit about his father, and a bit about even his mother, dead when he was born.

Peach nodded. "At least you had stability in those formative years, though the repression sounds unsavory. It hardly sounds like they liked free thought there."

"No, no they didn't," Jaune shook his head, face red with the effort of both talking while trying to force his way further down the track.

Suddenly, that changed. He took a few steps forward unexpectedly, as the weight seemed to decrease. He looked behind him and sure enough, Peach had picked up one of the massive weights (a single ton on its own) with just one hand, then gingerly placed it on the ground. Damn, she was strong.

Then again, she was also at least a decade older and more experienced than him, so her greater strength was hardly surprising. What was surprising, however, was the act itself.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"It's part of the exercise," she answered. "Now come on, let's go on to another subject. Tell me about your wasteland."

And so he did. He tip-toed around the dangerous subjects, like murder and torture and the fact that he grew up a universe way, giving her as accurate a portrayal as he could. It was easier now to haul the load, lighter, and it got even easier after she took off another weight, and then another.

By the time he reached the end of the track, he didn't need to stop at all, pulling the weight that remained with reasonable effort, while much more easily being able to talk to Peach as well. Then sled clinked against the end of the track and he let go of the chain, finished.

"You happy?" he asked Peach.

"Absolutely!" she replied with a beatific smile and some excited clapping. It was hard to resent her, despite the annoying effort she'd forced him through.

"So… why did we just do all that?" he asked.

"Goal-setting. Realistic goal-setting," Peach replied. "I want to spend a bit of time hashing out what it is, exactly, we're going to be doing, and what exactly we want to achieve." She pointed to the track, the massive weights. "This is just a metaphor, a visualization. You carry a great amount of weight with you Jaune, the weight of the past and the feelings you associate with it."

"Oh…" Suddenly, everything made quite a lot of sense. Leave it to Peach to come up with something like this. It was a pretty good demonstration, a lot more effective than just saying, 'you've got baggage.' He nodded. "So the goal is to get rid of all that weight."

"No," Peach said, shaking her head. "The goal is to get rid of some of the weight, as much of it as we can, but not all of it." She sighed and looked him straight in the eye. "It's impossible to get rid of all the weight, Jaune. That's simply how our psyches work. You're always going to have the specter of the past behind you, and the emotions will always be there. Because it did happen, and nothing short of amnesia will alleviate you fully of the trauma.

"I need you to accept this first and before anything else. Life is a process, an effortful process. And now, as well as forever, you will need to put in that effort. The amount of effort you put in, and the kinds of things you need to focus on, are very different from most others." She reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Your normal will be more painful than what it otherwise could be, as I know from experience. Our goal isn't to completely dispel your issues: to do that would be impossible, and feeding you false hope is unethical and unhealthy. Our goal is to alleviate as much as we can, such that you can operate more easily.

"The goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to be happy. That doesn't mean the difficulty will disappear, just that it will be more manageable." She looked up, saw a few students heading their way to the previously empty track. "Come on, let's get back to my office so we can talk about this some more, in private."

A quiet walk ended with the click of a shutting door. Jaune picked up his slinky and fell onto the sofa, letting his back and rear sink into the cushions.

"Radical acceptance," Peach said as she sat down in her chair. "That's the real goal. There are a great many things in this life that serve as stressors, that cause us pain, anxiety, fear, sadness. If you can accept the existence of those things, then they can no longer affect you.

"Acceptance is, however, a process. It is not something simply to be attained, but something to both be attained and then upheld, with effort." She leaned over in her chair and scooted towards him, generally getting closer. "The goal here is for you to come to accept the things that are bothering you as best as you can, relieving as much stress as can be relieved. Accept the world around you. Accept your past. Most importantly, accept yourself."

Jaune flinched when she stopped talking, as the full weight of the words impacted him. That was asking a lot.

"I'm sure it sounds like I'm asking a lot," Peach said. "I just know that you can do it. I've done it. I've seen others do it. You're a strong, good person."

"Yeah… you've talked a lot about effort. What do you even mean by that?"

She smiled. "I'm glad you asked that, Jaune. There will be a lot of meta-cognition, but a lot of our work will also focus in physical actions and scenarios you may come across. For starters, I'm going to need you to do something that may run counter to your instincts."

"Like what?" he asked suspiciously.

"I need you to put yourself first," she said. "I need you to prioritize yourself before anyone else."

"What? You want me to be selfish all of a sudden?"

"No, I want you to assign yourself value. As I see it, you're a brilliantly empathetic person who also hates himself. You value others a great amount but ascribe none to yourself. That's very dangerous for you. It'll inhibit your ability to cope, to avoid stress, to promote self-love." Her smile took a slightly sad edge. "You're a good person, and you want what's best for the people you care about. I just need you to care about yourself and think as highly as yourself, as you do for any of your friends."

Him? Why the fuck would he ever put himself on the same level as the others? Pyrrha, Ren, Nora, Ruby, Weiss, Yang and Blake were good people. They had ideals. They had strength. They had—

"I can tell by that look on your face that you aren't thinking very nice things about yourself right now," Peach said. "That's a strategy we'll work on: detecting and averting self-deprecating thoughts." She sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Like I said Jaune, acceptance is a process. I hardly expect you to reverse all the built-in hatred today, but I do expect you to start working on it, even if you don't believe it quite yet. If you start with action, then substance will follow. Discipline is the first step to meaning."

"Alright… I can do action. What are you thinking?"

"Even if you don't imagine yourself as being particularly deserving of it, I need you to prioritize your own needs. If one of your friends asks you for help, but providing that help would cause you significant stress, then I want you to refuse them."

"So, you want me to abandon my friends?"

Peach chuckled. "That's quite the extreme twisting of words there, Jaune. Did I say the word 'abandon'?"

"No, but you might as well have."

"You can care for people and be there for them without running yourself raw and ignoring your own needs. I need you to start setting boundaries on what you do based on what's best for you. We'll work more on recognizing and setting these boundaries for yourself, but it's something you'll have to do if you want to get better. You do want to get better, don't you?"

"Of course, but if it's going to start costing my friends—"

"Your recovery will only benefit them," Peach said. "You being healthy will give them a healthy relationship they can draw on. As it is, you have a greater risk of putting strain on them, be it through worry or the need for intervention. Being in a healthier state will, in the long run, better equip you for caring for them."

He blinked. Some of the tenseness he hadn't even noticed building, now melted out of his muscles. When she put it that way…

"Not only that, but your friends care for you a great deal, even if you don't care for yourself. I have no doubt in my mind that, were they in the room with us right now, they'd be telling you to do what's best for you. Even if you don't value yourself, recognize that your friends do. Respect their wishes." She smirked. "After all, they pushed you to come to me, did they not?"

"They did…"

"Then adhere to that mandate," Peach said. "Do what's best for you. You'll be doing right by them, that way."

"Hmm…"

She took a deep breath. This would be… less than stellar news for him, but it was necessary nonetheless.

"On the subjects of peers, I want to touch on one thing in particular, one very important thing."

"Yeah? What's that?" There was a certain eagerness in his voice. It seemed that… was he getting excited? Perhaps. That was a good thing, rousing some excitement for his own recovery process, a good step.

Her smile dropped. She knew he was going to stop being excited real quick.

"Ruby Rose," she said.

He smiled. Of course he did.

"What about her?" he asked.

"You're in love with her."

"Ack!" His eyes widened immensely, and he almost choked. "N-no, we're just friends!" He shook his head vigorously. "Man, all of my other friends get on my case about this too, don't join them!"

"I think we're all bringing it up because it's true," Peach said. "Jaune, of all the positive affirmations I've had you write for me, not a day has gone by where you don't mention Ruby at least once. Heck, I'm pretty sure there have been a few days where she somehow accounts for literally all five of your affirmations."

"She's my friend! We spend time together, so yeah!"

"And now you're blushing, flustered and extraordinarily defensive towards me," Peach said.

"Well yeah, because—"

"I'm saying the truth." She crossed her arms, unimpressed by haphazard denial. "Every time I mention her name, you get brighter. You adore her. That much is clear by how you talk about her, how you act whenever she's brought up. You're smitten."

"Did you talk to Nora!?"

"What? No, it'd be unethical for me to reach out to any of your friends." She shook her head. "I'm saying the obvious, Jaune. You're head over heels for this girl, even if you don't realize it." She raised one eyebrow. "Though I have a feeling that you do."

"What?"

"Are you trying to convince me right now that you're not in love with her, or are you trying to convince yourself?"

"I…"

"Do you think you're not good enough for her? Is that it?"

Again, he answered with silence.

Peach's eyes were hard as she nodded a few times, hard with anger, though none directed to him. She could only imagine the things that had happened to him. She was angry for him.

"Alright. You think she'd be better off with someone else, or that you don't deserve her. You don't deserve her because she's too good for you, and because you think that, it's easier for you to deny that you have any feelings for her at all, lest you face the pain of recognizing them and contending with the fact that you and her can't be together."

He looked down at the floor. In his hands, the slinky was hopelessly crushed and twisted, an iron grip with shaking fingers.

"Am I right?"

He answered with silence.

"It's all bullshit, all of that," Peach said. She pursed her black lips and shook her head. "Complete bullshit. No one is 'too good' for you, Jaune."

"But I…"

He couldn't tell her. He couldn't tell her all the terrible reasons for why she was wrong. How could he tell her? How could he tell anyone the things he'd done?

"You're a kind, skilled, caring person, Jaune. You're a good guy."

He shook his head.

"Hey, I went to school to analyze people. I'm a professional, okay? And in my professional opinion, you are a fundamentally valuable human being."

He dropped the slinky, letting it clatter on the floor. He brought his hands up to his face, ground his knuckles against tightly shut eyes. A little bit of liquid seeped through nonetheless, but he wiped it away quickly. The skin of his face was taught and red, suppressing barely a great many things that threatened to burst out.

"You don't have to hold yourself back here," Peach said, voice soft. "You can yell and cry and no one will see it but me, and I'll never judge you. Never."

His throat felt tight, as if he'd swallowed a jagged rock that was now lodged near his trachea. He mustered the strength to shake his head again.

Breathe deep. Hold. Release.

"I'm fine," he said, voice brittle and weak. "T-thank you… for saying that." It wasn't true. He knew that it wasn't true, but the pure kindness in her believing that falseness… it was enough to affect him nonetheless.

Peach smiled. "I'm saying what I see. I see a young man struggling with certain aspects of his life, and that young man is a good person who is fully equipped with everything he needs to lead a happy, fulfilling existence.

"And right now, romance is not one of those things."

He blinked, then narrowed his eyes slightly, not sure if he'd heard her correctly. "What?" he asked, voice still shaky.

"Romance is not something you need right now," Peach said. "In fact, I think it would be inhibiting."

"W-what?"

"You're in love with Ruby," she stated. "I am right, am I not?"

He stared down at the floor for a few seconds, before swallowing and nodding. He wasn't an idiot. Of course he'd known the truth of how he felt for her, but hey, consciously lying to himself and suppressing well-known truths was nothing foreign to him, now was it? In fact, it seems to have become a favored pass time.

Breathe deep. Hold. Release.

"She means so much to me…"

"I know she does. Your love for her practically radiates. The only thing is this: love is a complicated topic. It introduces a great deal of complexity, difficulty and pain. That's invariable. Right now, however, what you need the most is simplicity, stability and peace. It is highly inadvisable for patients trying to recover and focus on their own health, to get involved in romantic relationships."

He started to understand what she was saying.

"Wait… so…"

"I believe it would be best for you," Peach said, "if you don't pursue a relationship with Ruby."

The world felt incredibly still for a moment, and strangely quiet as well. It was a long moment.

"Why?"

"As I said, love is complicated. Not only that, but it is demanding. A romantic relationship holds certain expectations, like devoting your time and energy to your partner in a way that you would not for anyone else. Right now, I think it'd be best for you to devote the most time and energy only to yourself, for all the reasons we've already discussed.

"You can't afford to be distracted by a relationship. And let me tell you, they are very distracting. The world around us melts away when we get seriously involved with someone else. Right now, I really need you to be aware and conscious of what's going on, focused on your issues. Something as big as a girlfriend makes that a lot harder.

"And of course, there's the old saying: how can you love someone else, if you don't even love yourself?"

Jaune stared at the floor. He let her words wash over him, unable to think of a single thing to reply. The thought of Ruby had aroused the usual assortment of emotions: excitement, pleasure, attraction, happiness. Now it seemed that those feelings were getting ripped to shreds by the sharp truth of his situation.

"So… I am too messed up to be with her."

Peach sighed. "That's not what I said, Jaune. There's nothing inherently wrong with you. There is nothing about you that is wrong. Nothing. There are certain afflictions you are contending with, and I believe we need to deal with those the best we can. It's like if you were sick and the doctor recommended you stay in bed for a while. That's the closest analogy I can give to your situation."

Peach got up from her chair and walked across the room. Jaune slowly twisted his head to look at her, feeling too sluggish to at all be hostile or paranoid about her movements.

She sat right down beside him on the couch. "I just really want you to focus on you, okay? Ruby sounds great, and one day, the two of you may make a great couple, a beautiful couple. I just don't think that that day is today, or tomorrow, or next week, or maybe not even next month. Right now, I just don't feel like you're in the right mental state to handle and produce a healthy romantic relationship. Before you can become so intimate and reach out to someone else like that, you need to reach out to yourself. Okay?" She set her hand on his arm, a sad little smile tugging at the ends of her lips. "Everyone wants what's best for you, and I think that you staying single, that you keeping up some healthy friendships while working through your difficulties, will be the most beneficial."

His thoughts were slow. He easily recognized some of the physical things, like her hand on his arm. It felt nice. He liked when people touched him, showed their support like that. Maybe Peach had picked up on that. She'd certainly picked up on many things.

"So am I… do I just… what, ignore how I feel about her?"

"Not at all. Recognize your feelings, accept them. Just don't act on them. Again, I'm not talking about abandonment, just prioritizing. You need to prioritize attending to yourself over attending to others."

"But what if being with her makes me happy? Isn't that good? Didn't you say you wanted me to be happy?"

"I'm sure you can be happy with her Jaune, but it would be a distraction, a big one. You wouldn't be solving any of your issues, just hiding them. Coping with them, not dealing with them. That's not sustainable or healthy in a relationship, for either party."

"So it'd be best for both of us…"

"If you abstained from anything romantic for now, yes. That is my opinion."

"Your professional opinion."

"Yes."

He looked around the room. He looked at her, and then he looked at her desk, her chair, the walls, the floor, the roof. None of them offered a word of support, or a single reason for him to disobey her.

"Okay," he said. "Okay…"

Peach smiled and patted his arm. "It's alright Jaune. You can still care for Ruby, just like you care about all your other friends, just prioritize. We'll go over things like meta-awareness for your thoughts, meditation, thought techniques, all the works. And we'll work through your past. That way, the future will be a whole lot brighter."

Brighter? That was why he was here, wasn't it? Yes, that was why… god, I hope Peach knows what she's talking about.

"Okay," he repeated, the words were filled with a stronger resolve.

"Alright then," Peach said, rising from the couch. "I wanted to go over the papers I gave you, but we'll bite into that next session since we're close to time." She turned back to him. "Is there anything else you wanted to go over?"

"Just… aren't I supposed to be the leader?"

"Hm?"

"The leader… I'm the team leader. I'm supposed to take responsibility for my team… and I'm supposed to be strong…"

"You are strong, Jaune. If you weren't, then you wouldn't be here, in my office, trying to overcome everything that's bothering you. You would never have made it here. And you do still have responsibility. It's just that you're also in a position where some of that can be alleviated if need be, for better performance in the long run. You can trust your team to function without you there all the time, though I know you want to be there. And don't forget that you're just in your first year at Beacon.

"It's not like anything too dangerous is going to happen to you now."

"Be careful with that," a man said. His voice grated through a heavy black gas mask. Even then, the disdain in his voice manifested strongly, enough to make the mask-wearing faunus he looked down on glare back at him. The shattered moon's pale light reflected off their masks' lenses.

The little staring contest ended after a moment, with the white fang grunt grumbling and taking hold of the crate, which he hauled off the dolly and headed toward the bullhead parked on the beach beside them.

The man in the gas mask scrutinized the white fang, hands cautiously placed on the sharp sai strapped to his waist. The animals didn't do anything untoward, however, as they carried unmarked crates from the truck they arrived in, across the beach and to the bullhead. Another man in a gas mask stood in the bullhead, helping them load the cargo.

The Mistral coast glittered in the moonlight, a true sight to behold, but the man kept his eyes firmly on the animals before him, making sure they didn't make a single move out of line.

A flash of movement in the side of his vision stole his attention for a moment, but it was merely a crow alighting upon the bullhead's wing. He dismissed it immediately, returned his focus to the white fang.

They were efficient creatures, he would concede. They had the cargo loaded and were back in their truck and driving away within just a few minutes, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief, that their polluting presence was finally gone.

"Come on, the Commander's schedule is airtight," he told the pilot as he hopped up into the bullhead, cargo doors closing behind him.

The bullhead's engine hummed as it vibrated slightly and came to life, engine heating up as dust burned and powered the vehicle. As that occurred, the crow flapped its wings and took off, flying into the forest as the bullhead rose from the sand and quickly shot out in across the sea, heading straight to Vale.

The little black bird traveled in the opposite direction, deeper into the woods, until diving down when it saw a safe-looking clearing. As it neared the ground, its feathers turned shadowy as a darkness engulfed the little creature. Within a fraction of a second, it massively increased in size, and the darkness dispelled.

Qrow stomped down to the ground with a sigh. He shook his head and immediately reached for the flask at his hip, downing half of it in a single swig. He wiped his mouth and pulled out his scroll, hammering out a message.

Q: Looks like there are some more pieces at play than we thought. I'll be coming back to Vale soon.