I've fallen into the Hololive black hole on youtube and this is the best stuff on the internet.

Oh and last chapter may or may not have been inspired by a scene from Katawa Shoujo. Jaune's burned eye may or may not have also been originally inspired by Hanako. In fact, his heart issue was inspired by the KS protag himself. Dunno why, just like it. Go back through the chapters and there's a few moments where people can't find his heart beat. Qrow learns of it in like chapter three, and Goodwitch notes it after he's brought to the hospital from the docks.

Jaune landed on the mat face first. He groaned. With bruises and aches all over, he decided not to get up. He looked over at the scoreboard. His aura had collapsed into the red; normally that would stop the match immediately, but in this case his opponent did not care for the rules.

"Not gonna stand?" Qrow asked. He shifted his scythe back into a sword and stabbed it point first into the ground. Then he cracked his knuckles. He looked at Jaune without the usual lackadaisical attitude. "Because you seemed pretty spirited yesterday. Where did all that energy go?"

"It wasn't like that…" Jaune mumbled.

Jaune lay in pain on the sparring mat. Qrow had reserved one of the private sparring rooms for a bit of training, as they had done several times already. This match, however, was less about teaching and more about giving a message.

"Right, you were just kissing my niece with your shirt open alone in a room and it totally wasn't leading anywhere it wasn't supposed to be leading to."

"It wasn't! I swear! I'm not you!" Jaune said that and quickly regretted it.

Qrow scowled. "And here I am, going out of my way to give you extra training because I like you, and you're going out of your way to insult me?"

Jaune grit his teeth and looked back down at the mat.

Qrow had not been the friendliest person since he had run in on Jaune and Ruby the day before. He had hastily wrenched Jaune away and forced him into a "man-to-man" talk. It was not a pleasant experience.

"How many times do I have to say…" Jaune mumbled. "It wasn't like that."

"Yeah. Right. Whatever." Qrow shook his head and pulled out his flask. With a few hearty gulps, he emptied it of the scathing booze. He then sighed, devoid of satisfaction. "Listen, I'm really trying my best to pretend that Ruby is still the sweet little girl I always knew, but you're making that really hard…"

Qrow grumbled something else; Jaune thought he heard something about luck and a semblance, but it wasn't clear.

Instead, the embattled boyfriend forced himself back up to his feet. He stiffly stumbled over to Crocea Mors, which Qrow had savagely knocked out of his hand earlier.

"Still trying to fight?" Qrow asked.

"Absolutely not," Jaune said. "You win. You've made your point…"

"Have I?" Qrow asked. He cocked an eyebrow and glared down at his so-called apprentice.

"Definitely," Jaune said as he put Crocea Mors back into its sheath with its usual steely scraping sound.

"Well alright," Qrow said. "Hmph." He grunted and looked away, suddenly unable to address the awkward silence that had gathered between them.

"Yeah…" Jaune also had no idea what to say. Qrow had just thrashed him because he thought he and Ruby were about to cross a few bases; now, however, it felt like they both very much just wanted to move past it as if nothing had ever happened—

"Let's just say you learned your lesson and move on," Qrow said. He ran a hand down his face, which had a rather nonplussed expression; he looked like he was wiping off the snot that someone had sneezed in his face. "Might be the best for everyone, to be honest."

"Yeah…"

"You don't have the same priorities I did when I was your age," Qrow said as he walked away to the entrance of the sparring room. "Just watch out. Bet Yang ain't gonna be as forgiving as me."

Jaune made a sour face. Yang's expression the night before when she had seen Jaune and Ruby was one of surprise and then… other things. Her glare terrified, and woe to the man who underestimated a protective older sister.

"Yeah…" Jaune was saying that a lot. It was difficult for him to think of much else to say.

Qrow shook his head and did not look back she left the room. He only said, "Best of luck. I've got work to do."

And with that, the man was gone. Jaune finally let out a sigh of relief and gingerly walked over to one of the benches by the side of the mat. His knee throbbed in outright pain, having been snapped only a few weeks ago and now put under duress once more; aura was a hell of a thing, but it had its limits. Qrow had been kind enough to avoid any blows to his knee during their training, though he had fallen on it several times. It would still be a week before he could train like normal. Besides that, the swelling bruises on his chest and arms also left a stubborn burn of pain.

All in all, this was rather unpleasant.

Someone cleared their throat by the room's door.

And it just got worse.

Jaune's eyes instantly narrowed when he saw who it was. His lips turned down into a frown and a quick flume of hate suddenly shot up inside of him like a burst of smoke from a spluttering fire. There was no one else at Beacon who made him so angry just by existing.

For her part, Weiss looked back with a calm, unreadable expression.

Jaune scowled.

That's the most frustrating thing about this bitch. She hides herself behind some emotionless shield, at least when she isn't sneering at you. She judges me but can't even begin to understand what I've been through or who I am; she hasn't even begun to try. I hate her.

Jaune said nothing as Weiss stepped around the mat to him. Against the stone floor her heels clacked loudly, with each step forming a sharp, conspicuous clack in the otherwise silent room. She stopped barely a few feet in front of him.

She looked him in the eye, motionless and wordless.

Jaune had told no one other than Peach about what Weiss had said to him. When she had called him a failure and a runaway and blamed him for Ruby's injury. If she was going to do the same thing again, then he would punch her right in the face, to hell with whatever consequences—

Weiss bowed her head and said, "I'm sorry."

Jaune's eyes widened. He didn't believe for a moment that he'd heard right.

"What I said was beyond inappropriate," Weiss continued. She mustered a voice not much more than a whisper. "No one else has told me to do this. I wish to apologize and make amends after my own reflection on the matter."

Just like her to say some lines that were clearly rehearsed and rewritten and made to be as inoffensive as possible, clean. Even her tone of voice was professional in its delivery. But not perfectly professional. Quieter than usual, her voice was tinged with anxiety.

Before Jaune could respond, Weiss looked up at him and made direct eye contact.

He saw her nervousness, a look in her eyes that confirmed his thoughts.

"If you are willing to listen," she said, "I would like to talk."

They stood near each other on Beacon's roof. The sun, midway through the sky, shone down on them as a mildly chilly breeze circled around. They were alone. It was the time for talk.

Unsurprisingly, neither of them were quite sure how to break the silence.

Unsurprisingly, it was Weiss who ultimately spoke up:

"As I stated beforehand," Weiss said, "I was not impelled to make this apology by any other person or party. I am here of my own volition, with the wish to extend the olive branch and bury the proverbial hatchet." She crossed her arms. "At least, as well as the two of us may be able to do so. I think it is an imperative undertaking."

They both stood near the edge of the roof, looking out over the Emerald Forest. The woods stretched out before them, over hills and mountains, as far as they could see.

Jaune looked at her from the corner of his eye. "You're talking pretty formally."

Weiss did not look back. Her gaze stayed fixated on the dark forest before them.

"I fall back on formality when I'm nervous," she said. "Forgive me if I sound somewhat unnatural."

"Hm." Jaune just shrugged. "Guess it's alright." He looked back out over the Emerald Forest.

Weiss glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She took a deep breath. She took a second one.

Suddenly, she turned on her heels and faced him directly. "As I mentioned before, what I said to you back on the Atlas ship while Ruby was injured, it was unacceptable."

"Oh yeah," Jaune said. He clenched his fists. Just the memory of her blaming him for Ruby's injury made a voice in his head speak up and tell him to hit her; that voice, the prodding urge everyone has, the thing that inspires regrettable acts.

"I would understand if you would like to punch me in the face," Weiss said. "I politely request that you do not, but I would understand the desire."

Jaune said nothing.

"So…" Weiss trailed off again, losing a train of thought, or perhaps being unwilling—or unable—to follow one that she had.

"You've said sorry," Jaune told her, without looking her way. "That's fine enough. Let's just go back to never talking to each–"

"No," Weiss said.

That made Jaune clench his teeth.

"What was that?" he asked.

"No," Weiss said. "It would be awkward and improper for a girl's best friend and her boyfriend to be hateful towards one another."

"So what, you want to be friends?"

"I would like us to at least not be enemies."

Jaune turned to look at her, and she looked back. For the first time since they had come out to the roof, they made eye contact. Jaune saw something determined there.

"Ruby is an excellent judge of character," Weiss said. "More so than I, certainly. For a while, I've wondered what she saw in you, what redeeming qualities would inspire friendship, let alone love. And I must say…" She trailed off and looked down.

Jaune had heard some version of this before. Weiss was keen to say that she saw little of value in him. At least it had toned down and become more snarky than hateful as they had developed a begrudging respect for one another over the months.

"After some recent thinking, however, there are a few traits I find admirable," Weiss said. "Hard-working, loyal, caring to your friends, possessing a strong moral compass, willing to change oneself for the better." She looked at the ground and agitatedly tapped one foot a few times. She forced herself to be still before continuing: "These are traits you appear to have."

"Oh," Jaune said, "thanks?" The way she had listed it out and said them sounded more like a robot than a person, or an accountant soullessly ticking off some numbers from a report. He looked her up and down. She seemed very uncomfortable. "You look very uncomfortable."

"I am," Weiss said. "It is not easy for me to admit fault. In this case, however, I am certain to be the one at fault, and it would be utterly remiss of me to try and deny that. Best to say what should be said and move forward.

"I don't want our mutual contempt to put Ruby in an awkward spot. And…" Her voice trailed off. She shifted her weight to one foot and tapped the other anxiously. Her eyes glanced to this betrayal of body language, and she stopped the nervous tick immediately. "And I…"

She scowled, thinking of the right words, before finally speaking again:

"Contrary to popular belief, I do not find it enjoyable to dislike someone."

"Yeah, it usually isn't," Jaune said. He looked at her now with a bit of confusion, a bit of fascination, a bit of curiosity. It was obvious she was navigating through some mental barriers to say what she was saying.

"I…" Weiss heavily sighed. "It is not an easy thing for me to open up about my feelings."

A part of Jaune wanted to make some snarky comment at that, about the snow angel having a heart; he quashed it and kept listening.

"But I feel like I need to do this apology justice. It would not be complete if it did not thoroughly cover the various troubling aspects."

Weiss frowned. "I have struggled for a while with a question: am I a good person?" She scowled. "It didn't take long for me to come to the conclusion that what I said to you, blaming you for what happened and dredging up the past you shared with us…

"That was not something a good person would say."

Jaune was tempted to speak up and agree with her but… he chose to keep quiet for a while longer. He hadn't thought Weiss capable of anything like this. She seemed like the kind who would never say sorry outright.

"So there you have it," Weiss said. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, swaying slightly as she tried to muster the right words. "I guess this is just me trying to be a decent person."

Jaune mulled over those words.

"I didn't see this coming," he admitted. "I figured that you'd never really say sorry."

"I think it would be obvious to most anyone that I was in the wrong, to say what I did," she said.

"Yeah," Jaune said. His hate for her had grown cool now. The sound of her voice or the thought of her name had filled him with anger ever since Ruby had gotten out. Now, though, he didn't want to be mean; he just wanted to be frank. "What you said really hurt."

"Hm." Weiss shifted and turned away. "I know. I chose those words to hurt. I felt powerless, and I guess it's in my nature to lash out when I feel powerless, or when I have to deal with emotions that make me uncomfortable."

"That so?"

"I've been doing a lot of self-reflecting," Weiss said. "Looking inwards."

Jaune tilted his head, curious. "You learned anything?"

"A bit," she replied. "I started to feel guilty about what I had said to you not long after I said it. I tried to justify that away, say that you deserved the words. That explanation is innately unsatisfactory."

"Yup."

"So I thought about it more. I tried to put my foot down and force myself not to feel bad about what I'd said, thinking you deserved it. Of course you did not, which resulted eventually in me accepting my error. Then I was hit with the next question:

"What was it that made me lash out like that?"

Weiss looked ahead of her, over the expanse of the Emerald Forest. The place where she and Ruby had first had to get along, where her course of life had been inevitably intertwined with Jaune's all those months ago; a time that might as well have been years away.

"Well, I must admit that I have been growing increasingly jealous of you," she admitted.

Jaune was taken aback. "What?"

"Ruby is the best friend I've ever had," Weiss said. "By some parameters, the first friend I ever made. I had my sister and one of my butlers whom I was close to, but I do not believe that those relationships belong in the same category as my link to Ruby." Weiss shook her head slowly. "No, she is my best friend. She spent time with me, encouraged me and showed me what it meant to be a more selfless, caring person. It was only natural, then, that I became jealous of you when you suddenly appeared to have monopolized her time and attention."

"I did?"

Weiss looked at him from the corner of her eye and said, "Most certainly you did. When you started dating." Then she sighed gruffly, a brief break in the fine composure she had been trying to uphold. "That is not something I can blame you for. It is only natural that she would devote everything to her new boyfriend for a while, what with being smitten and all."

Weiss tightened her fists.

"I even encouraged her in some discreet ways at times, thought it was funny. I respected you for how much you obviously cared for her, for some of the qualities that you've gradually grown into." Weiss glared out into the Emerald Forest, staring down nothing in particular. "I was foolish to be surprised by how much of her focus you took."

"Well…"

"That's not all," Weiss said, cutting him off immediately. "My jealousy for you made me dislike you more, but that is certainly not the only thing that made me attack you."

Weiss's mouth closed, and no more words came from her for a little bit. Jaune chose not to egg her on. Now didn't seem like the time to be intrusive. He wasn't sure, honestly, how much of this speech was to him in particular and how much was her saying what she needed to hear out loud and for herself.

"It is difficult for me to discuss my emotions," Weiss said. "I have always been taught that they should be shunned, that the weak passions of a person should be controlled or ignored. To give in to feeling is to be weak."

She looked at Jaune. Catching him by surprise, Weiss made eye contact with him. He didn't pull away. Instead, he looked right back into her pale blue gaze. It was a determined look, though there was something else to it as well, something he couldn't quite name.

"I have the feeling you were told that as well," Weiss said.

"Yeah," Jaune replied. "A person told me that. And a lot of my experiences back in the wasteland seemed to tell it to me, too."

Weiss nodded, then looked away; they both felt an odd lingering sensation of solemnity, a mutual understanding.

"My sister always told me that I should have absolute control over my feelings and relationships," Weiss said. "What with an alcoholic mother and a father prone to a nasty temper, it was advice I accepted readily. Always be in control. I believe I warped that message sometime along the way, eventually becoming more and more like that bratty, hard to reach creature I was at the beginning of the school year.

"I am very grateful to Ruby, that she managed to help break through that a bit."

"She did the same for me," Jaune said without thinking.

Weiss nodded. "I could tell. Another reason why I held some begrudging respect for you. I could appreciate someone who's gone through an experience similar to my own. Although, I dare to say that yours may have been a more extreme case."

"Oh yeah, yeah it was."

"But…" Weiss shut her eyes. She used a few seconds to breath, then opened her eyes again. "I recognized your closeness to her, and that's why I contacted you when she was feeling down. Don't you remember, when she learned her friends from Signal had abandoned her?"

"Yeah, I remember that."

"Hm." Weiss looked despondently out over the Emerald Forest. "I was angry that you were able to get through to her, while I could not. I was her partner, after all, and you were the antisocial miscreant. It made me feel useless.

"And when I was there in the ship, looking down at my twisted Myrtenaster, having been thoroughly and easily defeated by Bishop… I felt useless once more." She tapped her foot nervously against the ground for a moment, before scowling and stopping; she stamped her foot down, quite literally stomping down her anxious tick.

Weiss then turned to look at him. He saw the same expression in her eyes; this time, he recognized the sadness in it.

"So I apologize, that when I felt useless and hurt and unable, all my jealousy and fear was directed at you." Weiss turned away. "There are moments when, try as I might, I am not a good person."

She said nothing after that. She looked back out over the Emerald Forest, at nothing in particular. She had that look on her face, the look everyone has worn at some point and seen others wear. The look of someone reflecting in regret, wondering what could have been done differently.

The ensuing silence did not feel awkward. It was not the kind of quiet which feels like a tense wait for something that needs to be a said, or the kind of uncomfortable quiet that comes when incompatible people in a dying conversation can't come up with something to say. It was an appropriate moment for both of them to just spend a bit of time thinking.

So Jaune was pensive for a little while. Everything that Weiss told him was not so far away from his own experience, was what he realized. She grew up in a tough environment and gradually became a brat. But upon coming to Beacon, she was able to overcome more of her negative traits and…

"I wonder if I'm a good person too," Jaune mumbled. The words weren't necessarily directed to Weiss. He was looking out over the Emerald Forest as he spoke them, words that he was allowing her to hear. "I wonder that a lot. I don't think I'm that good a person."

"Funny," Weiss said, "I don't think I'm a very good person, either."

"Ruby, Ruby's a good person."

"That she is," she said. "Something we can agree on. I'm certain that the rest of my team are good people."

"Me too," Jaune said. "My team are some of the best people I've met in my entire life."

"Well," she said, "I suppose there's more that we can agree on than we previously believed."

That put a slight, bitter smile on Jaune's face. "Guess so."

"The two of us, mutually unsure of our moral character or how deserving we are of our positions in life." Weiss let out a sigh. "I can't help but feel, however, that one of us is more deserving of those feelings than the other."

Jaune scowled. The moment had started to become almost serene, but suddenly Weiss shattered it like a brick through glass. Just when he thought they were getting along—now she's going to go and make some snide jokes about how shitty he is. And didn't she just try to say sorry?

"From my perspective," Weiss said, "there is little ambiguity that you, fundamentally, are a good person."

Jaune's scowled deepened, now confused. He took his gaze from the Emerald Forest and glared at her. "What?"

"It's true," Weiss said. "You risked your life to save Pyrrha at the docks. Nora told us how you demanded she take the others away while you distracted Bishop. You told us how you nearly died protecting a child from a beowolf. You've reached out to be as kind as you can to the people you care for." Weiss turned and met his eyes once more. "For all your previous failures and your more unpleasant qualities, there is no doubt that the core of your character is a good one."

She turned away, leaving Jaune with an uncomfortable weight in his twisting, roiling stomach. It felt like he'd been punched in the gut, and suddenly there was a slight urge to vomit.

"Hmph, you look like you're going to be sick," Weiss said in a neutral tone. "I never knew you were so averse to compliments."

"Guess there's a lot you don't know about me."

I've killed a lot of people. I've hurt people. I've killed and hurt people who didn't deserve it. I fell into a pit where all I wanted to do was inflict pain until I died, wishing that I would die pretty soon.

"There is," she said.

Weiss began tapping her foot again. It was a nervous tick of hers that he had never noticed before; Weiss almost always retained her composure, and she rarely spoke with him, so of course he hadn't noticed it. There was a lot about her he didn't know.

His stomach settled after he took a moment to breathe, and the next words came naturally.

"You're a good person too," Jaune said. He stated what seemed like fact to him. "Ruby wouldn't care for you if you weren't. And… a bad person wouldn't have felt regret and said sorry."

A slight smile came to Weiss's lips. She stopped tapping her foot.

"Those are kind words," she said softly. "I didn't expect them from you."

"What did you expect?"

"For you to begrudgingly accept my apology before telling me off with some swear words and leaving," Weiss said frankly. "At least, that's usually what you would do to me in the past. I was sure that when it was just the two of us, you wouldn't hold back."

Jaune considered that for a moment. Suddenly her earlier nervousness made more sense, aside from also being very hard for her to talk about her feelings. "If you'd said that stuff to me at the beginning of the year, I would've punched you in the face as hard as I could. Then I probably would've kept kicking you while you're down."

"I can't say I wouldn't deserve it, at least to some extent," Weiss said. She sighed heavily. "For a while, Ruby has been asking me to start this kind of détente. Even Pyrrha once asked if I could try to be a bit nicer to you."

"She did?"

"You have good friends," Weiss told him.

"Yeah… well, Ruby's told me a bunch about you," Jaune said, "Trying to convince me to stop spatting with you. You have good friends too."

"Hm." Weiss looked out over the Emerald Forest, absorbed by it and her own thoughts. "They're the best thing in my life," Weiss said. "The best thing that's ever happened to me."

"Same," Jaune said.

"Even the people I was close to before," Weiss continued, "weren't to me what Yang, Blake and Ruby are. My butler, something of an unconventional father figure. My sister, a role-model." Weiss sighed and did not take her eyes away from the Emerald Forest. "I care very much for my sister. I'm immensely excited to see her again when she gets here. I can't really call her a friend, though.

"Why not?" Jaune asked.

"As I said, she was more of a role model." Weiss crossed her arms and flipped back her ponytail, which had strayed a bit to her side. "Not so much of a friend as someone to aspire too. I can comfortably say that there's no one else I love more, no one else who's supported me the same way she has. Sometimes, though, her near authoritarianism isn't exactly what I want." Weiss chuckled flatly. "If you think I'm the ice princess, then she's the ice queen."

She glanced at Jaune and told him, "Don't tell her I said that."

He chuckled and replied, "I won't. Though I doubt I'll meet her."

"Oh I'm sure you will," Weiss rolled her eyes. "Ruby is going to insist on meeting her, and she'll probably drag you along because of course she will. When you run into my sister, I only request you treat her with some respect accorded to her position."

"She important?"

"Yes," Weiss said, "she's an Atlas specialist, high up in the armed forces. She rose through the ranks in near unprecedented fashion, with connections but also raw skill nearly unmatchable. She takes no nonsense, not from other soldiers and certainly not from teenagers like us."

"I'll keep that in mind," Jaune said.

"You're being oddly respectful of my wishes," Weiss replied. She looked at him with eyes narrowed. "It's making me a bit suspicious."

He shrugged and smirked a little. "I know when to be serious."

"Well, you have my thanks," Weiss said. "I want to give my sister a good impression. She's such a disciplinarian, and someone I look up to."

"You're actually making me think of someone else I used to know," Jaune said.

"Who was that? A member of your team?"

"Nope. There was this group of…"

How to describe the Brotherhood of Steel? A bit of a cult? Paramilitary? Sort of a government?

"This kind of culty group of people military people," Jaune said.

Now Weiss turned to him full on and raised an eyebrow. "A culty group of military people?"

"Weird things happen in the Wasteland," Jaune said with a shrug. That was as much of an explanation he could give. "They were weird, but they were good people. They fought hard against Bishop and tried to help people survive.

"Anyway, the first one of them I ever met was this hardass lady, Sarah. She never took shit from anybody, and she was one of the strictest people I've ever met. But I had a lot of respect for her…

"Also had a bit of a crush on her, but that's besides the point."

"Ugh," Weiss rolled her eyes. "Men."

"Hey, she was pretty. And badass." Jaune chuckled and awkwardly ran a hand through his hair; that was a subconscious maneuver. Sarah had once commented that he needed a haircut, and ever after that he would nervously smooth his hair whenever she came around. Granted, her haircut comment was really trying to get him to conform to the military buzzcut that the other Brothers generally had, but his sixteen-year-old self had gotten overly self-conscious about it.

"Well it's good to have role models like that, I think," Weiss said. "Inflexible, strong people."

"Yeah, I think so too," Jaune said. "But…" He looked away and ran a hand through his hair again. "Recently—just yesterday, actually—I started to reconsider some of her advice."

That made Weiss curious. She tilted her head in an inquisitive fashion an inquired, "In what way?"

"I mean, she was a very black and white person," Jaune said. "And a very hard person."

Now some anxiety started to brew under his skin. It used to be that criticizing Sarah in any way was nearly unthinkable to him. The only thing about her he had disliked was her total allegiance to the Brotherhood, which he had come to despise after his team's death... though that was really just a result of his personal pain and wish to hate something, anything.

But Sarah? Her thinking had directly informed the development of the Lone Wanderer.

"Don't be weak," she would say. As if it were as simple as that. To her, it really was.

"Do what must be done," she would say. For her, there was always a mission to complete, a destiny to fulfill.

"She was tough," Jaune said. "I tried to be a lot like that but… I don't know. I'd rather be more soft, if it means I get to be happy with my friends."

"Hm." Weiss hummed pensively.

No words of input from her? Jaune wondered what she might have to say… but instead, she just looked out over the Emerald Forest again, digesting what had been talked about, thinking things over for herself.

She tapped her foot against the ground—once, twice, three times, a dozen times—before speaking again.

"I've also been revisiting some of what Winter told me. I think I've been coming to some of the same conclusion that you have," Weiss said. "Growing up a Schnee, growing up in Winter's shadow… always made me feel like I had to be a hard, unyielding person.

"That's not the person I want to be."

Weiss's foot tapped a bit more rapidly.

"Like I said before," she said, "I don't think I'm an especially good person. I came here for my own selfish purposes. I wanted to be free of my father's grip. I wanted to get out of my sister's shadow but also prove myself by following her footsteps."

She sighed despondently and brushed back her ponytail again.

"I wanted to be a huntress because it seemed like maybe I would finally have some control over who I was. I didn't come to Beacon for selfless reasons like the rest of RWBY did. I didn't join because I wanted to make the world a better place." She crossed her arms and scowled. "I joined because I was selfish."

Her voice had a hateful tone to it, directed to none but herself. She stopped tapping her foot.

"I mean, I only came here 'cause I wanted to learn how to fight better," Jaune said with a shrug. "I was super selfish about it too, but here I am. I only made friends with Ruby 'cause she was good with guns. Now it's totally different."

Weiss's scowl persisted. She gritted her teeth.

She shook her head slowly.

"But yours is a story I envy."

"What?"

"You've sacrificed for people you care for, endured much more than I've ever had too." Weiss look at him. "Even this"– she pointed at the scar over her eye –"is a mark of our difference."

"It is?"

"You got your scar from fighting a vicious warlord, right?"

Jaune nodded.

"You know how I got this scar?"

"No," he said. "I asked Ruby once but she said you never talked about."

"I don't, because it's pathetic." Weiss scoffed bitterly. "I was running with scissors."

"Wait, like, literally?"

"Yes," Weiss replied, "literally."

"Oh…"

"I was taking a lesson on tailoring for some old reason," Weiss said. "I was very little, so of course when the teacher told me not to run with scissors, I did the exact opposite. Then I tripped and slashed my own face." She sneered in disgust.

She looked away then, and her scowl slowly softened and drooped; her shoulders, which had hiked up in an almost aggressive fashion, sagged. Her anger morphed into disappointment and shame—those were the feelings, after all, that had caused her to be angry in the first place.

"Pathetic," she said. "Compared to the heroism in wounds like yours or Ruby's."

Jaune couldn't contest that. Her thought process was warped but had some truth to it. How humiliating, to have a prominent scar made by something so trivial compared to what had wounded those around her.

"Now for a while I've been feeling shame for my own selfishness. I've been feeling like an imposter. Sure, my grades are excellent and my combat performance is stellar, but do I have the same convictions, the same experiences as those around me?" She shook her head. "The answer is no."

"You should probably talk to a therapist," Jaune said. "Sorry, but this sounds like stuff I don't really know how to make you feel better about—"

"I'm not asking you to make me feel better," Weiss said. "I… I don't even know why I'm telling you this, to be honest." She wiped her hands with her face, exasperated. "I was just ready to say sorry, bear whatever expletive you yelled at me and then leave. Now here we are, with me letting out all my insecurities."

She sighed and stepped away. "I should just go—"

"You don't have to," Jaune said. "I mean, if you just want someone to listen… I guess I'm a pretty good listener."

Weiss stood where she was, her back to him. Slowly, rather slowly, she turned around. She looked… confused? Was there confusion? Certainly. Some disbelief? Perhaps. Relief? Maybe, just maybe.

"Well, it's not the biggest problem," she said, meekly casting her gaze to the ground. "I only hope I get a chance soon to prove myself. Like you have, like Ruby has. No matter what she may think, she's a hero. She was willing to risk her life to protect another, a challenge that many do not pass when faced with it in the heat of the moment."

Jaune' stomach lurched.

"The willingness to sacrifice," Weiss aid. "True, selfless sacrifice for others. For the people you care about. For people you don't even know. That's the real test of one's character." Weiss shook her head. "I convinced Blake to pull back and get away from Bishop when he'd beaten us. We weren't strong enough to beat him, I knew that. But if I'd kept fighting, Ruby would still have her hand." Weiss looked down at her own hands. "He could have hurt me… if it meant keeping her safe, I'd take that.

"At least I'd have a scar to be proud of."

"That's bullshit," Jaune said in dark tone.

Weiss looked up at him, eyes wide.

"That…"

His hands shook. A tight feeling spawned in his chest, like someone was gripping onto his synthetic heart and trying to tear it out.

"That…"

He screwed his eyes shut.

Breathe deep. Hold. Release.

When he had a semblance of control over himself again, he opened his eyes.

He was surprised to see that Weiss was just a few feet away from him. She held her hand out, as she had hesitantly been deciding whether or not to touch him, whatever support that could have lent. Her face was worried, concerned.

Jaune shook his head and stepped back, taking gulps of air to calm down.

"Its fine he said…" he said. "Or, no, it's not fine…"

"I'm sorry," Weiss said. "I shouldn't have brought up anything that might remind you—"

"It's alright," Jaune said. He held a hand out, stopping her mid-apology. "You just… shouldn't say things like that. Sacrifice and heroics… they're scary. They're not good. It's really hard for the people who get left behind, the people who get saved." He placed a hand over his chest to try and calm the twisted knot there. "You should be hoping that you never have to be in that situation."

Weiss was downcast.

"I suppose that's maybe just another selfish fantasy I possess," she whispered.

She ground her heal into the floor, making a nervous grinding sound.

"I…" she sighed and brought a hand to her forehead. "You must forgive me. I don't understand what that's like. I'm very new to this, these life or death stakes. This pain…"

"It sucks," Jaune said. A simple statement. A true statement.

"It does…" Weiss trailed off awkwardly. "Oh, how did we get so off topic…"

"What was the original topic?"

"I was supposed to apologize."

"Ah."

The only sound for a few seconds was the tapping of Weiss's foot against the rooftop; a staccato, anxious rhythm.

"Well," Jaune said, "apology accepted."

"Right. Thank you." Weiss bowed slightly. "I'm glad we could overcome our impasse. I apologize for being so hostile for so long."

"Well to be fair, I didn't give you much of a reason to be nice to me. Especially at the start," he said before chuckling dryly.

His modest laugh let Weiss smile slightly. "Well, you were quite insufferable. I much prefer the current Jaune to the Jaune of several months ago."

"Me too, me too." He chuckled again. "I prefer the current Weiss, too."

"As do I," she said.

Then they both had the same sort of small smile on their face.

Weiss looked him in the eye, and she nodded. He nodded in return.

"Well," she said, "I did not expect our talk to go quite like this. Nevertheless, I'm quite glad we could have it."

"Same."

"However, I promised the others we would go the gym at noon and"– she quickly pulled out her scroll and checked the time –"I believe it's nearing that time."

"Guess it is."

"Indeed." Weiss pocketed her scroll and glanced at the entrance to the roof. "I suppose that I should be off now."

"Well, don't make me keep you," Jaune said with a nonchalant wave of the hand. "Go give Ruby some good company."

"I'll try my best," she said. "You haven't gotten the chance to talk to her yet since your dalliance yesterday, have you?"

"No, not in person," Jaune said. "Qrow threw me out last night and then dragged me out of bed this morning to beat me up."

Weiss chuckled at his misfortune, and Jaune didn't feel indignant towards her in the least.

"But we texted a lot last night, stayed up later than we should have."

"Yes, I saw the light from her scroll above me," Weiss said. "I must say that last night was quite an awkward affair, what with Yang trying to lecture Ruby about her purity and so on."

"Yang scares me."

"Oh she should. She certainly scares me."

They chuckled again.

"For what it's worth, though," Weiss said, "I believe the two of you when you say it wasn't going to go anywhere."

"Yeah?"

"You're both far too cowardly for that."

Perhaps that should have offended Jaune, but it only made him scoff amicably.

"Well, this has been pleasant, surprisingly so," Weiss said. She started to step away. "But I really must get on my way."

"Alright, tell Ruby hi for me."

Weiss nodded and said, "I will."

Then she left, and Jaune was alone.

After the door had shut behind her, he stayed up on the roof for a while. He paced around, reflecting on some of the things they had said. He eventually circled around and stood by the roof's edge, looking out over the Emerald Forest. It was then that the oddness of that occurrence, a real heart-to-heart between him and his enemy, really hit him.

"Huh," he mumbled. "Unexpected."

He tilted his head and looked into the Emerald Forest. It was an oddly contemplative, meditative sight. He stood there, in that quiet, reflective state of mind. Slowly, a smile crept to his face.

It quickly died, however, when a sudden gust got whipped up by the increasingly unpleasant weather. Winter was still going to be a good while yet, but the warmth in the air was already getting sapped away faster and faster and the light of the sun dimmed sooner and sooner with each passing day.

A chilly and unkind wind came along, and he went back inside.

Cinder Fall sat at her desk in her room in Beacon. There was nothing special going on. Some people might think that a woman wrapped up in villainous plans and nefarious deeds was working around the clock to prepare for the next act of evil. Such was not the case.

At that moment, Cinder was simply taking a break and reading a book; it was a rather interesting true crime book that told the story of a serial killer's deeds and eventual capture decades ago in Vale. This was Cinder Fall's favorite genre.

She scanned the words, going down line by line. Then she brought up a slender finger and licked it lightly, just wet enough to easily turn the page. Thankfully, the others were gone on assorted errands, giving her a most appreciated moment of solitude and quiet. The loudest sounds in the room was the pages turning and the thumping of her own heart.

Then the door creaked open.

Suppressing her mild annoyance, Cinder turned and feigned a smile when Emerald walked in. The girl didn't start talking until she'd shut the door behind her.

"We got a message from Bishop," she said.

Cinder cocked an eyebrow. "That so?" she asked. "What about?"

"He says his condition has gotten better," Emerald replied. "He should be back in good shape by the time of the Vytal Festival."

Cinder's smile creaked upwards a little, no longer faked. "That's good."

"He says that he accepted that we didn't know what Rose was capable of," Emerald said. "That is, her eyes. He said he won't hold anything against us, especially since the damage isn't permanent."

Cinder tapped a finger down on the page of her book, thinking.

"He's being diplomatic," she said after a moment. "I doubt he fully believe we aren't withholding information from him. He'd be stupid to do so." She dragged a nail down the paper of the page, making a scratching sound. "I still can't make up my mind of whether or not to bring him into the fold or discard him."

"He's useful, sure," Emerald said. "But he's not loyal."

"Well neither is Mercury, yet we're bringing him in," Cinder said. "He's not loyal like you, for certain. Mercury fights for money. Or at least that's what hooked him. He took this on as a job at first, but now he's too involved. He can't do anything else. The same as Torchwick. They're trapped. Trapped, useful, exposable."

"And Bishop isn't," Emerald said. "He's still got his whole Enclave to fall back on."

"Precisely," Cinder said. "For that same reason we're not telling Adam about our greater goals. He has the whole White Fang to remain involved with."

Cinder sighed.

"Between us, the Enclave and the White Fang, it really is a matter of who betrays who first."

Cinder chuckled darkly and waved her hand as if swatting a fly.

"It won't matter. After the Festival, we'll have what we need to begin eclipsing them."

Even if Adam certainly is planning to extend his control in the Fang. Even if Bishop's Enclave likely has closer involvement with the New Dawn than he lets on, with more ambitions than just transcontinental black ops dirty work. He had told Cinder that they recruit from the New Dawn, but she did not think it a coincidence that they had had a rally near the Breach, not a coincidence at all.

Everyone in their unholy triple alliance had their own agendas they were pursuing; it just so happened that those agendas aligned for the time being. How long that would last, she did not know for certain.

"That's not all," Emerald said. "Bishop… well, he proposed a plan for something we could do at the Festival."

"Hm?"

"You told him we wanted something that could cause a lot of negativity," Emerald said. "Well, he floated an idea that… it would definitely do that."

Cinder's curiosity was peaked. There were not many people who could make her curious, as most people simply did not possess the ability or ambition to do so; Bishop was interesting in that he had both, just like her.

"And what is this plan?"

"So you were thinking I could trick a contestant into killing another one, right? Well what Bishop has in mind… if your plan was like using a scalpel, he wants to use a meat cleaver."