Jaune's eyes stung from the sweat that dribbled down his forehead. The muscles in his arms and his legs ached. Pyrrha Nikos was his match.

Over the months, he had honed his aura and how to fight with it. He had become viciously attuned to wielding Crocea Mors in concert with his superhuman abilities. This, combined with his grueling work schedule and experience, had helped him catch up to Pyrrha.

Jaune grunted as he swung and slammed Crocea Mors against her shield, trying to throw her off balance. The extraordinary power behind the strike crashed into Pyrrha's guard and forced her to grit her teeth. He kept his finger on Crocea Mors's trigger—it screamed ferociously in a shower of dazzling, angry sparks as it scratched her shield.

The two fought in a training room in Beacon, just them alone. They'd been facing off for ten straight minutes of spirited combat. A problem that elongated the match was that they both knew each other's styles well by now. Jaune knew how to read Pyrrha's defense and offense, and he was exposed to her in the same way.

Both were in the yellow, both were drained of strength from clobbering the other. Jaune thought that perhaps, for the first time, this might be it—

Pyrrha feinted with jab for his stomach, which he twisted to avoid. He realized his mistake the moment she shifted the focus of her hips. She spun around on her heel and kicked him in the leg during that split-second during which he was out of his stance.

He fell to the floor, and Pyrrha was on him not a moment later. She extended her spear and pointed it down to his throat.

Jaune only lay there, tired and panting. He took his finger off of Crocea Mors's trigger. She had won.

Jaune never felt bitter. It was just a fact that Pyrrha was among the best. How could he catch up in a few months when she had years more of experience? He had already skyrocketed past several of his colleagues; he had beaten the rest of JNPR and RWBY several times by now. She was the standing exception. Even if he got her closer to defeat than almost anyone else their age, he had not managed it quite yet.

Pyrrha looked down at him. He looked up at her.

For the first time that whole day, things didn't feel awkward for them.

"Let's just train," Pyrrha had told him brusquely earlier that morning. They had decided she and Nora would face off against another duo from Atlas that night. It was a simple request for a workout before the match. It was also the only words they had shared that day.

Ever since Sarah had cut into his life again just a couple days prior, things had been rocky between Jaune and Pyrrha. He knew it was his fault. He knew he had brushed aside her empathy while he had been overwhelmed by his own paranoia. Even now, his worries clung to every thought, and he was too anxious to reconcile with his partner.

Things had gotten even worse since the night before. Pyrrha had been invited by the headmaster for a personal conversation. When she came back, she explained that it was just him giving her a pep-talk and expressing his wish that she make it to the finals. (That gave Yang a bit of consternation, but oh well. Everyone knew that Pyrrha was the likeliest to be Beacon's champion.)

"She looks distraught," Ren had told him and Nora later that night.

"She does?" Jaune had asked then.

"Yeah, you didn't notice?" Nora asked him.

Jaune had been too distraught himself to have paid attention. Just another recent failing of his. He had not addressed it with Pyrrha, not that morning, not leading up to their fight and not in that moment.

Now, Pyrrha panted just as much as he did, covered in sweat, face red from exertion. She wiped a hand across her damp forehead. She glanced down at Jaune, still splayed out on the ground, breathing heavily.

"Comfortable?" she asked him.

"Yeah, actually," Jaune replied between pants.

Pyrrha rubbed some of the sweat out of her eyes. She looked down at him again. Slowly, she smiled.

Jaune did not expect her to flop down on the floor beside him, but she did. She stretched her arms up and sighed, settling in on the tough floor of the training arena. She closed her eyes.

He looked at her, laying just a couple feet away from him. She seemed less bothered now, what with her eyes closed and her face no longer fixed with a gloomy expression. A cloud had hung over her all day. There was nothing more therapeutic for her, at least temporarily, than a good fight.

It occurred to Jaune that he felt a bit peaceful as well. The only thing that was on his mind was the ache in his muscles, the heat in his face, the strain in his lungs and the sight of his best friend beside him.

Jaune smiled.

He realized that he felt less disturbed now than he had in a couple days. Ever since Sarah had arrived.

That made him frown again.

Every thought he had was infected and redirected by the events of a few days before. The panic that his life was going to fall apart beat within him, strong and seemingly inexorable. The guilt of lying to his friends was stronger than ever. Threatening ideas about what Bishop and the Enclave could do lurked on the sidelines.

Jaune squeezed his eyes shut. It had been nice, if only for a moment, to be distracted. He had felt nothing but the burn in his own muscles and the satisfaction of being with his friend. For a moment there, it had been nice.

"Thank you," Pyrrha said.

Jaune scowled, feeling both surprised and discontent. He opened his eyes and looked over at Pyrrha. Now she stared up at the ceiling just as he had a second before. Her chest rose and fell, a vital red flush filled her cheeks and not much emotion lingered on her face.

"For what?" he asked.

"For being here," she said. She looked straight up with a stoic expression. Jaune knew it to be the face she wore whenever she was not feeling quite comfortable.

"What do you get from me being here?"

"You make me feel better."

Jaune was not hit by any feeling particular. Her statement was blunted by his own inability to really believe it.

"How?" he asked.

"You're just… here," she replied.

"Even if I've been a dick?"

"Yes."

Jaune looked back up at the ceiling. His breathing had become more even now. He still felt hot under his skin from the exercise.

"Being here made me feel better too," he said. "For a moment."

"Yes," Pyrrha said, "for a moment."

"Something bothering you?" he asked. He felt the paranoid thoughts be put at bay by his own concerns for her.

Pyrrha did not respond immediately, instead shifting her arms up to prop them under her head, forming a makeshift pillow.

"I talked with the headmaster yesterday," she said, no spirit in the words. She had been excited at first to meet him. "He told me I have a duty."

Suspicion immediately knotted up inside of Jaune like a blood clot. "What duty?"

"Just about how I need to be a hero, a savior for Remnant."

Pyrrha sighed and closed her eyes. Her breathing was steady again, level and without passion. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically.

"Just the usual," she finished.

Jaune scoffed. "They always talk about that sort of stuff."

"And sacrifice," she continued. "He warned me that being a hero would require putting myself in danger sometimes."

"Guess it does," Jaune said. "That scare you?"

"Yes," she said. "I don't want to forget all of you."

Jaune scowled again and glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes. "What do you mean, forget us?" That was a strange turn in the conversation.

Pyrrha swallowed uncomfortably.

"I just…" She shook her head. "I don't know. I want our times together to keep going. I'm not sure I really want this responsibility."

She squeezed her eyes shut even more tightly.

"Ozpin told me that I'm going to be a part of the next generation of heroes that Remnant needs," Pyrrha said. "He told me that a hero might need to sacrifice themselves for others. I don't want to do that."

"Nobody wants too. It sucks," Jaune said frankly. "Ozpin's being an asshole just by bringing this up. Like, what even made him start talking about that?"

"The conversation was only about the tournament and how I could win it," Pyrrha insisted. Something in her voice made it sound a bit forced.

Jaune could not conceive of Pyrrha lying to him, so he immediately threw out that idea. He instead just figured it was a result of her being nervous.

"I know you don't like being in the spotlight that much," he said. "Some speech like that must suck."

"Back at the docks," Pyrrha said, suddenly changing the subject, "you pushed me out of the way of a falling crane, even though it would crush you." Her voice had lapsed into a hollow sound, with all the force of an echo's echo.

"Yeah…"

"And you told us you nearly got gutted by a beowolf for saving a little kid."

"Yeah…"

"You're a brave person," she said. "I've wondered what you would have thought, if Ozpin had said to you what he had said to me. I feel like I'm selfish, since there are other people who are willing to sacrifice themselves to help others, for some greater good."

"Now that's just bull," Jaune said, scoffing with disgust. "There ain't no greater good. People talk about it, but it doesn't exist. Not really. Everybody's got their own ideas of what good is or whatever. I heard Sarah talk about a greater good, I heard my dad talk about a greater good and I even heard Bishop talk about a greater good. They're all talking about different things.

"Don't listen to people like that. They're just using you."

Jaune's voice was full of contempt. Sarah and Bishop, those two soulless people were good examples of what happens when someone really devotes themselves fully to a cause. Causes were stupid. Jaune had learned that the hard way.

"Trying to be a hero is overrated."

"Then why do you do what you do?" Pyrrha asked. "Why put yourself in danger?"

Jaune stared up at the ceiling, but he found no answers there. He chewed on his lip, thinking.

"I guess…" His voice was quiet. "I guess I just go with my gut. You mentioned the crane and the kid… I dunno. I didn't really make choices in those moments. I just sorta did it.

"But I'm not looking to throw myself into danger. Honestly, I just want to be happy." He nodded. With those last words, it felt like had landed on something manifest.

Pyrrha's question was a vast one: why do you do what you do? How does one answer that? Bishop and Sarah and other people with all the soul of clockwork could answer it in a moment, but he could not. The truth was that he was selfish.

"I just don't wanna let down the people I care about," Jaune said. "That's it. I want to keep people safe. I want the people I give a damn about to be proud of me. I guess that's that."

"No greater cause? No greater purpose?"

"Nope, that's about it."

Pyrrha hummed, thinking.

"Why the existential crisis all of a sudden?" he asked.

"Just thinking."

Jaune studied her from the corner of his eye, but she was still just looking straight up at the ceiling. This was the first time his partner had ever really confused him. She was generally a pretty straightforward person. As he looked at her, he thought about something.

He thought about why he fights:

I fight for the people I love. I guess that's always been it. Whether to keep them safe or just to make them proud, that's been it. I fought to try and save my dad and my team, and then after that I've tried to make them proud. To be a good person, as they would like. As I want to be. The Lone Wanderer was constantly miserable, and that was because he had let his demons get the better of him. He wasn't acting to try and be with or enjoy time with people he cared for, or to keep those people safe or even to make those people proud.

Is that why I'm miserable now?

Jaune scowled.

Could that be it? His thoughts were running rampant, with his ingrained anxiety keeping him from really working towards what he wanted to work towards. And that was making and preserving a life where he could be happy with his love ones.

Jaune tightened his fists.

I fight for what I love, not for any stupid cause. I'll fight and I'll kill to protect what I have. I'll lie, cheat and steal…

Jaune scowled. Lie, cheat and steal. He would do that in a heartbeat if it meant keeping his friends. He would do that to whatever enemies he had, and he wouldn't feel bad about it.

If that were the case… then should he feel bad for lying to his friends?

The thought was provocative, and it was not one that he had yet come across. It was tantalizing.

He could lie to his friends. That would keep everyone happy. Isn't that what mattered? Who cared about honesty? Yeah, being honest is overrated. His dad had told him that it was important to be truthful to those you cared about, but his dad had also told him that the tooth fairy was real. Everybody lies to keep safe what they love.

Just like that, Jaune's guilt fizzled out like a fire doused with water; because he could lie, and he could get away with it.

Lie, cheat and steal. Maybe some people's "greater good" didn't involve those, but who gives a shit? Sarah judged him for being dishonest, but who gives a shit? She's a dick.

Jaune sat up suddenly, abuzz with a new energy. Whereas before his paranoia was making him lethargic, now he felt some hope. A jittery energy sizzled under his skin, fueled by a sudden spring of possibilities and ideas.

He had been gloomy about the situation, of his lies seeming to be revealed. But they weren't. Not at all. Not yet.

There was no evidence of him in Vacuo, and that put him in a tight spot; but there was also no evidence of him in Vacuo, and that gave him some breathing room.

Sarah… he'd have to have another talk with her. She had blindsided him once, made him feel guilty and walked away, but that wouldn't happen again. He could give the bitch some of her own medicine and fix up some of the mess she had put him in. Put both of them in, actually.

Jaune hopped up to his feet, now feeling hopeful. It felt like some mysterious foggy weight that had settled around him had suddenly been blown away.

Fuck Sarah. Fuck her and everything she stands for. I'll do whatever I have to do, and she has no damn right to judge me. This isn't the end, oh no. It ain't the end 'til I say is, and I'm never gonna call it quits.

Jaune looked back down at Pyrrha, who looked back at him curiously, surprise in her eyes. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and said, "You seem spirited now."

"Oh yeah," Jaune said with a wry grin. "Thanks, you reminded me of what I've gotta do."

"And what is that?"

"I'm gonna do whatever it takes for me to be happy."

"It's that simple?"

"To me, yeah."

"What if those things conflict?" Pyrrha asked him, looking worried. "What you have to do, and what makes you happy?"

"Meh, they can't," he said simply.

"But what if you have to take on a sacrifice?" Pyrrha asked. She looked up at him.

Jaune's smile fell when he saw the tears in her eyes.

"What if you have to give up your own happiness for others? What if you have to give yourself up for other people? What then?" Her voice threatened to crack, and before she could speak again, she had to swallow painfully. "What then?"

Jaune felt a hole in his stomach. Seeing Pyrrha in pain like this suddenly dashed all his positivity and all his hope. He looked down at her, and she looked back up at him. Maybe she was waiting for him to say something inspiring, to say something that would lift all her fears and send her worries running away.

Jaune did not know what to say.

He pressed his lips firmly together, thinking over what words he could possibly muster to help here. Nothing came to him.

Well words are overrated, anyway. There are other ways to handle things.

He stooped over and held out a hand for her. Pyrrha eyed it for just a moment, then reached out and grabbed on. He hauled her up to her feet in a single motion and immediately brought her in for a hug.

Jaune had learned that sometimes people really do just need a hug.

Pyrrha held on tightly. He did not hear her cry and more or feel her chest heave with any sobs. Apparently, just a few stray tears had managed to leak out, betraying some deeper anxieties.

"Let's just try and be safe together," Jaune said quietly.

"But that's not fair," she replied in a whisper. "You've put your life at risk."

"Yeah and it sucked and It was stupid. Those things you mentioned earlier was just at the last second, when there was nothing else to do. Should always try to find another way, never do anything stupid that you don't have to do. Promise me that. Let's just all be safe for each other."

Pyrrha tightened her embrace, squeezing so hard that his ribs felt like they were in a vice. It didn't occur to him that he should complain.

She took in a deep, shaky breath, then let it out tiredly. Her grip on him loosened, and after a few second more, Pyrrha stepped back. She rubbed the tears from her eyes and sniffed a couple times.

After quickly regaining her composure, she nodded and said, "Thank you." She glanced away awkwardly. "Thanks for the hug… my apologies for being so sweaty…"

Jaune chuckled. "You worry about little things too much. It's alright."

"Yes… yes I think it is…" Pyrrha hung her head bashfully. A small smile was on her face. "Thank you."

The sight of her in that moment blew away Jaune's worries. It made him feel more alive, more upbeat, more grateful. Her happiness, her gratitude and her care were things he would keep close and cherish. What he got from her and from Ruby and the others was all that he wanted. Whatever he had to do, he would do with that in mind.

So even if it's lying, cheating or stealing, he would get it done.

Jaune leaned in and kissed Ruby on the cheek.

She nearly yelped in surprise. Then she smiled shyly and placed a hand over the place his lips had touched. She looked up at him with those adoring eyes of hers and said, "What was that for?"

"Because I wanted to," Jaune said with a coy smile of his own.

His girlfriend laughed sweetly. It was quieter, more subdued than the bubbly giggles she used to have. But they were still happy, and he still loved them.

The two of them stood in Beacon's armory. Other students milled around, tuning their weapons and carefully constructing new parts or unique ammo. Rows and rows of shelves filled with spare parts and tools filled the room, as well as many worktables. The stench of grease, burnt dust and soldered steel mixed with the sounds of sawing, hammering and sharpening.

Jaune and Ruby stood over their own worktable, looking over their months-long project. It had required many rounds of trial and error, many guesses and experiments with different parts. Sometimes, it really felt like they were toddlers trying to fit a cube through a circular hole. It would already be hard enough to combine a unique laser rifle with a tesla cannon, let alone trying to reconfigure the resultant hybrid to run on dust.

Not once, however, had they given up.

Crimson Arc would be a reality. The most recent prototype lay on the table between them. It looked much like a laser rifle from Earth, having a long steel rectangular prism for a barrel. The new muzzle, however, had been custom built by them to accommodate firing electricity, and it now looked like a sturdy tip of a needle. Sticking out of the side of the barrel was the tesla coil. Everything was unpainted, still just dull steel. A cartridge of electric dust would be siphoned down and channeled into the coil, which would active and direct the focused energy down the barrel of the old laser rifle. That would then come out of the needle as a refine blast of lightning.

At least, that was what was intended to happen. Thus far, Jaune and Ruby had had several trials for it. Every time, every pull of the trigger would bring only disappointment. At best, the rifle would make some promising noise but ultimately sputter out little more than a few whisps of smoke.

Recently, however, they had gotten some new refined alloy to connect between the cartridge of dust to the tesla coil. Perhaps that would do the trick.

Jaune rubbed his hands together, excited to have the hours and hours of effort pay off. He envisioned blowing apart Grimm, White Fang and Enclave with this thing. Those images were satisfying.

"I'm glad you're a bit back to normal," Ruby said.

"Hm?" Jaune looked up from Crimson Arc, then saw how Ruby was looking at him. She had leaned an elbow on the table and rested her head on her hand. Her smile was content.

"Just seems like you've gotten out of that funk Sarah put you in," Ruby said.

"Just needed a pick-me-up," Jaune said. "I'm not about to slide back into what I used to be." He picked up a small pair of precise tongs, sleek and shiny. They should do well for configuring the last of the wiring. "That bitch ain't gonna put me down for long."

Jaune nodded resolutely. A second passed, and his eyes widened in panic. He had being tamping down on his swearing around Ruby, who never let an inappropriate word pass her lips.

When he looked at her worriedly, however, his girlfriend still smiled. "It's alright," she said while shaking her head dismissively. "I get why you'd call her that. I mean, what even made her like that? She seems like a nasty person to be around."

"It's easy to tolerate her," Jaune said with a sigh. He set the tongs down on the steel table with a clack. "Normally she's just pretty emotionless, a hardcore workaholic." He scowled. "I saw her take somebody to task once, but she didn't keep the grudge personal."

An initiate had forgotten to pack extra ammunition for the group, resulting in his squad nearly running out of ammo in a firefight. Sarah had personally scolded him—that had not been a pretty sight.

"But she definitely took this personally…" What would make her so emotional all of a sudden? What would make her so reckless as to confront him directly the way she did Jaune had a sneaking suspicion.

"What even made her like that?" Ruby asked.

"I'm not sure," Jaune said with a shrug. "I mean, once a guy she worked with got drunk and told me she had a brother. Apparently, he died pretty young, and she started being like that ever since."

After their victory at Raven Rock, Elder Lyons had lifted the moratorium on getting drunk in order to celebrate for a night. A lot of people had fun; some got sick; some made bad choices. Jaune had eventually helped Knight Gallows stumble back to his bunk after he chugged some vodka. Sarah had asked him to do it. On the way back, Gallows had told Jaune that Sarah had only started getting 'cranky' after her brother died. With slurred words, he rambled about how her brother died when she was still a kid. Where Gallows had learned that, Jaune did not know. He simply dumped him off in his room.

When Gallows came to thank Jaune for his help the next morning and Jaune told him what he had said, the man went pale. In a whispered and unexpectedly nervous voice, he begged him not to tell Sarah that he had let him know. It was a sensitive subject for her.

"Meh," Jaune said. "Just talking about her is pissing me off, and I don't want to get pissed off right now."

"Fair enough," Ruby replied. She reached across the table and gently patted his hand.

That made Jaune smile, and the angry feelings died down a bit.

"Let's see if we can finish up rewiring the trigger and then give it a test," he said, picking up the tongs and turning his attention back down to Crimson Arc.

"Hmmm." Ruby hummed and pulled out her scroll to check the time. "We've probably got the time to do that. We'll have to rush to the stadium right after."

"Fine by me," Jaune replied.

Yang and Pyrrha had their match today, so certainly neither of them could be late in being there. Even Jaune would force himself to be out in the competitors' special booth beside the stadium so he could cheer Pyrrha on in the semi-finals. She had trashed her last opponent, and Yang had narrowly won in a well-fought match against Mercury Black. Tomorrow would be the finals. Penny would be fighting her semi-finals match right after Pyrrha and Yang; after seeing what she was capable of at the docks, Jaune had no doubt she would win. Honestly, Penny had been holding back this whole tournament. He would just have to root for Pyrrha.

Between Pyrrha and Yang, most favored his partner. The two girls, of course, would have no bitterness between them after the fight. Their friendship trumped their rivalry.

"Well," Jaune said as he pried open a panel from Crimson Arc, "let's see if we can get this done."

The cramped office building stood unremarkable amidst the other constructs of Vale. An unassuming, narrow, three-story construction of the usual brick and mortar, it was crammed into an intersection corner. Built decades ago, this particular complex garnered no extra attention by the casual passerby. This physical impression of being ordinary was bellied by the bustle of people moving in an out—some of them armed with imposing weapons—and the people who lurked around it—some with cameras and press badges. It was the headquarters for the New Dawn's political campaign.

Night fell, and people left in steady batches. Some of them had weapons at their hips or in their hands; those who did had dark green shirts. Most, however, left wearing normal office clothing. Normal aside from the black armband they each wore, emblazoned with a golden sun.

After a long workday, there came to be only a handful of people left in the whole building. In a conference room on the top floor was a man flanked by two green-shirted guards. He laughed and talked with an elderly woman flanked by two guards in professional suits. They swapped some personal stories and traded opinions regarding recent government policies. The old woman found the younger man more charming in person than she had imagined, and she agreed with him on most of the topics they discussed. Before it got too dark, she said farewell:

"It's been a pleasure getting to know you more, Frederick."

Frederick Fantoche smiled and took with great gratitude the woman's offer to donate to his campaign. A widower who had found herself the recipient of her late-husbands business fortune, she had never before dipped her toes into politics.

Frederick, however, was determined to bringing about new things.

One of his guards directed the woman and her entourage out of the room and to the building exit. Fantoche dismissed his other guard, telling him he could go home and wishing his family well as he did so.

That left him alone in the conference room, sitting in an old faux leather swivel-chair they had bought for a bargain well over a year ago. He felt the armrest's rough surface under his hands, and he thought of how surreal things had become. To think that now he was discussing high dollar deals with affluent patrons in an office of his own. He did this while still sitting in the same chair that he had used when they were just a bunch of vets with a rented office and big ideas.

A knock came from the conference room door. Frederick was suddenly reminded of a rather important meeting that was also planned for that night, and he felt a pang of panic as he realized that his discussion with the widower had gone on quite a while. He checked his scroll and cursed when he saw the time.

It was not wise to make this person wait.

Frederick stood up from his old chair and fidgeted with his tie, instinctively straightening it. He swiped his hands up to adjust his hair a bit until it felt right. He wasted no extra time in striding to the door.

He opened it, and a most imposing sight stood before him. A man dressed in full black combat gear stood before him. He wore an inhuman mask with heavy brows, a bulbous kind of beak and beady eyes. The man had a sword and a pistol at his hips.

Frederick smiled. "Commander, a pleasure to have you back." With impeccable posture and form, he briefly saluted the man before him, who returned the gesture.

Then, the Commander in Chief of the Enclave shook hands with the Chairman of the New Dawn.

"A pleasure to be back," said the Commander. His voice was deep, rough and warped through the helmet. He stepped in as Fantoche moved aside and then closed the door behind him.

"How was your convalescence?" Fantoched asked.

"Boring," the Commander replied curtly. "Extremely, very boring. All I could do was read a few of the same books, watch a few of the same videos, contemplate life and talk to my sword."

"Talk to your sword?" Fantoche raised an eyebrow.

"As I stated: my primary enemy has been boredom."

"I suppose that's not the worse thing you could be dealing with," Fantoche said with a wry grin. "I got barely any more information about your health. Honestly, I was starting to get a little worried."

"Only I get to decide when I die," the Commander replied.

Fantoche chuckled and meandered to the conference table, which he leaned back on. "I didn't think it was that bad; really, I was just worried if you were going to participate in whatever plans you have for the festival."

The Commander shook his head.

"No. I will be there. It will be done."

The man chewed gum and stood in a small motel room. It was an unpleasant place, with the occasionally cockroach skittering in the corner, stains on the walls, creaks in the floor and a manager that couldn't care less. Despite that, it suited a specific purpose perfectly. The man had paid for a week's lodge in cash.

At that moment, he stood over the kitchen counter, cleaning out a pistol. He had the gun's parts neatly arranged on the counter. The blinds were closed, keeping out the sun and any prying eyes. He had not turned on the lights, either. It was easy for him to work over the pistol's parts by memory alone, knowing the feel and touch of the various pieces, knowing how they all fit together and how they would perform in concert.

On his bed he'd laid out a uniform for an air ferry service, a simple grey set of a shirt and pants. There was also a nice new security badge that would make the airport let him right in. He was, after all, a licensed pilot with impeccable credentials and experience. He had worked for this service for a while.

Also in the motel room was a backpack filled with a couple pairs of clothes, a fake passport, a fake ID and plenty of lien in cash. In the bathroom was a razor and a pair of clippers with which he would shave off his beard (which he had had for years) and turn his short haircut into a buzzcut. That would wait until tomorrow.

Also in the room was another pack which looked like a backpack. It was, in reality, a parachute. The man currently working on his pistol was very experienced with such business. He was, in fact, the perfect candidate for what was about to happen. In fact, what was about to happen would not be able to happen at all if it weren't for him. He was proud of that fact. For the time being, however, he chewed his gum and kept calm.

Tomorrow, it would be done.

Hm, I'm sure that Jaune figuring he can deceive his friends and do immoral things with regards to them won't backfire at any point.