Well, well, it seems to be about that time!

Shorter chapter than normal this week, it kind of just worked out this way unfortunately. Sorry about that!

Anyways, without further ado...


Chapter 6


"Your partners the one who told us." Qrow explains as the two of them walk down a few corridors into Beacon's medical wing, a place Jaune's been to before, but only once or twice. "Said she saw you and her just… freeze up. Talked with you, and you confirmed it. And then along with the fact that I found you grabbing at your face, and the way that mirrored the way that woman was injured, well…"

Jaune nods, even if he's still sort of stunned.

"I… am I in trouble, or–"

"No!" Qrow immediately rounds on him, placing both hands on his shoulders. "Kid, you're not in trouble. You've not done anything wrong. We don't get to choose our soulmates. We don't…" Qrow sighs, and it's a horrible, terrible thing, laced with grief, and longing, and sorrow, most of all. "We can't make their choices for them. We can't control what they do. What… what happens to them, even if we wish we could."

Jaune can tell that there's something there. Something had happened to whoever Qrow's soulmate had once been, and they're probably not around anymore.

He doesn't ask, though. He's not an idiot.

"I… what do you want me to do?"

"Honestly, kid, I wish I could tell you that you can go home and rest, certainly the rest of Beacon is." Qrow sighs. "But unfortunately, I can't. That lady, Cinder, she murdered Ozpin."

Jaune… he'd had a feeling. Ozpin had sounded rather final as he'd told the two of them to run, even if Jaune's mind had been distracted by other things at the time. He honestly wishes he'd known his headmaster better, so that he could feel some sense of grief for the man who'd given his life for the two of them.

"But as I said, she's also a servant of Salem. You… I know you don't know who that is, I'm going to tell you, and why that's important, because of what we're going to ask you to do."

"We?"

Qrow just nods, even as he opens up a door into what seems to be the chief medical examiner's office, and Jaune finds himself staring into the faces of a few more familiar figures.

Glynda Goodwitch, for one, and General Ironwood, admittedly over a scroll call.

"I brought the kid." Qrow says as he steps into the space, sighing. "Wish I didn't have to, but I did."

"I understand your concern, Qrow," Ironwood speaks, his voice measured and even. "But you know as well as I that if this boy truly is that woman's soulmate, then–"

"Then we can use him to control her." Qrow spits out. "Yeah, grand idea, Jimmy."

Jaune's eyes widen, even as he looks between the figures in the room with no small amount of panicked energy. "Wait… you want me to…"

Ms. Goodwitch stares at him sadly, even as the other two both look to him, and Qrow just sighs, but it's a feeble, resigned thing.

"Yeah, kid. Because you two share a bond. It's one of very few things in life that no one can control, not even the girl's 'Fairy God Mother'. More than that, though, well… she's not even woken up yet. So, we're not asking you to do this right now, or anything."

Jaune nods his head, even as Glynda Goodwitch steps up to him, and looks him in the eye pitifully.

He's doesn't like the pitying looks. Even now he hates them.

"Mr. Arc. I would like to apologize for what we are going to ask of you, and more, I would like to apologize for what we are planning on telling you as well. Once you've learned of it… I fear that the world will never truly seem the same again."

Jaune can't quite hide his bewilderment at that, even as Qrow, in the corner, lets out a harsh laugh. "Oh, don't scare the kid. Honestly, it's not that big of a deal."

"You'd certainly think so." Ironwood rolls his eyes.

"What is…" Jaune swallows, trying to keep his throat from drying up. "What is it you want to tell me?"

The three of them share a look, one loaded with so much Jaune has no possible way of tracking any of it.

"Alright, kid." Qrow finally states. "In lieu of Oz, I guess I'll ask."

"Ask?"

"Hah… What's your favorite fairy tale?"


The door to the operating room shouldn't be locked to quite this degree, Jaune thinks but doesn't say. Qrow is still hovering right behind him, there to support him in case any of what he's learned in the last hour or so is overwhelming him.

Oh, it's overwhelming him alright, but somehow he's managed to stay entirely calm. It's like he's so terribly overwhelmed that he's made like an old computer experiencing integer overflow – going from 255 to 0 – and somehow ended up feeling completely normal.

He's pretty sure that'll wear off sometime soon, but for now, hey, he's still sane! That's good.

Qrow steps forward and places his hand on the lock. He turns a key, then inputs a code, then places his finger on a scanner, and only then does the door open.

Jaune knows the security is necessary, but–

His thoughts kind of disappear when he sees her.

He's not sure why the first thing he notices is the scar on her neck, but it is. Somehow, he sees that tiny little line, caused by what he knows from experience is electrical shocks, and wonders just how many times the girl had to have it go off for it to carve a line in her skin that's scarred over like that? Hundreds? Thousands?

"Kid?"

Qrow's voice snaps him out of his reverie, and it lets him take in the rest of the space.

It's a simple room, honestly. A sterile space – well, it'd been sterile until the two of them walked in – with white walls and white tiles on the floor. It's… honestly, it looks exactly like Jaune always imagined an operating room would look like.

His gaze is drawn back to the unconscious woman lying in the bed at the center of the room, its sole occupant, likely because no one knows what'll happen when the woman awakes.

And…

Jaune's brow creases as he steps forward, and he feels so horrible as he places his hand on the bed just below where her left arm should be. It's gone. From what some of the diagrams show, it had quite literally melted off. The doctors had considered, briefly, trying to reattach the limb, but there'd simply been too much damage.

His gaze is drawn, next, to the way her entire left side is covered in gauze and wrappings. That includes the way that half of her face is seemingly burnt and scarred as well. Even still, this is Jaune's first time actually getting to, well…

Look at his soulmate.

Even burned, and scarred, and covered, she's beautiful. It would be a lie for Jaune to think anything else. Long black hair has been shaved away in spots, including the entirety of her left eyebrow and a good half of her head, and everything left of her nose is badly scarred, but seeing her, having a face to the feeling that's been within him so long…

He knows who she is, but he can't help the warm feeling in his chest.

His eyes draw back to the scar on her neck, that infernal place where she'd been tortured and controlled from, and without really thinking about it, he places his hand there. Her skin is smooth, though noticeably less so on the scar tissue itself. Jaune supposes that makes sense.

It's only when Qrow clears his throat that he remembers the man is present, and he pulls his hand back at such speed it practically blurs in the air. It does not prevent him going red in the face, nor Qrow awkwardly coughing.

"S-Sorry." He murmurs past the mortification.

"Nah, don't be, kid. I… I get it." Qrow looks away from him. "She's not awake yet, and the doctors aren't sure she will wake up. At least not until her aura can actually begin to heal her body."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, simply put, her aura right now is doing all it can just to hold her together. It doesn't have the strength to do that, and to heal her enough so that she can wake up."

Jaune nods, understanding a little of that.

He steps back up, placing his hands in the same space they'd been in before.

Jaune's not sure how long he sits there, just staring at her. Just thinking.

He thinks about how miserable an existence it must've been, to be without assistance, without care, without love of any kind. to be denied the things that he, that nearly every person he'd ever met, had taken entirely for granted.

Jaune likes to think he doesn't. Take it all for granted, that is. That having the link in his life, a direct path to someone deprived of those very things, has made him more cognizant to his own blessings, but…

He knows he'd be lying if he said such things. He'd not called his family in… how long had it been, really? Half a year? Longer? Sure, it isn't like he'd thought he needed to, but…

But it's precisely because he'd simply assumed he'd always have them. Because of course he will. That privilege, or, no, perhaps that illusion he lives under that his family will always be there for him.

And here's… here's Cinder – and having a face and a name to go along with that longing in his soul is… gods its freeing – having never had a real family in her entire life. She's been used and abused by everyone – quite literally every single person she's ever met.

And he hasn't really talked to his family in months.

He resolves that the first thing he'll do when he leaves here today is write them a letter. The CCT is down, and they must be worried sick. He can't imagine Qrow, or Ms. Goodwitch will be letting him leave for a while, what with the situation as it is here, but…

Jaune shakes his head, sighing horribly as he looks back down at Cinder again. He sees the way her breaths are labored, even in sleep, a horrible rasping noise approximating inhalation and exhalation from the way that even some of her organs have been burned by… something. Qrow still won't tell him what did this, though Jaune…

Well, he has some idea. Because he'd called for Weiss and Ruby to go save Pyrrha… and he can't think of a way that Pyrrha could have done something like this.

Add in Qrow's overprotectiveness on the matter…

Ruby…

Those questions can wait until later, he supposes. He looks down and sees that his hand has been ghosting along Cinder's face, running up and down atop the gauze and bandages, and he pulls back, wincing slightly.

He must look like such a damned creep, touching a woman while she's unconscious! But…

He finds he can't help himself. He's never… this feeling in his chest has never…

He understands, now, his mother's words. The paradoxical nature of trying to describe an indescribable sensation. He forgives her disappointing answer, now.

He's fairly certain he couldn't describe this, either.

He thinks of his mother, and his father, and of his sisters, and Team JNPR, and Team RWBY, and Beacon. He thinks of his home, rent apart by the woman in front of him, and despite that, despite the carnage he's watched her commit…

He wishes he could give a piece of that home to her.

Is that fair? Jaune asks himself. After everything she's done… after everything… can I seriously sit here and want the best for her?

It's not fair, Jaune realizes. But then again, he'd accepted the fact that the world isn't fair a long, long time ago. When he'd been just a boy, perhaps four or five, convulsing in bed as phantom lightning coursed through his neck. He'd understood far earlier than most that the world is an unjust place. And perhaps Cinder's sin is bigger than most people's, he'll admit that. But even so…

He wants to give her a second chance. Because no one else will.

And because no one had ever given her a first to begin with.

He reaches out and places his hand on her face, the unburnt side, and idly begins to rub his finger along her cheek. Once more, he hopes he's not being creepy, because honestly, stroking an unconscious girl's body really does sound pretty bad, but he just…

He can't help wanting to be close to her.

Cinder Fall… that's what Qrow had said her name is. Jaune wonders if 'Fall' is really the girl's last name, given that she's the Fall Maiden. It seems more likely a name she chose for herself.

Or a name chosen for her.

He bites down on his bottom lip as that thought thunders through him.

What was it all for? He ponders. If I can't help her… if there's nothing I can do here, then what was it for? She was always alone… she was always by herself… no one ever helped her…

And now Jaune is here, and he's just the same.

…No.

Some tiny part of him just… just refuses.

He won't let her suffer silently. He won't let her suffer alone. Not anymore. Not again. Not when he's right here, and he wants to help so, so badly. He's just a kid, he knows that, but…

But he's not going to be helpless.

Cinder needs help.

A part of his soul, one he's come close to glimpsing in the previous months, resonates with the rest of him.

I'm going to give it.

Cinder's body begins to glow a pale yellow, similar enough, he supposes, to his own aura.

"Kid, you…"

He'd actually forgotten Qrow had been there again, but this time, he doesn't stop. He doesn't panic or make excuses. There's really no excuse, not for what he's doing, and he knows that. He accepts that, even. Whatever they want to do to him for this once he's done, for helping what must be the worst terrorist Vale has ever seen, he'll take it. But for now, he just lets his aura pour into her.

It's not immediate. That would be too easy, he supposes. More than that, it's like he's using his aura to fan a tiny flame. He's providing the fire kindling, allowing it to grow, and rage, and live, and then, before long, his own aura is being pushed back by one the color of the sunset.

And it's all he can do to smile, a tiny, half-broken thing, as he turns and looks over at Qrow, who's staring at him in a way that seems almost impressed, as if he hadn't expected such a thing from him, and for a moment, Jaune thinks that maybe, just maybe, everything can work out.

And then Cinder gasps awake.


End Chapter 6


OK, I feel a little evil for this one. Sorry for that. I kind of didn't have a good place to end this chapter without cucking you all. My apologies.

Anyways, next chapter, our two protagonists should actually get to interact with one another... probably. Unless Cinder just passes out again. Wouldn't that be funny?

(This won't happen, I promise)