And here there is the second chapter for Hellbent, where I'll explain vaguely what happened that forced Jaune to leave home.
Enjoy.
The sky was clear, and the stars were shining as if to mock the two teenagers hugging at the door. One was a tall boy with messy blond hair and azure eyes, while the other was a just as tall girl with long black hair and bright green eyes. The girl was crying, hugging him for dear life. The boy was trembling too, but he was fighting back the tears.
"There is nothing you can do, Joan", he said softly. "You need to let me go".
"Why?", she asked for the umpteenth time. "Why it had to be you?".
"You already know the answer", he replied bitterly. "This is not my decision. If it were up to me, I would remain. I would remain and I would stay with you all... but it's not up to me to decide".
"You were protecting me", she said for the umpteenth time, and the response was the same as the other times.
"I was protecting you at the first hit, at the second, and the third", he murmured, closing his eyes and inhaling her hair's scent deeply. "I wasn't protecting you any more at the tenth, nor at the thirtieth".
"He attacked me!", she wailed in his shoulder.
"And I killed him", he replied, placing his cheek on her head. "I beat him. He couldn't do anything else. But instead of turning him in for aggression, I continued to hit him until he stopped moving, and then until he stopped breathing". He closed his eyes as a now familiar sense of nausea washed through him. He had killed a person...
...but it had been to protect Joan.
"But this? Why this?", she asked in tears. "Why do this?".
"Who would want a wolf among the sheep?", he asked bitterly. "They fear that there will be a second time, and I'll kill another one. I'm a murderer, Joan".
"You're a hero", she argued. "To me, you will always be a hero".
"I'm no hero, Joan. I'm weak, and even with him I won only because I picked up a piece of wood and I hit him with that", he retorted, wiping off a single tear from his eye. "Heroes have the strength to avoid hurting people. If I had been a hero, I would've found a way to stop him without killing him".
"It doesn't matter", she replied. "You're a hero to me, and that's all I care about".
"But the world isn't you, Joan, and the world looks at me as a murderer now", he whispered in her hair. "They're gonna forgive me only if I walk out of their lives. I have to go, Joan, and you can't do anything about it".
"I could come with you", she offered, and she meant it.
"And so adding suspected incest to certified murder?", countered Jaune, laughing bitterly. "No, Joan, what you can do is to stay here and live. I know you want to travel when you're older. Then do it. As soon as you can, move out of this town. Go to Vacuo: I've heard they have beautiful beaches there. Move out and live your life".
"Jaune?".
"Yes, sis?".
"You're a hero. You may not think so, but you are. You risked yourself to help me, and even if you couldn't save him because you were angry, this doesn't make you any less heroic. Heroes are humans, and humans have emotions, Jaune. Sometimes those emotions make us make mistakes", she murmured in his shoulder, and he barely heard her. "Become stronger, then. Become the hero we always wanted to become growing up. For me. Do this for me. Don't ever give up. Continue fighting for what you believe is right. Be a hero".
He looked away, closing his eyes as tears finally came through, blurring his vision. "I will".
"You're not coming back, are you?", she asked, staring at him.
All around them, the world began to turn black and wither, fracturing into tiny pieces of dark dirt. He looked at it as it crumbled around him. He wouldn't lie to his sister, the girl he had killed for. He wouldn't, and he couldn't.
"Live your life, Joan. Find someone to share it with, maybe have children if you want them, live a full, happy life", he said finally. "Do this for me, because I...".
The world was only the two of them now. Joan's tears had dried up now, and she was glaring up at the clear sky. Nature seemed to be mocking them. The worst day of their lives, it wasn't raining like usual. It was a beautiful day.
"I'm not ever coming back".
Jaune awoke quietly. His dreams were always on the same subject: Joan, the girl he had saved from aggression, the girl for who he had damned his own life. He really hoped it hadn't been for nothing. It wasn't directly her fault. She had just gone out for a walk, laughing like always at their parents' warnings about returning before dark. He had gone with her, but the two of them had separated during their walk. It had been well before dark, and the sky had been sunny and serene.
Then he had heard her cry out for help.
Of course, he had run as fast as he had been able to, grabbing a long wooden staff on the way. It hadn't been a very good staff, but it had been fine and hard wood. He had burst into a alley only to find a drunk man hitting his sister. Fury had flared inside, red-hot and all-consuming. He had leapt on the man, hitting him time and again in every spot he had been able to reach. The man had been drunk, he hadn't even tried to actively defend himself. At first he had just fallen on the ground, begging for him to stop. Then he had stopped moving, and finally he had been laying in a pool of his own blood.
Too horrified by what he'd done, Jaune had just stood there until the police had arrived, alerted by the cries for help. Joan had told them the whole story, but Jaune hadn't even been able to speak a word. The next days had been hard for everyone. The man hadn't been particularly loved by the town, but a murder was a murder, no matter the reason. Especially because it had been committed by a civilian. The major had consulted the police's chieftain and had decided to forgive him and chalk off his behaviour as stress-induced madness. However, they had also decided that he was too dangerous to keep near his family. If seeing his sister being attacked by a drunk, who would've probably just left her alone after a few hits, had resulted in murder, what would've happened if one of his sisters got really hurt?
Oh, they weren't wrong. He would've caused all the mayhem he would've been able to cause.
And so they had exiled him. As long as he kept away from the city, he would've been forgiven. His family had protested long and hard against it, but in the end they were forced to oblige. He had reassured them he would be safe, and that he deserved it for what he'd done. He had been overprotective to a crime, and he had to pay for it. He remembered that all the Arcs had dressed in black that day, without exclusion. He had farewelled them all and then had disappeared from their lives.
Probably forever.
He could still recall his parents' devastated expressions, his older sisters pleas not to go, and his younger sisters confused expressions. They had been ten at the time, and they hadn't realized what it meant `I'm going away`. Bitterly, he guessed that they had soon learned its meaning. But Joan had been the worst. She had avoided him until the moment he exited the door, and then she had hugged him, begging him not to go. He knew she had felt responsible for what had happened, but there was no coming back. He had killed a person, and he had had to pay for it. The man had been drunk and dangerous, but murder couldn't be forgiven easily even in that case.
Jaune sighed as he quickly dressed up from beneath the sheets. From the sounds of it, no one else had awoken before him, so he now just had to wait. Since no one was awake to look, he decided to let himself have some air, removing the cloth from his eyes and pulling back the hood. The fresh air of Vale's night, although polluted by the several odours from the students, was still a blessing on his skin. With another sigh, he opened his eyes, looking around. He could see it wasn't completely dark, but it everything was too blurred to even recognize the shapes. He looked down at his hands, and he only knew he was looking at them because he could see some kind of movement within the blur before him. His eyes began to burn and he blinked, easing it. He wasn't used to blink any more, nor to have his eyes uncovered. It was pleasant, but it brought up far too painful memories.
He heard the shuffling of blankets and a soft groan. Either someone was having troubled sleep, or they were waking up. He quickly tied the cloth back around his head and pulled up his hood, hiding his face again. He stood still until he could heard at least half of the students had awoken and started to get up, and only then he moved. Not that he would really need other students to be awake, but he didn't want to attract too much attention on himself. He got up and packed his things, walking to the showers.
After a thorough cleaning, he headed for the cafeteria, where he had a brief breakfast. It was all he could do not to snort at the ridiculous foods offered there. In the end, he opted for fruits and vegetables, what he had eaten during his time in the Grimmlands with the man who `trained` him. Maybe he would take some meat for lunch, but for breakfast it was better that way. He could live without eating pasta, sandwiches or any complex dish. He wouldn't mind some fish sometimes, but most of the time vegetables and meat was perfectly fine. Simple and nutrient, and for the vegetables you didn't even need to cook them, just wash them... and that was if you were picky.
Of course, Ruby had to sit at his table. Her scent preceded her, and her footsteps only confirmed the fact that yes, the smaller girl had just walked over and sat at his table. Much less obvious was the fact that a second scent, wisteria if he wasn't wrong and a hint of burning coal, and the second sound of footsteps, heavier than Ruby's. Probably, her sister had accompanied her. He just hoped they would leave him to eat in peace.
"So, you're Jaune, right?", asked Ruby's companion. From her voice he could tell it really was Yang, the older sister. "I'm Yang, Ruby's older sister!"
So much for eating in peace. He should've learned by then not to taunt fate. He nodded in silence, not wanting to lead her on. The faster the conversation died, the better it was for him. Also, it wasn't like he had many chances to be assigned to their own team. There were plenty other students... he just hoped he wouldn't end up with that boy who called Faunus `animals`. He didn't want to be accused of murder again. However, Yang seemed unfazed by his silence.
"Ruby told me you're blind", she continued. "Born or become?".
He frowned. His blindness wasn't a curse for him, and it wasn't a difficult thing to talk about for him, but how he had been blinded was another thing altogether. It would've been easy to just lie and say he had been born blind... but if they did end up in the same team, they would eventually find out. "Become", he answered wearily, trying to make her understand not to pry any further. Ruby seemed to understand, as he could heard the kick she gave the older girl under the table.
Yang, however, seemed to have the subtlety of a charging Ursa. "Uh? And how?", she asked. "Was it in an epic fight with a big bad Grimm?".
His frown turned into a scowl. Scratch what he had thought earlier: Ruby was nothing if compared to her sister's childishness. And lack of empathy. Did she really thought that only because she had asked, he should reply? His irritation flared, and he angrily bit into an apple to delay his answer as much as he could. Maybe that would give Yang the time to recognize her mistake and back off. He didn't need a prier, especially not if they ended up on the same team. It was highly improbable, but after all it was just as improbable to be assigned to someone else's team. Stacking all those low chances together, he could only hope.
"So~?", she urged him, her tone overly flirty as her voice got slightly louder, sign she had leaned in. "H-ow! Ruby! What was that for?".
He would've thanked Ruby for the help, hadn't he been busy chewing the apple into fine apple powder to ease his nerves. Okay, now he knew who could get under his skin. At the top of the list, Yang `Ruby's sister` Whatever-her-surname-was. Also the only one at Beacon who was on that list. He liked to think of himself as a patient person, but Yang's bluntness and utter lack of common sense irked him.
"Maybe it's a delicate subject!", Ruby hissed at her sister, probably thinking he wouldn't hear, and he docilely pretended not to be listening to their whispered conversation.
Yang went silent for a second, before stammering, embarrassed. "I-I'm sorry, I d-didn't think...".
"No, you didn't", he replied dryly. "But you're not the first and unfortunately it won't be the last".
An awkward silence fell on them, and nobody felt like interrupting it. Jaune finished eating his breakfast before walking out of the cafeteria and into the locker room. There was a lingering smell, and he remembered the path from the previous day. At first he proceeded blindly, but soon he caught his own scent lingering in the air, and followed it up to his locker. There were other people in the locker room, too, and he could image the stares he was getting. Keeping the hood up indoors was considered impolite, after all.
The nearer he got to his own locker, the louder a certain pair of voices grew. One was without doubt Weiss Schnee, Heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, while the other belonged to the girl with the armour, Pyrrha Nikos if he wasn't wrong. They weren't on his path, so he just walked past them and up to his locker, although he couldn't help but overheard their conversation as he opened his locker and -in complete silence- began checking his weapons. None seemed to be missing, but he needed to check thoroughly, since he lacked sight to simply see for himself.
"So, Pyrrha, have you thought about what team you'll be in?", asked Weiss, her imperious voice acute and far too near for Jaune's liking. He didn't wish ill to the girl, but he surely wished she could step a few yards away.
Maybe a few miles, too.
"Actually, I was thinking of letting the chips fall where they may", replied the other girl. This near, Jaune could clearly pinpoint the source of the sound, meaning that he knew exactly where the girl's mouth was, and with that he could calculate where the rest of her body was, meaning that he could very well attack her and hit her with precision. The girl was tall, he had to admit. In heels, she was almost as tall as he was, if not as much. Instead, Weiss was drastically shorter, arriving maybe at his chin. Just slightly taller than Ruby herself.
"I was thinking...", said Weiss, dragging the syllable to catch the girl's full attention. If any of the two had noticed him, they hid it masterfully. "We could be on a team together".
"That would be grand", cheerlessly responded Pyrrha Nikos, and Jaune raised an eyebrow, although the movement was hidden by the bandage covering his eyes. If the girl had missed that, she was as oblivious as Yang... well, almost as oblivious as Yang.
Apparently, she did miss the utter lack of enthusiasm in Pyrrha's tone, or maybe she just ignored it. He heard a quick rustling sound, and felt a very light breeze grazing his side, sign that the Schnee girl had moved. Probably spun on her heel, too, if he was right and the rustling sound was her skirt. He guessed she had seen him by now. And he wasn't wrong, although she evidently didn't expect him -or anyone, actually- to be there, because she yelped and stepped back, almost toppling Pyrrha over. Yeah, turning only to find a tall boy with his face hidden and a bandage over his eyes, with weapons in his hands, must've been quite alarming.
"You!", she exclaimed, and he raised an eyebrow at her, although she couldn't see it. Had they met before and she was recognizing him? "Why didn't you alert me of your presence?".
No, she wasn't recognizing him. She was berating him. He huffed. "Because we are in a school for Huntsmen and Huntresses. I shouldn't have had to", he replied tiredly. "You should've seen, heard, smelt or felt me or even just perceived my presence on your own, without me having to alert you of anything".
"That was rude!", she remarked. "And impolite, and... and why in the world are you wearing that bandage?".
He sighed again, but the other girl, Pyrrha, beat him to that. "Weiss... I think he can't see", she whispered to the other girl. Another one who thought blinds were deaf too.
There was a short moment of silence from Weiss, who was probably assimilating the new information, before she spoke again. "And what is a blind boy doing in a school like Beacon?", she said, her voice dripping condescension and pity. "You're just gonna get yourself killed".
"I'm not", he replied, sheathing one of his kris daggers into its sheath. "And as for the first question, to be trained, of course".
"How can you fight without seeing your enemies?", snorted Weiss, her voice less condescending and fuller of pity. "And how can you take notes in class, if you can't see?".
"I have my own way of taking notes, plus I have an impressive memory", retorted Jaune. It was true: after all, he could still remember how his family looked like. He could even recall a mental image of his family. "And I base my fight on my other senses. For example, I could easily attack you by smelling all the perfume you drowned yourself in, Ms Schnee. It's so strong it leaves a trail for almost an hour".
If she was impressed, she hid it well. "Sight is basilar for fighting. Without sight, you can't pinpoint the enemy's exact position, nor you can take notice of the formation of the ground you're fighting on", she argued valiantly but uselessly. "And since we're gonna be divided in teams, I might add that blindness will prevent you from taking note of where you own companions are, and end up messing teamwork up".
"Who say sight is necessary for fighting has never met a blind warrior before", he shot back, quickly drawing a heavy and pointed machete and placing its tip right under Weiss's chin, applying just enough pressure to make her tilt her head back and look at him dead in the eyes... bandage. Both she and Pyrrha probably reached for their weapons, given the sounds of it, but he simply removed the blade from Weiss's throat and sheathed it on his back with nonchalance. "I can base my fighting style on my other senses and my Aura. In my opinion, it's you the one who's fighting without using your full capability of perception".
Weiss was silent for a second. "So it would seem", she finally said, trailing off as if not completely convinced. "Anyway, you called me by surname, so I guess you know who I am".
"Not difficult to guess, even without really seeing you", grumbled Jaune.
"Do you know her?", she continued, probably gesturing to the other girl, although he couldn't see it.
"I've heard she's called Pyrrha Nikos, on the Bullhead", he replied lightly, grabbing another machete and letting it join its twin on his back. "If that's knowing, yes I know her. Otherwise, I fear I've never met her before". He paused for a second and turned to the other girl, pinpointing her direction by the faint sound of her breathing. "Anyway, hi".
"Hi", she replied cheerfully.
"This", remarked Weiss. "Is Pyrrha Nikos".
"Hello again", said girl stated.
"Small tip", continued the Schnee. "She graduated at the top of her class at Sanctum".
"Never heard of it", he shrugged. As far as he was concerned, a sanctum was either a safe place, or a holy one.
"Oh", scoffed Weiss, not at all put off by his ignorance. "She won the Mistral Regional Tournament, four times in a row... a new record, I might add".
Feeling the atmosphere beginning to tense up, Jaune decided to make one of the jokes he hated most in the world. "I fear I haven't seen her".
Weiss growled under her breath, now angry. Okay, not a good move, although Pyrrha had to stifle a giggle.
"She's on the front of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box!", exclaimed Weiss, earning the attention of several students nearby.
"Oh, really?", he asked, now interested. "Wow. If I remember right, Jinn and Jade love that cereal... and Jay too, although she won't ever admit it. That's cool".
"Yeah, it was really cool", agreed Pyrrha, sheepishly. "Unfortunately, it's not really healthy".
"That's what I always told them", nodded Jaune. "But I guess they learned it the time they found a dead spider -a big, hairy, dead spider- in a box... Jade almost missed it when she put the cereal in the bowl... she noticed only when she scooped it up with the spoon. Poor girl. She had the greatest and longest freak-out in the history of Remnant for that".
Both Weiss and Pyrrha whimpered at that. Nobody should find a spider in a box of cereal. Weiss, who had eaten it a couple of times before, sounded like she was keeping herself from throwing up, Pyrrha not too far behind.
"That's...", began the taller girl. "An effective way to learn?".
"You can say that", smirked the boy. "She never touched a cereal again, and she got arachnophobia".
#####
The wind was whipping his skin like icy blades, but he welcomed it gladly after being forced indoors with a herd of wild hormonal students. Ugh, the smell.. luckily it was over. Now, he could still feel their scents, like Ruby's of rose petals from beside him, but the wind made them all bearable. He was standing on a plate of metal. He couldn't define the exact metal from just tapping his foot on it and listening to the sound of it, but he could tell it was hollow underneath... either that, or housing mechanisms, and he wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be the latter. It seemed many things had gears around there.
Most of those things were other students' weapons.
Not his. His weapons had no machinery in them, apart from the scabbard of Crocea Mors. Apart from the sword and the shield, he had a couple of machetes on his back, and a grand total of six krises, two at his waist, two at the sides of his legs and two on his torso. His armour had broken almost a year prior, so he just went with a reinforced leather armour, and hoped for the best.
Ozpin's little speech had been very interesting -lie- but he would've really liked to understand who was the idiot who just forced four random people together for four years and expected them to work together? Ozpin, apparently. And Goodwitch didn't disagree, either. His respect for the man fell off a cliff. He had the advantage of literally having to uncover his eyes, so he could at least choose his partner, but what about the rest of them? What about the rest of the team? He could really understand her when Ruby whimpered from beside him.
And then, when he was somehow -he suspected the metal plate for it- sent flying into the air, with absolutely no control over his direction nor angle of descent. How irksome. He hated those situations, where he could do nothing but prepare himself for the future and hope for the present. He heard several gunshots, although they were still up in the air, and he guessed some students were using the recoil of their ranged weapons to try and slow themselves down. The only problem was that, being blind, he hadn't a ranged weapon. So he just resigned himself to his fate and free-fell down toward what Ozpin had said was a forest. If it was, then he'd be better be prepared.
Sighing, he unfolded Crocea Mors's scabbard into kite shield form and climbed on it as if surfing. Probably ridiculous, but it would serve his purpose. Keeping his shield in front of him to slow himself down even if just fractionally, and his legs slightly bent, ready to jump, he just had to wait a few more seconds before it happened.
As soon as the shield impacted against a tree, he jumped on the opposite direction, absolutely shattering said tree and the one behind that, but gracefully landing on the ground without many problems. Following his scent still lingering on the shield, he reached the weapon and picked it up, placing it back at his waist as he took out a machete and began slicing his way through the forest.
Okay, it's hard to imagine people's reaction to a blind student, but I guess it would be that. A mix of pity and disdain. And many opportunities to make dumb jokes... no, wait, blind jokes.
Until next time,
Khor Evik Vlakhavlakh