Some semblances are oft crafted by the soul of the person, yet some are shaped by the experiences of their owner. In that case it can be either a blessing or a curse and for one Jaune Arc, when captured by the White Fang, he learns his Discompose certainly seems like the latter.
Pain is Merely a Touch Away.
By
Hibiki
Imagine you could have the rights to RWBY, but for the rest of your life, you would have to clean up every mess or problem created by every Rooster Teeth 'Million Dollars, But..." challenge accepted. Would it be worth it? Not for me.
RWBY is created by Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth.
Chapter Eight: The First Steps
(-o0O0o-)
It was a quiet calm morning for the man who had seen too many. One he had often come to enjoy, even if it had taken him centuries and hundreds of lives to finally do so. So it came as a shock to him when Ozpin looked up from his scoll with a tweaked eyebrow as his elevator chimed it's quaint pleasant ding before two figures strode out of the disrupting the peace with anger and more importantly, rage.
"I insist you listen to me this instant! I can have you removed if you keep on this path!" Glynda announced hurrying after the monochromatic blur heading right for him, amber eyes flashing dangerously.
"OZPIN!" If the voice had been in a deep rumbling base and male, then tone of his name turned curse would have been identical to that of Hazel, a man he had mentioned only just last night. To the person shouting his name's partner in fact.
"Ms. Belladonna." He tried to calm her but even saying her name only seemed to incense her more. The young woman slammed her hands onto his table, enough to spill some of his coffee onto it.
"Never again, you hear me? NEVER. I don't give a damn who you think you are, but if you do that to Jaune again I will GUT you." Ozpin had seen those eyes before, and knew her words to be true as the sun rising to the east. Glynda had heard enough and was about to speak out in anger when Ozpin gave her a signal to stand down. His headmistress looked distressed, a student had just threatened the headmaster, but Ozpin gave the signal again, telling her to stand down and leave. With confusion swirling with anger she did so, giving him one last look of worry before the elevator door closed, leaving them alone.
"I understand your, anger, Ms. Belladonna. But before we speak, please sit." Blake made no motion to sit down, forcing the man to sigh, rubbing at his nose to ease the coming stress. "Very well... This isn't the first time a team leader has walked into my office to threaten me about a teammate, but I do have to say you have broken the record by a week." His words didn't change the look of anger on the girl's face, not that he thought they would. "However in what way have I wronged your partner, Miss Belladonna?"
"When he came back, he was shaken. His nightmares the strongest they had been in months. He was in pain." Blake's face wasn't just anger now, it was pain, Ozpin's dull brown eyes took that in as the faunas continued. "In a way he hadn't been since Anima."
"When you ran into the Branwen tribe." Blake went on the defensive, hand reaching for a small hidden dagger she always kept on her person since her capture, but stilled when the man made no move for anything, merely giving her a bored look over his glasses. It was a weird feeling for the girl, one that was far too similar to Adam's intimidating aura than she cared to like, but yet, older, more refined. As if her going for the weapon wouldn't have made any difference to the man one way or another.
"H-how do you know about that?" Ozpin took a moment to dab at the spilled drink on his desk with a napkin before responding.
"A ex-college of mine is a part of the tribe, one of the few who escaped unscathed by Mr. Arc's offensive to save you. Her twin brother, however, is still a valued friend who she was brought to by means of a portal. This friend was told by his sister why he inundated by half a dozen of the tribes finest and he in turn told me. It didn't occur to me that you and Mr. Arc were the ones in Raven's description to my friend until I spoke to him a few days ago when he was in town."
Ozpin casually picked up his coffee and took a sip before resuming.
"Of course I had been following your trail since the bodies of twenty two faunas in white fang garb had been found just west of Mistral." Blake froze. "Half who appeared to have committed suicide while others died defending against a Grimm swarm." That was news, the camp had been well over fifty strong. It was one of the larger White Fang encampments, just shy of the one surrounding Sienna in one of the lower echelons of the Mistral capital, hence why they braved the wilds west after escaping. "Of course it only became clear it was a semblance when an Inn suffered a similar fate in Higanbana a week later." Blake looked uncomfortable at hearing. "No suspects were apprehended and anyone still alive were unable to talk about the person responsible."
"We needed to get away before more innocents were hurt." Blake defended.
"Seeing the results, I have to agree with that assessment. It was only due to the quick responses of Professor Lionheart and Haven Academy that kept the village from being overrun by Grimm." Blake rubbed the detached sleeve of her outfit looking guiltily about before sighing.
"It's one of the reasons I became a huntress. To help those who we... I've harmed." Ozpin raised a slender eyebrow before answering.
"The reason I pushed your partner is that despite what you may hope for Mr. Arc, he needs to accept the reality you want so desperately to keep from him.
"And what is that, professor." Her voice had regained some of it's venom as she recovered from the shock of him knowing in some detail about her and Jaune's journey to Sanus.
"Acceptance of, which in this case, the pain he has suffered. It will be the first step in recovering from the events that happened in Anima."
"What do you mean recovering? He's doing better. He's getting better everyday." Blake argued.
"But is hiding the pain, truly progress? No, what I fear is more like how Mr. Arc protects against his semblance is how he is coping with his time with the White Fang. Then answer to both issues becomes clear. It is to remove the need to cover. To let him take control of the issues rather than let them control him. It will be hard, and he may remember much he has tried to forget, but with help, he will gain control." Ozpin looked to the screen before him. "Classes will start soon, you should head to your team and get ready." Blake looked to her scroll and sighed, knowing the man right.
"This isn't over. We will discuss this again before I send him back. I'm worried for his safety, mentally and otherwise." She turned and began walking away.
"But is that only what you are truly worried about, Blake?" Ozpin gave her another hard stare. "Or are you trying to run from your part in his suffering?"
Blake paused a moment, hand hovering over the call button a moment before pressing it. The doors parted with a chime allowing the girl entry but before she did she turned back halfway to call over her shoulder.
"I already accepted that one day he will hate me, that I will feel his full semblance... But I care too much for him than to just... leave. I can't run away, knowing he would be completely and utterly alone. That's more pain than either one of us can stand."
The door gave one more chime, closing behind her, leaving a man thinking.
"Was I ever that stubborn?" Silence reigned for a few seconds before a slightly more amused ozpin spoke again. "Right. I was much worse. We both were."
(-o0O0o-)
It was a hard thinking Blake who returned to her room to marshal her team. The trio awaiting her were ready for class already, no doubt having took her announcement as she rose to talk to Ozpin seriously. Ren and Nora in the beacon garb and Jaune remaining in his normal heavy duty coverings. It made her think harder about
"We have classes in twenty, lets get some food." Jaune was up a hair slower than Nora who was already dragging Ren behind her as she skipped towards the cafeteria. "No nuggets."
"Aww." Jaune pouted, and despite her previous talk with Ozpin, Blake couldn't resist smirking at hearing his whine.
"Eat good today and I'll let you be bad tomorrow. I promised your mother I'd try and make sure you ate healthy. I'm not an Arc but I know better than to not keep one made to one." Jaune cupped her shoulder, giving her a quick hug she leaned into.
(-o0O0o-)
Jaune grasped at his stomach, covered in lines upon lines of cuts just barely deep enough to cause him to cry out as the two grunts all but threw him down into the cell that had become his home this past month. The two never looked back, leaving him to lay there bleeding into the already darkly stained floor. He tried to sit up but had no strength or ability. His right hand unable to do anything but twitch in agony, bleeding through it's dirty bandages, as Blake came rushing forward with a rapidly depleting medical kit.
"Jaune...! Oh God, what did he do to you?" She whispered worriedly, dabbing at his fresh wounds as quickly as she could, tears gathering as she watched the man take a gasping cough as his raw throat refused to moisten from his screams she had refused to listen to, returning to her post far sooner than normal. She paused in her treatments to give him some water that had come from her rations before returning to the mess Adam had made to his stomach. "Why... Why does he keep doing this?" She whispered to herself out loud, unable to internalize her horror.
"D-don't know." Jaune replied. Her amber eyes looked through the tears to see his bloodshot cerulean looking into hers.
"I.. I wasn't... Don't speak, save your strength." Jaune's left hand found her right, him trying to give a reassuring smile through his pain.
"If I can-gk-t speak, then... can you?" He coughed harder. "Tell... ng.. about you?"
"I..." She looked down, running from his intense gaze. "... I'm not certain what to say. I..."
"Won't tell a soul. Give you my... word.. as an Arc." Jaune gently squeezed her hand, making the girl look around to make sure no one was around, her fear of Adam keeping her quiet and in doubt. Once she was certain the others had truly left, she took his hand in her own, giving it's own reassuring squeeze before returning to dressing his wounds.
"I was born on Menagerie, in Kuo Kuana. My father..." 'Blake began, all the while in the back of her mind a thought began to grow. 'I'll help you escape this nightmare. Even if I can't, I'll set you free. I promise you.'
(-o0O0o-)
"You never did tell a soul."
"Hm?" Jaune looked down to her, with Blake starting realizing she had said that out loud.
"Just reminiscing about things." Jaune nodded. Blake looked around, noting their slow pace had left them alone in walking to the cafeteria. "Jaune... Do you think Ozpin is going to be able to help you? It's not too late to just leave if you think this will be a waste of our time."
"I don't know. This whole knowledge being the key and all that. Needing to know myself and what I've gone through to unlock my real semblance sounds... far fetched. But dad had come to this guy specifically so maybe there is something to it. I... what do you think I should do?"
Blake sighed. Internally she wanted to say they should go. Leave and return home. Progress was slow there but they were making progress. It would take a lot more time but Jaune would have been able to be in public in... She clenched her eyes shut. Years. It would take years upon years of him slowly torturing himself and his family mentally, years of just her being his sole physical outlet. Ozpin's ideals were more radical, more daring but the payoff could be...
"I want to give it a shot. If this doesn't work, we'll go back to what we know. But I want to be able to see you hug your family again. I want them to know how nice it feels too." Blake woodenly came to a stop, her cheeks going scarlet.
"Oh, you like my hugs, do you?" Before she could rephrase herself or remove herself she was enveloped into a real hug. She could have easily used her semblance to slip away but she didn't. She couldn't ever run from him. She wrapped her arms around him after giving up trying, settling for nuzzling close. "I guess you do."
"Shut up, Jaune." She looked to him, golden eyes staring holes into his smiling cerulean. "Don't tell anyone about this."
"I give you my word as an Arc." She smiled and leaned back into his arms for a moment.
"Hey you two! Ten minutes to class, move your butts!" Nora called out at the end of the hall, pulling the two from the embrace with words alone.
"Um... let's go eat?" Jaune awkwardly asked.
"Right! I'll be a second, get us something quick." He nodded and began running off after his teammates. "No nuggets!" He gave a halfhearted whine but continued onward giving her a moment. She rubbed her face, trying to rub the blush off her face with mixed results. "Ilia wasn't ever this hard to understand."
(-o0O0o-)
Light grey eyes looked sadly out the window as rain poured down from the dark clouds over Kuo Kuana, hitting her tarpin roof with a solid pattering. Her home sat high on the rim of the valley that made the city her home safe from the creatures beyond the mountains. The owner of the eyes looked for the countless time to the tall imposing structure in the center of the city, it's lights dim even with her faunas eyesight against the heavy rain. She sighed, remembering her first love, her dreams, and the pain of jealousy that still filled her.
"Sister Ilia." The girl's eyes widened and turned away from her gaze to the Belladonna home to the two figures in the doorway. She quickly scrambled to her feet, kneeling before them humbly.
"Brothers Albain? Why have you braved this storm to come see me?"
"We've received word that our wayward Sister Blake has appeared in Vale, at Beacon Academy... Along with her pet monster." Ilia's expression matched her changing colors. "You know her best out of all of the White Fang capable of infiltrating." Corsac started. His brother continued.
"Sister Blake has lost sight of her goals, her beliefs. She's been seduced by the monster which slaughtered countless of our brothers and sisters and has caused considerable harm to our Brother Adam and his surviving men." Fennec sneered.
"How do you know she is there at Beacon?" Ilia asked.
"We overheard this information being told to the chieftain by his wife. Brother Fennec took it upon himself to look for more proof and discovered this." Corsac pulled out an envelop addressed to Kali Belladonna, the trembling waif took it and slid out the letter. It was from someone named Juniper. The rest of the words stopped meaning when she glanced at the photo that had been put between the folds of the letter. It was a picture of Blake, her ears exposed in a way Ilia couldn't remember seeing since she was a kid, dressed very casually and laying asleep on a couch with an equally sleeping man, covered heavily up to his neck. Her love was half in his lap, with his head resting against Blake's in a way that made Ilia's blood boil in the closeness of it all. Their soft smiles upon their face was equally damming to the girl as Corsac continued. "The inscription on the back tells us this is the beast." Ilia shakily turned the photo over. BlakeXJaune. ~Aren't they so adorable, Kali?
"This mission comes straight from High Leader Khan." Ilia's eyes widened but she remained bowed, awaiting instructions. "The name of your target is Jaune Arc. Get close and remove this threat to all peoples. Even the humans will thank us for removing this threat once his true nature come to light." Fennec prose.
"It is with hope this single death shall force Brother Adam's slaughter to cease, and then the next step towards equality can begin." The brothers each put a hand on the small girl, who looked up at their faces with some awe. "This will bring you the hatred of young Blake, my dear. I know you are fond of her. But you must realize with this act, you will be our first step towards peace."
"I... I understand." Ilia swallowed the bile rising in her throat, clenching the picture in her hand. "I'll be ready to go by first light."
(-o0O0o-)
Next Chapter: The Burden of the Badge
AN:
This was easier than the last two, but in some ways harder. Weaving narratives, hidden feelings, love triangles, plots upon plots from multiple sources. This could either be the most interesting end game I'm setting up or the most convoluted hot mess I've made to date. I hope I'm good enough of a writer for it to be the first and not the second one.
Reviews:
Zellfer1: That was the name of it, yes I had all but forgotten. Yes, that was the story I got the idea from, though I have tweaked the power quite a bit.
X3runner: Thanks for enjoying it.. And no, remember Ruby isn't a leader here.
Eramis8:It wasn't said outright so maybe, just wait and see.
Tobi14: Weiss is leader... yay~... She'll soon hate it I'm sure. Three teenage girls are much different than a business. And if it isn't well someone call the cops. Ruby wanted to be normal. But normal was not thrust upon her, leadership, silver eyes, and a crazy old uncle's insane scythe style were in canon. This story at least she's not the leader. Doesn't mean she can't make up things to 'help' Weiss.
Not just Jaune coming to terms with his power and the consequences will help make Blake a better leader, more will be mentioned later. Not to mention the seven Arc sisters, who I only recently learned (today) Jaune canon wise falls somewhere under most of them in age but in this story Jaune is the oldest child.
Raven being more crazy than she is in canon? We'll see.
Jaune explaining the details of his semblance is simply Jaune in a nutshell. The reason Blake mentions his infinate capacity to care. He cares enough to want people safe from him, but deep down it makes him sad when they do keep their distance (like Pyrrha did unconsciously) because he wants to be a part of the world again. He's trapped behind all those clothes or walls from everyone else but Blake.
Qrow's faith in Ozpin is circumspect to be sure, I mean beyond Summer who has passed on during a mission, apparently dealt with by team WTCH, the other remaining members of team STRQ repudiate Ozpin. Tai moved away to Patch, Raven left the order. Why is Qrow still latched on?
Mecharic: Over 80% of the Branwen tribe were wiped out as mentioned. The rest are with Raven, more of her to come.
Disturbed911: Weiss being leader will actually be interesting to me, as I VERY rarely see it. I mean as in apparently CRWBY had Prof. Port say she wasn't a good leader and therefore IT IS LAW for Weiss to never be a leader. Yang howsoever unless it revolves around Ruby or Raven isn't as proactive as I thought as I re-watched the series. In fact she was almost more indecisive as Blake was before V4, and it took Tai saying he wasn't going to go search for Ruby because of her that Yang put the arm on. SO no, Yang as leader would have been... probably less impressive as it blowing up in Weiss' face will be. Oops spoilers.
ZenithTempest: Well I can't fault you for thinking I made errors. I can't say I haven't. Yes, Ren and Nora's stories aren't overly complex, and Ruby and Pyrrha are the main set pieces in V1-3 (The only arc I will more than likely cover in this entire fan fiction). That said there are ways around it, outside of a hilarious Omake that comes to mind I'll probably post next chapter. Jaune is central to his own little WF controversy and his power will play into the next phase of Beacon's little crazy as we get closer to the end of the the Beacon Arc. As for Blake for leader? Well true, she isn't a good leader. To be honest, NONE of them are at first or EVER. Ruby grew into it, Jaune was decent at one part of it, Sun yelled a lot at Neptune and ditched his team more often than not (still doing it too). Cardinal... was Cardinal. Coco shot things. Yeah... sad when Cinder is the best leader type person and that was a fake team. Info dump wise? *Shrugs* I got nothin. Sorry.