Warning: seriously graphic scenes ahead. Viewer discretion is advised.
Who am I kidding, you're probably still going to read the chapter anyway.
"True courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one"
J.R.R Tolkien
Chapter Eighteen—A Familiar Face
"Well, well, well, look who we have here. It's little Jauney boy." Jaune couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. He gaped at Cardin through their locked weapons, wondering, hoping, praying that this was all some terrible nightmare, that he wasn't really staring at the face of the last person on Remnant he'd ever wanted to see again. But if it was a dream, then by god was it vivid. He could make our ever contour on Cardin's smirking face, detect every cruel intention in his mocking blue eyes. And that nickname… that nickname…
Nothing could prepare Jaune for the tsunami of bad memories that crashed through him at that hated name, flooding his system and drowning every sensible thought he had in a sea of irrational panic. This bully had been responsible for a ceaseless storm of torment and misery at Beacon; had made it his mission to belittle and mock Jaune through every means possible, and at the end of it all he had forced Jaune through a mixture of fear and isolation to through a jar of tree sap at his partner.
He was the reason Jaune had been forced to abandon his dream and leave Beacon.
And now he was here.
Jaune had thought he was over Cardin. He'd thought he'd left that chapter of his life far behind. But when he'd stood there and spotted Cardin for the first time in weeks, something had snapped in him. It had been a moment of sheer, animalistic rage that Jaune hadn't even realised was inside of him that had had him throwing himself at Cardin, consequences be damned. But now that he was here, weapon locked against Cardin's, watching the bully's face grinning that wicked grin of his, rage was fast being replaced with the cold sweat of terror. Everything he'd thought he'd forgotten, all the misery and the fear and the torment, every fault Cardin had picked up on and every weakness he'd taken advantage of came crashing back down on him, a mountain of negative emotions collapsing on Jaune.
And damnit if it didn't still affect him.
His blood boiled in fury one second then froze in horror the next. The fists gripping his sword trembled uncontrollably, but with what Jaune couldn't tell. His stomach was a hot, molten mess of swirling emotions and contradictory feelings. He wanted to punch Cardin and hide and spit in the jerk's face and run away and more. So much more. So much that he didn't have the slightest clue what to do. So instead he just stood there, staring at the face of his tormenter.
"Stand down!" Cardin commanded. "This one isn't bright enough to be Atlas." With a start Jaune realised he wasn't talking to him. All around him the Valesian soldiers, whom Jaune hadn't even realised were training their weapons on him, lowered them simultaneously. Since when had Cardin commanded soldiers?
Cardin smiled cruelly at Jaune through their locked weapons. Jaune tried desperately to suppress the shudder that wanted to run through him. The shark's grin now stretching across his face had always accompanied a taunting jibe or a demeaning comment, and even after all this time apart Jaune still wanted to cower when he saw that smirk. Damnit, how did Cardin control him so completely even now?
"What are you doing here, Cardin?" Jaune finally managed to grit out.
"In case you haven't realised, Jauney boy, there's a war going on. I'm trying to serve my kingdom." Cardin's crocodile grin slipped marginally. "Which, it seems, you're doing too." He knocked Jaune's blade to the side, disengaging their weapons, then shouldered his massive mace like it weighed nothing. "I guess that means we're on the same side, eh friend?" he finished, goading grin back in full force.
Jaune considered driving Crocea Mors as hard as he could through Cardin's stupid, grinning mug. He wanted to do something to Cardin. Anything. Just so long as it wiped that smirking face away and stopped the emotional whirlwind that was Jaune's insides. But he knew he'd never get close. Cardin may have looked like he wasn't in a position to defend himself, but Jaune knew he would be expecting Jaune to try something and would be as coiled as an adder. This was as much a test to see Jaune's reaction as a flaunting of his power. Reluctantly, Jaune sheathed his sword.
By this point the rest of Beta section had caught up to Jaune, instinctively spreading out in a fan to take defensive positions behind their leader. Their presence alone steadied Jaune's trembling and soothed his racing heartbeat. They would stand by Jaune. Come hell or high water, they'd have his back. For that, Jaune was more grateful than words could communicate.
Cardin studied each of them in turn, his eyes critical and judging. "So these are the strays you picked up during your time in the army," jeered Cardin. Then his eyes fell onto Aiden's, kept falling, and finally came to a stop on the bushy grey wolf tail of the Faunus. Cardin's taunting smile curdled on his face, replaced by a visage of contempt, but Jaune noticed how his eyes lit up hungrily, as if relishing the opportunity to attack a weak link. "What's this animal doing in the army?" he demanded, a child gleefully burning ants. "Last I checked, Vale needed men, not dogs to win this war." Cardin laughed cruelly at his own joke. Aiden's head remained upright, his face rigid, refusing to allow the thug's words to penetrate his silence with a retaliation. But that didn't stop Jaune noticing his tail slow its wagging and hang limp, as if ashamed of its very existence, the only clue that Cardin's jibes were cutting deeper than Aiden was letting show. "Who let you into the real men—"
Cardin was cut off by a rifle suddenly shoved against his nose.
"Say one more word," hissed Cat, her eyes ablaze even as the Valesian soldiers around them lifted their guns to aim at Cat. Beta section responded likewise, and Jaune soon found himself in the middle of a circle of rifles pointed menacingly in every conceivable direction.
"Stop!" yelped Jaune, desperate to avoid a pointless bloodbath. "Don't shoot. Cat, what on Remnant are you doing?" he hissed.
"One more word," continued Cat, completely ignoring Jaune as she trained her rage solely on the brute in front of her, "and you can eat a faceful of dust."
Cardin gulped as he stared down the business end of the rifle, then quickly regained a look of immense boredom. "You know that won't kill me, right?" he drawled, feigning nonchalance. "I have aura."
"Good," shot Cat. "I don't want this to kill. I just want you picking teeth out the back of your mouth in about two seconds if you don't stay the hell away from Aiden. Or did your mummy forget to tell you to pick on someone with balls your own size." Cat's sabre-tooth smile spoke volumes about exactly whom she was referring to.
Cardin stared hard into Cat's eyes, and whatever he saw there made him quake. "Whatever," he dismissed, attempting to regain whatever dignity hadn't been lost by Cat's vicious assault.
Cat finally lowered her weapon, though she kept it pointing in Cardin's general direction, and her wary eyes didn't leave him once. Even so, that seemed to be enough for the men Cardin had brought, who dropped their rifles, closely followed by Beta section. Jaune loosened a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.
"Now that we've established you're not Atlas," drawled Cardin, attempting to regain control of the situation, "Command's going to want to see your commanding officer. So who's that?"
"Me," answered Jaune, stepping forward again. Cardin's eyebrows rose marginally, but then he clamped down on his facial features and put the taunting mask back on.
"Are you kidding me? You, a CO? Looks like the army's standards are slipping."
"Just tell me where command is," sighed Jaune. He wanted to argue with Cardin, but it wouldn't get them anywhere. He had more important things to do.
"Sure thing, Jauney boy. Just follow me right this way." Cardin spun around and marched towards one of the bunkers hidden under the ground. Jaune paused before following him, making sure his team were alright.
"You did not have to defend me, Cat," said Aiden. "I have heard and survived far worse torment than what he gave me."
"The guy's a dick," Cat stated stubbornly. "Someone needed to put him in his place. It wasn't because I cared about you or anything," she quickly amended. "I just wanted to tell that jerk to shove it."
"Of course," replied Aiden, hiding his smile behind a hand.
"Is there somewhere my section can rest up while I talk to command?" Jaune asked one of the welcoming party. The man grunted and indicated to follow him. Jaune nodded to his squad to do so, and soon Jaune was left alone. Despite how much it pained him to do so, he hurried to catch up with Cardin.
Jaune walked a few paces behind the armoured boy, trying to make sense of his whirling emotions. Jaune wasn't stupid enough to blame Cardin solely for when Jaune had thrown a jar of sap at Pyrrha. He hadn't been controlling his hand after all. But that didn't mean Jaune couldn't blame Cardin partially. Ever since Cardin had discovered Jaune had faked his transcripts, he'd had him on a leash, and his distance from his friends towards the end had been primarily because Jaune had been so busy doing homework assignments for Cardin. Even in the Forest of Forever Fall, after Cardin and his team had surrounded and bullied Jaune into taking the jar of sap and throwing it at Pyrrha, he'd still gone and told Ozpin about Jaune's faked transcripts. Cardin had ensured that Jaune would never get the chance to talk to his team again, to apologise to them for what he'd done. He ruined his dream and his team—
Wait. His team. What if they were here too?
"Cardin," he began excitedly. "Did anyone else come with you? Did my team join the army as wel—"
"Ha, not likely," scoffed Cardin. Jaune's heart fell. "I'm the only one from the first years who knows when duty calls," he muttered bitterly.
"You… volunteered?"
"Of course I did. My Kingdom needs me, and I'll be damned before I let some frozen pricks from Atlas destroy it. The moment war broke out I went straight to Ozpin and demanded that we do something. He refused. So I decided to do it myself."
"You left Beacon? Why would you give up your dream so easily?" Jaune asked incredulously. He'd only joined the army because he'd been kicked out of Beacon, but Cardin had actively decided to leave in favour of joining the military.
"Being a Huntsman isn't all it's cracked up to be," muttered Cardin. "Ozpin is supposed to be one, but instead of fighting to protect his Kingdom and all the civilians in it, he'd rather hold onto his precious school and let the rest of the world go to hell. If that's what a Huntsman does, then you can forget it."
"What do your parents think of your decision?"
"My mum's dead," said Cardin, "and my dad hasn't cared what I do since I was eleven." Jaune flinched. It wasn't just what Cardin had said, but how emotionlessly he'd said it, as if it were just an accepted part of life.
"Cardin…" began Jaune uncertainly.
"Don't," snarled Cardin quietly. "I don't need your sympathies, and I certainly don't need your apologies. So just don't." Jaune shut his mouth.
Eventually though, as the silence dragged on, Jaune found his curiosity piping up again.
"So no one else is here? But wouldn't it give us a greater advantage to have more Huntsmen on our side, even if they're just in training." He'd have thought both Kingdoms would have been desperate to get all their Huntsmen on the front lines. Aura-enhanced individuals with their own personal shields and years of training on their sides; they seemed like the perfect super soldier. Even if he wasn't comfortable about his friends from Beacon being forced to lead the charge in this war, he'd have thought that they would have been conscripted immediately.
"Of course it would, and as far as I can tell, the council wants to mobilise the whole of the student body. But Ozpin somehow had enough influence to block that motion. Don't ask me how, because I don't know. So now those cowards get to cower behind Beacon's cosy walls whilst the rest of the Kingdom is forced to fight for its life."
"I'm sure they had good reasons to not want to join the army," Jaune argued, suddenly becoming defensive.
"Yeah, sure. Like they were too scared, and it was easier to let normal soldiers fight their battles."
"Well what about your team then?" demanded Jaune. "They're not here either."
At this, Cardin's face darkened, and he stared glumly at the ground. "They would've come," he mumbled. "They would've come if I'd ordered them. If I'd even just asked them, they would have dropped everything and joined me. But they didn't want to go. Not really. I could tell. If they'd come, they would have only done it for me. They might have died for me. I couldn't ask them to do that. I left one day without them knowing. By the time they realised, I was already long gone. It's for the best."
Jaune didn't know why he did it. Cardin didn't deserve it, and he didn't owe him anything. But when Jaune looked at the once-proud paladin before him, now reduced to slumped shoulders and wistful eyes, Jaune felt his heart inexplicably go out to the taller boy.
"We've both lost our teams," he told him, and somehow, that little bridge of empathy seemed to bring comfort to Cardin.
"Jaune…" he began uncomfortably. "What I did to your team, I… I've had a lot of time to think about it and—"
"Staff Sergeant Winchester!" a voice called. Cardin snapped his head to the side, tracking a lone soldier as he raced to catch up to them. When he eventually did, he gasped, "More… more of them… we caught more… around… the base."
Cardin's eyes were hard as granite. "Show me," he commanded. Before he could chase after the soldier though, he noticed Jaune staring at him.
"Staff Sergeant!?" That was the rank directly above Sergeant; how had Cardin been promoted so quickly?
Sometime between whatever meaningful thing Cardin had been going to say and now, he had slipped back into taunting mode as he smirked mockingly at Jaune. "This army needed some officers who knew what they were doing, and when you transfer directly from a Huntsman academy instead of being kicked out of one in shame, your seniors tend to notice you. Got promoted after day one, and I haven't let them down since. Don't feel too bad, Jauney boy. You probably wouldn't know what you were doing in my position anyway." And with that, he spun on his heel and marched after the soldier. Jaune hovered uncertainly, before realising he didn't know where command was, and hurried after Cardin.
Eventually, Cardin reached the perimeter of the base and halted. When Jaune caught up, he saw that Cardin wasn't alone.
"Our sentries spotted them sneaking around the perimeter," said the soldier, indicating a row of Atlas soldiers in front of him, all on their knees and with their hands behind their heads. "We suspect they were performing reconnaissance for the enemy. We were lucky enough to have a returning patrol in the area, otherwise they might have escaped us."
"Have you interrogated them for information yet?" questioned Cardin. The soldier nodded.
"The exact same as all the others. Just their name and rank, nothing else." Cardin's lip curled downwards.
"Tight-lipped bastards. They probably don't even know anything. Your handgun, Private." That familiar feeling in Jaune's stomach twisted uncomfortably at Cardin's words, and even more so when Cardin was handed a pistol and he checked it was loaded. Something was wrong. Cardin raised the gun, then pointed it against the nearest Atlesian soldier's head—
"Stop!" screamed Jaune, his instincts rising up and slashing at his insides. "Cardin, what are you doing!"
Cardin fixed Jaune with a poisonous glare, and in a completely flat voice told him, "Revenge."
"Cardin," gasped Jaune, his face transfixed in horror. "These are people."
"No they're not," growled Cardin. "They're monsters in human skin, every one of them. They started a war for no reason. They're responsible for hundreds of soldiers' deaths, and they're not even close to stopping."
"Cardin, you can't do this," tried Jaune. "They surrendered. They're defenceless prisoners. What about military honour?"
"Military honour," scoffed Cardin. "Where's the military honour in invading a peaceful Kingdom? Where's the honour in ambushing and killing soldiers before they even knew a war was on? Where's the honour in the atrocities these sadists have inflicted?"
"A-atrocities?" Jaune had to ask. Cardin stared at him. Then he released a bitter chuckle.
"You really have been out of the loop. Keep the prisoners here until I get back," he commanded the Valesian soldiers. "Come with me, Arc," he ordered. Jaune uncertainly followed.
Cardin took him to what he supposed was the entrance of this place, and there they got into a jeep and drove out of the base. Jaune wanted to ask where they were going, but Cardin was practically simmering in silent fury as he drove, so Jaune decided to keep his questions to himself.
A few minutes later, Cardin pulled over from the dirt track they'd been driving on, exited the vehicle, and headed into the forest. Jaune hurried after him. Cardin took him deeper and deeper into the woods, striding purposefully in a single direction. Jaune was just about to risk asking where they were going, when the undergrowth suddenly disappeared before him. Jaune came face to face with a clearing too circular to be natural and choked on the words he'd been about to say as he stared at a small village.
Or at least, what was left of it.
Burnt, blackened husks of buildings were all that remained of a once vibrant frontier community. Individual pillars remained reaching tentatively into the sky: a crumbling wall here, a blackened chimney there, mere tombstones to the larger structures they were once a part of. Rubble littered the ground like pebbles, creating a patchwork of burnt wood, scorched stone and warped metal across the streets and pathways that crisscrossed the graveyard of buildings.
Without even realising, Jaune's feet had carried him towards the dead village, mesmerised by the mess of mindless destruction. He walked on dead feet as he navigated around the debris strewn ground, soaking up every horrific detail he could see. A single doorframe was all that was left of one house, opening to a scattering of wooden beams and broken brickwork, a mocking apparition of what once stood there, tall and proud. A single stone building seemed to have survived mostly intact from whatever nightmare heat had scorched this village level. One wall had collapsed inwards, revealing a too silent interior, void of any life. It hadn't been a particularly tall building, but now it seemed to dwarf the surrounding world, a sentinel keeping vigilant watch over the corpses of its friends.
And then Jaune found the first body.
It lay curled up in the street, a charred foetus weakly hugging itself as the breeze softly played with it, rocking the corpse back and forth ever so slightly. In another world it may have been mistaken for a toy, so indiscernible were any of its features. Jaune couldn't even make out its face. He hated how relieved that made him feel.
From there it wasn't hard to find the others. How Jaune had missed them he had no idea. But now that he was looking for them, they were everywhere. Hidden under piles of masonry. Slumped over remnants of furniture. Lying in the street, caught half way between fleeing and screaming as whatever fire had done this overtook them and reduced their forms to ash.
And then Cardin was there, staring grimly at the devastation around him. Jaune's voice was weak, his mind numb at the death all around him as he asked, "What happened?"
"On the first day of the invasion Atlas bombed this place to rubble," Cardin ground out. "It was an aerial attack. The residents didn't even get any warning before Atlas razed this place to the ground."
"Why?" Jaune begged. "Why do this? What purpose does it serve?"
"Some people say it was faulty intelligence on their behalf, but you don't confuse a village for a military base. These bastards did this intentionally. For what reason, I don't know."
Jaune said nothing more as he and Cardin return to the jeep. He stared as long as he could at the ruined village, the place where so many lives had been needlessly snuffed out, and tried to commit every detail to memory. There was nothing he could do for the lives that had been lost except remember them. It wasn't enough, he knew. Not even close to enough. But it was something.
The afterimage was still burning hot in Jaune's mind when Cardin pulled over again a little later and got out. With a shock, Jaune realised they weren't back at the base. He followed Cardin apprehensively.
Jaune soon realised he was being taken to another part of what he supposed was the front line. A latticework of trenches sliced the earth, reinforced with corrugated metal walls and watched over by regularly placed command centres: little more than sandbag-reinforced indents into the earth. Cardin approached one of them, and a soldier came out. They exchanged a few words, before the soldier pointed along the line of trenches and Cardin nodded, setting off parallel to the deep scratches in the ground.
Eventually, he reached a squat wooden hut a little behind the trenches and went inside. Jaune followed.
The moment Jaune ducked into the dim interior, he instantly gagged and flung a sleeve over his mouth and nose. God, what was that smell? It was a putrid combination of reeking blood and rotting flesh that rammed up his nose and choked his breath. It reminded Jaune for a brief moment of a slaughterhouse he'd once made the mistake of visiting, but far worse, a sick and twisted combination of decay and death mingling in the air. The stench was overpowering, clogging his lungs and making his eyes burn.
Then his eyes adjusted to the low light, and they watered for a completely different reason.
Because lying stretched out on the ground inside the shack, head to toe and toe to head, were corpses. Discernibly human this time. Their throats were gruesomely slashed open with a cut too identical on each carcass to be the work of humans. Their eyes were open in shock, staring unseeingly at the inhuman apparition that had murdered them all. Flies buzzed incessantly around the bodies, so thick they choked the air.
This time Cardin didn't wait for a question from Jaune before explaining the horror he was seeing. "In the middle of the night a death squad of robots killed the sentries and snuck into a part of the line. They killed everyone posted there. After waking them up," he added, indicating the same stunned expression on the corpses' faces. "The icy pricks didn't even have the stomach to do it themselves."
"Why?" gasped Jaune, fearing if he opened his mouth to speak any more than the single word he'd puke.
"To send a message," spat Cardin. "To try to scare us into submission. They didn't even try breaking the line. Just slaughtered the soldiers who manned it. These are the murderers you're defending."
Jaune wanted nothing more than to escape this suffocating space, but he couldn't stop staring at the men and women lying on the floor. All this mindless death, just to send a message? Who would do such a thing?
When Cardin finally took Jaune back outside, he greedily gasped down gulps of fresh air, but somehow it still tasted tainted with the reek of spilled blood, the stink of too cold corpses, the stench of rotten dreams and lost hope. The smell of death.
Jaune put a finger to his face, shocked when it came back wet. Why was he crying? He didn't even know the people who'd died. Did that make it better or worse?
The next few minutes past in a blur; Cardin taking him back along the front lines, getting into the jeep, driving away at last, the putrid stench of death following him all the way.
Eventually though, Jaune's mind was torn from the endless reel of unseeing faces as Cardin pulled the jeep over a third time and sat fuming. In a meek voice, not really wanting to know the answer, Jaune asked, "Why are we he—"
"Look," snapped Cardin, and for the first time, Jaune really did. Not left or right along the dirt track, or even into the gloomy forest ahead or behind. But up at the bodies hanging from the trees, slowly swinging in the afternoon breeze.
Jaune recoiled in horror. He tried to scramble backwards, only to be trapped by the hard back of his seat. His stomach roiled, and this time the vomit finally came, spewing forth over the sides of the car as his body retched and convulsed. Jaune's whole body trembled as he hoped, begged, prayed that he was wrong about what he'd just seen, that this was some sort of grotesque illusion, or just a trick of the setting sun. But Cardin's grim face and stony eyes told Jaune that he wasn't the only to see this image.
Jaune tried to keep his head down, but his treacherous eyes trailed upwards once more, unable to tear themselves away for long from the monstrosity that hung mere meters above his head.
Jaune bit back on the acrid taste of vomit as his eyes roved over the hovering bodies. There was a dozen of them, strung up over half a dozen branches, their combats dyed red and their necks puffy and purple from the thick rope which suspended them from the tree. Their stomachs had shallow gashes in them, bloody and raw, as if a butcher's knife had been carelessly swung into them, revealing their purple entrails to the elements. Blood dripped irregularly from the ghastly wounds, the drip, drip, drip, punctuating the too silent forest around them, as if the horror of what had occurred were squeezing the life out of nature and sending its animals scurrying for shelter. Along the branches of the tree a murder of crows kept vigil, hopping around and over the grotesque bodies, their beady eyes bearing into Jaune's as they cawed ominously.
"We sent this section out on a reconnaissance patrol two days ago," growled Cardin, his voice brittle and rough. "We found them here this morning. We haven't even had the time to cut them down. This is the honour the frozen bastards give our men." Cardin indicated the hanging soldiers.
Jaune was still staring at the sickening sight when Cardin put the jeep in reverse and turned them around, heading back along the dirt track. Finally satisfied that Jaune had seen enough, Cardin drove them back to the base. Before Jaune knew it, they were back where they'd started, standing over the Atlesian prisoners who, true to Cardin's command, hadn't moved an inch.
Finally, Cardin spun to face him. "Now you understand. These are the things we're up against. This is what we face. What did you think we were doing all this time while you were off prancing around the forest? Having picnics and tea parties?
"I… I didn—"
"Did you think this was a game? Did you imagine there would be no stakes? That innocents wouldn't be walked all over by an invading force with no morals?"
"Cardin, I don—"
"Well sorry to break it to you, Jauney boy, but this is the real world," spat Cardin. "This is war. Innocent people have died because of these pricks, and you're defending their murderers. You might as well be spitting on their graves."
"I'm not defending th—"
"No?" demanded Cardin. "Then prove it."
"What do yo—Oooff!" Jaune suddenly found the wind punched out of his lungs as Cardin's handgun was thrust into his chest.
"You've seen what these monsters have done," Cardin hissed, his face inches from Jaune's ear. "You know how much they deserve to suffer. The punishment of their crimes is death, and you're going to be the one to do it, Jauney boy." Cardin stepped back, sweeping an arm wide like a ringmaster revealing his circus act, except these actors were bound prisoners, and their act was to die.
Jaune took the weapon in shaky hands, feeling the cold bite of the metal against his palm.
What Atlas had done, the sickening tortures they'd inflicted on civilian and soldier alike… wasn't death only fair? Was it not justice?
Jaune slid the clip out of the gun, checking how many bullets were in it. Nine. The exact number of prisoners on the ground. Jaune's stomach flipped.
This was war, he tried to remind himself. Not some gentlemen's sport. People fought dirty. People died. People had died. And it was all because of Atlas. Atlas, who these prisoners had willingly fought for. Who had gone along with their invasion of a peaceful Kingdom, knowing innocents would be killed. Even if they hadn't been the ones to hang those Valesian soldiers, they may as well have prepared the rope.
Jaune raised the gun, the weight of it somehow trebling in the time it took to lift it. He pointed it at the first prisoner, the man's eyes going wide with terror. Real, human terror. The gun in Jaune's hands shook. It dipped, then rose again, then twisted to the side, somehow unable to focus on the imploring prisoner in front of him. The imploring person.
He looked at the prisoners again and tried to relate these faces to the monsters who had brought such devastation to Vale. Tried to convince himself that the savages who had hanged and cut open Valesian men and women like pigs were these men before him. Tried to trick himself into believing these weren't people, like Cardin had done.
He couldn't do it.
When he looked into their faces, he didn't see monsters. He saw people. Bad people, maybe. People who had done some terrible things, had made some terrible mistakes. But people nonetheless. Human beings like himself. No one deserved to be murdered in cold blood, no matter what they'd done.
The arm holding the gun fell to Jaune's side. "No," he whispered.
"What?" demanded Cardin.
"I can't do this."
Cardin's lip downturned into a snarl. "Pathetic. Fine then." Cardin snatched the gun from Jaune hands and turned it on the prisoners. "I'll do it myself."
"No, Cardin wait!" begged Jaune. "Don't do this, please. This isn't right."
"None of this is right, Arc!" spat Cardin. "Do you think it was right for these pigs to slaughter our men in their sleep? Do you think it was right for them to bomb that village to rumble without a care for who was inside of it? Do you think it was right for them to butcher our men and string them up like carrion food? We don't have a choice. I don't have a choice. This is war. There's no place for morality on a battlefield."
Jaune was stunned into silence by the sheer ferocity of the words Cardin had spat at him. So much so that the only thing he could say to the taller boy was, "We always have a choice, Cardin."
Cardin paused, staring at the pistol in his hand. He breathed in deeply, and when he let the breath go it came out ragged and uneven. "I knew those men," he growled. Jaune stared at him. "I knew the ones they hanged. They were under my command. My protection. They were my responsibility. And I sent them out on that patrol. Straight into Atlas' hands. Command didn't blame me. They said I couldn't have foreseen the consequences of my actions. That I made the right call with the information I had. But I know. Deep down I know." Cardin's eyes met Jaune's dead on. "I sent them to their deaths."
That was sadness. Real, raw, gut-wrenching sadness in Cardin's eyes. And guilt. A guilt that bled into an anger Cardin couldn't bottle up. An anger that had to be directed at someone, anyone. Because if it wasn't, it might just turn internal. And Jaune knew what that felt like. To hate yourself. What you'd done. Knew that Cardin needed to release his wave of frustration on these prisoners, and even on Jaune. Because deep down, he was afraid of hating himself.
"If it had been your section hanging from those trees," said Cardin, "what would you do?"
Jaune saw it. In an instant, every nightmare he'd had of losing his section was projected onto the scenes he'd witnessed today. He saw Naomi hanging from a tree, her blue hair matching her blue lips as her too cold body swung gently in the breeze. He saw Cat hanging next to her, her defiant eyes plucked out by crows, leaving nothing but gaping holes to stare defeatedly at the world. He saw Bounty, his large gut slashed open, his intestines slipping out as faceless soldiers repeatedly drove knives through his stomach. He saw Terry, his eyes wide in shock, his pale face turned bone white as his lifeforce bled through the slit in his throat. He saw Phil, curled into a foetal position, charred black and indistinguishable from any other body in that graveyard village except for the tuff of black hair still visible and a speck of dull red armour just discernible though the soot. He saw Finn, lying in a ditch, his back riddled with holes, his leaking blood staining the dirt red.
Cardin saw all this flash across Jaune's face as he said, "Good," and raised his handgun once more to point at a prisoner. It was a short, young man, barely older than Jaune himself, but his round, childish face made him look younger. He stared fearfully at the gun in front of him, and his bottom lip trembled. When Jaune looked at this kid, he didn't see a monster. Or an enemy. Or even a soldier. He saw… he saw…
Buzz.
The boy Jaune had let die, who had looked so similar to this man despite the continents that had separated them. The boy whose death had almost torn his sister apart. The boy who had died, not because of Atlas soldiers, or bandits, or other people. But because of the Grimm. The true monsters. The ones who didn't care for race or nationality or Faunus versus human. The ones who killed indiscriminately, man, woman and child.
The real enemy. And the ones who might be orchestrating this whole war, turning ally against ally and man against fellow man. The ones who were truly responsible for all the deaths.
Was Jaune about to let them kill another person, like he'd let them kill Buzz?
"Cardin, don't," he begged. "Don't become the monster you claim they are."
Cardin gritted his teeth together so hard Jaune feared they'd shatter. His breathing deepened, increasing in rate, as if he were feeling his anger build and build inside of him. Then he suddenly roared and rounded on Jaune, stalking up to him, his entire body shaking with barely restrained fury. "Don't you dare sit there and tell me what's right and wrong, as if you're some kind of saint. What the hell do you know? You've been here less than a day and have seen just a handful of strangers dead at the hands of these barbarians. I've been here weeks. I've had to overwatch men and women I knew get cut down from the trees they hanged from. I've had to write reports to my seniors, listing the men under my command who've been tortured and killed. What right do you have to just march in here and start telling me what I should be doing, like some self-righteous prophet?" Cardin by this stage had advanced on Jaune, close enough that the spittle which flew from Cardin's mouth hit Jaune. Jaune had never, in his entire time at Beacon, seen Cardin so livid, but he didn't back down from the bully.
"We shouldn't stoop to their level," Jaune argue. "We're better than they are."
"No," growled Cardin. "I'm not. And I give you a week before you aren't either." He turned and stomped back to line of prisoners, shoving the barrel of his weapon into the back of the young man's head. Jaune flinched, but still Cardin hesitated. He growled, his finger wrapping around the trigger. But still he didn't shoot. Couldn't.
Tentatively, Jaune said, "You trained to be a Huntsman to protect people, Cardin. You can still do the right thing. You can still be a good guy."
Cardin seemed to mentally wrestle with what Jaune had said, his face contorting as he struggled with that notion. But then he shook his head. "There are no good guys in war," he muttered. Then he pulled the trigger.
Jaune squeezed his eyes shut just before the weapon went off, but still the sound jarred his bones and grated his ears. He felt hot tears forming underneath his eyelids. He'd failed. He'd failed to save the poor Atlas soldier. And he'd failed to save Cardin's soul.
"Damn you, Arc, for making me the villain."
Jaune opened his eyes. The smoking barrel of the handgun rested on top of the Atlesian boy's head, who's entire body was clenched as tight as a cocked gun. But slowly, as the man realised he wasn't dead, he opened his eyes, and when he realised that he could still see he gasped in relief, joyous tears flooding his eyes as he experienced the beautiful sensations he'd thought he'd never feel again. Jaune stared at Cardin. Cardin's eyes were baleful, a new level of distain and anger directed at Jaune. But among that, hidden deep behind the folds of hate Cardin was careful to lay in its way, the slightest hint of relief twinkled. Jaune didn't comment on it.
"Get these prisoners somewhere secure," Cardin growled. "Command wants you," he snapped to Jaune. "You can find your own way there."
I did warn you guys. Ok, that was a depressingly dark chapter. This fic has never exactly been Universal (I did murder a 16 year old kid after all) but this is definitely a dark chapter, even for me. Why did I write it? It wasn't just for some cheap shocks. I wanted to make it absolutely clear that this fic doesn't condone war (quite the opposite), and I wanted to add an element of just how horrific war can be. There are real stakes to this story. If Jaune and co can't find a way to stop this war, innocent people are going to die. Innocent people are dying, and every day this conflict continues more and more are suffering because of it. If that isn't a good motivation to want to stop it, I don't know what is. The scenes Jaune was shown this chapter are intended to both prove that he is a good guy (choosing to take the moral ground over Cardin and not to give in to revenge) and also to act as the driving force for Jaune over the last arc (no pun intended) of this story.
I wish I could say that I made up all these scenes this chapter, and whilst that's partially true, unfortunately I took a scary amount of inspiration from the real world. During WW2, Britain decided to follow a strategic bombing strategy which leveled German cities and killed thousands, most infamously the firebombing of Desden, which killed anywhere from 35,000 to 135,000 civilians, done just years after Britain itself had suffered from its cities being bombed in the Blitz. During the Normandy campaign after D-day, next to no German SS troops were taken captive, partially because they were fanatical soldiers who often fought to the death rather than surrendering, but also because Allied soldiers who captured them often just executed them on the spot. During this time both sides were also known to have hanged captured enemy soldiers, often in revenge attacks. The sad truth is, war often turns even the best of men into monsters. I wanted to capture some of that in this fanfic.
Although, it should be noted that there is more to this than is meeting the eye. It may look like Atlas is committing war atrocities, and then Vale is responding in kind, but don't forget we're only seeing it from Vale's perspective...