Fair warning this chapter is a little darker than the last two. I did plan for the story to have a couple of more mature elements in it but didn't think it justified a M rating. I might have to change it further down the line for for now the T rating seems fine.

Chapter Three: Guilt

Crocea Mors sliced right into the skull of an oncoming enemy. As Jaune yanked the blade out of the featureless silhouette of a man holding an axe, it dissolved into a thousand pieces of light and another hologram holding a sword came running at him from behind. He spun the hilt of his sword around, so that it was pointing down, and thrust the sword backwards. His body turned with the strike, bringing all his weight behind it. It sliced into the side of the oncoming enemy and came out the other side. A third enemy came from above and brought down a over the head strike using a mace. Jaune's shield came up above him with plenty of time to block it. His knees buckled slightly from the strike but he pushed through it and swung his shield which pushed his enemy's Mace out of the way and leaving it's center open. He ran in through with Crocea Mors. Before the enemy had even disappeared two more came from each side. One using a spear and the other a using two knives. He blocked the spear easily enough with his shield but only managed to retract his sword arm far enough to take the downward swings on his forearm. Subconsciously he must have known his aura had taken a hit but at this point he neither realized or cared. He brought his right arm up as high as possible and swung the front of his shield into his opponents face. The force was enough to knock it back but not enough to register a kill. He was unable to follow it up however as he continued to spin clockwise and blindly swung Crocea Mors at the other enemy. Its spear met the strike but the aura infused into the attack knocked the enemy over. This time he was able to follow up the attack and kicked the downed enemy in the stomach pushing it out of the ring. He turned around to put the end of the ring at his back. Finally, he was giving the chance to reposition himself and prepare for his next attack that would come. The enemy that he had previously been unable to kill had stayed back and waited for the system to project two more enemies to back it up. On the left a figure holding a Warhammer and on the right the new enemy held twin blades.

He had set the training program to an intermediate level but had been at it well past the suggested amount of time. Setting the program to an advance level would have meant the system would have shut down as soon as his aura reach the yellow. A safety precaution to prevent someone from getting hurt. This simulation would at least let you go down to 25% before they shut off and for someone like him, it could take quite a while to wear him down. Even so it still wasn't expected for someone to spent nearly two hours on it. He had told himself when he arrived that tonight was going to be a light workout. Just to go over his daily routine. He had even thought about doing laps instead of working on his swords skills, after all his stamina could still use a lot of work. However, subconsciously he probably knew from the beginning that was never going to happen. The nail in the coffin was the poster. What where the chances he'd see a poster of his former partner plastered on the gym wall? What a stupid question that was. Of course, her face would be on posters in this place. It was a gym that was specifically made for tournament training. They didn't even charge him to use the facility. Once they saw his sword they just let him in. When most of the kingdom comes to a complete standstill to watch the Mistral Regional Tournament you tend to get a lot of facilities that give potential combatants every single opportunity to improve. In hindsight, it might have been a testament to just how obsessed he had become with his training that he didn't go into the gym prepared to see a poster of his former partner with a cheesy motivational line on the bottom. "You too can be a champion." Regardless, the poster turned, what should have been a hard but fruitful workout, into a workout designed to cause as much pain as physically possible to him. A pain that, for however long it lasted, would mitigate the horrible guilt he felt. All the pain he received would be a punishment for his failures. His failure as a leader, as a partner, and as a friend. Over the last 8 months he had come to realize just how selfish he had been. He had wanted, so badly, to live up to the stories of heroism from his great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, and father. Yet in doing so he had endangered not only himself but the people around him. He laid awake most nights wondering how things could have been different had he decided to do something else with his life. His team would have had a stronger leader to follow and Pyrrha would have had a stronger partner to rely on. A partner who she didn't feel the need to launch in a locker to the other side of Vale. I should have been there with her. If only I was stronger. If I was stronger she would have felt she could take me with here. Jaune thought to himself.

In the week after the fall of Beacon he had been a mess. He had refused to eat or wash himself. He spoke to no one and cried himself to sleep most nights. Both sides of his family taught that suicide was act of cowardice. It was considered that you were simply giving up when you couldn't meet the challenges before you. To commit such an act would bring shame to your family. Even so, 7 days after Pyrrha's death Jaune had decided he couldn't take the guilt anymore. He left Crocea Mors and a note in his room and walked down to the docks under the cover of night. When he had arrived he simply jumped into the water and swam out as far as he could. He figured that once he swam far enough even the innate human instinct to survive couldn't save him. He would just struggle against the waves for a while and finally drown. In the end, it wasn't his family's sense of duty, the thought of what his death would do to his remaining friend and family, or even the notion that killing himself would have been the last thing Pyrrha would have ever wanted, that kept him alive. What gave him the strength to swim 5 miles back the shore was revenge. The desire to kill the women who had taken his partner from him, allowed him to push on when he was curtain he had nothing left to give.

He had made it back to his room before Ren and Nora had gone in to check on him. The note he was able to get rid of but the drenched clothing was another story. Ren had walked into his room right when he was trying to hide his soaked clothes. The young man had said nothing at first and Jaune had been grateful for that. He had merely sat next to his friend in silence. After an hour in silence Ren finally spoke. "Are you going to be okay?" The answer to that question may have seemed obvious to everyone else at the time but Jaune knew that his friend was not asking him if he was doing okay emotionally because clearly, he was not. What Ren was asking him was if he needed to worry about this happening again. Jaune gave him the first smile he had had all week. It was a weak smile to be sure, little more than a smirk, but by no means fake. "I want to live." Was all Jaune had said. He knew that at the time Ren must have been conflicted, on whether or not to believe those words. Jaune doubted that Ren truly believed him but he seemed content with him. He said one last thing before he left. "Jaune, I won't tell you that this loss means the same to Nora and I as it means you. But Nora and I have lost a lot already. I don't know if either of us would be able to handle it." Jaune had given up on wallowing in self-pity that day. He still held onto his guilt but all those feelings he kept bottled up under the surface. He had taken to wearing a mask in front of everyone. He had reverted to the lovable idiot in all but his most private moments. The act seemed to have worked, for the most part, because after that his friends stopped staring at him with worried eyes. His team had been helping miss Goodwitch with the, seemingly endless, task of trying to retaking Beacon for 2 weeks when Ruby finally got a hold of him. She hadn't even finished the question before he had agreed to it. He would have done anything that got him closer to Cinder. And now that he was on this path nothing would stop him from getting his revenge.

He was taken out of his thought by the charging enemy. He rushed out the meet them and knocked the center one over with his shield. The centered target was knocked over and finally registered as a kill. He spun counter clock-wise 180 degrees and met the enemy on his left with his shield. His shield came in with plenty of time to stop the twin blades but Crocea Mors just barely managed to redirect the Warhammer so that it swung up above his head. He kicked the foe on his right in the stomach and diverted his full attention to the enemy on his left. It swung its twin blades horizontally from each side. Instead of blocking he grabbed the wrists of the attacking enemy. He rammed his forehead into the hologram which forced it to simulate a daze. He quickly finished it off with a clean swing though its torso. He turned around with intention of fighting the enemy he had kick a second ago but was forced the bring up his shield to stop an incoming projectile from striking his head. He looked over his shield and saw a new enemy at the other side of the ring, using a rifle. He instantly realized that the new threat was the priority and rushed after it. He took another volley of shot with his shield as he carried it in front of his head while charging. He was only 10 feet from the riflemen when another enemy appeared wielding a staff with a blade at the end of it. He didn't process the new attacker fast enough and was unable to stop the strike on his undefended right side. Even worse, the attack left him open to three shots from the enemy he had just been charging at. He reacted as quickly as he could and put the staff wilder between him and the enemy using the rifle. This neutralized one problem for the moment. He blocked a downward swing from the staff user with his shield and drew his sword back to strike at the undefended stomach. He was caught completely off guard by the third opponent from earlier when it swung its Warhammer into his side, knocking him on his back.

He instantly knew that he was about to have three enemies barreling down on him at once. He saw the riflemen aiming his gun at him and did the only thing he could think of. He threw Crocea Mors at it as hard as he could. The blade stuck into the figure's head and instantly register a kill. He had little time to enjoy the lucky strike as he barely moved his head in time to avoid having it crushed by a Warhammer. He had to move his head back the other way as he avoided the other enemy's blade. He kicked the staff welder in the leg and brought it to the ground. He brought his leg down on the enemy's head twice before it finally disappeared. He was quickly reminded that he was facing two opponents when the Warhammer smashed into his stomach. Had it been Nora he knew that he would have been out of it but the foe he was facing wasn't anywhere near that strong. It raised the hammer up for another strike but this time Jaune was quick enough to stop it with his shield. Had he been rested he would have had little trouble pushing the hammer of him but after two hours of this his muscles had begun to fatigue. He shouted out in exertion as he managed to throw the strike back. He got to his feet as quickly as possible and threw himself at the enemy. It fell on its back and Jaune landed top of it. Before it had a chance to push him off Jaune raised his shield high and brought the pointed end at the bottom down on the holograms neck, causing it to disappear. He raised his head in relief only to be met by the figure of an archer at the other side of the ring. It had already notched an arrow and was about to release it. He was unable to stop himself from flinching as he prepared for a strike that he knew was going to hurt. The sound of metal sticking into the floor made him open his eyes. Sticking out of the ground where the archer once stood was Qrow's sword.

"Damn it kid, just watching you is making me tired."

Jaune turned his head to the source of the voice and saw Qrow standing in front of the control monitor, taking a rather long swig from his flask.

So I guess this chapter could have been quite a bit longer if I would have just left his meeting with Qrow in it but since I was already past 2,000 words and because it seemed like a good place to stop I ended it there. So I'm curious to know what yall think of Jaune's attempted suicide. I've always thought a character like him would feel a tremendous amount of guilt over Pyrrha's death. The ending to Vol 3 three didn't show that and other than that one scene in the second episode of Vol 4 we really didn't seem him have problems moving on. Now in a show that's made up of 12 15-20 min episodes per season I can accept that more important things need to be made a priority. Anyways the point of this scene was to show that he transitioning to mopey Jaune to angry Jaune. The holograms he's training with I got from the hunger games and the idea for his suicide attempt was from an episode of Nip/Tuck. I liked it because it's an act that forces the person to prove he wants to live in order to survive.