Wraith

Chapter Forty Four

Beta: Smithrooks

A Farewell to Arms

Dorme, many years ago...

Two years, eleven months and one week after the Fall of Amity.

Jaune slapped Tyrian into what was left of Dorme.

He had to be careful, unbelievably so, just to avoid turning the insane faunus into a red smear from the single blow. The strength of hundreds of souls fuelled him beyond what should be humanly possible, beyond what even the greatest of hunters and huntresses could ever physically hope to achieve.

But Jaune… Jaune was in control.

"I'll kill you!" Jaune growled furiously as he chased the dead man into what remained of Dorme.

Even in his rage-fuelled haze, Jaune felt a twinge of horror as he entered the ruinous remains of his childhood home; more than half the buildings were simply gone, and those that remained… most weren't long for the world. The unreal fires caused by the Gleam Eyes' breath attacks had spread and grown into a raging inferno. This… this was the death of Dorme.

"Oh?" Tyrian cackled as Jaune drew near, his aura riddled with sickening dark cracks. "Did I make you mad? I didn't get under your skin somehow, did I?"

Jaune's heart throbbed painfully, a pulse of rage running alongside his anguish. "You did all this." Everything he'd ever known or loved… it was all burning away. His family, his home… for what? Some sick desire this fool had? "You've ruined everything! My entire life, my entire family!"

Tyrian laughed madly, his aura twisting in a grotesque visage of joy. "Me? I helped, but it was all for my Queen, my Goddess, my-"

Jaune crossed the distance and clamped his hand down on Tyrian's throat in an instant.

"First I'll kill you," Jaune spat in the man's face, ignoring his flailing attempts to escape Jaune's iron grip. "Then I'm going to find anyone that you love, someone you want to protect… and I'll kill them. Your family, your friends, it doesn't matter."

Tyrian's struggles grew more frantic as he began to suffocate.

Jaune tightened his grip.

"And when I'm done with you," Jaune whispered, his voice still audible despite the growing inferno around them. "I'll find this Queen of yours. And just as you have done to me, I will rip out her heart and lay it at her feet."

With a gasp for equal parts air and smoke Tyrian kicked off of Jaune's chest, the faunus man scrambling to his feet as Jaune reached deep into his soul.

"Defiler!" Tyrian coughed, the tainted air around them clouding his lungs. "I won't let you! I won't let you taint her presence!"

Jaune didn't say anything.

Years… years spent hiding in that dark little hole had taught him many things, things everyone would consider impossible… but Jaune had only ever used this gift to help. This power was one of manipulation by its very nature, but he'd always used it to create joy, hope, happiness…

Jaune twisted Tyrian's soul until despair was all the dead man could feel.

He'd used this to help countless people across the world, to save as many lives as he could in such an indirect manner… but now Jaune was perfectly happy to use this power for destruction.

Tyrian began to wail, soul-crushing anguish flooding through his mind.

"I hope it hurts," Jaune whispered, his hand lashing out and slapping Tyrian into a nearby building.

It was on fire - everything was, really - and Jaune didn't want his opponent to die quite yet.

The moment Tyrian crashed through the wall Jaune was there, his speed boosted wildly by the unreal amount of aura flowing through him. Gently, ever so gently, Jaune swung his fist down upon the insane man - instantly slamming him into the ground with all the force of a semi-truck crashing into his face.

"You-!" Tyrian hacked and coughed, the smoke of the burning building clawing at his lungs. "I will-"

Jaune didn't let him finish.

With a jerk, Jaune grabbed the fool by his hair and forced his face down in the nearest patch of fire.

The scream that escaped Tyrian's mouth seemed altogether inhuman, a terrible wail so unnatural and agonised that even for the briefest of moments Jaune felt a tiny stab of pity.

Only for a moment.

Another wall shattered as Jaune threw Tyrian back into the ashen street, the damaged man landing with a vague crunch sound as his charred body collided with the hard cobblestones.

Jaune was upon him a moment later, his legs straddling the hips of the dying faunus as his hands clutched the burnt remains of Tyrian's face. "Does it hurt?!" Jaune demanded as he forced his thumbs into the other man's eyes. "Come on, scream for me!"

Tyrian's wails were like music.

Jaune had to be careful though; it would be so easy to just crush Tyrian's skull right now and be done with it, but control was needed to draw out his agony. Holding back the ocean of aura was practically impossible to do selectively, it was either all or nothing.

So Jaune chose nothing.

Hungry.

Just his strength, the might of the last of his family to kill the one that had so destroyed them. The hundreds of others within him were watching, but they did not interfere. Jaune would not permit it.

He would kill Tyrian using his own strength.

"How does it feel?" Jaune demanded as his muscles strained to crush bone beneath him, his thumbs deep in Tyrian's eye sockets. "How does it feel knowing that no matter how hard you tried, you've failed? That for all your strength and skill you'll die forgotten and alone!"

Hungry.

Tyrian flailed and screamed as Jaune forced his thumbs deep into his skull, no coherent sound escaping the mangled man's mouth as he wailed in untold agony beyond anything Jaune could comprehend.

Bone grinded together as Jaune applied more pressure. "Nothing to say?!" Something cracked. "Don't tell me you've-"

Jaune gasped as something stabbed deeply into the back of his leg, red hot agony pouring into his blood.

"I haven't failed," Tyrian laughed weakly as his struggles slowed. "I-"

All of it.

Hundreds of souls ran through him in a second, and for that instant Jaune flexed. His hands ground against the charred remains of Tyrian's face, then-

Tyrian's skull shattered.

Jaune slumped to the ground, barely taking note of the poisonous stinger lodged deeply into his leg.

How had things gone so wrong? Beacon seemed so distant now… like a half-remembered dream from a long time ago. He had planned to be a hero, to save people and live up to the Arc family name of being a hunter. How had things come to this?

A mirthless chuckle slipped out of Jaune's lips. His entire family was gone, wiped out by his own failure to live up to the life he'd dreamed of. He'd never been a hunter - never been anything close to one. Never the saviour, never the hero… was this the fate of those that tried? The irony was almost unbearable. To be a hero, to save those that couldn't save themselves… this is where it lead him. This is the hell that waited for beasts such as he.

It was almost funny, in a rather twisted way.

No effort was made to escape the fire. No effort was made to do something about the poisonous stinger lodged in his leg. Jaune just laid still, a small smile never once leaving his face as he waited for death to claim him.

He didn't even notice he was crying as he laughed.


Beacon, present day…

"Weiss? Did you hear about Jaune?" Ruby asked, a stricken look crossing her face. "Jaune's escaped!"

Weiss did her best to ignore her team, or rather she did he best to ignore the voices of the team that isn't, but is her's.

The RWBY from Nihilus' time.

"Yes," Weiss muttered, not bothering to let her attention stray from her scroll. "His father just died. Jaune is understandably distressed."

She said that… but really there was no comprehension behind the words. If her father died Weiss would be delighted - not that she could show that publicly of course, but that didn't change the way she felt. Weiss had no such parental figure she could lose to cause such emotional devastation, and now apparently neither did Jaune.

Did that make her sound callous?

"And that doesn't bother you?" Yang questioned, "You and he have been total besties since he got back to Beacon."

"He deserved what we did to him. I hope that bastard is suffering in some deep hole somewhere."

Weiss shivered.

The dormitory wasn't cold per se, but something about the way the voices of the alternate RWBY spoke… Yang in particular sounded like a wounded animal, something driven by hatred and fear above all else.

It was honestly quite distressing.

It made her feel cold.

"You know…" The insidious voice of Jaune - Nihilus - whispered into her ear, "I don't think it counts as friendship if you're just using him for a modicum of silence."

He wasn't wrong.

That… stupid man. There were many other adjectives Weiss felt she should probably use to describe the elder version of Jaune, though she couldn't bring herself to think anything too harsh. Even having heard the terrible things the alternate RWBY had said about Jaune, Weiss couldn't quite bring it upon herself to hate him. Looking at the ghostly and ruined form of the man… he was a villain for sure, but even she could see that he was just as much a victim.

Perhaps a victim of circumstance, or perhaps a victim of RWBY. The distinction didn't matter much.

"I have already sent a message to Jaune's scroll offering him my condolences," Weiss lied easily. She hadn't of course, there simply wasn't any point - what empty words of pity could she offer someone like Jaune?

Ruby rolled her eyes, glaring at Weiss from across the room. "Weiss! You can't just text someone when they lose a loved one! You have to see them in person and be nice to them!"

"Weiss, how…? How is this possible? What did Jaune do to you?"

Weiss studiously ignored the second voice of Ruby.

But what point was there in offering her condolences to Jaune? Ruby, Yang and Blake were intelligent in their own ways, but they didn't understand people like Weiss did. She'd spent her entire life learning how to read and analyse the intentions of those around her; admittedly it was entirely for business purposes, but the point was the same.

Where they saw Jaune as sad and distant, Weiss knew he was just… less.

It was like a part of him was missing. Saying he was broken was misleading, since that implied he was still all there when he simply wasn't. What good was kindness to someone like him? He didn't understand empathy, nor did he care for pity. Whatever empty platitudes Ruby would have her say to Jaune would fall on deaf ears.

Whoever Jaune Arc was before he'd met Nihilus was gone, left behind was the boy they now knew. He was just… hollow. "Why don't we go get some training in?" Weiss blatantly shifted the focus of the conversation, "we haven't done that in a while."

"Are you feeling well enough? You've been sickly lately," Blake commented, "Weiss… are you sure it was him? How could he…?"

Weiss shivered as something cold settled around her shoulders, ghostly limbs draping around her neck as Nihilus' unseen form cradled her. "I can see how that eats at you, how the words tear away at your mind. Tell me, little Schnee… would you like me to change that? I could show you the true meaning of silence."

Weiss stilled.

Silence? Was he truly offering… silence? Surely it couldn't be as easy as that. After all the nightmares and all the anguish, Nihilus was just offering to end it? Just like that, as though it didn't matter? A trap of some kind perhaps, or maybe he was simply lying.

"Think about it, to be free from the pestering voices of the dead… to go back to what you were. True silence."

No, it was too good to pass up. A chance to end the wretched feelings and voices that were clawing away at her spirit. She had to agree to this. There… there was no telling if she would ever find another way to free herself. It could be years, decades even, before she worked out her own solution. Nihilus had already done that - who even knew how old he was now? For all Weiss knew, Nihilus could've had up to a century to master aura. And if he was offering to lend his mastery…

It was a deal she had to take.

"Weiss?" Blake questioned when she got no response, "Are you-"

"Your silence is answer enough."

Weiss gasped.

The icy feeling of Nihilus hanging off her shoulders vanished in an instant.

There was no great change, no profound alteration or character-defining moment or shift.

Just… cold.


Beacon, present day…

Nihilus couldn't help but laugh at the sight of his latest cruelty.

She hadn't even realised what he'd done! This 'kindness' he had bestowed had done exactly as he'd promised; she would indeed no longer be beset by the voices of those that were dead and gone.

Indeed, even now the little girl's heart soared with success and victory, the cruel whispers of the real team RWBY no longer grinding away at the forefront of her mind. However, whatever joy she was feeling was false - Nihilus took great delight in that. He hadn't solved the problem, he'd just… changed it.

There was nothing he could ever do to rid Weiss of the vestiges of her counterpart's soul, not without shredding all of it and trying to piece it together by memory alone. A process that is certain to fail. However, what Nihilus had done was far more… cruel.

The voices were still there, buried deeply into her subconscious mind. What he'd done was make a trade. One cancer for another, one poison for another. Where before her disease was one of the mind and memory, now it was of the body.

Nihilus watched gleefully as Weiss shivered, her thin form shaking from a chill that simply didn't exist.

Oh yes, it was cruelty alright - but it was cruelty born of empathy.

A gift from him to her. Something Weiss - his Weiss - never experienced.

True silence.

How long had he sat in that cold, dark hole? How many years did he go without speaking, how many times did Ruby call and pour thinly-veiled guilt out of her heart onto him as a captive audience? It was so long ago now. But that was the meaning of silence. To sit still and not utter a sound to the world that had betrayed him so profoundly and utterly.

And the cold, Gods he remembered the cold.

To sit in the dark and know that everything he'd ever loved was gone. To spend years in utter silence, just wallowing in the misery of his profound failure. That was the gift he'd granted to little Weiss. No words, no warmth or kindness or comfort. Just… cold.

That was his gift to Weiss.

She would still function of course… it wouldn't be fun otherwise. She may even benefit from the shift in some aspects - nothing terribly impressive though. Her suffering would be of the subtle and drawn-out nature. What was tragedy without knowing joy? What was sorrow without happiness to put it into perspective? The true cruelty behind the act was giving Weiss the taste of hope, to let her think that she had found some salvation from the curse of her counterpart's soul - then dashing that hope.

He knew that pain quite well.

And so Nihilus watched, visible as he may be to the wretched little Schnee girl, as team RWBY, the fakers, entered one of Beacon's many combat arenas. Already the stirrings of hope and joy were taking root in Weiss' soul, elated as she was to be able to talk to her petty little friends without the whispers of the dead hounding her.

"Are you sure you're up for this Weiss?" the child asked Weiss. Pathetic little creature, wretched and a fake.

"You won't take her pity, will you?" Nihilus purred dangerously as he oozed around the form of Ruby. "To be looked down upon by a little girl, one who never had to fight or suffer for her achievements."

And it was true. Ruby - this Ruby - never struggled for what she had obtained. Everything she was, everything she had, was simply given to her. Because she was talented, because she had the right family, because of so many little reasons. His Ruby came to know the world before she passed. She understood anguish on a level that was punishment enough to absolve her of the crimes she committed against him.

"I'm fine Ruby," Weiss' eyes strayed to Nihilus for the briefest moment. "In fact, why don't we have some practice fights? You and I can fight, then Yang and Blake can."

Ah, there was her insignificant little pride. Worthless and ultimately useless, but if that was the path she chose than Nihilus could hardly blame Weiss. He'd done far worse for far less.

And besides - Weiss understood. While she was nothing compared to him, she understood the greatest form of anguish. Unlike the petty wretches Yang and Ruby, Weiss had to claw and fight her way to where she was now. Because the things she was talented in… was not what she wanted to spend her life doing. That was the greatest measure of character, if determination was strong enough to power through predestination.

Not that he'd ever tell her that.

"Fight," Nihilus whispered as he drifted past his latest play-thing. "She doesn't think you're strong enough, she thinks you are an entitled little girl."

Weiss grit her teeth.

"Well," Ruby agreed as Yang and Blake stepped out of the ring, "if you're sure."

Weiss held her rapier aloft in her left hand, her eyes pointedly not looking in Nihilus' direction.

How rude.

"Come on Weiss," Nihilus purred as the aura meters above their head flickered to life. "I know you want to prove her wrong. I know you want to prove them all wrong."

He didn't actually - not technically anyway. This Weiss had that annoying mental block that stopped him from pulling her mind to pieces just to satisfy his curiosity, but her original counterpart never did. So he was admittedly basing his information on a rather out-of-date source; but they were technically the same person, so how different could it be?

Weiss' fist slammed into Ruby's face.

Nihilus smirked happily. They were definitely the same person.

The surprised look on Weiss' face was mirrored by the look on Ruby's - evidently the pale shade of a girl hadn't yet realised what exactly was happening. But she didn't need to - fighting was not action based upon thought. It was all in the moment, in the action and the reaction. Ruby had acted by charging Weiss with her scythe, and Weiss had reacted by stepping to the side and allowing Ruby to clothesline herself over Weiss' fist.

Weiss didn't think, she didn't pause and ponder what she could have done in the face of Ruby's attack - such was the sign of an amateur fighter. She reacted without hesitation, exactly as anyone would have expected. She acted as Weiss would - Weiss, not whatever she was now.

But that was just it - that response was something his Weiss would have done. It was an attack that cost herself nothing and cost the enemy everything, something a fighter with an extremely small aura pool would favour. It wasn't thought or tactical thinking, but rather instinct born from an adult life spent at a horrible disadvantage.

But that was his gift to little Weiss: no words, and the instincts of someone far more skilled to guide her. And what better mentor was there than oneself?

Weiss was learning from Weiss.

Ruby grunted as she brought herself to bear once again, redness spreading across her face from the impact of Weiss' fist. She wasn't hurt, but Nihilus could taste the distinct… surprise flavouring her soul. Physical attacks from Weiss was not something the Schnee girl learnt until after his time at Beacon - after now, so the change in fighting style was probably quite jarring.

"Go on," Nihilus whispered silently into the deepest depths of Ruby's narrow little mind, "attack her, you know you don't want to be beaten. Think of the humiliation, the little girl beaten once again… the child who doesn't deserve her place in Beacon."

She couldn't hear him of course, not on a conscious level anyway. But the words weren't meant to be heard, they were meant to be felt. Ruby was dull and uninteresting, the empty words didn't create anything new; it was meant to coax her into giving Weiss more of a challenge. See just how Ruby compared to the might of a fully-trained huntress. Sort of.

Weiss glared at him from across the arena. She could still hear him.

He smiled back.

The sound of Crescent Rose firing in rapid succession was like the crack of a whip; the shots sped towards Weiss sharply with Ruby herself only moments behind, scythe ready to hack away at the older girl's aura.

But Weiss was better than that now.

Bullets deftly deflected with only a moment of attention, Weiss tapped Myrtenaster upon the ground three times gently. A thin sheen of ice spread across the floor before the Schnee, the frozen liquid springing to life from the power of Dust and aura.

Once again momentum proved to be Ruby's downfall, her boots suddenly unable to find traction upon the slippery cold surface of the floor. It wasn't enough to take her off her feet, and Ruby was able to just barely stop her charge attack - but that was what Weiss wanted.

Once, twice, three times Weiss slashed her sword at Ruby with lightning speed and skill, each blow knocking terrible chunks off the child's aura. It was almost artful, if in a rather brutish way. Each attack picturesque and savage all at once, each with the ability to maim and yet choosing not to. Something Weiss, both of them, would have done.

Nihilus grinned in delight as Weiss moved the tip of Myrtenaster to tickle the underside of Ruby's chin. The fight was over.

"Y-you beat me," Ruby muttered in utter shock at her crushing defeat. "Your aura is still at a hundred percent! How? How did I lose this badly?"

Weiss shivered.

Nihilus laughed.

Ice blue eyes settled onto his unseen form. "Perhaps," The heiress hedged, "I have simply come to know myself better lately."

Nihilus laughed harder as he followed the two girls off the arena. Her? Know? A rich thought. But not enough. Never enough. But if it helped the vermin sleep at night…

"Still can't believe I lost though…"

Indeed, Nihilus could feel her. If Ruby thought this was a loss, then she was in for a steep surprise when Cinder finally made her move.


Beacon, present day…

He'd chosen not to have a funeral.

"Jaune, you know you can always speak to us, right?"

Ren was kind - perhaps even too kind. It certainly wasn't pity the other boy was showing Jaune, nor was it empathy. An understanding perhaps, a shared experience even. Or the perception of such.

A shared experience… an impossibility. Ren was quiet and withdrawn, but he still had a distinct life about him that Jaune knew that he himself simply lacked. With the death of his family... Jaune was less than human, less than the lowest scum. He was just… nothing. A tool perhaps, or maybe simply just a weapon.

It didn't matter.

They'd been shocked when Jaune informed the doctors at the hospital to just burn the body of John Arc. No funeral, no ceremony and no nothing. Ren and the girls had told him that perhaps it was best to wait… but no. John Arc wouldn't have cared a whit what happened to his body after he died; if anything, the man would probably take some satisfaction that he simply wasn't devoured by some random Grimm.

"You guys go on ahead to our room," Jaune informed his team quietly. "I think I want to be alone for a little while."

"And do what, Betrayer?" Nihilus' voice whispered in his ear, despite the lack of the man himself. "Cry for lost time? For things unchangeable and immutable?"

"Are you sure, Jaune?" Pyrrha questioned as they disembarked from the airship. "We're all ready to be here for you."

Be here for him…? No, what was the point? He was an empty hollow shell, something devoid of whatever it was that made someone truly human. "I'm sure. I'll meet up with you guys soon."

No… he wouldn't.

"Okay, Jaune," Ren gripped his shoulder in a vaguely comforting manner. "We'll see you soon."

A comforting lie was kinder than a cruel truth, even if it wasn't what they wanted. Let them believe that he'd come back, let them think they were doing a service to their friend by giving him a moment alone to grieve.

The three of them gave Jaune tentative smiles, their eyes warm and caring in a way that was almost calming.

It just made him feel guilty.

Jaune silently watched them go, his eyes long since dried from any tears that had fallen and his throat raw from crying. It was for the best. Without a sound, Jaune drew forth his scroll and thumbed his way through the contact list, eyes tracking down the number he needed. It was one all Beacon students were given upon admission.

Headmaster Ozpin,

I resign. Thank you for letting me into your school in the first place.

Tell my team not to come looking for me.

Regards,

Jaune Arc.

Jaune hit send, and then crushed the scroll in his hand. He didn't want to be tracked after all.

With a heavy sigh, Jaune turned back towards Vale. He had a new life to start and a former team to hide from.

"For family," Jaune whispered as he set out.

He was leaving Beacon, perhaps forever…


Dorme, many years ago...

Two years, eleven months and one week after the Fall of Amity.

Pyrrha was reasonably sure this was a distinctly terrible plan.

So profoundly terrible that it even trumped the usual madness team RWBY referred to as 'strategy'.

Trees rushed through her vision as Pyrrha sprinted madly towards Dorme.

That man… the blonde one that had fought the Gleam Eyes and told her and Blake to run. She recognised him. How could she forget? He gave, frankly, terrible advice. He left her and a maimed android alone in a city swarming with Grimm. He was philosophically one of the worst huntsmen in the world, despite being physically one of the best.

He had saved her best friend.

He carried his son out of Vale when the whole world was against him.

John Arc, father of Jaune Arc.

While it was among the morally shittier things she'd done, Pyrrha had left the maimed - and if she was being honest, mortally wounded - Weiss with Blake just so she could double back and try to find John Arc.

John was her only lead on finding Jaune.

Jaune was… unique. He was something so profoundly Jaune that nothing else could quite describe him. Never before or after had Pyrrha met anyone that acted like Jaune - he was her best, and if she was being honest, only friend. Her team… well, Ren, Nora and Russel had perished along with the many thousands that died in Amity. Her teammates since then… they were people she knew and worked with, not friends.

Jaune… Something had gone wrong at Amity during the Fall. Everyone called him a monster, a beast responsible, or linked to, the White Fang attack and the Grimm in the city. But he wasn't like that - why could no one see that when things started to go wrong, Jaune was in pain? That he was struggling against something unseen by all the cameras and onlookers?

But more than that, Pyrrha knew Jaune couldn't be responsible for what happened at Amity because he was a good person.

Jaune was the kind that would carry the entire world on his shoulders, if just so no one would ever cry anymore.

So… she was going to find him.

Because she would never leave her friend behind.

Pyrrha broke the treeline with a start, her eyes immediately starting to water from the excess of smoke and ash clouding the air around her. Dorme… if it could even be called a town anymore, was in utter ruins. What little was left was caught in a raging inferno that was eating away at the predominantly wooden buildings with a fervor Pyrrha shuddered at.

However, the Gleam Eyes was nowhere to be seen, so not everything was a negative here.

"John!" Pyrrha cried as she charged into the ruinous village, a miasma of ash and debris hanging in the air. "Anyone! Answer if you can hear me!"

It was all but a lost cause. Pyrrha was no Ruby - she knew when something was hopeless. Even ignoring that the majority of civilians evacuated before the battle, any that were foolish enough to remain within their homes were surely dead already. No one without the aid of aura could survive this hellscape unassisted.

It would take a hunter to survive.

"Anyone!" Pyrrha cried as she pushed deeper into the blaze, "is there anyone at all!?"

Please, please let John still be here. She needed him, he was her only path to Jaune. The only route she could take to find her friend. He couldn't be missing or dead - he just couldn't.

She was walking into hell.

It was so hot. Drenched in despair as this place was, it gave the flames an eerie feel to them. The sun was just disappearing and night was beginning to set in, giving Dorme a truly ghastly look as the raging fire tore apart what remained.

Pyrrha paused, the sound of the crackling fire around her briefly at odds with something so completely alien - something distinctly different that it was hard to miss.

Someone was laughing.

Pyrrha's gaze snapped towards the chuckles; it wasn't true mirth, even as faint as it was Pyrrha could tell that much. Someone was laughing without humour, it sounded more like a lament than anything else.

"Hello!?" Pyrrha shouted as she sprinted towards the mournful sound. "Is anyone there?!"

Why, why did that sound so familiar? That voice, that laughter…

With a grunt, the champion pushed through the burning wreckage of one of the many buildings, the charred wood barely showing any resistance as she plowed towards her target. Someone was alive, someone familiar at the very least. Perhaps it was one of the hunters that had tried to fight off the Grimm, or perhaps it was someone else. Pyrrha didn't know and frankly, she didn't care. She was going to find them.

Rounding a corner, Pyrrha's eyes shot onto the source of the laugh-

Jaune.

Without even thinking, Pyrrha found herself running to his prone from, the dry and miserable laughs slipping from his lips terribly juxtaposed by the hellish illumination around them and the small tears staining his face.

"Jaune!" she cried as she came to stop beside him.

He just laughed harder.

"Jaune, you-" the words died in her throat as her eyes settled upon the gruesome remains that lay next to her friend.

Whoever the body belonged to… they were well and truly dead. The head was just gone, and there was so much blood. Jaune… Jaune was covered in it. Too much to all be his, and yet too little to belong entirely to the body next to him.

"They're dead, Pyrrha," Jaune sobbed and guffawed. "It's my fault, I was meant to be a hero. I promised. You saw, I promised…"

There! Buried deeply in Jaune's leg was a stinger, still attached to the corpse next to him. The area around the wound was already a swollen purple mess, the stinger inself invisible save for the tail. With a harsh yank, Pyrrha ripped the offending appendage free from her old friend, purple poison spilling free as she kicked the dead man - stinger and all - away.

"Jaune," she clutched desperately at his shoulders, "can you hear me? We need to get out of here!"

"Pyrrha?" He questioned hazily, "Pyrrha, is that you? You can't be dead, not like me, not like them…"

Damn it all to hell, it was either the poison or the blood loss that was making him delirious. Grimacing at the rising heat around them, Pyrrha tore away what little cloth remained around the wound on Jaune's leg. She had to look at the wound, see if it was treatable with her limited knowledge of first aid.

It was not.

Even upon the barest of glances Pyrrha could tell straight away that Jaune was going to die very quickly if he wasn't helped immediately. Real help with doctors and a hospital, not one girl with only basic medical training.

The wound itself was pus-ridden and disgusting, but the real problem was the colour of his veins - the distinct purple that was coming through from under his skin. The wound was mortal, unless…

Miló was heavy upon her back.

No, she couldn't.

It was the only way. He would die otherwise.

But to… to cut…

He was going to die.

"Pyrrha…?" Jaune slurred, his hands weakly grabbing at her.

She had to.

With a grunt, Pyrrha tore her red sash free from her belt, the vibrant material warm in her hands. Without a moment's hesitation she jammed it into Jaune's mouth, the cloth rapidly moistening as she made sure he couldn't spit it out. "Listen to me, Jaune," She pleaded as small tears formed in her eyes, "I need you to bite down on this, whatever you do don't spit it out!"

With a slight sob, Pyrrha pulled her sword free from her back, gently placing the blade just below Jaune's right knee.

Then she began to cut.


631


A/N

So it's been a while, and for that I'm dreadfully sorry. My situation has been rather… poor… lately. I cannot promise the consistent update schedule that I had in the past, but I shall, of course, do my best.

I received a surprising reception to my fun little wasp story - because honestly, fuck wasps - but hey, let's add to the story. Did you all know that not only are wasp nests flammable, but so are the wasps themselves! Think about that in your place of rest: imagine being chased by flaming wasps.

Reviews (to the last chapter, not the wasp thing):

Shaded Azure:

Thanks for reviewing.

Yeah, Tyrian is just crazy. His moods swing pretty wildly, and the arousal was just... another part of that.

Guest:

Thanks for reviewing.

Ironwood isn't a bad character as such, he just as different methods of achieving his goals - especially when compared to that of Ozpin or the like.

Tobi14:

Thanks for reviewing.

Long answer to a long review - which I love you for.

Nihilus' perception of Yang is rather impersonal - he only really 'knew' her while he was a student at Beacon. Him calling her trash is based upon her commonality - she isn't a thinker, nor is she particularly unique. Yang is common, she doesn't try to see things from different perspectives, thus to Nihilus she seems entirely narrow.

Nihilus has an odd view on Blake - similar to how he sees Yang, but also different in the sense that Blake (his Blake) was motivated by an intense feeling of pity towards Nihilus. To be clear, Nihilus doesn't hate anyone in RWBY… he liked to mirror them. Blake made mistakes, many, many, mistakes. But for her Nihilus only pities.

Nihilus was closest to Ruby - before and after his time in Beacon. Ruby's 'visits' (although it was never actually in person) weren't meant to be a cruelty on her part. For Ruby, it was a way to ease her guilty conscious. When Nihilus says that Weiss might be the one to kill her, that is a reference to the fact that Ruby made him kill her. Bear in mind that Ruby was his friend - even in the end. Nihilus genuinely believed he was doing her a favour by killing her, and was sad to do so.

Jaune/Nihilus kept trying, kept trying to do what he believed was right… and it drowned him. For every victory, he suffered two defeats. For every success, there was failure to match it. On pure technicality, Nihilus has done more to save the world than he's done to destroy it. However, one can only accept so much misery before it kills them.

Technically he did 'create' that town, but not in the sense that he built the buildings or found the location. He just liked to use it as a… dumping ground. Even Nihilus has his limits…

Realistically Nihilus has probably saved hundreds, probably thousands, of lives through his use of aura. For him (at that point in his life) it was never about the glory, it was about doing what he believed to be the right thing. He brought misery and death with his actions at Amity, but that was his atonement. Blake never knew that - but she knew him.

Thanks for the long review!


Again, terribly sorry for the delay. Leave a review!