Ugh. Hungover from the wedding on Sunday and yet also working today – man, why couldn't it have been on Saturday? Still, they played music I remember from university which was a little shocking to hear it referred to as "oldies". Rip me. The Killers and Muse are now old man's music. Cries a little inside.

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 17

It took two days for the furore around the gang wars to calm down. There were arrests, sting operations and a whole lot of news stories about it, but none of them mentioned anything about an anomalous eight-ball, which was a relief. Since then, there hadn't been much in the way of work and Blake came to enjoy the peaceful normalcy in much the same way Jaune did. Ruby was less thrilled about it seeing as her last two days of work experience had been boring, and she'd looked incredibly glum on having to leave the office and return to Signal on Monday.

Blake was sad to see her go as well. What she lacked through her hyperactivity, she more than made up for as a distraction for Timothy – and she'd saved their lives at the farms, but it was the Timothy-barrier Blake respected her most for. Seeing the poor thing cuddling to Ruby and not understanding why she was so upset had been rough and discovering from a text from Jaune that it was camping at the front door this morning waiting for Ruby to arrive was almost distressing. It was going to be heartbroken when it realised Ruby wasn't coming back, and she wasn't going to be the one to comfort it.

Instead, Blake found her Saturday being taken up by an altogether more mundane task – shopping. While she had never been one to enjoy the act of shopping as some did, she found a certain pleasure in preparedness. There was a satisfaction to be had in knowing you had enough pairs of socks and underwear, enough spare outfits and a full set of shampoos and toiletries. With her newfound salary – not new, but this was the first time she'd visited the bank and oh my that was a lot of lien in her account! – she could afford to splurge on the good stuff. High quality clothes, expensive bath lotion, even some bombs and scents and a whole stack of reed diffusers for her dinky little apartment. She'd even stopped by a bookstore called Tukson's and picked up the latest issues of her favourite stories, placing an order for three more to be ready to pick up next week.

While she had never been poor, she'd also never been this well-off, not in immediate income. Her family were wealthy by the standards of Kuo Kuana, but there hadn't been money to throw around like this – not outside of her birthday anyway. Being able to walk into any store, pick whatever caught her fancy and walk out with it was a novel experience, and while she was sure its excitement would wear off after a while, it hadn't yet and she took full advantage of the fact by buying new pillows and a blanket for her bed, a foot massager, some relaxing music CDs and even a box set of a show she'd enjoyed back in Menagerie but had lost track of when she joined the White Fang.

The pile of bags was so much that she had to call a taxi and help the driver stuff them all into the boot. He helped her when she got back to the apartment block, no doubt expecting a big tip, and she provided. Why not? She was loaded. The taxi driver was so thrilled he offered to help carry the bags up the stairs to her door with her. It was amazing how much nicer people were when you had disposable income to throw around.

It turned out that the unpacking was not as much fun as the buying however, and she got halfway through when she gave up, shoved the bags onto her sofa and abandoned them there. They could wait. Instead, she tossed herself down on her bed with a new book and a packet of blueberry muffins and did her best impression of a college dropout wasting the day away.

She spent three hours like that, reading and lazing and stretching out over the bed, before her busy mind started complaining that she'd had enough. Everyone always said military life was good for teaching you values and to be a hard worker, and though she was sure many people would argue vehemently that terrorism wasn't the same, her time in the White Fang had always been busy, training her into a state of constant readiness. It persisted even now, leaving her frustratedly folding the corner of the page and setting the book on the bedside table, then rolling over and climbing back out of bed. Ten years ago, she'd have been able to stay in bed reading all day until her parents came to make sure she hadn't died. How she missed those times.

The Containments Office was open and the lights were off but she could see sunlight streaming through the window at the far end behind Jaune's desk. She knocked once just to be sure and entered, then slammed the door shut as something big, hairy and excitable rushed toward her. Timothy struck the door with a loud thud and began scratching on it like a happy dog. A happy six-foot, eight-legged, eldritch monstrosity of a dog. Honestly, she'd have preferred a mutt to that thing.

"Jaune!" she called through the door. "Get it away!"

"Timothy!" he called. "It's not Ruby. I'm sorry, boy. Come here."

Blake inched the door open and saw the monster over by Jaune's desk eating dead crickets out his gloved hands. She shuddered and let herself in, closing the door behind her. The spider looked at her and then the door mournfully, let out an unhappy "skreee…" and crept back to Jaune's bedroom with a skittling tap-tap-tap-tap of its legs on the wooden floorboards.

"Ruby is going to have to come visit or he'll be insufferable." Jaune said. He had his feet up on his desk and a newspaper laid flat on his lap. It didn't look like he was working, but it also seemed he had as estranged a relationship with rest as she did. "What brings you here today?" he asked. "I told you to take the weekend off."

"I am." Blake sat on the sofa and lounged. It spoke a lot of her lack of a friendship circle when her boss was the only person she knew to talk to, but then she hadn't been in Vale long enough to make friends. "I just thought I'd drop by. I went shopping earlier."

"Hmm. Did you go by the central plaza?"

"Where is that?"

"Middle of the city."

"I know what central means – I'm asking for something more specific since I still don't know my way around here yet."

"It's where the main subway tunnels are."

There were a few subway tunnels across the city so it wasn't like that narrowed it down any, but there hadn't been any tunnels that she could recall. "No. I'm still new so I just hailed a cab and told him to take me to the biggest mall in the city." He hummed, and Blake couldn't help but ask, "Why? Did something happen?"

"There was a murder there this morning."

"This morning!?" Blake swung her own legs down and sat up. She'd been in the city all morning and hadn't heard anything about that. "When?"

"I think it was early – eight or nine." He leafed over a page in his newspaper but she was sure it couldn't have been in there. They were printed overnight for the morning distribution. "I caught it on the news. Sounded pretty crazy."

"Anomalous?"

"The normal type of crazy. Apparently, it was a little girl. Not specific on the age, I guess the witnesses couldn't tell. They say she looked like she was alone and confused, so someone went up to ask if she needed help." He lowered his newspaper and tapped his fingers to his neck. "Next thing they know, she had a shard of broken glass in the man's throat. He died on the way to hospital."

"Shit. And the girl?"

"Arrested. They say she didn't even try and run."

Crazy to think that could happen in today's world, and even crazier that it would happen when she was out and she hadn't even known. Vale was a big place however, and there was a good chance no one in the mall had heard about it. That was the thing about having so many people in one spot. You were bound to have a few psychopaths around when you had so many people. Things like this just didn't happen in Kuo Kuana, but then they had a fiftieth the population so she supposed it was just less likely on a statistical level. The higher the sample size, the more outliers you were bound to have.

"Have there ever been any anomalies that turn people into murderers?"

"There's bound to be some." Jaune replied without missing a beat. "I haven't met any that do that in the way you probably mean it, but I know my sisters have been on jobs where the anomaly has been so valuable to the person abusing it that they've killed to keep it to themselves. I'm not sure that's the anomaly making them killers or human greed, though."

Blake hummed. It wasn't so different from the Hive of Worms and the Wheat Valley farmers, but she'd meant more of a mind control type – if she were being honest, she'd asked because her latest book was about something similar. It was scary how much her fantasy novels now had her thinking those concepts could exist in the real world. Ignorance truly was bliss. They stayed and talked for an hour or so, Blake sinking down into the sofa and almost falling asleep to the slow and steady turning of the pages and the sound of his voice. It was broken by the sharp buzz of his office scroll, which vibrated and bounced its way across the wooden desk. Jaune caught it before it could dance its way off the end and answered it.

"Hello? Arc Corp." He listened, nodded, then said, "Yes. Yes, of course, Councilman. We're always available- yes. Yes, I see." Jaune set the newspaper down and swung his legs from the table. "I'll be happy to take a look, sir. Can you have the address forwarded to my scroll? Thank you. I'll report back as soon as we have something."

The moment he hung up, Blake asked, "Was that a job?"

"There's been a death under unusual circumstances. They've already removed the body, consoled the parents and promised to look into it further but they want us to take a look at the scene."

"A crime scene?"

"You need a crime for a crime scene, Blake. This was a suicide."

/-/

The home was a quiet suburban family house in an upper class part of the city – you had to be upper class to afford a house in a city that was otherwise dominated by huge apartment blocks and sky-high rental prices. The home was small and well-kept with a small garden that someone had obviously taken a lot of care and attention over. Contrary to that was the post box, which was overflowing with mail, and the numerous wreaths of flowers laid out front by well-wishers and neighbours. When Jaune knocked on the door, it was a married couple that welcomed them, though welcome might have been a difficult term.

Blake had seen many things since joining ARC Corp and experienced many more, but there hadn't been anything like this. She was sat on a seat, Jaune one seat over, as the couple took the longer couch and held onto one another, alternating between crying and talking. It was awful. One would talk for a little while and then burst into tears, comforted by the other as they took over the story of how their daughter had died.

"-don't understand it." Mrs Lark wept. "Our Lyra was always such a happy girl. She had so many dreams. I just want to understand. Was there something we missed? Was there anything we could have done? Did we-?" It was too much for the woman, who broke down again. Her husband wrapped his arm around her. His eyes were ringed red and black from crying and lack of sleep both.

"I'm sorry. This is all so much." His voice rasped with every word, and Blake doubted he'd had an hour or sleep at any point in the last two days. "We've done our best to cooperate with the police and handle this. My wife was the one who found… who found her… She had-"

"You don't need to say it, Mr Lark." Jaune interrupted. "We've been made aware of the manner in which it happened."

The girl had stabbed herself in the arm with a pen and bled out in her bedroom. At thirteen years old, it was a horrible age to go and a terrible way to die, especially since it would have taken hours. Hours of consciousness in which she'd evidently chosen not to seek help, cry for her parents or even leave her bedroom. The mother had found her like that in the morning and woke up the whole neighbourhood with her screams, the report told. Blake could hardly fault her. It must have been terrible.

"Can you tell us a little about Lyra? Her hobbies and her likes?"

"Dancing, drama, plays – Lyra loved acting, but she was also a model student." Mr Lark rubbed at his runny nose, his smile somewhere between proud and tormented. "She was a straight-A student and very proud of the fact. We never tried to put pressure on her but she loved school. Her teachers would never stop telling us how much of a delight she was to teach. We thought that maybe with the exam period coming up, this might have been due to stress. If we'd known… maybe… I…" He rubbed his arm against his face. "We'd have told her we don't care what grades she gets if we could have her back."

Blake averted her own eyes to the lilac carpeted floor and took several deep breaths. It was hard watching and hearing people cry, even harder when you could feel the crack of their voices deep inside your stomach. She hadn't said a word and didn't think she could manage any.

Jaune took the lead. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said softly. "We've been dispatched here because the authorities believe there might be more to this case than a simple suicide."

Mrs Lark sobbed. "You think we killed her?"

"No." Jaune shook his head quickly. "There's no suspicion there."

"Then what?" she asked. "Do you-" Her eyes widened. "Wait, do you mean that someone might have urged her to do it?"

"I've heard of things like that." Mr Lark said harshly. "Online communities, sick games and twisted challenges. Are you saying our Lyra might have been manipulated into taking her own life?"

"It's a possibility, sir. We'd like access to her room and, if possible, her scroll."

"I can take you to her room." He stood. "Her scroll, laptop and other electronic devices were taken by the police. You'd need to ask them. Please follow me."

He brought them up a narrow flight of stairs and down a hallway filled with family photographs. There wasn't just the two of them but another boy as well, older but not present here today. The door he pushed open led to a room with light cream walls and a green carpet, a single bed covered with cushions and teddy bears with a large bookcase filled with books – some fiction, but many of them were textbooks as well. At the far end of the room was a desk with a lonely chair beside it, and across that desk, the chair and the floor were dark patches where the furniture had been stained. Mr Lark stared at that; he was lost the moment he saw it and stood in the doorway with an anguished expression. Jaune broke the tableau and ushered him out. "We can take it from here, sir. Please, I think your wife needs you and I believe you need her as well."

"Y-Yes." He trembled and nodded. "You're right. Please ask us if you need anything. We'll be downstairs." He moved woodenly out the door and down the corridor, and while she hated herself for thinking it, she was glad he was gone. It was too hard to think with him and his wife around. At least the body had already been removed.

"That was heavy…" Blake said.

"I know." Jaune rubbed at his own eyes. "You want to be sympathetic but there's so little you can do, and it just doesn't hit the same for you as it does them." He cut himself off with a shake of his head. "Let's not think about it or we'll be just as upset. Take a look around."

"I hate to say it, but what makes this case suspicious?" she asked, moving further into the room. "It sounds like a normal suicide."

"This could just be a suicide but the police weren't able to find anything on her devices to indicate she was unhappy and stabbing yourself in the arm doesn't add up. The coroner says it was a slow death that would have taken hours." Jaune picked up some of her cushions on the bed and rifled through the teddy bears. "It's also strange that she was found at her desk come the morning. You'd think she would have been in agony and moved around some or at least made some noise. These walls aren't so thick that you wouldn't hear someone crying in pain."

What a morbid thought. Blake moved over to the desk when he said it, shying away from the patch of discoloured carpet and looking over the desk itself. Most of the stationary had been left out, but the pen that she'd stabbed herself with had been taken. There were a few books out however, mathematical by the looks of it. They'd said she was studying for her exams. Had the stress of it burdened her more than her parents realised? Some people took things like that all too seriously, and someone who prided themselves on their good grades fit the bill.

"It looks like there was something she was reading here that she bled on." Blake said. The discolouration on the desk had a rectangular edge to it. "Did the police remove some things?"

"Almost certainly. We can ask to see them after at the station if we need to. They're less a danger though, as they'll be in evidence lockers. We need to make sure there's nothing here that'll cause further problems."

A neat stack of what looked to be textbooks sat on the edge of her desk by the wall. Blake picked them up and looked over them, noting that while they were quite thin, they were also glossy and by all accounts brand new. She doubted they'd even been opened yet. Mathematics for Intermediates, Ages 11-14, the first of them read. The others were similar, albeit with one for biology and the other for history. They reminded her of the kinds of self-help books her own parents had bought her before her school exams, and which Blake had made sure to flick through and bend to make it look like she'd bothered to use them. Lyra had obviously been a much more studious girl than she, which only made it all the more tragic that she'd taken her own life. Blake opened the maths book to flick aimlessly through it, but found her attention drawn to the first question.

It was basic algebra, or calculus, the specific terms eluded her now that she was older and hadn't seen a classroom in years. It was the kind of introductory question that was remarkably simple however, simply asking her to figure out what X was in a basic equation. It only took her a few seconds to figure out that x equalled six in this case. The next was no harder, though not it required a little more work to get to the answer.

Turning the page, she found that the difficulty ramped ever so slowly up. That was normal, probably even good for teaching someone Lyra's age. The first few questions hadn't really taxed her, but when they started adding two unknown figures in and making her calculate both – sometimes with algebraic formulas like y = x – 1, it got harder. Geometry and trigonometry came next, from finding out the length of the longest side of a triangle, to calculating the circumference of a circle. It was harder, enough so that it stumped her entirely until she wracked her brain to recall the specifics. It was always about pi from what she recalled. This was the kind of maths she'd never understood the value of. Sure, it probably had some niche use in architecture or construction, but it always felt like it was pointless for ninety-nine per cent of the population.

When she turned the page and was asked to calculate the area under a curved graph, however, Blake's brain stopped working. What-? What the hell was this? She could calculate the area under a straight graph by acting like it was a triangle but wouldn't know where to begin on a curved one. Dragging out the chair, she set the book down on the desk and sat, picked up a nearby pen and began jotting down ideas. Could she work out the curve like a circumference, then work out the square it was within and minus one from the other? Blue ink scrawled over the page as she tried, but she just didn't have the necessary information for that.

A few attempts at working out the circumference had her accepting she couldn't make the graph into a circle at all – it might not even be one. The curve was exponential, so it'd probably just go straight up if it continued. Blake growled and kept writing, scratching ideas and calculations as best she could, gripping the book so hard her fingers ached. The fact this was for people younger than her and yet she was struggling with it was as much an insult as a challenge. How the hell was this intermediate maths? They were asking her the most ridiculous, hypothetical shit here.

Something was pushed under her nose and over the page. Blake yanked her exam away, but her eyes caught the details on the page – it was a maths book. Desperately, she grabbed it and pulled it close, eyes wide as she devoured the words on the page. Differentials. She'd never even heard of them, but they were used for this. A differential represents the principal part of the change in a function. What did that even mean? The exact understanding eluded her – maths had never been her strongpoint – but she could follow the examples well enough to apply them to the question when they were side by side. Eventually, after a full page of equations, she was able to put down a figure she felt confident was accurate. It wasn't a specific value but a whole load of x, y and even d and f. Blake sighed and turned the page, only to blink as she realised she'd closed the book.

Not a second later, an arm wrapped around her shoulders and neck and dragged her bodily back off the seat. Blake squawked and flailed but was no match for Jaune as he pulled her away. It was dark, she realised. There was no light coming in the window but the bedroom lights had been switched on. Worse, she felt clammy and hoarse, dry-lipped and ill. A bottle was forced to her lips and rather than ask why, she drank greedily of the sports drink, grasping it out his hands and squeezing to squirt the citrus-flavoured juice down her throat.

"W-What happened…?" she croaked after downing the whole bottle.

"You've been trapped at that desk for the last six hours." Jaune said tensely. Her eyes widened and she licked her dry lips. "You wouldn't react to anything I said, refused to let me or anyone else move you and wouldn't let go of the book. I've already had the house evacuated and was trying to pull it away from you."

"W-Why didn't you pull the chair away?"

"I did!" he said. "You fell and got up again and stood there instead. Did you not notice?"

She hadn't. Her memories of working out the math were still there but she definitely didn't remember having fallen.

"I gave you the chair back when it was clear you were about to collapse," he said. "I tried to get you to eat or drink and you wouldn't even acknowledge them. Then you got stuck on the last question. You spent two and a half hours on that one alone."

"It was hard."

"That's not the point, Blake." He ran a hand through his hair. "You're lucky I managed to find a library which had a book on it. Yeah, that's how long this has been. The police have moved the parents to a hotel and we have full control over the house. Was it the desk that caught you?"

"No. I didn't touch it until I opened the book and read the first question."

"It's the book then." Jaune said. He brought forward a black bag and used a broom to shovel the books off and into it. "I tried pushing it out your hands with this but you wouldn't let me. It looks to be a memetic compulsion to finish what you start."

A textbook that forces you to learn its subject. Blake would have found that ironic if it wasn't so horrifying. Lyra must have struggled on one of the questions but if it was late at night then no one would have noticed. Had she tried to free herself by stabbing her arm and hoping the pain would snap her out of it? Maybe she'd hoped that if she fell unconscious, she could be free of its hold. It hadn't worked. Lyra Lark had died at her desk, forced to stumble over an equation she couldn't solve until she bled out.

"The official story is going to be that there were gaseous fumes in the book." Jaune said. "Something about its printing and the ink mixed to cause fumes that caused Lyra to stumble, harm herself and fall unconscious, and that took hold of you as well."

"Y-Yeah." Blake averted her eyes. "Okay. I'm… man, I'm starving."

"We'll get a pizza on the way back. Hold the bag open for me – we're going to take every single book just in case."

Blake did as she was asked and carried the bag around the room as Jaune raked the bookshelves clean. She was certain it was the maths book but she supposed it wouldn't hurt to be sure, and they might have to take the desk as well just in case. By the time they were done, the room was barren and Blake felt a little more alive. Enough to wait in the cab outside with her head resting on the seat and her hand gripping a cold can of energy drink.

He was as good as his word and bought her a huge pizza on the way back, only eating two slices himself while she polished off the rest along with a side of fries. They arrived back at the Containments Office and Jaune set the bag down on his desk, stroking Timothy idly as Blake sank into her sofa. He didn't look ready to start rummaging through and touching the books straight away, and she could see the logic in that. It would be dangerous for one of them to be ensnared when it was already so late and they were tired. On the other hand, she had to wonder if the anomaly wasn't completely safe now that she had written the answers down in it. Anyone trapped by it could just follow her process and free themselves.

Better to lock it up and be safe though. These things obviously weren't alive and likely didn't have any ill-intent. If they were sapient then they might even be seen as benignly trying to fulfil the purpose for which they were created. They wanted to teach people the subjects they were made to and would do so to the best of their ability.

"At least this was found and dealt with quickly." Blake said.

"It could have killed you."

Blake winced. If it had then it would have been entirely her fault as she'd been stupid enough to pick up and start reading something when she'd known there was a suspected anomaly in the room. The fact she'd been so blasé as to be ensnared by it pissed her off more than it did worry her. If anyone should have known better by now, it was her. "I just mean that it could have been worse. This didn't start a gang war or threaten to swallow Vale into a hive mind. It was a relatively simple case all things considered."

"Relatively." Jaune accepted with a grudging nod. "That doesn't mean it went well. You should have been more alert."

"I know. I know. I fucked up."

Jaune looked like he wanted to say more and lecture further, but he saw that she was furious with herself and decided that was enough motivation not to make the same mistake again. "Okay. We'll deal with this in the morning when we're better rested. Make sure to get a good night's sleep and tell me if you experience any side-effects whatsoever."

"You mean if I have a maths-based dream then it's an anomaly?"

Jaune didn't laugh. "Well, dreams are anomalous anyway so-"

"Wait, what? Dreams are anomalies?"

"Blake, you fall unconscious, experience full body paralysis, your eyes go wild behind your eyelids, you vividly hallucinate and then experience near-to-complete amnesia upon waking up. What about that sounds normal?"

Blake opened her mouth to argue, then thought about what he'd said. Hadn't scientists also suggested that people could have thousands of dreams every single night as well, and yet only ever remember one, if not none at all? Blake's lips closed. Okay, maybe that didn't sound all too normal on second thought. Holy shit.

"Are dreams dangerous?"

"We have no idea and can't do anything about it if they are. Goodnight, Blake."

"W-Wait, you can't just say that and leave me-"

"Pleasant dreams. Don't let the bed bugs eat you alive."

"I hate that I can't tell how much of what you're saying is a joke or not."

"That's the best part." Jaune said with a weak grin. "None of it's a joke."

/-/

Blake knew she was alive come morning because of the pounding on her door. It was Jaune, that much she could tell because he was shouting her name, but it was six in the morning on a Sunday and she felt dead. Her dreams had been mathematical, though how much of that was her own fears and how much was the dream anomaly, she didn't know. It hadn't killed her though so that was a plus.

"Blake! Blake!"

Oh right. Jaune. Swinging her feet out of bed, she padded in her slippers to the door, utterly uncaring for her dishevelled state and the sleeping yukata hanging down one arm and exposing her shoulder. The bolt clicked open and she yanked the door open with a growl. "It's six in the morning and you told me to get as much sleep as I could!" she snapped at him. "What is so important that you're trying to smash my door down?"

Jaune's face was pale. "Sixteen hospitalised, five dead, currently at over seventy locked to books while the police try and find them material to solve the math problems." He rattled it off in a gasp, and it was a bucket of cold water in her face.

"How?" Blake cried. "We found the anomaly!"

"We found one of them!" he said. "But there are more. It's the whole range of textbooks! Math, science, language, history – they're all of them ensnaring the people who read them and forcing them to complete the books or perish. It's hitting schoolchildren, university students and Ozpin even has two in Beacon stuck in dust theory books facing questions even he can't answer. The whole thing is out of control, Blake, and if it continues then this is going Reality Class by the end of the day!"

Shit. Blake dashed away from the door and for her clothes, all but stripping naked behind the corner to her bedroom while Jaune waited in the doorway out of view. She was yanking on her skirt as she shouted, "What do we do? What's the plan?"

"The police and the Council are going to work on the people currently afflicted. The news is going to broadcast how the publishing house has issued a recall because of dangerous ink fumes causing people to enter fugue states. They're toxic and can kill. Hopefully, that'll keep people opening the books while we deal with the problem."

"And how are we dealing with it?"

"The publishing house is refusing all calls to demand a recall and answer questions. We're the ones faking it, but they're saying the books are working as intended and they intend to keep publishing and distributing to any who wish to advance their educations."

"Fuck me!"

"Yeah." Jaune grimaced as Blake came stumbling out into the main room with Gambol Shroud. He let her lean on him as she pulled her shoes on. "We're going to head straight to the publishers and get to the bottom of this," he said. "If they are working as intended then that means the books might not be anomalies themselves but created by another anomaly."

"Intentionally by the sounds of it."

"Yes." He nodded. "We have a search warrant, an arrest warrant and also a kill-on-sight order if we decide it's necessary."

Blake was startled. "Those exist?"

"Not officially or legally they don't."

"Since when were we state-sponsored assassins?"

"Since now apparently, and it's only if we feel there's no other choice. Anomalies don't have rights, Blake. At least not those that aren't Reality Class already." He moved aside so she could get out the door. "We have a squad car waiting to take us to our destination. We'll play it by ear and try to resolve this peacefully if we can."

"And if we can't?"

Jaune's silence said it all.

Textbooks. Truly, the greatest of the world's evils. My parents also bought me a bunch and I basically did what I had Blake do here and scrunch them up like I'd used them a lot and never did. xD. Ah, to be young and lazy again. You never realise how much of a lazy slob you were until you're older.

And yes, the events of last chapter's ending are happening in the background.

Next Chapter: 15th August

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