Anime PJ: Honestly, the only thing I'm even slightly miffed about is that you haven't seen Groundhog Day. Fantastic film. I highly recommend it.
That was pretty brutal, even by the usual Jaune abuse standards. Not that I'm complaining; it's good that you're addressing what a lot of people choose to ignore. I continue to be highly entertained by Jack's friendship with Cardin, and Vincent jumping into the mix there was highly amusing in its execution. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with this little Groundhog Day loop; it's a very interesting concept to use for Jaune's character growth.
NeoNazo356: Well, if Groundhog Day is on Netflix, I'll try and catch it. Happy that's all you were "miffed" about.
And yes, the "loose thread" is exactly what I've been building up to "tying up" since Volume 1 of GS. After re-watching RWBY I noticed that the only time Jaune's duplicity even remotely got brought up, was when Jaune, completely ill-suited to doing the one thing Ozpin personally asked him to do, the one thing he went to Beacon to do, let Amber get killed because he was so completely out-of-his-depth. That and the dumb-as-hell "hit it harder" comment from the following volume.
GOD he sounded dumb when he said that.
Anyway, glad you find Jack's friendship with Cardin entertaining. I've read plenty of stories where Cardin was the whipping boy, so it's kinda satisfying to "break the mold" and have him grow as a person, since there was a lot of squandered potential in his character. Vincent's "entry" was also satisfying to write, because in a story for a long time that's "centered" around Jack (as people have pointed out in Volume 1), he offers an opportunity to flip the script in creative ways. And of course, if someone's able to find out his secret before I reveal it all in-story, it'll be really damn satisfying to see someone "follow the breadcrumbs" I've been leaving behind.
But that is quite literally, "a story for another day".
Obvious IJ: Damnit! He was almost gone! Stupid self-insert getting a reset button...
I'd give that Double Dynamic entry a 9/10.
Anyone else thought 'Sasuke' when they said red and purple eyes?
IJ the oblivious one
NeoNazo356: Thanks for that. It was a hoot and a half to put in because even after five years post-run, that is still a freakin' blast to visualize.
Also, I recall that Vincent's other eye is "indigo", not purple. Don't think I slipped up on that, but if I did, I'll be mindful in the future. Also, the shock white hair and all the other little descriptors should make it impossible to even get a "Sasuke" vibe, but to each their own.
TM11: YES! Finally someone who isn't in love with Jaune's character! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a RWBY fic that isn't about Jaune or where Jaune doesn't get what he deserves for lying his way into Beacon? Finally someone breaks the mold! My friend, if you expel Jaune from Beacon, I'll forever be thankful!
NeoNazo356: Finally, someone who's actually happy for this sort of content for the same reason I am. Glad to know there's other people willing to look past the veneer and see the bullshit underneath. Everyone else in the cast worked very hard to get strong-enough to get into Beacon, Ruby especially, and Jaune getting a free pass… never sat right with me, which is why I've been writing out this character arc. Pun not intended.
And yes, I agree that it's rather hard to find stories that fit into that desired demographic. There are a few like that, at least I imagine, but the only one I'm aware of where Jaune is explicitly expelled is Reaping with Sorrow by dapperdab19, but then Jaune gets Reaper's powers from Overwatch and the girls (Weiss, Blake, Yang) are the ones getting bashed, sooo… Yeah, it's a diamond-in-the-rough kinda thing to find someone willing to break that mold.
Which is exactly why I did this!
As for whether or not Jaune gets expelled… I worked out a decent-enough compromise that wouldn't completely derail this story from as much of the Canon as I'm willing to grasp to; especially since RWBY began to "lose focus" after the Vytal Festival.
I honestly think half the reason so many people write Jaune-centric stories is because, as the least-interesting male character, people can live vicariously through him in a Power Fantasy sorta way; like in the Isekai/"Other World" genre.
Jack, as I've written him, is different-enough from me that me writing for him isn't "Power Fantasy", it's a story about "Power Crawl".
Guest: :You must hate Jaune so much to the point of bashing him huh?
NeoNazo356: Okay, so I know I said I'd ignore stupid stuff like this, but the opportunity for this wicked pot shot was just too good to pass up. Ahehehehm…
Dear Anonymous Dickwaffle 24/7/365,
What I displayed in the previous chapter of my work is called "tough love". I don't purely hate Jaune as the character, but rather, I dislike what he did and did not "do" in the context of his character. What he did that I dislike is getting into Beacon on false transcripts and mooching off of everyone else's abilities. What he did not do that I dislike, is skip out on Combat School entirely, the basics "of the basics" and still deign to become a Huntsman without knowing something as-fundamental to the occupation, as knowing what Aura is. The fact that Jaune didn't even know what that was, is like someone wanting to become a truck driver without knowing what gasoline is.
Sincerely,
NeoNazo356
P.S.
Suck it, Blue.
And I know they say- "Don't feed the trolls." -, but this is just as much for my entertainment as it is yours.
Anyway, on to the conclusion of this arc.
And no, that was not an intended pun.
Enjoy!
*NEW WORLD*
Suffice it to say, Day 2 (as Jaune would come to call it once he realized what was going on was not just some "nightmare spiral" he couldn't wake up from) went about as well as the first one.
Jaune got the shit kicked out of him, he got a verbal lashing from his sister, Vincent stepped up to defend him, found out he was protecting the "bad guy" and almost proceeded to break his hand, got another verbal lashing from his sister, and had all his friends abandon him.
Like in what he'd eventually call Day 1 of his own personal "nightmare spiral", he'd wanted to just roll over and die in bed, hoping things would be better in the morning.
That should've been the end of it… but it wasn't…
*NEW WORLD*
"Heeere's Jackie!" Jack said with a manic look on his face. Aforementioned face which, at the moment, was poking through the hole in the door Jack had made when he'd literally taken an axe to it.
All because Jaune refused to bring the family heirloom out to the fountain in the plaza on what would become known as Day 3 of this recurring nightmare.
"Please… Just leave me alone!" Jaune begged, clutching Crocea Mors to himself like it were his life line.
"Not gonna happen, Jauney-boy!" Cardin said pressing his face up against the glass. "You didn't show up when you were supposed to, so now, the three of us are gonna pound you extra hard! And not in the sexy fun way."
"Thu… Three of you…?" Jaune whimpered as Jack pulled his face away from the door, which was swiftly kicked-in by his sister, a pissed-off look on her face as she stormed into the room clad in full armor, Orbitars hovering menacingly around her.
"You're making me work reeeeeally hard for that heirloom, Bitch-face…" the pretty blond growled as she strode her way into the room and opened the window, Nickie, Cardin, and Jack proceeding to corner the helpless blond leaving no avenue of escape. "I don't know if you caught on to us or if you're just lazy, but I know one thing for sure… That is not a mistake you'll be making a second time."
And of course it wasn't…
Because the next time Jaune woke up, the day would repeat itself, with roughly the same results.
*NEW WORLD*
'Okay… I can't go to the plaza, I can't hide in the dorms, and no matter where on campus I go, Jack and the others always find me…' Jaune thought "a week later" on Day 10 as he tried something new.
Leaving Beacon grounds for good.
Not for good for good, but he just figured if he hid out in the woods for long enough, he'd be able to come up with a plan, and if that didn't work, maybe hope for Nickie to get bored, go home, and pester him about this later after he managed to run damage control.
'What did I ever do to deserve this?' Jaune questioned as he was literally chased out of Beacon by three bullies and two confused teams.
"There he is!" Cardin shouted off in the distance.
"After hiiim!" Nickie cried.
"I'm confused. What did Jaune do?" Ruby asked.
"Oh man do I have a story for you!" Nickie whooped.
"Why, Nickie…? Whyyy?" Jaune asked looking over his shoulder.
His eyes on his soon-to-be-ex-friends if previous "playthroughs" of the same day were any indicator, the bumbling blond failed to notice the ground had disappeared in front of him until it was too late, the male Arc sent plummeting helplessly over Beacon Cliff, flailing as he plummeted to the ground below.
Screaming and wincing in pain as the blond tumbled down the cliffside, bones breaking and flesh splitting, after a painful half-minute tumble, Jaune finally hit the ground at the base of the cliff in the old ruins their teams had fought the Giant Nevermore a month before.
He'd still had Aura in his body during the tumble, but based on the amount of blood spattered around him like a bright-red halo, it was obvious even to him that all his Aura had been depleted on the landing.
No need to consult his Scroll on that fact.
And even if he'd wanted to, the thing had shattered into a thousand pieces.
"Whoa! Holy crap! Is that all his blood?!" Nora's voice echoed from on-high.
"Oh god, it's everywhere!" Ruby shrieked.
'So… This is what it's like to die…' Jaune muttered to himself. Everything was getting cold, all his bones were broken, and he couldn't move anything beneath his neck.
What else could this feeling be but the icy fingers of death wrapping themselves around his throat, squeezing down.
"Well… Shit. What'm I gonna tell the folks?" Nickie asked worriedly.
"The truth. That Jaune wasn't looking where he was going and walked right over the edge of a cliff," Jack answered plainly. "Like that one rodent that does the same thing."
"You mean a Lemming?" Nora asked.
"Yeah. That one," Jack nodded.
" . . . I call dibs on his stuff!" Nora called out a few seconds later. "What…? Too soon?"
'Of all the things that had to be the last-thing I heard… Why'd it have to be that?' Jaune asked as everything went dark.
But of course, like the nine times before it, this was not the end of it…
*NEW WORLD*
'Okay… I know not to do that this time,' Jaune thought to himself.
This time around, he had the foresight to take the stairs.
While he was insanely grateful not to have died yesterday, or today, or grateful not to will-have-had died that day… he wasn't really looking forward to a repeat-performance of yesterday.
Crossing the rope bridges spanning the crevasse that separated Beacon Cliff from the Emerald Forest, Jaune entered the woods hoping a plan of attack would come to him.
He hadn't died yet, so he must've been doing something right.
Since Jaune had begun to get some grasp of the "rules" surrounding his current phenomena, assuming it all wasn't just some fever dream, when he reached a crow's foot in the woods he decided to go left, and if that didn't get him the "Good Ending", he'd cycle through the right and/or center paths, and see where things took him from there.
Jaune, finding a wall of foliage at the end of the left path, chopped his way through the wall of green with his sword. Poking his head out into a clearing, Jaune saw a half-dozen Beowolf gnawing on the bones of some poor hiker. A shock of terror washing over him, the Grimm thusly snapped their heads up and turned his way, their flame-like eyes boring into his own.
" . . . Nope," Jaune said popping the 'p' as he backed away, only for the six Beowolves to give chase. "OHCRAP!" Jaune yelped as he ran away from the clearing, only to tumble on a root. Scrambling to his feet and rolling onto his back, Jaune thrust his sword up into the brain of an attacking Beowolf, only to let out what he hoped was a dignified cry as the five other Beowolves descended upon him from every other angle, teeth and claws ripping him to shreds.
*NEW WORLD*
"Nope!" Jaune said with finality as he turned away from the path he'd trod in his previous "life", instead choosing the path on the right.
Walking the path, at the end of it there wasn't a wall of foliage, just an unobstructed view into the clearing beyond and the large rock sitting in the center.
"Hmmm… Everything looks kosher…" Jaune hummed as he looked left, then right.
Tip-toeing his way into the clearing, seeing no flame-like eyes hiding in the shadows, Jaune rounded the boulder in the center of the clearing, only for a hot breath to caress the back of his neck. Looking to his right, Jaune saw a large Alpha Beowolf sitting on its haunches, looking down at him.
" . . . Well that just isn't fair."
"AROOOOOOOO!"
"AAUUUUUGH!" Jaune cried as he bolted, only for the Alpha's teeth to sink into his calf and drag him back.
*NEW WORLD*
"Well that was a freakin' disaster," Jaune thought was he bypassed the left and right paths, never losing stride as he went forward and center.
It couldn't be any worse than getting ripped to shreds by lots of small Grimm, or getting ripped to shreds by one big Grimm, right?
Wrong.
"So… we meet again old friend," Jaune said turning his attention to the Ursa "Major" standing before him in the third clearing, a growl leaving its lips as it rose on its hind legs, towering over him. "Fine. I beat you once, I can do it again," he said boldly, pumping himself up.
The Ursa stomping forward, it raised itself on two legs and brought its right paw down at him, the blond raising up his shield to block. Pushing it away and slashing at the beast's hairy chest, the Grimm stumbled backwards before swiping its left claw across its body, Jaune rolling to the right away from the strike. A right claw swipe running across the ground, Jaune leapt into the air only for a follow-up to catch him in the chestplate, sending him tumbling backwards across the ground.
Getting to his feet and rushing at the Grimm again, running in for a jumping slash, the Grimm struck him with a right claw swipe, once again sending the blond tumbling across the ground. Getting to his feet and seeing that his Aura was at about half-full, Jaune and the Grimm rushed one another once again, the Grimm's right paw drawn back while Jaune drew his own right arm back, Crocea Mors in hand.
The two nearing one another, Jaune's shield arm descending as he moved in for the slash, without Pyrrha's [Polarity] to raise it up and reinforce it against the assault, Jaune's left side took the full brunt of the blow, the blond sent pinwheeling through the air.
Tumbling across the ground, before he could get up, the Grimm's teeth then found his midsection and began thrashing him around, not unlike a shark. After several moments and his Scroll pinging a warning, the blond's Aura was fully depleted and the Grimm's teeth met flesh, fang grinding against bone and innards.
A bloodcurdling cry leaving the blond's lips as the Grimm chomped down into him, the death he experienced was a slow one as the Ursa's jaw strength was great-enough to crush him, but not enough-so to bite him completely in half.
*NEW WORLD*
"I'm probably going to regret the hell out of this later, but this is the lesser of three evils," Jaune thought the next runthrough as he took the center path oncemore.
Being slowly and painfully bitten in half by a giant Grimm; bad way to go.
Stepping back into the clearing as he'd done before, almost exactly step-for-step, to Jaune's amazement and relief the Grimm acted in the same way it had before, down to which forepaw it used in each attack, in which order.
However, after the previous-final exchange, as the two dove in for the final confrontation, the Ursa's right arm descending at him, Jaune took a knee and braced himself. The Grimm's claws raking across the shield, a horrible metallic screeching noise filling the air, Jaune put his back into stopping the Grimm from crushing him with its monstrous strength.
The Grimm over-extending after the claw swipe, a moment later Jaune leapt upwards with a crescent slash, taking the upper half of the Ursa's head clean off.
Bone-covered head-part bouncing across the ground, as the Grimm began to fall, Jaune leapt backwards away from the now-decaying body, keeping his distance so he wouldn't be exposed to the Grimm's Miasma in its death throes.
"Hah… Hah… Hah… I did it! YEAAAAAAAH!" Jaune whooped, sword arm raised in the air as he did a little victory dance.
Leaving the clearing, high as a kite off his solo-victory, a minute later a bony hand wrapped around his ankle and dragged him into the underbrush with superhuman strength.
*NEW WORLD*
"Dammit! Why can't I catch a break!" Jaune shrieked, tugging at his hair as he stood at the crow's foot once again.
He goes left, he dies. He goes right, he dies. He goes down the middle, guess what? He dies.
"Wait a minute… Who said I even have to follow the path?" he said aloud, the thought striking him.
He had a sword that could cut through foliage like wheat. Why hadn't he thought of this sooner.
"Alright! Let's do this thing!" Jaune said as he dove into the bushes between two paths, carving himself a new path.
*NEW WORLD*
And thus continued Jaune's own personal hell.
Or purgatory.
Or whatever it was that was looping him through the same day over and over like this.
If whatever was happening turned out to be his Semblance, he wasn't sure whether to be excited or disappointed, because while on-paper the ability to "Respawn" with your memories intact was the ultimate Cheat Code, having to experience each death or "Bad Ending" in first-person was not fun. Especially without the ability to "Fast Travel" or "Skip" "Cutscenes".
Moving onto his adventures… misadventures… whatever you want to call it…
On each subsequent "run" he got a little bit further, but the prevailing problem was his "Stats" were too low to take him very far, since the deeper into the Emerald Forest he tried to run, the stronger the Grimm got, and the faster he died.
It was one thing to accumulate experience and knowledge of events, but it was his body that couldn't keep up. No matter how much he knew about future events, whatever "foresight" he was experiencing foretold, if he was too slow or too weak to act upon that knowledge… well…
He'd been ripped to shreds enough times to figure out eventually, that running into the Grimm-infested woods while being worried out-of-his skull with guilt gnawing at him like starving rats was not the ideal survival tactic.
After a while he'd tried going back to the plaza, fighting Jack and Cardin head-on with advance knowledge on how they would attack and in what order.
But the problem there was for whatever reason, no two fights ever went the same into a subsequent third "Playthrough". He could memorize an attack chain two times before he got his ass kicked, but on the third, everything started deviating from the "previous day". Like his opponent's fighting patterns were being "Procedurally Generated", or something he was doing was causing a Butterfly Effect even though the events he was changing were only taking place a few minutes ahead of time instead of years.
Of course, in the end it didn't matter how-well Jaune fought or for how long anyway.
Even if he managed to hold Jack and Cardin off by way of pattern recognition, the problem remained that there wasn't anything to stop Nickie from completely exposing him in front of all his peers and utterly destroying his reputation.
Sure, he could probably attack her to make her stop, but other than the fact that he didn't want to attack his own sister, regardless of how much she hated him, justified or not, if he somehow did attack her, he'd be crossing a line and then his parents would get involved, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to find out that attacking family would only cause things to get even worse.
All it took was re-living the same day over and over again and consistently getting the "Bad Ending".
After about a "month-straight" of being forced to re-live the same shitty day over and over again, running through every possible scenario to try and get ahead of this, an epiphany struck him.
Whether it was because of his own thought processes or Jack repeatedly headbutting him in the forehead during one of their encounters wasn't really important.
What was important, was that Jaune finally realized what the universe was trying to tell him all this time.
It was time to face the music head-on. No more running. No more hiding.
He had to face his demons.
He had to break the cycle.
. . . He really hoped this would break the cycle.
*NEW WORLD*
"Everyone! If I could have your attention please!" Jaune shouted loudly, stepping up onto the lip of the fountain before initiating dialogue with Jack, Cardin, and his sister.
"Hey, Nickie, right? What's he doing?" Cardin whispered.
"Yeah. Something's different about him," Jack added, noticing that the way he carried himself was completely different from the other day.
There was something different in Jaune's eyes. Like the guy had seen something no mortal man was meant to see and grown immeasurably for it.
"Beats me. Ever since 'the incident', I think he's had a screw loose," Nickie hummed, Jack wincing off to the side while Cardin wonder what "the incident" even was if it could make someone like Jack Braxton wince like that.
"I would just like to let everyone know…" he began, 'pause for effect…' he thought to himself. "That I, am a big fat phony!"
This of course caused passerby to look at him with confused looks on their faces, his sister's eyes widening.
'Good. Right on time…' Jaune thought seeing his and Ruby's team arriving at the plaza.
This would all be for naught unless he came clean to everyone.
Everyone that mattered at least.
In the grand scheme of things everyone else may as well've been a faceless background character, or an NPC.
'Well… It's all or nothing,' he thought to himself. "When I arrived at Beacon, it wasn't by my own merits that I did so! I didn't graduate from Combat School like everyone else, never even tried as a matter of fact! I used fake transcripts to get in so I'd be more-desirable!"
At this many in the audience gasped, while the members of Team Ruby and Juniper were stunned into silence.
"As for why I lied my way into Beacon… At my last school, a completely ordinary civilian-course highschool, a seventy year-old librarian broke my dick in front of the entire congregation because she thought I had a loaded weapon in my pants, and I could never go back there after that," he continued on, several in the audience wincing while others visibly recoiled in disgust at the mention of his wrecked phallus. "After stealing the family heirloom from the mantle and buying the best armor I could afford after getting my fake transcripts, I only made it through the Initiation because of sheer dumb luck. If I didn't have everyone else holding my hand every step of the way, I would've been a smear on the ground and anything I did or had done wouldn't have meant a thing," he continued, making sure to jostle the Crocea Mors on his hip so everyone would know what the "family heirloom" in question was. "And… yeah, that's pretty much it. That's all my dirty laundry out in the open. Thank you for your time, and attention," he said with a bow as though giving a presentation in school.
Once he was satisfied he'd gotten everything off of his chest, and pulled himself out of the gaping hole he'd dug for himself over the past month (and then some), he stepped down from the lip of the fountain and walked toward his sister, unclipping the Crocea Mors from his waist before holding it out.
"Nickie. I'm sorry I stole the family heirloom. Here," he said holding out his… her, sword. "I believe this is yours. In a way it always was."
"Yeah… It is," Nickie said with a dumb not as she took the family heirloom back. "You… I didn't expect you to-"
"Air out all my dirty laundry for everyone to hear of my own volition?" Jaune asked.
"Yeah… That," Nickie nodded.
"Yes, well, I figured my reputation would be hurt less if I were the one to come out and say it," Jaune admitted.
And it only took repeating the same "worst day ever" for a month straight to figure that out.
"So… Does this mean we win?" Cardin asked. Sure, he'd known about the fake transcripts, but not the broke-dick thing. That… was not something he'd wish on his worst enemy, actually…
And when he stopped to think about it, having his dick broken in front of the entire school was a half-decent excuse to want to transfer to a new school and re-invent yourself.
'Credit where credit's due. Jaune went the extra mile,' Cardin hummed, a newfound sense of respect for the blond forming.
"I think it means Nickie wins," Jack hummed, a satisfied smile on his face. "You know, I might actually be able to tolerate you, Jaune. Here I thought you were going to keep digging yourself deeper and deeper until no-one could find the body," the Faunus chuckled. "Takes a lot of balls to man up like that."
"Please don't say balls…" Jaune whimpered amidst an episodic flashback.
Death #13:Genitals gnawed off by giant naked mole rat-shaped Grimm.
Bad way to go. Especially when you didn't die right-away.
'And, repressing…' Jaune thought as he buried that memory.
"Still, I guess you finally wised up and asked Ozpin for advice, because otherwise you never would've been able to come up with something like this on such short notice," Jack said casually. "Hell, it probably would've taken you a month to come up with something like this," he tacked on, never realizing the effects these words would have on the blond's bruised-and-beaten psyche.
At that moment, something inside Jaune broke, his eyes going completely blank before he walked over to one of the nearby trees and grasped the bark with both hands.
"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
"Uh… What the heck'd you say to him?" Cardin asked as Jaune proceeded to beat his head against the tree repeatedly.
"Don't know," Jack shrugged. "I feel like I'm missing some context, but honestly, I don't really care," he admitted openly.
"Should we… Should we stop him?" Ruby asked as Jaune continued to beat his head against the tree.
"Don't know. Jaune seems to be punishing himself for something, so I say we just leave him to it," Weiss huffed. She was utterly repulsed by the idea of even knowing Jaune, yet somehow, the very fact that he himself had come out and confessed his sins instead of having someone else do it for him, made her hate him a lot less.
"That was… a lot to take in, I'll admit," Blake hummed.
"I didn't even know you could break a guy's penis. And believe me, I've tried," Yang added frankly only for Blake to elbow her in the ribs.
"Still, this is a lot to digest…" Pyrrha hummed.
Sure, she'd known about the false transcripts bit, but she had no idea Jaune's dick had been… you know…
'And is it still…?' the red-head pondered, her cheeks reddening at the thought of how such a condition may actually be an advantage in certain situations…
Speculation for another day.
"At least he finally came clean," Ren hummed.
"Yeah, but at what cost?" Nora asked, referring to Jaune's near-total loss of dignity.
"Well… Look at it this way," Ruby said, still trying to follow what was going on. "At least there's nowhere to go but up," she said enthusiastically as her confusion-addled mind could allow.
"Pyrrha Nikos, right?" Nickie asked turning her attention to Pyrrha.
"Yes?"
"Can you make sure my not-as-much-of-an-idiot-as-I-thought brother gets this?" she asked gesturing to a large steamer trunk she'd been standing by the entire time. "They're his prized comics, so I figure, since he apparently won't be coming home any time soon," she said glancing up at Ozpin's tower, a scowl momentarily marring her pretty face, "he might as well have them here. Whether he sells them or keeps them, that's on him."
"Oh, ah, sure, I'll make sure he gets them."
"Good," the blond said with a nod. "I'll see you guys later, I guess," she shrugged, family heirloom in hand as she walked off, leaving her brother to beat his head against a tree for some unknown reason, and his confused and/or shell-shocked peers behind. "Take care!"
"So… What now?" Ruby asked.
"You wanna get a late breakfast?" Ren queried.
"Pancakes! Pancakeapalooza! Pancakeasaurus Rex! PancakeSPLOSION!" Nora whooped excitedly.
"Would you like pancakes, Nora?"
"How could you tell?" she asked with an adorable tilt of her head.
"Just a feeling," Ren hummed.
With everyone leaving the plaza, only two remained, finally finding a moment to themselves.
"Jaune… Jaune, are you okay?" Pyrrha asked touching his shoulder.
"You're… you're still talking to me?" Jaune asked as he turned away from the tree to face her, the blood on his face causing Pyrrha to wince even as the blond's Aura healed the wound.
"Yes, Jaune. I am," Pyrrha nodded. "I… I'm really proud of you. For finally telling the truth," Pyrrha said with a grateful smile, happy he didn't have to carry this burden anymore, and happy she no longer had to keep the truth hidden from everyone.
"Yeah, well, you know what they say. The truth will set you free," he sighed. 'Now I just have to hope that saying can be taken literally,' he thought.
Even if physically he was perfectly fine, mentally he was completely exhausted, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed until tomorrow morning.
And of course, it wasn't like he was going to be in any rush to see if he still had this time-looping ability, even if he did see the next sunrise.
"So… Do you want a hand with that, or…?"
"Oh, uh, no. Don't worry, I got this. You just go on and get breakfast. I'll meet up with you later," Jaune waved off.
"Oh, well, alright. I'll see you soon," Pyrrha said before walking off, leaving Jaune alone with his new quarry.
"Alright… Up we go! Nngh! Oof! Ugh!" Jaune grunted as he tried and failed to lift the trunk. "Ugh, with all the bullshit over the last month, I forgot how heavy this thing was."
"Hey there, friend."
"AUUGH!" Jaune yelped over his shoulder.
"You need a hand with that?" a familiar face asked.
One Jaune hoped never to get on the bad side of ever again.
Seriously, he thought Jack's "Rage Button" was bad, but this guy…?
It wasn't that Vincent was more terrifying than Jack when they were angry, it was the contrast that made it terrifying.
Compared to the guy that Jaune now-secretly suspected was bipolar, Jack was just terrifying all the time, but that watered down the experience whenever he peaked.
" . . . You know what, yeah, I could use a hand," Jaune acquiesced.
"Okey-dokey. Lead the way," Vincent said taking one handle and lifting it up, Jaune taking the other.
*NEW WORLD*
Following the deposit of his steamer trunk into his team's room, Jaune had one more stop to make before he even contemplated checking out for the day.
Making his way to what was colloquially known as "Ozpin's Tower", Jaune was quick to learn that word of his misdeeds had spread, as was evident by the myriad of looks he received. While a few looked on at him in pity, even sympathy, the bulk were scathing looks of scorn and loathing.
That every single one of them was completely warranted made Jaune think back to Nickie's words on his first runthrough. About how this sort of scorn and derision was the only way it could've ended.
It felt so liberating to get that weight off his chest, but before he could make that upward climb out of the "hole" he'd dug himself into, he had to get one very important question answered.
And the only person to answer it, would probably be the most-difficult person for someone like him to get a meeting with; especially after the way his reputation now tanked.
Stepping into the tower and making his way to the secretary's desk, hushed mutterings sounding around him as eyes began to fall on him anew, the blond letting out a tired sigh as he made his way to the desk.
"Excuse me-"
"Jaune Arc, right?"
"Um, yes-"
"The headmaster is expecting you. Please step into the express elevator," the secretary said without missing a beat, pointing toward an elevator whose red light switched to green, the doors opening.
Jaune, left flabbergasted by the development, could only numbly walk into the metal cube, wondering why he'd been welcomed so-readily. For all intents and purposes, he should've been shown the door after news of his fraudulent transcripts had spread, yet he'd been welcomed in with seemingly open arms. The question he now had was 'Why?'
He guessed he'd get the answers to these questions and more soon enough.
The elevator making its swift journey skywards, Jaune felt his stomach sink, the elevator music a dull note in the background as his pulse pounded, his palms rife with sweat. The pit-sinking feeling of the express elevator softening, with a soft *ding* Jaune found himself on the top floor, the green, gear-themed office of Ozpin Greene opening up before him.
"Um… Hello?"
"Hello, Jaune," Ozpin said as he spun his seat around, turning his back to the window as he steepled his fingers. "I believe you have questions?"
"Only one, actually…" Jaune admitted. " . . . Why?"
"Why, what?" Ozpin asked, a small smile tugging at his lips.
"Why did you let me into Beacon? You had to have known those transcripts were fake. One phone call and my story would've fallen apart. So why did you let me stay?" the blond clarified.
"Mr. Arc… Why did you come to Beacon?"
"Come on, you have to know why, by now," Jaune groaned.
"I know. But I need to hear you say it. In-person."
"I… I came here to re-invent myself."
"I see… And do you honestly think you're the only person who came to Beacon for that reason? That you're the first to do so?"
"Well… no, but… I lied."
"Yes. You did lie. And despite that, I chose to let you say."
"Which brings me back to my original question. Why did you let me stay?"
"Because… I saw a little bit of myself in you," Ozpin answered. "I wasn't born a great warrior, but I wanted to help people. So… I took what I was good at, refined it, and…" he trailed off, venturing into the realm of nostalgia. "It was a lot of hard work and effort, but it paid off in the end. I guess I wanted the same for you. You weren't always walking this path, but now that you are… I guess I'm curious to see how far you'll go now that you've freed yourself from the weight of these sins you've committed," he said sagely. "I have tenure, so I can be selfish like that," he added humorously, a bit of mirth making its way into his tone.
" . . . Is it really that simple?"
"Well, there's a lot of abstract reasoning in there too, but I'm an old eccentric who lives in a clock tower and has an apparent coffee addiction. You'd be amazed how much leeway that gives me," he chuckled. "But in all honesty, though. I'm glad you finally came clean. For yourself, and your team. Now that you're through the worst of it, there's nowhere to go but up."
"Yeah… I'm just sorry it took so long," Jaune sighed. "Hey uh… Ozpin? Have you ever felt like… you've had to repeat a day over and over again until you got things right?"
"Hmmm… Can't say I have," the man replied. "Why do you ask?"
"Uh… no reason…" Jaune trailed off. 'He probably wouldn't believe me anyway.'
"Oh, I think you'd be surprised what I'm willing to believe."
"Wha- Guh- Did you just read my mind?!"
"Minds are like books. They're easy to read if you know how."
"Well that's… infuriatingly cryptic," Jaune deadpanned.
"Hmhm, why thank you~"
'This is my principal…' Jaune realized aloud. " . . . Thank you for your time," he eventually said, washing his hands of that conversation and heading back to the dorm.
All he wanted was to lie down and go to sleep after a long day.
"Jaune. One more thing."
"Hm?"
"Don't be afraid of the mistakes you've made. I've made more mistakes than any man, woman, and child on this planet. But at this moment, I would not consider your admission to Beacon's student body one of them. Do you intend to prove me wrong on that?"
"Yes. I mean no!" Jaune yelped. "I… I want to do better. At first I may've just wanted to escape what happened in high school, but watching everyone train, and struggle… I really do want to be a Huntsman now. For the right reasons, this time."
"Good," Ozpin nodded. "Oh, but when it comes to secrets…" He let that word hang in the air for a minute. "There's a fine line between the secrets you can keep, and the secrets you have to keep. I have my fair share of secrets too, but then again, everyone has secrets. The important thing is that you have to decide, 'Where do I draw the line in the sand?'" he asked rhetorically. "I'm not saying to share everything with everyone, but there is such a thing as 'too much information'."
"Right. I'll keep that in mind," Jaune nodded, scratching the back of his head. "Thank you again… For this second chance you've given me."
"More like thirty-second."
"Wait, what do you-"
And then the door closed.
*NEW WORLD*
Blinking blearily as he woke up the following morning, Jaune's heart suddenly stopped in his chest before he threw himself to the floor, hand pawing at the space beneath his bed. Finding nothing there, the blond hastily crawled to the foot of his bed, spotting a large steamer trunk that wasn't there the night before.
Scrambling over to it and throwing the lid open, his noisy approach rousing his teammates from their slumber, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren blinked wearily as they watched Jaune frantically leaf through piles of plastic-wrapped X-Ray & Vav comics, eyeballs practically glued to each and every one as though he couldn't believe they were actually there.
"It's over… It's finally over…" Jaune muttered to himself giddily.
"Jaune… Jaune, what's the matter? Are you alright?" Pyrrha asked worriedly.
"I… hahahahaha… I've never been better…" Jaune chuckled with a semi-crazed look on his face. "It's over… It's finally over…" he repeated.
"What're you going on about over there?" Nora asked. "What's over?"
"I'll tell you later…" Jaune whimpered, as he pressed his face to the steamer trunk. "I'm just… so happy it's tomorrow…" he sighed wistfully, the others confusedly tilting their heads as Jaune continued to cry with a happy smile on his face.
*NEW WORLD*
AN:
In a way, this-ending was more satisfying to write than the "destroy-him-and-drop-him" approach I'd initially planned on approaching when writing this character arc out; moreso than I thought it'd be. Which is pretty surprising because Canon Jaune I dislike a great deal.
I'm still not "fine" with the way Jaune got into Beacon (in the Canon), and the way Jaune snapped at Oscar/Ozpin in Volume 6 Episode 8 "Dead End" for "lying", and asking whether or not they could "trust him", it was TOTALLY hypocritical because Jaune's own secret about never going to Combat School when he told everyone (including the Admissions Board) he did is even worse for the group; especially because everyone with him "watching their backs" assumes he's even qualified to do so when we can all agree, "he's not". All he is is some lucky idiot with a pulse that managed to wriggle his way through the very selective means which Beacon used to keep slackers like him out in the first place!
An example of why Jaune is not qualified to be a Huntsman (in Canon), let alone have anyone rely on him, would be back in Volume 4 Episode 1 where the height of Jaune's tactical ability was, and I quote, "we hit it, harder". Him having a Sword that turns into a slightly larger sword doesn't magically make him a competent warrior either, all it does is give him a bigger weapon he still has no idea how to use.
Add onto the fact that the only one in their immediate circle of friends who knew about that secret was Pyrrha, who literally took that secret to her grave, and you can understand why Jaune's hypocrisy pisses me the fuck off; even before he exploded at Oscar in Volume 6.
But admittedly, writing out the whole thing coming out into the open, coming around full-circle, and him growing stronger for it (going forward) is pretty damn satisfying; if only because I feel that, as an author/story-teller, I handled this part of his character arc better than the Canon did. There could've been this satisfying character-arc (pun not intended) about Jaune admitting to everyone what he admitted to Pyrrha, and all of them pitching together to help him overcome his own weakness, or him trying to repair his damaged reputation with his friends (like will have to happen in the Fanon), and that just… never, happens.
Obviously, Jaune's reputation took a hit after this, but it isn't nearly as bad as "Playthrough 1" where he was completely destroyed, so now, I can write in a less-antagonistic working relationship between him and Jack, at the very least.
So… If you like it or loath it, tell me what you think in the Reviews column. I mainly wrote this character arc because so-few people are willing to touch up on it.
Oh, and if anyone can guess the Inspiration for Jaune's backstory, I'll feel less stupid for trying to work that kind of joke/reference in.
As for Ozpin being "infuriatingly cryptic"… Interpret that as you will.