Jaune Arc was alive right now, and he didn't want to die, however, a part of him had already given up on surviving this attempt.
Since he was distracted by Nora, he hadn't prepared his shield when he stood on the launchpad, and now he was soaring through the air above the forest that had killed him many times over. Even as he fumbled with his sheath, trying to detach it from his belt, he tried not to think about dropping it with his shaking fingers. He had to focus on his survival above all else.
Wind whipped past him at high speeds, but his new invisible full body armor - his Aura - prevented the harsh winds from tearing at his eyes and obstructing his vision.
He would have sighed in relief when he successfully managed to get his sheath off without dropping it, but then he reflexively triggered the transformation. When the surface area of his sheath expanded into his shield, the wind viciously tried to snatch it from his grasp. He could feel his shoulder almost pop from the force.
Urgently, his mind screamed at him. The time it took for him to reach the tree line was almost upon him. His shield was facing the sky, and his back was to the trees.
He would die.
No!
Jaune violently twisted, forcing everything in his body to fight against the natural forces of wind, gravity, and momentum. He didn't care, he just needed to surviv—
…
…
…
Pain was the first thing that registered with his mind, and then he flashed through the memories that had been jumbled by the impact.
Somehow he had managed to use his shield to break through larger branches, but then the bottom edge of it smashed into a branch thicker than he was tall. His shield dug into the wood and Jaune was sent falling over it. He crashed into branch after branch, his armor and Aura protecting him from the cuts but not the bruises, and then he smashed headfirst into a tree.
He almost felt his eyeballs pop and his teeth shatter, but they didn't and he just blacked out.
And he was alive.
He was on the forest floor, staring up at a canopy of green barely covering a sea of blue. The green was also breached by beams of yellow and white. Colors filled his blue eyes.
The world is so colorful.
His brain sluggishly thought and then he also noticed he was seeing the same scenery twice. In his left eye, he saw the colorful version. In his right eye, he saw a deep red tinted version.
Pain.
The nerves in his body sent the signal to his brain, but he couldn't feel it.
He knew he was in an excruciating amount of pain, one that dwarfed everything else he had ever felt combined, but he couldn't feel it right now.
His body wouldn't move. He had tried to get up but his body wouldn't move.
Get up! Get up! Get up!
His brain screamed at him, but he didn't and he wouldn't.
He was alive right now. Wasn't that good enough?
He had survived falling and landing. Wasn't that good enough?
Did he really have to do more after that?
He felt the invisible suit of armor he was wearing move by itself.
A glowing white light encased his body, it forced his broken bones and mutilated muscles to move.
Like a puppet pulled up by strings, he stood.
Like an automaton acting with gears, his joints and limbs moved.
Jaune would die. That much was true, but not like this.
His body and brain might have been broken, but his soul stood strong.
He would die, his body was leaking life by the years, he would die in a few seconds at the latest.
And yet Jaune stood up. He wouldn't waste this attempt, not the one where he had finally landed.
"R-Yu-o'K?" A garbled sound entered his ears.
Mechanically, his neck swiveled to the source.
Red and White, that was all his brain could register. Signals that had been sent out never found a pathway leading to anything else.
He blinked when he felt his heart stop beating.
Red and White made sounds.
They danced in a backdrop of Black.
And as his corpse, driven by his soul, stood and watched, Jaune died and felt something yank him back.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome—"
Jaune Arc violently vomited out everything that had been stored in his stomach all at once, then the world spun underneath his feet and the floor came rushing up to him.
"Ladies and gentlemen—"
Jaune Arc held his head with his hands, blood poured from his eyes and nose, the world was spinning underneath his feet and the floor came rushing up to him.
"Ladies and—"
Jaune Arc held his head with his hands. His brain felt like it was being electrified and boiled. He squeezed his skull, trying to get the pressure out. He heard a crack and then he felt free.
"Ladies—"
He tightly clenched the lip of the trash bin that he was bent over and kept vomiting until it was just stomach acid he was spitting up.
And then his body rejected Jaune's soul.
"…" Static.
Jaune's soul continued to pump the heart of his corpse, but it couldn't stop him from dying again and again.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Beacon Academy. Please make sure you have all your personal belongings with you as you exit. I'd like to thank you for joining us on this short trip. Have a nice day!" The many speakers on the roof all echoed the same announcement.
Vomit drooled forth from his mouth. With each death, his next one came even quicker, eventually he lost count and it became hard to tell whether he was alive or dead.
Until finally, he felt it. Something within his soul had changed.
No, it changed back.
Somehow, a part of his soul had developed differently within just a few hours. And when he found himself back before the change, his body rejected him.
"Sir?" A female voice broke him out of his thoughts. "Are you okay?" She asked.
Almost mechanically, Jaune turned his head until he could see who had spoken to him. It was a pretty flight attendant with blue hair who had asked. He glanced down at her name tag. "Yeah, just motion sickness. Thanks for asking Ms. Lazulum." He felt a smile try to grace his face as he answered the somewhat familiar looking lady.
That was a new experience for him, or at least it wasn't another death, and so his brain finally started back up in full, however it avoided thoughts, questions and feelings that it knew led nowhere.
Jaune stumbled away from the spot he would die at. He wasn't dizzy or lightheaded, but for some reason, he had trouble walking. With each step, he got better at it though, and when he exited the aircraft, he was walking normally.
His brain told his body what to do, and his soul was just along for the ride.
He walked past a small crater in the ground. Judging by the rubble, it appeared fresh, so he briefly wondered what had happened there, which somehow made him feel sad.
"—nice day!"
Suddenly Jaune Arc's eyes snapped open and his brain almost turned off, but then he realized that the words he had heard were near the end of his start. He wasn't on an airship about to collapse. He was in a ballroom surrounded by students.
"Y'know what man? I agree with you, today does look like it's gonna be a nice day! There's not a single cloud in the skies and I can almost hear the birds singing! Today's going to be wonderful!" A voice chimed in.
I'm not dead? Then why can't I remember…
Suddenly, the memory of a pink-eyed boy waking him up flashed through his mind, and as the events of last night unfolded within his brain, he somehow felt sad.
"It's morning~!" A girl sang near a boy with pink eyes.
Oh, was it you? I guess I should say thanks. I don't even remember my nightmares.
After Jaune Arc met Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie, he listened to her ramble all the way to the cliff.
It's a waste. When I die, I'll be the only one to remember our conversation, and Ren will see me as a complete stranger. Being forgotten sucks.
As he stood on a launchpad, he prepared his shield, and then a sudden thought occurred to him.
Oh yeah, Aura. I have that now. I guess I should thank Red and White for helping me remember it, but they wouldn't get it.
Jaune Arc held his shield in front of himself, and then his legs shifted into a stance that wouldn't send him spinning when he was launched.
With his shield and Aura at the ready, he easily broke through small branches and was properly braced for any big impacts. Soon he found himself on the forest floor, staring up at a canopy of trees that barely covered the sky, and sunlight shone down on him.
He was alive.
Tears poured from his eyes, but he didn't know why.
Laughter poured from his throat, but he didn't know why.
It didn't take long for him to stop. Then he just basked for a while.
"Are you okay?" A soft voice asked and silver stared down at him.
Jaune stared back, then signals fired off in his brain and he found information. "Hey Red, I think I broke an arm and a leg."
"Seriously?" A different voice chimed. "Why are you even here?" Her tone was cold like ice.
"What's wrong with you!? Can't you see he's injured!?"
"And? We're training to be Huntsmen, if he can't even survive a little fall, then there's really no hope for him!"
I did survive.
Jaune started to cry and laugh again. "I'm alive!" He shouted in joy. "I'm alive! Fuck yes!" He could feel giddiness flood every inch of his body. He shook off the fog in his mind and sat up. "My shoulder is pretty busted, but I think my knee is just sprained. Aura is seriously the best." He said to the two now very confused individuals. "Red, White, thank you." He smiled as warm tears fell from his face.
"Uh, so are you okay?" Red's soft voice wavered when she asked him, her silver eyes filled with concern.
Jaune suddenly flashed through every death he had suffered through in these woods. "Never been better." He smiled again as he tried to stand, but he couldn't push himself up with only one arm and knee in working condition.
Red suddenly knelt next to him, wrapped one of his arms around her neck, and she placed a hand on his back as she stood. "Do you think you could walk?" Her voice had sounded even softer now that it was closer to his ears.
"Yeah, probably." He shifted his weight around his feet. "If I don't put too much on my knee, I think it won't give out."
"Seriously?" White chimed in her ice-like voice. "Why are you even bothering? We have relics to find! We shouldn't be wasting time like this."
"Go find them by yourself, then. I'm not going to be the kind of Huntress that would leave behind an injured person." Red's soft voice did contain some bitterness.
"Huh, I thought you two were friends." After saying so, he earned one flat-eyed stare and a glare. "Well, clearly I was wrong, but still. Why are you two arguing? Right now, you're both alive and uninjured. That's like what? A third of our way there? Now we just need to get some relics and get out. I don't see how those two could be a challenge anymore."
White's face twitched with irritation. "You must've hit your head, or haven't you noticed you're being supported by a child?"
"I'm 15!"
"I'm 16 and I don't really see how our ages matter. We all survived that fall. I doubt any of us are normal." Jaune also had to wonder which of them were more abnormal, him for dying repeatedly trying to land in this forest or those two who had managed it on their first try.
White huffed and crossed her arms.
Red looked up at him. "Really?" She asked. "Cool." She smiled without waiting for a reply. The sudden sounds of something moving through bushes placed White and Red on alert. "Can you stand?" Her voice contained some steel to it.
"Uh, think you can give me a shove towards that tree?" He pointed as a large tree, that at its roots rested his shield and sword. As soon as his request left his mouth, he felt his body being lifted up as the wind rushed past him. In a blink, he was next to his destination.
Growls echoed from nearly all directions, as a pack of Beowolves stalked up around them.
Red and White both pulled out weapons and got into fighting stances, and Jaune just leaned against a tree and held his shield up with one arm. He might die soon, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered right now.
Sorry for the weird chapter. I hope it was within acceptable limits.