Unfortunately, Jaune didn't receive any sort of answer that would help him comprehend what was happening. However, he also didn't encounter anything for the rest of that day that confused him. So he eventually fell asleep, and since he wasn't on any sedatives, of course, he was plagued with nightmares.
The more he dreamed, the more he realized that death was rather pleasant. He hadn't gone crazy yet. Death was comforting, in a sense. It was dying that sucked. In his nightmares, he could feel the pain of dying again and again, and without the panic associated with the pain, he started to wish he would die faster.
An arm bent at an odd angle, with shards of bone poking out, reached over the forest ground. His arm was broken, his entire body was broken. His skeleton couldn't support the structure of a body. His skin couldn't confine his organs. His vessels couldn't transfer blood. He was dying. He had failed to escape the forest. But when death finally came, he would be given another chance, and his pain would end.
Although Jaune could still recall how many attempts it took to finally survive the forest, he no longer trusted his ability to remember. His memories weren't infallible, and there was no one else who would remember what he had done if he had forgotten it. That time, that instance, those moments, they no longer exist in the real world, in the current world.
He was the only person who knew when he died, and yet he couldn't trust himself to remember. He would die. He would try again. He would die again.
His nerve endings fried and his veins froze.
A gooey eyeball slipped out a socket, it fell on the dirt among the leaves, pebbles, and the shattered bits of his lower jaw. A small bird was perched on his head, its small beak pecked at his exposed brain where a chunk of his skull had gone missing.
He couldn't move, his spine had cracked near his neck. He couldn't breathe, his ribcage and lungs had been crushed by his armor.
He could still see his grave with one eye. He could still hear cawing birds with one ear. He could still smell bile and blood. He could still taste mucus and blood. He could still feel everything. He was alive. His heart didn't beat, his lungs didn't breathe, and yet he was still alive. And then, he died.
He blinked. He was alive.
His guts were still warm, hot even, to his fingers numbed from blood loss. No matter how much he shoved back into the slash on his stomach, his intestines were always being dragged behind him, leaving a trail of bodily fluids.
Jaune staggered through a dark alleyway that twisted endlessly. Pits that overlooked the forest from the sky littered the wet ground. "Haah, ahha," he panted as he tried to flee with all his might.
An ear-shattering howl swept through the path, the force nearly toppling him. As he almost tripped over, bloody stakes shot out from the ground and barely missed his body. The alleyway itself seemed to tip and lean. Gravity had shifted, the scenery through the gaping ground lurched closer.
"Welcome to Beacon, Jaune. Have a nice day!" The stars in the night all echoed the same announcement.
The walls began to crack as white claws smashed through stone and steel. Shards of glass rained down on him, shredding his flesh and eyes. And his vision went black. A burning hand grasped his neck, his skin burned, and his throat was crushed. A freezing arm shot through his open gut wound and froze his organs and blood. He died again.
He was alive, and standing before a large cracked mirror. A frozen framework of silver gears was etched on its outline. Jaune stared at the reflection of a smiling young boy. He stared at the reflection of that boy's corpse. Dried blood had leaked from his eyes, ears, and nose. He died.
A silver chain dangled his beating heart before his eyes.
Jaune looked down at himself, at the gaping hole in his chest. He fell to his knees like a puppet that had its strings sliced. Without a heart, his blood eventually grew cold and stale, his muscles and joints grew stiff. He died, again.
He blinked. He was alive.
Jaune stared blankly at the ceiling above his head.
A familiar ceiling.
It was the same sight he had seen for the past few days. It was his third time waking up in a recovery room, yet this time was slightly different.
It's still night outside.
Instead of rays of sunlight, it was beams of moonlight shooting through his window. The inky black fabric of the sky was littered with bright pinholes, and a large broken smear of glowing white stained the pitch black expanse.
Jaune shook his head to get rid of his drowsiness as he sat up in his medical bed. A rather dull pain flowed from his gut. It wasn't unbearable; it was comparable to a small scrap or bad rash. It was just a small flickering flame, whereas dying was a roaring inferno.
The chill air of the night was rather comfortable on his skin, mostly because his heart was pumping burning hot blood through his body. His sterile white outfit was damp with heavy sweat, and his skin felt slimy. He groaned as he threw his blanket off his legs and hopped down from his bed. His clammy feet met the freezing linoleum floor, a rather unpleasant chill swam up his legs. He quickly slid his feet into the rubber and foam slippers provided to him.
Jaune walked over to a large cabinet in the corner of the room and retrieved a new set of clothes.
Oh yeah, I was wearing my school uniform. Do I have to ask for another? Or maybe there'll be spares in my room.
He went into a small room next to the cabinet. Automatic light turned on as he opened the door, and then he fiddled with plastic knobs. First, freezing water shot down on him from the shower head, and then it was followed by scalding hot water. After he finally got a nice neutral temperature, he discarded his soaked clothes and took a quick shower.
His body showed no signs of his deaths. His skin was nearly pristine as it rested comfortably over his body. No scars or bruises existed, and even if they had remained, he was pretty sure his Aura would've healed them. The x-shaped scar lined with stitches was already starting to fade.
This was a waste of time.
Jaune didn't care about his sleep, about his clothes, or even about taking a shower. Originally, he had wanted to attend Beacon to become a hero, but now he was here to survive. Yet he hadn't done anything that would help him to do that. If he wanted to spend his days rotting away in a bed until he died, then he would've stayed in Vale. He was here to learn not to rest and lick his wounds.
He was going to die.
I'm weak.
He knew that. He didn't have any strength or stamina, he didn't know how to use a sword or shield. He was going to die because he was weak.
Why!? Why!? Why!?
His brain had suddenly, abruptly, reached a boiling point.
Why the fuck are we here!? Why the fuck are we here!?
Like a metal vise was squeezing his skull, like a steel hammer was being slammed against his skull, sharp pressure was slamming against his brain. His muscles tensed up, and he held his head in his hands. Flashes of blurry memories went through his nerves, squishing and cracking, the short-lived attempts where his own fingers dug into his brain. Fear flooded his veins.
He could die. He could kill himself quite easily.
Unintelligible mumbles and whimpers left his mouth as he curled up into a fetal position. His eyes stared ahead with an unfocused gaze, his tears lost in the downpour of water from the shower.
Every minuscule twitch his fingers made against his head made him shiver. He couldn't remember, he couldn't recall, he didn't know how many times he had died, he didn't know how many times he had killed himself.
It would be pointless, all his pain wouldn't matter once he died.
…
…
…
Waking up as he was being showered with freezing water hadn't been the best. Jaune couldn't recall the moment he had fallen asleep, or maybe passed out, but he wasn't that concerned; he wasn't going to try to remember what he forgot.
He quickly got dressed and was wasting time re-reading the magazine he had received from his teammate.
I probably should've asked about that team leader thing she mentioned.
Red, Ruby Rose, was his friend and teammate. At first, Jaune had assumed she was mentally well. Her intense love for weapons felt like an acceptable quirk, but her display last night had shown him how wrong he had been in that assumption. As a result of how odd she had been, he couldn't truly focus on the magazine she gave him last night.
I probably should've known I was supposed to clean my blade. Luckily, I can just blame it on my totally real brain damage.
He only hoped no one would notice that he lacked the tools necessary to maintain his sword. The rest of the magazine was chock-full of tips and little tidbits that would help him feign familiarity with wielding a weapon. He was grateful to his team leader, but he was also a little apprehensive about seeing her again.
After Chryssa stopped by and performed a small check up on him, she once again cleared him to leave. She also handed him a bottle and a few packets of powder. Apparently, he wasn't ready for any solid food yet. As he downed his 'breakfast', she nervously asked him a question. "Are you okay?"
Jaune blinked at her for a second. "You're the medical student here."
"Jaune, you aren't being threatened or anything, right? Beacon isn't the type of place to let family influence affect their decisions." Chryssa looked rather stern, an odd contrast to her rather normally frazzled appearance.
"Uh, no, I'm fine." Jaune could guess what this was about. "I just don't want to go through the hassle of a court case."
"Really? If you're worried you can't afford a good lawyer, I know someone that attends Bolster Academy, she—"
"It's fine," Jaune interrupted. He could tell that his nurse friend felt strongly about this matter, but he already dealt with it. "Thanks for your concern, but it's unnecessary."
"Fine," she grumbled. "Still, she has some nerve to do that to you after all you've done for her. I guess her Schnee blood runs fine."
A beat passed in silence. "What?" He asked with a small tilt of his head.
Another beat passed. Chryssa looked confused at his confusion. "I'm just saying I shouldn't have been surprised by her behavior, like father like daughter, I suppose." She said in a rather dismissive tone, rather unlike her normal nervous peppiness.
"Oh, okay." Jaune could tell that he shouldn't have voiced his confusion, it was clear to him that he should somehow be familiar with his teammate's last name. He had claimed to have lost his memories for combat, any more than that would be stretching it.
After the nurse left, he quickly whipped out his Scroll and entered Weiss' last name into a search bar. He quickly discovered why he should've known the name, the SDC, Schnee Dust Company. He was familiar enough with them, he had seen their logo plenty of times in Vale, but since they were always in the news with the Dust robberies, he had avoided hearing about them.
The more he read about them, the more he understood where his nurse friend had been coming from. The SDC didn't have the best reputation, countless reports of scandals were linked to them, and they didn't have the cleanest record.
Huh, so Weiss is from the seventh richest family in Remnant. Oh, wait.
Jaune un-repressed his memories from her speech the other day, she had said something about the White Fang being after her and about how much her father valued her.
I definitely dodged a bullet by not taking this to court.
His false transcripts would've definitely been discovered.
He blinked as he read a rather interesting headline: Schnee Heiress Suffers Brain Damage At Beacon Academy?
A quick skim of the story revealed that the reporter got their hands on Weiss' Aura Exhaustion report, aside from that report and a few speculations, they didn't have much else to offer as a story. Jaune hoped that if what she did to him got published, they wouldn't investigate his documents.
A small alert vibrated his Scroll, a 7:50 am reminder that the first class of the day was about to start. Jaune hurriedly got dressed in the school uniform that his nurse friend had brought him, once again he forewent his tie. He used an app on his device that showed him a rough map of the school.
Even with a map, he still got lost, and it was ten past eight when he arrived at what he was pretty sure was the right classroom. He was a little nervous to open the door. He had been confident last time too, and that had been a broom closet, but this time he could hear a low mutter from the room.
Do I knock? Should I just barge right in? Yang had said that this professor was a boastful man who told long winded and pointless tall tales. Would he get angry if I interrupted class?
Deciding that he was wasting more time by not making a decision, he placed a hand against the door, took a deep breath, and pushed it open with a bit more force than was strictly necessary.
As the door swung open, Jaune's vision exploded in a flash of orange and gray. He remembered hearing about how gunshot victims didn't hear the sound of their death because a bullet traveled at twice the speed. He even remembered hearing that at a close enough range, people's brains wouldn't even be able to notice the bullet being fired before they died.
A gunshot echoed out in a classroom, shortly followed by a door lightly rebounding off a wall, and then the thud of something dead hitting the floor.
Jaune blinked, his brain frozen. A second passed before he consciously registered what he was seeing. A guy in a school uniform was holding a spear/rifle, with the gun barrel aimed at him. He looked down. He saw the fading body of a bird-like Grimm, missing a large chunk of itself, on the floor. He also saw red rose petals spinning around in the air rather harshly.
And he saw silver eyes staring up at him.
"Are you okay, Jaune?" Ruby had a cheerful smile on her face.
He blinked. He was alive.
Thanks for reading! I'm always open to feedback, so please leave a review, or reply in my forum, about what you liked or hated about this chapter or the whole story. If anyone wants to be a Beta Reader, then PM me and we'll talk details.
Sorry for taking a while, I had my hands full.
Let's see, Jaune had a rather average night, learned about the SDC, and then he finally made it to class. And wowzers, would you look at that, he's still alive.