Chapter 7

Opening her eyes, Jane stood in place for a moment as the Doll approached her.

"Good Hunter, welcome back." She was greeted with politeness and kindness, only for the Doll to frown upon seeing her expression. "What troubles you so?" Sighing, Jane rubbed at her neck, trying to think of how to word what she wanted. It was...surprisingly difficult to ask of the Doll, even if she was not the one going back down to Yharnam. Jane had spent the day psyching herself up to go back down there, and yet, it was telling the Doll what she intended that was the harder part.

Eventually, she lowered her hand and me the Doll's curious and slightly worried gaze. "I need to go back. Back to Yharnam. I need to know if the Old Blood will help me to control my strength with skill...and I need to know if you'll help me in this." The Doll frowned at her, and Jane pressed before she could deny her immediately. "I know you don't want me to go back down there, and I know that it's a long shot, but-"

She stopped when she realized the Doll was...laughing. It was genteel and polite, but it was the first time she had heard such amusement from her. "Good Hunter, that is not how the Old Blood works. Skill governs your ability to use delicate weaponry, such as the rapier. It has no bearing on controlling your strength, not in the way you wish it to be. Within Yharnam, you will find no shortcut to control, you will only suffer for nothing, I could not let you send yourself back into the jaws of beasts for nothing."

Blinking, Jane sighed, nodding her head gently. She knew it was a long shot, and it seemed her haste and the advice she'd been given previously, that Strength would best favour her use of Crocea Mors, had left enough of a blind spot in her knowledge that she had willingly believed something she didn't know anything about, not really. "I'm sorry to bear you bad news, I know you well enough to know you would not seek the Old Blood for a frivolous purpose. Come, please, and regale me with your tale of the waking world this day, Good Hunter."

Despite her disappointment at her sought-after quick fix being denied to her, Jane didn't have the heart to deny the Doll her gentle request.

Awakening ahead of the morning sun, Jane quietly set about her morning routine, slipping out of the dormroom after showering without disturbing her teammates.

Ever since she had awoken, she had felt a fascination with watching the sun rise and drive the shadows back, and while she had missed the sunrise beyond her first day at Beacon due to circumstances outside of her control, she still wanted to watch that glowing ball that gave life emerge from beyond the horizon. Walking out, she navigated the very sparse population already awake, mostly faculty with a few early-riser students mixed in, most heading towards the cafeteria for an early breakfast.

None paid her much mind, and she reached her chosen spot, the same location she had ended up in on the morning of the initiation, without hassle. Sitting down on the grass, Jane folded a leg sideways against the ground and bent her other, resting her arm on her knee and her chin on her forearm as the sky brightened. Watching the colours play out across the sky honestly amazed her, a view that happened every day and that seemingly nobody cared to remark upon.

Humming as she considered that conundrum, she felt the appearance of the anomalous headmaster a good thirty seconds before he was in view. Whether because the effect around him was stronger, or she was getting better at sensing him, she didn't know, nor did she care. She was still wary of him, but so far he seemed to be an ordinary, if somewhat eccentric, headmaster. "A good morrow to you Miss Arc."

Glancing up at the sky and judging that sunrise still remained a few minutes away, she removed her eyes from the skies to focus on the ash-haired man, his cane under one hand, and a mug of steaming beverage in his other. "A good morrow it is, headmaster." She replied, removing her hat for a moment as a nod of politeness, then replacing it. She wasn't a man after all, so it wasn't a social faux par. The social dynamics of hats wasn't exactly something she expected to be taught by Annalise, but when the woman had been locked away and trapped in immortality for so long, she supposed having someone willing to learn would lead her to impart any skill she could.

"Once more observing the morning sun I see?" He asked redundantly, and her raised eyebrow made it clear what she thought of the weak instigation. Apparently immune to such pedestrian things as social embarrassment from a subtle rebuke, he moved to stand nearby, taking a nonchalant sip from his drink. "If I may, what is it about the morning sun that fascinates you so? I will admit to a certain fondness for watching the sun rise on a new day, bringing with it fresh beginnings, but you look upon it most fondly indeed."

Jane turned her gaze away from him, judging that he hadn't acted against her, and that not watching him, while it tickled her instincts quite irritatingly, would actually help her to learn to resist her Yharnam-taught instincts. "Because I see the sun for what it is. Every morning, without fail, it drives away the darkness which hides monsters, and lights the world for us to enjoy. At night, we hide away and rest, to return to the light on a new morning reinvigorated and warmed."

"A most curious response from one so young. I would ask of you this then, do not let the light blind you so. For while the light banishes the darkness, it leaves behind shadows where those monsters linger." Blinking, Jane turned stunned eyes upon the headmaster, only to watch him continue to walk along the path. "Have a good day Miss Arc." Her eyes remained glued to the back of his head as he strode off with the calm, casual gait of a man who was unconcerned with the world around him.

She returned her gaze to the sky as the first direct shafts of light began to peak over the horizon, her mind turning his words over. It was...curious that he would speak of darkness in shadows and how light itself cast those shadows. But, then again, during the speech on the night before initiation, he had been similarly dismissive of their previous efforts, all that talk of wasted energy, lack of knowledge and other melancholy things.

Considering how old the headmaster was, as well as whatever fuckery was going on with him, it stood to reason he knew greater than most of the threats that lurked within the shadows. With a slight stretch, Jane placed her palms down on the grass and leaned back as the sub shone upon her. Even if she chose to take the headmaster's advice to heart, that didn't mean the sun was to be shunned, merely that there cannot be light without darkness.

Also the knowledge that the headmaster was a bit fond of word games and melodrama, that was indeed important to know.

Surprising Jane slightly, the next time she noticed Team RWBY, which was after she'd watched the sun and headed off for breakfast, Weiss seemed to have changed for the better.

Well, that was being unfair, the whole team dynamic seemed to have shifted. Ruby wasn't quite so...over the top, to put it lightly. Weiss actually seemed to listen to what Ruby said, and only chided her if it really was something worth being chided for. Blake was still distant and less connected to the group than the other members but she was closer than she'd been before, and Yang, well, Yang hadn't really changed much, but considering her headstrong personality and her behavior, she didn't need to change much, she was very much so the adhesive holding that team together before.

She hadn't noticed them at breakfast the previous day, but to be fair, she had her own issues to deal with, and hadn't really been looking. Plus, her teams shenanigans that morning served as more than enough of a distraction. As for what exactly had happened to draw Ruby and Weiss together again, Jane didn't know, but she still didn't much like the heiress, her behavior was just so irritating to Jane, and the way she held herself rankled her. It was like looking at all of the things Annalise had taught her never to do, but in human form.

One of the first things she'd learned was how to wear a 'mask' of sorts. No matter her feelings behind the mask, she would portray whatever she needed to. It was this tutoring that let her appear on the airship and present an ordinary facadé to Yang, as well as to Ruby later on, despite her sudden change in location. Yesterday and the day before didn't count, masks could only do so much when she was so muddled by what she'd done.

Collecting her food, Jane sat down opposite their 'sister team' as Nora had put it, just by virtue of their teams being opposite each other in the hallway and gave Ruby a nod and smile of greeting. "Jane! How are you? Nobody saw you after Professor Goodwitch's lesson until Oobleck's and you disappeared before we could talk to you. What's happening, are you getting expelled?! Please don't get expelled, it was an accident was-mmph!"

Ruby quickly found her mouth covered by a pale white hand, and Jane looked over to see Weiss roll her eyes. "At least let her speak Ruby. But our leader is right, everybody saw that what happened was an accident, so there's no reasonable way you'd be expelled over it. You...aren't being expelled, right? We might not get along, but you showed Ruby a kindness I didn't when you two first met, and it'd be a shame to see you leave, you are really strong after all."

"I'm not being expelled. Goodwitch has me in detention with her for the next three Tuesdays doing control training. It's tedious and really difficult trying to reign in my strength when I've never had to before, but I'd rather a hundred hours of endlessly training myself to hold back than to hurt someone like that even one more time." She frowned, poking at a sausage with her fork for a moment. "But, thank you for the vote of confidence, both of you." She gave Weiss a nod, looking at Ruby and giving her a genuine, if shallow, smile.

She still didn't trust the heiress to truly have Ruby's best interests at heart, people simply didn't change that quickly, or even at all. For all she knew, Weiss was wearing a mask of her own, hiding herself behind politeness and friendliness. But whatever the case was, Weiss's public face was what she had to deal with, and if she was being acceptable, far be it for her to not acknowledge that. "A socializing Jane? It must be the end times."

Jane snorted, coughing a few times as the drink she'd been enjoying went down the wrong tube, turning a faux-glare towards Pyrrha. Just the past two days had already shaken some of the endless politeness from the redhead, giving her the freedom to crack actual jokes at other's expense. "And an assassin-in-training redhead, trying to make me choke on my delicious beverage." She held the cup out for all to see, presenting it as a murderous tool. "See how she attempted to murder me with my very own drink!"

That in turn got Pyrrha to laugh even as she walked away to go get her breakfast, leaving Jane to lower her drink back to the table and shake her head with a smile. If a month ago, by her perception of time at least, she had told herself that she would have teammates she was comfortable enough around to crack jokes like that with, she would have narrowed her eyes then cut whoever told her that into ribbons, seeing it as their attempt to make her lower her guard.

Yet now, she really did trust them enough to lower her guard around them. Maybe it was due to the fact that she'd began to liken the academy to the Hunter's Workshop, a place where she was safe and able to let her guard down just in general. Not entirely, Gehrman had seen to that, as had the Moon Presence to an extent, but beacon was the same. It wasn't entirely safe, the headmaster still left her uncomfortable when he showed up, and that disasterous combat class proved that there was danger of a less direct type, but, for the most part, she was safe. "Ow, that hurts!"

Blinking as her mental train was derailed by someone yelping in pain, Jane looked over, spying the lump in a suit of armour that Blake had fought, whose name she couldn't be bothered to remember, pulling on the ear of a rabbit faunus. She watched as the girl asked politely, but in pain, for them to stop, only to be called disgusting, and a harsher yank on her ears made her stumble. "I told you they were real." The ringleader announced as if he wasn't pulling on someone's ear.

Jane narrowed her eyes as she looked between the rabbit faunus and the dude in armour, curious. She knew the armoured guy was a first-year, she vaguely remembered most of the students who had formed new teams that year. None of them were rabbit faunus, which meant that girl was, at the very least, a year above them, perhaps more, she was a bad judge of age. A second-year student was letting a first-year pull their ears and insult them, that was quite baffling.

Jane, as before when she saw Ruby and Weiss arguing, debated with herself whether it was worth it to get involved. In-roads with a higher-year student could go a long way to helping her figure things out, maybe even she could ask them to help her train her strength control. And she'd witnessed the armoured brute fight Blake, she was most certainly not impressed. He had power, but little control, swinging a mace around like it was a flail and succeeding in exactly nothing while he did so, since his opponent had the dexterity and agility to simply avoid all his attacks.

On the other hand, if she intervened, she would be drawing attention to herself...which she already had thanks to the training accident. She would piss off the brute, but she didn't give a damn about him anyway, and he was little threat to her regardless. There was a chance that things would backfire, that the faunus girl would resent her for thinking she 'needed help' or something, she'd met more than a few Yharnamites who had spat upon her aid, even if they desperately needed it.

But, some long-since buried part of her that wanted to be a hero begged her to stand up and do the right thing. Even if Yharnam had battered her spirit into conformity, there was always that piece of her that just wanted to save people, to be a good person. Maybe there would be no reward, maybe no aid would come and all she would do would be to make more enemies for herself, but, when someone needed help, she couldn't just sit there and do nothing.

Her decision made, Jane slipped off the bench and nonchalantly walked over carrying her tray of half-eaten breakfast. As she approached, she pretended to stumble, allowing her tray to empty itself directly onto orange-brown hair. Beans, bacon, egg, sausage and her drink all poured over him, covering his shoulders and head, seeping into his armour as he let go of the faunus suddenly and stood, turning with a bellow. "WHO THE HE-" That was as far as he got before he noticed her. "You. You did this to me?" Jane shrugged.

"T'was an accident, I apologize." She offered, barely even bothering to hide her contempt for him behind her mask. He pointed a sauce-specked finger at her, before grumbling wordlessly and turning away, walking past the faunus he'd been hurting and out of the cafeteria to clean himself up, his team following after him and throwing dirty looks over their shoulders at her. "You okay?" She asked gently, watching the faunus twitch her ear and wince.

"He didn't do any real damage, my aura protects my ears as well, they're just pretty sensitive." Jane tilted her head at the curious and rather cute accent the faunus had, only for the faunus to match her head tilt with one of her own, one ear flopping sideways gently and setting off every single cuteness alarm in her brain. "Why did you help? He would have given up in a few seconds anyway, I'd given him the reaction he was looking for, now he'll escalate against you."

Jane forced herself to stop internally jumping around at how utterly adorable those ears were long enough to give a coherent response. "He will, but he's a brute with a mace, I can handle him in combat just fine, and if he intends to sabotage me in other ways, he'll find I have more than a few tricks up my sleeve." Even as she responded politely and calmly, she turned the girl's response over in her head, in the parts not lost to her already at least.

Apparently she was deliberately doing what she did, maybe because she knew if she just gave whatever reaction he desired, he would then leave her alone. Better than a drawn-out confrontation of some kind, though at the cost of personal pain and humiliation. Maybe she was one of those kinds of people, who 'liked' that kind of thing? If that was the case, Jane would have ruined her fun, something she hadn't considered.

But no, the way the faunus was looking at her didn't make her seem upset or anything, she was just genuinely curious about why she'd involved herself. "Well, thank you anyway, I appreciate it." The girl nodded her head then made to leave, stopping and turning to look over her left shoulder for a moment. "I'm Velvet by the way." Her left ear drooped a little and Jane dipped into a bow, removing her hat and resisting the urge to say something regrettable.

"Jane Arc, at your service." She rose from her bow after a moment and smiled at Velvet turned faintly crimson, gave her a slightly halting nod, then walked away at a clipped pace. Glancing down, Jane carefully vacated the mess she had made on the floor, returning to the table and immediately sighing at the seven very intense stares she was getting. After a moment, she sighed and gave them all a look.

"What? I don't like bullies."