The zoo was buzzing with a soft energy. Collections of people, mostly couples, puttered around the common space as the sun painted the sky in beautiful hues of pink and orange. With tickets paid for, now all the two blonde hunters had to do was wait. Jaune seemed locked onto the shifting sky, taking in a rare beauty. "You know, why bother going for a light show if you're just going to look at the sunset?" Arslan asked, nudging him with her elbow.

"It is a thing of beauty." Jaune admitted, tearing his eyes away from a sky he seldom he rarely saw. He looked down at the lioness with her sparking green gemstones and skin akin to carved mahogany.

But not as beautiful as you. A supplied, the ghost of those words on his lips. He almost said them out loud, if he were a less controlled man. Jaune looked back up as Arslan pulled him towards the courtyard as the sun dipped beyond the crest of far-flung mountains. They were directed to sit somewhere, to which Jaune pulled them to a grassy hill overlooking the zebras, a native southern Mistral animal. It wasn't until the last licks of sunlight had faltered from the sky, leaving a lightly clouded moonless night, light by the soft fairy lights strung up along the lines that crisscrossed along the zoo. A squadron of small drones whizzed by, circling up into the sky in a synchronized manner. Arslan could only barely make out their black figure against the night sky due to her excellent night vision.

The light show started with a pulsing laid back beat playing over the speakers. The drones flickered to life, flashing colorful blues and yellows and reds as the swirled around, like someone had popped a firework into photoshop and started pulling it apart and sending it spiraling into curling dances. It was met with a collection of oohs and ahhs.

"It is pretty, isn't it?" Arslan said. "modern technology really is amazing." She leaned to the side, tucking her head into Jaune's shoulder.

Jaune just hummed in agreement, watching the artificial stars dance in the night sky. It went on like that for a while, before the drones flew back to whence they came to recharge their short lived batteries. Jaune raised an eyebrow, flipping through the brochure he snagged earlier.

Ah, there's going to be a couple lightshows, each lightly themed with a gap between them. I guess to explore the zoo some. He thought as he stood up, offering Arslan a hand.

"Come on, Ms. Altan. We have some time before the next lightshow and I would like to see this thing they're calling a walrus."

Arslan looked at him for a moment, raising her eyebrow. She smiled, chortling as she took his hand, letting herself get pulled up onto her feet. There was something almost childlike to Jaune's wonder. She wondered if it was some sorry kind of pretending, pretending he wasn't breaking at the seams, the fusion reactor in his soul burning him from the inside out. Pretending he could still be normal, still be human. She gave Jaune's hand another soft squeeze but unlike the first touch at the museum, she didn't let go. Not this time.

, were a fascinating example of the mammalian species. They were truly odd creatures, that much was for sure. Large, alien looking things with great rotund bodies, one might mistake them for a boulder from a distance. A large, pudgy, rubbery boulder that bounded in a thrusting hopping motion that looked wholly uncomfortable for people with knees. Normal knees, for normal people, would find it difficult to move in a manner the oddly majestic Walrus bounced in. At least that's what Jaune thought. Now, he admittedly could do without the stink. It was a wholly atrocious odor. It was an odor that Jaune was unfamiliar with, and he thought to bless his gods for that. But now he was familiar with it, and sought to curses his god instead. Whoever up there decided that walruses should smell like that was a foolish idiot or a pranking genius.

Jaune fought down an amused smile as one of the Walruses bounced across the enclosure, chasing one of the few fish a zoo keeper had tossed in.

Arslan had no such admiration for the large bumbling boulder, although she had to admit that it was cute, in it's own bloated, disgusted way. "Gods, they do smell terrible don't they?" She said aloud as the walruses walrused around. Jaune nodded, eyes full of wonder and mirth.

"What a silly creature." He said absentmindedly. "The smell isn't so bad. There are worse things."

Arslan raised an eyebrow at him, scrunching her sensitive nose. "Oh, like what?"

"Burning flesh smells pretty bad." Jaune said without hesitation. "The scent of lightning striking it's way through skin and flesh, the melt residue after acid gets on ones skin. Those are pretty bad."

Arslan blinked at him, offput by just how on hand that answer was. "That was just locked and loaded and ready to go, wasn't it?" She said, before her face shifted to more concern. "How often do you smell… that?"

Jaune gave a testing sniff, as though he was looking for the scent of a particular brand of red wine in an Italian restaurant. Not a particularly nice or expensive wine, but that experimental whiff as you pass by, just to see if you could pick it out. It was the sniff one made when the house was on fire, and you were sitting there in your living room trying to figure out just exactly how much of your rub was actual llama hair, like the advert had suggested. Although it was a kind of sketchy place when you stopped by to buy it.

"Sometimes. When I use my ma-Semblance, it's a little stronger." Jaune admitted, as pulling on the magic outside the dream seemed to bring the memories of it to the forefront of the back of his mind.

Arslan nodded with a hesitant gulp. Her hand snaked down jaunes arm, finding his own relaxed fingers to nestle into. "you should know I'm proud of you." She said softly, looking dead forward. If she looked at him, holding his hand like this and saying what she was about to, she might actually combust. "You're just… There is no one else that could have ever survived even half of what you've lived through. You have found strength but also humility and purpose. You've become someone that I deeply admire. You're just so quintessentially Jaune and I think that's amazing. I can't pretend to know what it's like, to have lived the way you have or done the things you've done, but I would like to be there for you regardless."

Arslan felt the pressure on her hand increase as she spoke. She turned to look at it's source, seeing a stoned face Jaune with eyes dead set. His jaw was clenched tightly, as if he was a statue made of stone, or that anything less might send him shattering like glass

But it did not hide the wetness running down his face. Soft, almost silvery looking waterfalls flowing down in the dimmed electric lights.

He was crying.

Jaune reached up to wipe them away. "You know something kind of pathetic?" He said, something that was either a laugh or a hiccupping sob. "I think that is the first time I've heard someone say that to me."

Arslan took a scathing breath in, turning to look at him. Who could hurt this beautiful wonderful boy like this? She thought as a very real pain spun circles in her heart. It quickly shifted to righteous anger. Burning her soul and making her vision turn red at the edges. She reached up, grabbing Jaune's gaunt, boney cheeks.

"we're getting hot chocolate. Hot chocolate fixes everything" She growled, pulling him away.

"But the Walrus-!"

"Nope! Hot Chocolate first!"

The hot chocolate was ok, jaune guessed. It unfortunently did not fix his depression or PTSD.

Hey, come to think of it, it didn't fix that weird rattly void feeling we have when we breath. A noted. This stuff is a scam!

Eh, what did you expect from Hot Coco made at a zoo? Jaune asked, taking another sip. At least it tastes better than coffee.

Jaune looked over at his drinkmate, who was grumbling and seething into her coco. God I hope I didn't say anything to upset her. Jaune thought as he awkwardly looked back down into his cup.

I… B opened his mouth. Somehow I don't think she's mad at you. Secretly he wondered how Jaune was as dense as he was, considering even he, the least human focused aspect could figure it out. Maybe he and A were taking too much brain power for Jaune to get human interaction.

"They've started the music up again." Arslan said, her head tilting to the side. Jaune perked up, looking at the main courtyard. He saw the flashing lights just peeking over the man grown trees. "Shall we return, Ms. Altan?" Jaune stood, offering to take her cup. Instead Arslan put her hand in his as she misinterpreted the signal, throwing away her own cup.

"How many times must I tell you, Jaune. Call me Arslan."

Jaune gave her a small bow. "At least once more, Ms. Altan."

By the time they got there, the first song had ended and another was playing. Apparently this section was for slow dances for all the old couples that were going to leave soon. They were just a little bit into the next song when Arslan looked at Jaune, and swore he could see stars in her eyes.

"Let's dance." She said, pulling the dreamer onto the courtyard made dancefloor.

~I tried to get to Atlanta

On a peach blossom highway

Jaune's face fell at the mention of dancing as he desperately tried to recall how to dance. He knew his sisters insistently made him dance with them. Jasmine in particular, bless her. He somehow couldn't even bring himself to argue with the lioness as they fell into the circle of slow dancers.

~I'm tryin' to put these puzzles out of mind~

Jaune didn't dare to argue with the fluttering in his chest, ignoring the klaxon blaring and telling himself it was nerves. He was lying to himself, something he had been doing for a long time.

~In a sky made of diamonds

Where the world fell silent~

Arslan closed her eyes as Jaune seemed to wrap around her, pulsing her semblance out for a moment and letting the sound wash away as she basked in the bleeding water color. She found it beautiful is some scary, terrifying way. She told herself jaune didn't scare her.

I'll be waiting for you on the other side~

They're both liars.

Jaune let Arslan lead as they stepped around each other, swaying gently the piano driven beat. The Dreamer was hunched over lightly, like a great willow tree bending to shade a resting maiden. Arslan welcomes it, leaning into the dreamer, letting her head rest against his chest as she breathed in and out slowly. It was peaceful.

Yeah, peaceful. Jaune thought wistfully as they swayed there as the music made indistinct vocalization sounds in the interim.

~I tried to say I love you

But you didn't listen~

Arslan looked up at Jaune, giving him a grin. "You know, I never took you to be a dancer." She said to him. He raised an eyebrow at her with a smile.

"Seven sisters." He said, as if it explained everything. Arslan laughed, and Jaune once again thought it just might be the best sound in the world.

~I tried to give you everything you might need~

Arslan pulled Jaune, letting them glide by a couple with more than two left feet. Jaune raised an eyebrow at her, to which she could only give him a coy smile.

~In a sky made of diamonds

And where the world is flawless~

Jaune wasn't sure what it was about the dark night and dancing lights, but the slow pulsing purples and reds that dances across Arslan's face made the world into a painting.

~I'll be waiting for you on the other side~

The two blondes danced there for a moment, slowly sliding and stepping their way into the center of the courtyard, letting the rest of the world melt away.

~The Phantom is coming~

Jaune spun Arslan under his arm, his eyes never leaving her visage. There was a moment, perhaps another life, where it was someone else he was spinning, someone else he was dancing with.

~You forgot and that makes me feel like no one~

Maybe it was the light, but for a moment Arslan's hair was a flowing red, and in another a cherry tipped black. But it left him as soon as it came, reality solidifying itself into his broken fantasy

~She's crossing over the line~

Arslan looked up at Jaune, pressing forward slowly to him, gazing at his face. She stepped up, letting them just hover, spiraling into each others orbit

~Wait, I got so many examples of all of the good times we had

Seems to me I'm in a dream long summer nights, I loved you a long time~

Jaune could see Arslan moving closer, pulling him into her grasp. Is she going to kiss me? Jaune thought, setting off alarms in his head.

B stood up, yeling and whacking things with his news paper. Calm down! Calm down! Do not blow this! He said Remember: confidence!

~Put your name in my rhyme, refresh your memory

Behind these summer lights~

Arslan and Jaune spun there for a moment, both trying to figure out the same thing:

~Of where you wanna be, the Phantom's on the way

She's comin' down the street~

They leaned forward, eyes locked on eachother's lips, and it was like falling from the sky. Or maybe it was like jumping from outer space, an overwhelming motion propelling them forward. Arslan wondered if this was kind of what drowning felt like. Jaune knew better, but he wondered if it was what falling in love felt like. They got closer and closer, blue and green bleeding their windows together. The creeping frost of a dead world met the everglowing lush vibrance of a living soul

Sometimes

Arslan's breath hitched, breaking both eye contact and the spell cast by whatever had cast them into orbit. She ducked her head into his chest, letting out a small, embarrassed giggle.

"Sorry, I just… not yet, you know." She said, pulling away. Jaune gulped, a moment of hesitation before grabbing her by her arms. He leaned forward, knocking his head lightly into her own, a soft headbutt between them.

"it's fine." He said, doing his best to sound wise and put together, and not like he was having a heart attack. "We can go however you want, Arslan." He said with a smile.

Arslan smiled at him, being pulled back into that wonderful falling sensation once more. She gave a small humph, headbutting him back.

Then she blinked.

"you called me Arslan." She said, looking at him with a wide grin. Jaune raised an eyebrow.

"I did no such thing, Ms. Altan. That would have been incredibly rude and unchivalrous." He said. Arslan shook her head.

"no, you absolutely called me Arslan."

"I did not."

"You did."

"I did not." At this point, Jaune's smile was giving him away but he really didn't seem to care. Arslan laughed, punching him in the shoulder.

"god you are impossible."

"only improbable" was jaunes response.

They stayed there for a while longer, dancing to the slow songs that played. There was a pattern to the night. The drones would put on their light shows, stop to recharge after about a dozen songs or so, letting the two wander and explore the natural wonders of the animal kingdom. Jaune in particular was taken by the animals, seemingly to bask in the existence of life. Then they would return to the courtyard when the music started playing again. Then they would go out and look at animals, then return to dance. Eventually it game to an end somewhere close to three in the morning, when the area had become a full blown rave with thumping music and flashing lights. Jaune felt sorry for the animals that were close to the courtyard.

The walk back to the dorms was enjoyable, but quiet with the high from the exhaustion of constant dancing. Arslan didn't even question when Jaune pulled her close to him when they got to the gondola station, long since closed by this hour. All she had to do was blink and they were on the other side of the locked doors. With just a little bit more finagling (and Arslan looking up the operation of the gondola's themselves) they were well on their way in a green painted metal box up the mountain.

Jaune stumbled into his room, collapsing onto his bed with a grin on his face. You know, that wasn't so bad. He thought to himself.

My feet hurt from all the stamping around. A groaned.

But you didn't even dance? B asked, tilting his head. A let out another pitying groan.

Can we just go to sleep? The bed is comfy, and I want to get some shut eye.

Jaune rolled his eyes, knowing damn well that they would get no rest on that bed. But there was something to be said for A's belly aching: the bed was indeed very comfy. He closed his eyes and held his breath, dying into the dream again.

Jaune had given up trying the tower with the Womb after his dozen death to the thing lurking in the dark. he decided to try his luck elsewhere. He made the long march to the Eternal City, shaking off the cold.

"well then, Mr. Map, where to next?" Jaune asked, looking at his arcane map. He wondered what it would happen if he took it to the Waking World. It took him a lot of wandering around until he found something that caught his eye. A large church with high vaulted walls made of marble and gold, long since tarnished and dusted without the fervent polishing the once common worshippers. Instead heavily armored ghouls, with their thick sets of banded mail and plates of armor. Jaune stood at the gate, trying to figure out just exactly how to get in. The main gate, a once gold leafed wrought gate, had been barred shut. Woven shut, actually, great lengths of chains and ropes bound between the gaps kept it shut long after its locks had rusted. Pages and pages of holy scripture, written in a language Jaune did not understand, were sealed and stamped and stapled to the metal, like a great plethora of wards to keep whatever sickness, whatever madness had taken over. Somehow, Jaune didn't think that they worked.

There was an issue though: There didn't seem to be a way to get in. Evidently, there was some warding around the church considering every attempt at teleportation or magical transportation past them simply put him on the opposite side of the complex. Speaking of which

"Why in gods name is this thing so fucking massive?!" Jaune yelled up the wall, looking at the walls and towering buttresses beyond them. He had walked around the wall once, just to get a scale. It had taken him what felt like an enormous amount of time. It was certainly larger than the campus of Haven, and frankly might be almost the same size as a small city. Maybe Orleans proper.

Jaune squinted at it, trying to figure out just exactly how to get in. Well, when in doubt, leave it alone. The dreamer thought, turning away and heading south. He could see the start of flat land, stretching on with a pricked looking texture, almost like Velcro.

He found himself in the Farmlands. Desolate desperate place. A thought as he looked at the plaster like stalks of what Jaune assumed to be corn. I remember the last time we were here. You had a seizure.

Jaune shrugged. Yeah, and it hasn't happened sense. He pointed out, drawing his sword as he began to wade into the tall fields. He didn't make it far before those whispers started to whisper into his ear again, a voice from beyond.

"You are close to the end. Turn back. "

"it is not safe."

"Your kind is not welcome."

"Shut up." Jaune grumbled, rolling his eyes. He had enough voices in his head, and he would be damned if he would have more. Not without at least collecting rent. The hairs on his back pricked, his senses telling him he wasn't alone in these fields.

Not the weird dog things, please not the weird dog things. A started to pray, bowing his head and repeating it over and over.

50 lien on it being the weird dog things. B snorted.

Jaune stood still, slowly cocking his head. He breathed in and out, thinking about the feeling. He listened, waiting patiently.

There was the sound of something in the tall grass hunching over, preparing to strike. Glassvein lashed out, whipping through the sickly, ash made stalks and biting into something much more fleshy. The yelp didn't last long, as the Dreamer leaped forward, a chisel in the other hand. It dove into the reeds, striking flesh. Jaune's arm ripped itself out, thrashing the reeds down with it.

Jaune looked down at the fleshy, matted looking dog. He turned the dead thing over with his foot, looking down at the mass of matted meat and bones.

"Betrayer"

"Cursed thing."

"you are not wanted where you are."

"You have forgotten who you were."

"you have betrayed who you wanted to be."

"God, forgot how fucking ugly these things are." Jaune muttered, looking around at the field. He was ignoring the whispering voices, deciding that they would be only a distraction to him. God, if he was going to have to go through the entire field like this…

Is it arson time? A asked hopefully. Jaune held up his fingers like he was about to snap.

Jokes on him, he snapped a long time ago.

Fire started to flicker and dance in the space between his hands. It's Arson time. He smiled, tossing the warbling flame into the grass.

It went up like kerosine. The ashen corn cob bearing plants took to flame like moths. Apparently being in a world without rain or natural rot turned things into very flammable things.

ARSON TIME! WHOOOOO! A whooped, throwing his hands up into the air. It didn't last long, as painful yelps and howls started too come from the depths of the fields. Jaune coughed the smoke out of his lungs, pulling his cape over his mouth as he squinted through the burning ash.

He didn't have to wait long, as whatever had been caught by the flames hadn't been killed. As the saying goes, whatever doesn't kill you only makes you more pissed. From the collapsing, burning bush a terrible gibbering snarl came, as one of the flesh hounds leaped at him.

You know, I never really got that quote. B said as Jaune dipped to the side, letting it skid off to the side. Raising his hand, a bolt of pure air pressure blasted a hole in it.

Yeah, why? You learn from your mistakes. He shrugged, continuing on. He could tell that two more were coming for him, if the pained huffing meant anything.

B shrugged. I am under the impression that whatever doesn't kill you leaves you permanently crippled and weaker for the next fight.

Well, good news. Jaune responded, gutting another flesh hound just before turning into burning ash himself, letting the second run through him.

A bolt of lightning rendered it into a much more charred corpse than it already was.

We don't get to live our fights.

At this point much of the flame immediately around him had burned out, giving him several feet of uninterrupted space. Holding his hand out, he begun to forcus on the underlying current that made up the magical powers he wielded. A fabric of constant flow, able to be picked apart and rewoven as he desires. So he made it spin. Pulling in the air around him into a vortex, it was spun and flattened, compressed into a spinning blade of death in the palm of his hand.

"Behold! The worlds most dangerous Frisbee!" Jaune yelled as he threw it into the burning beyond. It flew straight, slowly getting larger and larger as it no longer had anything to hold it in it's compressed form, cutting a huge swatch of destruction in it's wake.

Jaune nodded, happy with the level of carnage it caused.

Once the burning was done, and the fleshy guardian hounds slain by either magic or metal, Jaune made it to what the fields kept him from. The edge of a forest, with a single huge tree in front of it, shaped much like a cross. The woods itself seemed fine, if not a bit grey and dead.

If only the tree itself was normal. But no, like everything else in this god forsaken stupid place, it was grotesque and horrendous. The tree seemed to have organs reside in it, tendrils of fleshy tubes spilling out and staining the ashen grey wood that sickly rusted brown with blood through the twists, breaks, and gnarls. The flesh itself was bloated, swelling and deep grey itself as it almost seemed to slowly pulse. In the center of the tree there was a terrible looking gash, a twisted healed growth making a cross in the center. But what was there fused at an awkward and unnatural angle was a head.

The head of a child. A small, blonde child. Jaune gulped, keeping his own bile down.

Oh gods. He thought, now noticing how the wood and flesh fused and melded together, leading to the glancest idea that the child had a body under all that, strewn up like a scarecrow, or like a martyr. A small, sacrificed child. A familiar child, one he only ever saw in wall hung photos and scrapbooks.

Jaune bowed his head for a moment, offering his best condolences and telling himself that he did not recognize that child. He took at step forward, intent on putting this thing as far behind him as he could.

That was a mistake, as the ground erupted with pale wooden spikes. Or were they bone that grew from the ground in retaliation? Jaune couldn't tell, dissolving into ash and straw. He reappeared only a couple feet away, his eyes hardened against the thing. He could feel a terrible malice from it, emanating out of it's bark like a toxic miasma. A poison for the soul. Never before had Jaune witnessed such wretchedness. There was nothing good about this tree, it was wholly evil. Jaune's knuckles cracked as his morals, his values, no, his existence: his very being as a human with a semblance of sentience, with the natural truth instilled from the moment he was brought into existence that this thing was wrong.

This is an abomination of the worst, most foul atrocities in this wretched place. He thought, the flames of his anger growing in his throat, making a rumbling growl emanate from it. It rang like an engine, a slow vibration that seemed to make the air shudder around him.

His hand tightened around the Chisel and Hammer, which responded to his anger with glorious glee. They sang for him, chanting for his wrath, his hatred, his violence. They craved it.

And now? Jaune was more than willing to slate their thirsts.

He flung the chisel, letting it scream as it lashed through the air, embedding itself into the tree trunk with glee. A great spurt of blood poured from it, soiling the ground. It didn't seem to hamper the tree, just make it angier. It started to twist and turn, new cracks leaking stale blood and rotted sloshing flesh running out of it like a river. A branch was thrown at him. Jaune rolled to the side, thankful that it seemed to mostly be made out of wood. He held his hand out, letting his anger sing with a snarl. The chisel heard him, flying from the wood back to his hand.

A rumbling, creaking sound came from below as the roots forced their way up, intent on skewering and strangling the dreamer.

A swing with the hammer ripped many of them from the ground and broke even more down into the ground. They laughed, the Hammer and Chisel, as Jaune threw them around with the fervor they had found in him so, so, so long ago. They were finally off the leash, fully and utterly unchained with a willing master.

They would carve universes apart in his name. God, how they wanted to carve universes apart in his name.

Jaune stepped to the side of another bout of roots, only to look up at a whistling sound.

Fuck! He cursed, quickly raising his arms into a cross block. In all his dancing and thrashing against the ever encroaching roots, the tree had managed to throw another log at him. It shattered against his armor, the carnage sending scattered splinters to surround him. He felt himself pushed back, his feet dragging deep gouges into the ground as he skidded away. The threw the chisel in retaliation, following up the toss with a fan of blazing blades formed from the burning power of solar energy. The Hammer followed as Jaune charged behind it, sliding out Krabkracker into it's full, two handed form. With a great heave of the entirety of his body, the huge slab of metal was thrown forward into the base of the tree. A terrible breaking sound much more akin to the shattering of bones than the snapping of wood was rung as the KrabKracker, a weapon designed for sundering tough armors and hides forced its way past the thick bark with brute force alone. The tree groaned again, spinning to have one of it's many branches lash out as Jaune, barely giving him enough time to grab the Hammer and Chisel, leaping back into the rough, root infested ground. They sprung up, wrapping and twisting and growing onto his legs. They started to pulse, throbbing grotesquely as they swelled and pumped. He staggered, almost falling down as another branch was swung at him.

Are they draining my energy? Son a bitch he thought, hastily burning them away with a blast of fire. The roots burned easily enough, but that didn't seem to mean much. He continued to move, dancing around the tree as he flung magic at it, letting the Hammer and Chisel sing their work as well. The tree had been pockmarked with dozens of dents and punctures, from the Hammer and Chisel respectively. With each throw, each swing, each thrust he could feel their chant increase. Each drop of blood only sparked their fervor further, sparked his fervor further, drawing his anger, his wrath, his hatred into power. He had stopped thinking; the only sound was a guttural roar that ripped itself from both his mind and maw. When a weapon wasn't in his hands, they burned raw with his blood, magic seeping from his pores. He grabbed the roots, burning them in his grasp, withering them at his touch, or just simply ripping them out of the ground and throwing their arcanely infused husks at the tree. He always found the Hammer and Chisel in his hands, ready to spill more gore and violence in their masters name. He himself was eager to let them enact the work they considered holy. He dashed forward, each zag and zig through the branches and roots and bramble brought him closer to the bleeding tree. He opened his mouth, intending to take a breath in.

A monstrous roar was what he let out. He leaped forward, using the fangs of the hammer to solidify and grip into the wood. He was onto of the tree, stradding the large central gash, the one that had the thrumming pile of guts in it. The chisel was raised, poised to strike.

And strike he did. He hammered the chisel down, stabbing it deep into flesh, letting it sink all the way to the handle. He couldn't hear the tree scream in agony over the rushing of blood into his ears. If he could, he would have blanched at how familiar it would have sounded.

The exit was even rougher, a terrible ripping out that sent chunks and gushes of flesh and blood and wood and gore flying, only for the stonecutter's blade to be brought down again. He carved his way deep into the trunk, growling and snarling as he ripped it apart. Judging by the bloody heat in his mouth, he might have bitten his tongue something fierce. That or he ripped a chunk of the tree's fleshy interior with his teeth instead. If he had been sound of mind, he would have noticed the fermented taste of ethanol on his lips, and the ripping they had endured. The tree groaned and thrashed, doing it's best to absorb his power, his aura, his energy, his soul, just as it had done to so many so long ago. But no matter how much it took from him, how much it pilfered and swallowed, how much it gorged itself on him he always had more to give. Roots had grown all over his back and legs, wrapping up around his face and arms. They sucked and pulled, seemingly trying to empty an ocean fueled by things not meant for the tree to consume.

He made his way up, the carnage pooling and piling up behind and below him as he eviscerated this desecration in front of him. Eventually he made it up to be eye level with the blonde child. Grabbing his face, forcing the trees lone hanging face to face him. Shock blonde hair must have been fair colored some time ago, and those clouded blue eyes must have been quite takingly bright when they lived. But it was dead, he was dead. But its mouth was open, as if it was pleading, yelling for some higher power to save it. that it's foul purpose might be preserved by some divine intervention

And for the first time in a long while he spoke. "I will suffer your existence no longer." He growled, letting the chisel bite the tree corpse right in between its dead, unfocused eyes.

He didn't stop until nothing was recognizable of the tree itself. Jaune, panting, covered in blood, hunched over with a death grip on a joyous Hammer and Chisel. Deep heaving breaths were taken in as he looked at the mulched body parts in front of him. He could see no semblance of the child's face, and for that he was grateful. Jaune straightened up, eyes still locked on the carnage he had left in the wake of his wrath. He looked down at his hands.

They were bleeding, like the skin had been ripped from his palms. They still gripped the Hammer and Chisel, virbrating with his shaking. He pondered for a moment what they were.

What he was.

"Monster."

"Reckoner"

"Abandoner"

The voices called out, louder from the edge of the forest. As though they emanated from it, choosing to surround him like the ghosts they were.

Jaune took a deep breath in, putting the Hammer and Chisel back into their slots on his belt. "This should have never happened. This place should have never existed." Jaune growled, his voice raw from the fight. He decided that this thing must be burned, that any semblance of it must be destroyed. Sure, jaune could have studied it like he would have done to many of the other creatures and things he had slain. But this? No, he would not dare to learn anything from this abomination. Holding his hand out, a gout of flame burst from it, dousing a portion of the pile in fire. The fires burned as the clouded sky turned dark and roiling. Something above screamed, but it could not be distinguished from the gathering wind that spiraled around the site of the tree.

The scent of burning blood and alcohol permeated the air as the flames were whipped up to a frenzy. More fuel was added to it, and more flame was sent to engulf it.

nothing would remain of this desecration. nothing

Whoooo! we're done with this chapter (and it's kind of on time? I guess?) But I did realize something in this chapter: I am going to have to speed run Jaune and Arslan's slow burn. Initially I had an entire section of Arslan and jaune being very much in love already, and just denying it for various reasons: jaune because he can't have anything nice, and Arslan because she's a hopeless romantic who has no experience, so her queuing is from bad romance fanfiction and stories. But unfortunately I am going to have to really move them along because I'm ending the story "early" in volume 3 instead of volume 12

And we are back to the dream! With arguably one of my favorite boss fights (which is a shame because it's actually a quite boring one as an actual fight. But Dream lore wise it's super important for a couple reasons.) I am rather excited for the next chapter or two, and after that I promise we will officially start the Beacon arc.

Regarding the couple of people that have posted and commented about using my work for projects: I am openly and freely giving everyone permission to do what ever they want with this story (so long as it isn't particularly messed up. Please don't turn Dreamer jaune into a raging racist or something). if you want to make a comic or video or something about it, go for it! All I ask is that you say "based on The Hunters dream" or something along those lines. And let me know! I would be ecstatic to read something I inspired! But due note I won't be a part or commissioning anything related to this story outside of this story, as i want people to take it and grow into their own stories without my influence.