Note: OCD FUCKING SUCKS. We wanted nothing more than to write a ton during January, and our stupid fucking mental health stopped us from writing a single sentence. It's infuriating the pace that we are going at with this story, and we apologize for that. However, we're back in our groove and looking forward to writing more, and at least our current problems gave us inspiration for this chapter. Pyrrha has always been a really interesting character to us, and we do hope we can really explore what makes her tick this time around. Here's a taste of that. Enjoy.

"Hey, have you guys noticed how Pyrrha is acting… strange?"

And with that, Jaune Arc had said the world's most obvious sentence. Nora hovered a soup-filled spoon in front of her face, careful not to sound overly dismissive.

"Um… yes?"

Yes. Super yes. Pyrrha Nikos was acting strangely. Jaune had known Pyrrha for only a few months, but living with someone twenty-four-seven tended to expose their habits. Jaune knew how Pyrrha handled herself: her drive, her rigidity, her effortless skill. He knew that there was also an explanation for any odd behavior she exhibited. Ever since she told him about her being on the spectrum during the early days at Beacon, he had kept his mouth shut, unwilling to spill her secret. As far as he knew, neither Nora or Ren were informed of her condition, even if they could tell her mind worked differently from everyone else's. However, that was not what they were talking about.

Pyrrha hadn't spoken to them in days. She had been acting more reserved for weeks before then, but ever since the announcement of Goodwitch's firing—semi-firing? Whatever; ever since then, she had been seemingly stripped of her personality. Instead of studying or training in her spare time, she was drifting between bed and chair, oftentimes murmuring to herself. When Jaune asked her what she was talking about, she would cast him aside, look away, and go somewhere else. Her hands, normally rested near her lap or behind her back, were wild, oftentimes maneuvering by her head or moving in repeated, fidgeting rhythms. At times, it seemed she was fighting some invisible demon, but again upon noticing the others watching her, she would curl up and ignore them. She ate, but only once a day, which was why she wasn't joining them for dinner in the very noisy mess hall. Jaune's appetite was equally thin, evidenced by the trey of uneaten foodstuff in front of him.

"You going to eat that?" Nora asked, directing her spoon at it.

"No. Are you?"

"No. Just asking." She shrugged and slurped down another spoonful of soup.

Jaune sighed. "Like, we should do something, right?"

"What are we supposed to do?" Nora asked plainly.

"Ask her back to dinner?"

"We did that. She refused," Ren pointed out.

"We can't just leave her alone."

"Jaune, when a girl says she wants to be left alone, you leave her alone," Nora explained.

"Doesn't that overgeneralize things a little?" Ren asked politely.

"I don't know. I'm not the Master of Women."

There was a slight combativeness in Nora's voice, the most minute shift in her normally upbeat posture that left Jaune reeling. He leaned forward, careful not to overstep his place.

"I mean… it's just…" he stammered awkwardly. "I feel kind of bad about just leaving her alone. We should try to stick together as much as possible with everything going on."

Nora scoffed. "A little too late for that, isn't it?"

Jaune scratched the back of his neck. "What does that mean?"

Nora shrugged once again, gulping down another mouthful of soup. "Uh… Pyrrha has been leaving us alone for weeks. This isn't exactly new for her."

"Yeah, but she's going through something. I think," Jaune stated. He was met with rejection.

"Jaune, she literally attended a fancy dinner with Ironwood all by herself. She had another meeting with Ozpin all by herself. Has she told us what happened in either of those? Nope. This isn't new. If Pyrrha wants to isolate herself from the rest of her team, that isn't any of my business. As long as she isn't hurt, I don't see why we should care how she spends her time."

A long silence fell over the table, and not an undeserved one. If Jaune and Ren didn't know any better, they would have thought Nora was insulting Pyrrha. Obviously, that was ridiculous. Nora didn't insult people. Even if she did, it wouldn't be in some sideways, passive aggressive manner. Was there something wrong with her soup? Jaune didn't have anything to say, but Ren, having more experience with Nora during her worse moments, gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Nora," he said calmly. "I think Jaune is trying to say that Pyrrha wouldn't want to be alone if she was feeling well. Something is upsetting her."

Nora frowned. "I know. But she gets upset at, well… anything. I can't talk to her if I don't know what's wrong."

"Well, she really started acting strange after we met with Team RWBY," Jaune remembered, "and clearly, something about Professor Goodwitch leaving upset her too. Maybe they are related?"

"Pyrrha liked Professor Goodwitch quite a lot," Ren noted. "Maybe she never lost a teacher before."

"This is a pretty big overreaction for losing a teacher," Nora said, unsatisfied. "Like, I'll just be honest… I don't really get Pyrrha. At all. I don't really understand what's going through her head most of the time. Maybe some people are just imperceptible."

"I don't think that's what that word means," said Ren.

"Well, it means that now," Nora declared. "My point is that you can't solve a puzzle if you don't understand the rules. And when it comes to Pyrrha, I think she's… unsolvable! That's the word I was going for!"

Jaune opened his mouth to say something, but before he spilled something he would regret, he quickly changed his mind.

"Well, maybe it doesn't matter why she's upset. We should totally do something."

"Still a bad idea."

"Then I'll do something," Jaune reasoned. "I'll find some way to cheer her up." He spoke with an unearned resolve, and though Nora thought he was venturing into unknown waters, if it didn't require her to share awkward conversations with her increasingly hostile and introverted teammate, then she was fine. Jaune wanted to appease Pyrrha Nikos on his own. Who was she to stop him? Now, all he had to do was figure out how to make her happy.

And he already had a few ideas.

The sun set low early on the Hydra. Up north, winters were long and darkness was longer, and it had been several hours since the light disappeared from Pyrrha's dorm room. She lay in her bed, the room solely illuminated by the oppressively blue glow of her Scroll, charging on the hard floor. She tucked herself underneath her covers, her eyes shut, as if she was trying to go to sleep. It was only six o'clock, but she was exhausted. And yet, of course, she did not sleep. She couldn't. Not like this. The weight on her chest was too great, so instead of doing anything about it, she simply lay in her bed and tried to wish away her darkest thoughts. They were loudest when she was all alone.

They were right about her. They were right about you.

She lost track of how long she was laying there, pretending to rest, but her time came to an end when she heard the rustling of keys and her door's lock shifting out of place. She leaned deeper into her pillow as Jaune entered the dorm, carefully peeking around.

"Hey, Pyrrha, I'm—uh, wow. It's dark in here."

He sheepishly turned on the lights, and Pyrrha recoiled as her face was hit with florescent boldness. Jaune gasped as he shut the door behind him.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't see you. Were you taking a nap?"

Pyrrha was only half listening to him. The darkness in her head hadn't faded like the rest of the shadows. "Y-Yes. I was."

"Man, I'm sorry," Jaune said honestly. It seemed he was always apologizing for something, like his life was simply one big train of messes and mistakes. "I didn't mean to wake you up. I just wanted to talk to you."

Pyrrha leaned up on her elbows. Her usual sleeping shirt clung to her skin. She was burning up and she hadn't even noticed. She grumbled and brushed some loose red hair out of her eyes.

"What is it?"

"Well, I wanted to know if you had plans for tonight."

"Not really."

"Oh, that's… that's great!" Jaune said, trying to sound extra chipper. He walked over to his bed and rummaged through his unkempt sheets, searching for something. "I know you've ben feeling pretty down recently, and I've been thinking really hard about ways to cheer you up."

"Jaune, I don't need cheering up. I'm fine."

"No, no, wait. Just hear me out," Jaune insisted. He eventually found what he was looking for: a laptop, about as old and worn as the armor he had slung around his chest. It was plain and unadorned, but reliable enough for him to keep around for many years. He approached her bed near her feet, and his quick pace gave the intention he wanted to sit next to her. He had failed to understand how bad of an idea that was.

Pyrrha reached a hand out from under her covers. "Jaune, hold on—"

He immediately sat himself down on top of her blanket, forcing her to scooch her legs to the side to avoid getting crushed. She scowled as Jaune opened his crummy laptop and brushed away some crumbs from the keyboard to make it look more presentable.

"No, seriously, let me explain," Jaune insisted. "You have been very moody recently, and we are all worried about you. It's not like you to spend all day lying around. You're feeling depressed, and you need something to make you smile."

Pyrrha shook her head. She didn't want to raise her voice, even though Jaune was sitting right on her bed. She didn't want that. She needed… she needed to just… dammit, she couldn't keep her head straight.

It's immoral to keep being a Huntress. You're a bad person now. You have done some very bad things.

She pushed the thoughts away for just a moment as Jaune was booting up his laptop. He used her silence as a springboard to give some backstory as he skimmed through some files. "So, you know how I had seven sisters growing up? Well, you can imagine there was a lot of drama in our house. They would get into fights constantly, and ever since I was really little, I was assigned the role of peacemaker. I had to go and entertain whoever was upset and make them happier. I would basically do whatever they wanted to, so I have become an expert at tea parties and dress up and dancing."

Pyrrha muttered. "Please don't do a dance…"

"No! What I'm saying is that I'm really good at making women happy." Jaune gulped and laughed nervously. "That came out wrong. I mean, uh… let me cheer you up with something. I promise, you'll love it."

"Jaune. Jaune, please," Pyrrha huffed, speaking slowly. "I… appreciate you wanting to be nice… but I very much want to be left alone right now."

"I know, I know," Jaune insisted, demonstrating he did not, in fact, know, "but just let me try this for a minute."

"Jaune—"

"Please, Pyrrha, I think it will help."

No, no it wouldn't. She was very clear about that. He had offered her kind words for days, and she told him it wouldn't help. She just had to be alone. How hard was it for him to understand that? If he just left her alone and let her think this through, it would be okay. She had to think. She couldn't think if he was right there pestering her. And yet, finding herself unable to use any force to remove him from her bed, she was forced to watch as he summoned an old video clip from the corners of the internet. He proudly displayed the screen toward her, and she felt her stomach churn. Oh no… why was he doing this?

She saw herself—so much younger than she was now. She had only barely begun going through puberty, and her armor did not fit her correctly, and her face was patted to hide her acne, and she looked nervous as she stood in the middle of an arena, weapon in hand, staring down another girl twice her size. Jaune seemed almost proud, as if he had done something other than summon a memory from a place she wished not to visit.

"Is that—"

"Your first Mistral Youth Tournament victory," Jaune explained. "You love fighting, and you always talked about how proud you were winning, so I thought a trip down memory lane would help reignite your fighting spirit." He pumped his fist in the air, trying to speak with gusto, but Pyrrha just stared blankly at the screen as the video continued and the battle began. She watched with wide eyes as the fight raged on, Jaune occasionally throwing in some commentary. She could not hear him, nor did she try to. The video instantly brought her back to the most vivid places of her mind, and suddenly she could feel it.

She remembered every move she made—every misstep. She remembered her footing slide out of place and being punished for it by a spear to the shoulder. She recalled the sharp pain and the blood leaked out of her skin. She remembered the air, rough and coarse from the gravel they used to pave the arena. She remembered the texture of the pop as she grabbed her opponent's arm and yanked on it until she pulled it free from its socket. She remembered the parents of the girl she was fighting yelling their daughter onto victory, and she remembered her own parents watching silently from the stands, as they always did. Quiet. So quiet. She remembered how she couldn't control her breathing, and the exact rhythm of her blood pumping through her open wound, and her obsession with the other girl's grip on her spear, how it was too high for her own good. And the final move: a shield bash so thunderous that it cracked her opponent's nose in three places, that sent a final, choked gasp out of her victim's lungs as she splatted onto the ground… and then that last moment of eerie stillness before the crowd burst into applause, the one moment where she thought, just maybe, that she had killed someone…

And she only just realized she couldn't remember the girl's name.

Jaune's hand perched on her shoulder, and she was forcibly jogged out of her mind. "Wow," he said, pointing to the screen, "that was amazing." The battle was over. The graphics displayed her name, and the cameras turned away as the medics rushed to the field to sweep the poor girl's limp body out of sight. Jaune's smile was bold, and he seemed oblivious to the tears welling in her eyes. Her next words barely came out.

"That's… that's enough…"

"What was that—"

"That's enough!"

Pyrrha threw off her covers and pushed Jaune away from her, storming up to her feet. Jaune recoiled and gasped as Pyrrha sprinted to the other side of the room. She would not keep still, pacing back and forth between Ren and Nora's beds, her hand repeatedly clasping and unclasping like she was squeezing some imaginary stress ball. Jaune, panicked, tried to follow her.

"P-Pyrrha, what's wrong?" he asked innocently.

"Why would you show me that? Why would you show me that?" Pyrrha asked on a loop.

"I thought you would like it."

"I told you I wanted to be left alone!" Pyrrha snapped at him. "I don't want to watch anything right now. I just want to be by myself! Why would you force me to watch something when I literally told you I didn't want to spend time with you?"

"Pyrrha, I didn't force you to watch anything," Jaune said. He reached out toward her, but she cracked her arms and swatted him away.

"Don't fucking touch me! I didn't ask for you to touch me, so I don't know why you think it's okay to fucking touch me!"

"Pyrrha, I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"You sat on my bed without me asking, and you fucking made me watch something I didn't want to, and you fucking touched me without me asking, and… and I told you I wanted to be alone, and you wouldn't leave me alone, and you couldn't fucking stay out of my business for one second, and…"

Jaune realized soon enough that Pyrrha wasn't talking to him. She hugged herself close, keeping her eyes glued to the floor as she paced quickly, turning on a dime without even acknowledging his existence. Her lips quivered and her body rocked with tremors, and even more than he had all week, Jaune felt completely helpless. He didn't understand what set her off. Pyrrha never expressed doubts or regret about her past tournaments. If anything, she spoke of her championship wins with pride. She was humble about them, sure, but in Beacon she had her medals displayed proudly on her desk. He had no reason to believe that she had any trauma associated with them. He never would have showed her that video if he knew it would trigger this reaction. Perhaps Nora was right. He thought he had a clear line to Pyrrha's reasoning after she opened up to him, but the Huntress prodigy was just as much of an enigma as ever.

But then, without any further intervention, Pyrrha just stopped moving. She closed her eyes tightly, and Jaune saw her tears clearly. She sputtered, unable to hold back her sob, and still holding herself dearly, she walked back to her bed and sat along its edge.

"You… you all think I'm awful, don't you?"

She could hardly speak through her sobs, and Jaune's fear turned to sorrow. He approached her, this time pausing before he entered her personal space.

"I don't think that. I think you're awesome."

"No, you don't," Pyrrha choked out. "You… you all think I'm awful because… because I liked Goodwitch and… and because I've been so mean lately… and I don't ever… I don't ever talk to you, and I… and I'm not… and I'm not like everyone else…"

"No, no, Pyrrha. That's okay." Jaune knelt down to her eye level, even though he knew she wouldn't look at him. "No one's holding that against you."

"Y-Y-Y-Yes, y-y-you are…" Pyrrha said, shaking her head. "N-Nora hates me… I know she hates me… and Team RWBY hates me and everyone… everyone else thinks I'm so mean…"

"Pyrrha, you're like the most popular girl in this school," Jaune explained to her. "People are just intimidated sometimes, that's all. They don't take the time to know you."

"But I've… but I've still been so awful lately…" Pyrrha cried. "I've been mean to you and I… I listened to Goodwich a-and she… she was a bad person… and I don't want to… I don't want to… I just… I feel like…"

She couldn't string together sentences anymore. Tissues. She needed tissues. Jaune rushed to his bedside table. He always had tissues on him. He grabbed a handful and rushed back to Pyrrha's side. She pitifully took a few of them and blew her nose. She crumbled the used tissue in her palm, unwilling to let it go.

Jaune sighed. He tried his best to maintain his composure and be the rock that Pyrrha needed him to be. "Pyrrha, so the reason you're upset is because you took Professor Goodwitch's side over Team RWBY, and now you feel like you chose wrong and that's reflecting badly on you."

"No, not…" Pyrrha struggled. "I don't want to be a b-bad person. I-I just don't want to be…"

"Okay, so you're feeling guilty," Jaune stated. "Is that it?"

Pyrrha shook her head. No, it wasn't. There was so much more than that, but she didn't have the strength to explain it to him, not now. However, Jaune was determined to make this right. He hesitantly held out his hand, asking for hers in return. She was too emotionally weak to resist him, and she rested her empty palm in his, shifting her tissues to her other hand.

"Look, no one knew what Professor Goodwitch was up to, okay?" he said reasonably. "No one could have predicted that she would try to hurt Blake like that. Remember, when Team RWBY told us about them, they were also lying about other things. They made up a story about attacking Beacon. You were totally right in not believing them. After everything Ozpin had done for you, and all the help Goodwitch gave you, of course you would place your trust in them. And you know what? Team CFVY did the same thing, and they're super smart. And I didn't believe them! You acted just like anyone else would, and I know Goodwitch betrayed our trust, but that's on her. We'll be a lot smarter next time when she tries to lie to us. You understand me, right?"

Pyrrha nodded painfully. "I… I do… but…"

"What else? Is there something more?"

"A lot… a lot more…"

"Well, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to?"

Pyrrha didn't know what to say. She didn't like doing this. She really didn't want to do this at all. But the weight on her chest wasn't going away. Her fears were not subsiding. And Jaune's hand was warm… it was a warmness she hadn't felt since arriving in Atlas.

"Mind if I sit down?"

After a long pause, she again shook her head. No, she didn't. Jaune sat down on the bed beside her, moving his crummy laptop out of the way. He kept his hand firmly in hers as she tried to regain some control of her breathing. Her words would come out in broken chunks and long patches of silence, and she would shudder uncontrollably as she spoke, but she would push through. Pulling the truths from the depths of her mind was a difficult task, but she knew that she could do it. She had to. She just had to start.

Gods, how to start?

Her parents told her a long time ago that she was special. Special in many ways. Her mind was unlike any of the other children. She didn't make very many friends, couldn't understand their jokes, avoided human contact like the plague, but her mind, the mechanics of her thoughts were unlike anyone else. She would spend hours and hours each day, carefully debating with herself the directions to align her toys. She would take movies—cheesy, stupid martial arts films—and she would follow along with them scene-by-scene, trying to mimic their movements. If she didn't get a movement exactly right, she would rewind the tape and play it again. That precision, that intent, was what made her who she was. The demand for perfection was undefeatable. It was what ultimately made her a great Huntress. It was also her greatest curse.

Hyperfocus was the term that the doctors used. She couldn't let things go. Once something caught her mind, she was incapable of releasing it until every angle had been carefully explored, until its most successful was solution found and beaten and bested. If she saw a video of a Huntsman fighting, she couldn't just learn from him. She had to know how he would react each and every time. She would pretend that she was battling him, and she prepared for counters to her moves and counters to his counters of her counters. If she ever fought that Huntsmen—something she would never do—she needed to tell herself that she would beat him. She would have the answer to his every question. And as long as she didn't, she would feel this… this thing weighing down on her chest, just at the base of her throat. It would sit there and burn and if she dared tried to turn to anything else before her mind was ready, before she had vanquished her foe, it would scream at her.

You don't get to leave yet. You don't know enough. You're not ready. You will never beat them.

"That's your Semblance, right?" Jaune asked her. And the truth was? She didn't know. Was this a byproduct of her mental health, and her Semblance was merely a logical conclusion of her condition, or did this spawn from the constant, Aura-induced rewriting of her brain. She didn't know. She didn't care. But it was who she was. That was what made her the best. She had no choice but to be the best. Her mind wouldn't let her.

But sometimes, her mind wouldn't focus on the right thing. There would be brief respites between her fixations, instances of pure calm and confidence, where she felt like she would beat anything. But while her consciousness was relaxing, the dark parts of her head would continue searching for their next battle, their newest worthy opponent. The second a new challenger crossed her mind, she would be sucked into her fight against her will. The burning in her chest would return. Hell would start anew. And if the new challenger wasn't related to her Huntress duties, then she would be trapped.

How many weeks of her life had she wasted with her mind lost in a sea of something else? A sea of her fears, her speech patterns, some drama show that her parents put on once in her entire life? How many pointless arguments had she created in her mind against an opponent that would never fight back, a debate against a classmate that she was forever too scared to actually talk to? Those hours piled up, creating an endless chain dating back years. It made her unproductive, scared, and furious. Furious at those she felt would never listen to her, and furious at herself for letting her mind out from under her control. She could not escape those worthless pits of focus until she had beaten her enemy or accepted defeat, no matter how badly she wanted to. When her weekends were spent drifting between her bed and a chair, when her textbooks went unopened and her problems unsung, she was more lost than she knew what to do with. All of the things she loved doing seemed foolish. Like counting sand in the hourglass.

"Have you… tried medication?" Jaune asked obviously. "I took some anxiety meds when I was younger?"

No… no, she rejected that path long ago. Her mind was her greatest weapon as a Huntress. She couldn't tamper with that. She had to keep it safe at all costs. If something happened to her mind, then everything she worked for would be ruined. She couldn't accept that. She would have to power through whatever struggles the Gods gave her through sheer willpower alone.

But now her enemy that controlled every aspect of her mind was herself. Her past. Her doubts. It was her own anxiety about her obsessions that consumed her, and she didn't know how she was supposed to win. She couldn't study them. She couldn't fight them. All she could argue with her thoughts and pray that eventually, they would vanish and let her be herself again. She didn't know when the next reprieve would come, and it was eating her. She felt like she would never be normal again.

No one understood her when she was in these psychological pits. No one did. Her doctors didn't, and her parents didn't. And maybe Jaune didn't. Maybe his nods of understanding were hollow. Maybe he was faking it to allow her to get over her problems easier. But he was still there, holding her hand when her story was through. He didn't question her motives. He did not insult her. He did not interrupt her. He let her words come to a muted close, and he waited for her heavy breathing to stop. When it was clear that she had nothing left to say, that was when he asked her his final question.

"Would you like a hug?"

Pyrrha paused, contemplating his offer in silence. Then, when she could no longer bear her suffering alone, she dove into his arms. He lost track of how long he held her, her muffled sobs alone filling the room.