Jaune with Riviera's help went through many different ideas on how to best have this long-overdue conversation with his team. Many times and dates were discussed, the pros and cons of many locations were reviewed, and the pair even tried out many many many different opening lines. It took several days but eventually, they were able to find answers to each of those questions; The best day to meet was Saturday since all their schedules were open and it gave them time to think things over if they needed it. Likewise, the best time to meet was in the morning, specifically around breakfast since it provided the space and time to have that conversation and time to give them a chance to sort their feelings out.

As for the place, that proved to be the tricky one. There were many different options such as the Academy's cafeteria but that was quickly ruled out because of the very real possibility of another student overhearing the conversation and spreading rumors. By that same logic, any place that other students frequented during the morning was also ruled out which included certain restaurants and even the park, gym, track, and field. For a day or two they considered the Emerald Forest but ultimately they ruled it out on the basis that fighting Grimm was not conducive to a potentially tense and heartfelt conversation.

However, they were able to decide on a place, a niche little diner called the Hungry Ursa that featured private booths and was owned by a man who owed Riviera a favor. It was located in an area of Vale that rarely saw visitors but was still accessible by bus and places that were worth the trip so it wouldn't be any challenge to convince Jaune's teammates to stop by there for breakfast. Once they had their fill, Jaune could drop the truth on them and if they wanted space to think about it, they could step outside and wander around a bit while their heart and mind figured things out.

Now the only question left to answer was how to start that conversation.

"Why don't you just tell them?" Riviera suggested.

Jaune was surprised, "Huh? Does that work? Aren't you supposed to, you know, gently work your way to it?"

"You can if that's what works best for you. However I would advise caution, I've seen plenty of people attempt to ease things in only to back down when it came time to deliver. Doubt has a nasty way of worming in when you give time to do so."

"But what if the problem is just nervousness? Wouldn't easing them in make it easier to take that plunge?

"Are you nervous?"

"A little."

"Perfectly understandable, I'd go as far as to say that it would be strange if you weren't nervous. but I urge you not to let that feeling take root and grow. Push back against it because I promise you that you will regret letting it win."

"Don't let it win," Jaune whispered to himself as he and the rest of his Team made their way over to the diner to eat breakfast.

The place was located near the southeastern outskirts of Vale in an area where Mt Glenn was in clear view which meant that there weren't many people around. The tragedy associated with that mountain was still a fresh wound on the population's mind despite how many years had passed, this was not the ideal location for any kind of business, much less one in the service industry. It would have been easy to assume that Jaune got the directions wrong, he was starting to wonder if he had made a mistake. But those thoughts were dashed when they spotted a massive sign down the road for the Hungry Ursa, then they got closer and when they did they could see a bright red arrow on the sign pointing towards a building that was just across the street from the sign.

"Is that the place you mentioned?" Pyrrha asked, looking at both the sign and the building it pointed towards. That place looks just like a regular apartment building, if it wasn't for the sign I would have never guessed there was a restaurant there. It must have been something that came after the apartment was already built instead of something that was planned. But how would you even get the permits for something like that?

"I've been here before!" Nora happily exclaimed before running up to the entrance. "They serve some damn good waffles here and their bourbon syrup is sweet enough to kill for!"

"She's not joking. This place was in the news about three months ago because one customer tried to stab another for a bottle of that syrup." Ren added with a face and tone that was so deadpan that it was impossible to know if he was joking. "Unfortunately for the would-be murderer, the person that they tried to kill was a Huntsman, the fight ended exactly the way you think it did."

The group made their way inside and what they found matched what most might think of when they imagine a diner. There was a tiled floor, booths with chairs and tables, a bar counter with swivel chairs in front of it, a large chef in the kitchen, and a couple of waitresses in cute uniforms taking orders and delivering food. As for the walls of the establishment, they were covered in an eclectic collection of items and photos that seemed to share no theme besides being visibly aged. All things considered, this was a quaint place that had a vintage warmth and charm to it.

One of the waitresses spotted their group, "Welcome to the da Hungry Ursa darlings! Just seat yourselves and I'll be with ya in a flash!"

Jaune's teammates were already moving toward an empty booth when he said to the waitress, "Riviera had a reservation for us."

The waitress smiled, "Oh, you must be da young fella da boss mentioned! Then in that case please follow me!" She then walked towards the back of the diner as Jaune and the rest of the Team followed behind her as she led them to a curtain in the back. "Right here are the more private booths which are a leftover from when this place was originally a front for an illegal casino!" She then moved the curtain aside and walked into the room as they followed her.

"This is so cool," Nora quickly said while looking around with Ren who was also looking around for traces of the diner's sordid past.

The pair quickly made note that this room had slightly dimmer lights compared to the front of the diner and that the floor was covered in a blue velvet carpet that was probably a remnant from its time and an illegal casino. They also counted eight booths in total, four on one side and four on the other with small cocktail tables in between, each booth was around the same size as the ones in front but these came with heavy dark curtains that made it impossible to tell who was sitting there or even if there was anyone there at all, the curtains even suppressed any sound that might have otherwise emerged from within. They also noticed a light bulb attached to the top of the frame of every booth, some were lit and if they channeled a little Aura into their ears they could hear some muffled conversations coming from those booths.

"Jaune, why did Riviera make a reservation here for us?" Pyrrha asked as they approached a curtain in the back.

"Well… it's because there is something I wanted to tell you all that is long overdue." No sense in trying to hide it from them now.

Pyrrha nodded in understanding but didn't say anything, likewise, both Nora and Ren held their tongues as the waitress led them inside one of the booths before directing their attention to a framed menu on the wall along with a button next to it. "Just press that button when you need anything or when you want to order or pay. Also, do you want the food taken to you, will you pick it up, or would you rather we leave it on the tables over there?" She said while pointing to the cocktail tables."

"You can take the food to us, miss?" Ren asked as he sat down, Oh this is one cozy seat!

The waitress gave him a practiced smile and tapped on her name tag, "It's Bluebell, now just remember to press that button by the frame whenever you are ready to order." She then left to assumedly take care of other customers leaving Jaune alone to face his Team.

Jaune sighed, Let's get this over with. "So you're probably wondering what I brought you guys here to talk about, like I said earlier this is something overdue. And I'm ashamed to say that without recent events, I probably would have kept you all waiting longer."

"The Grimm creature," Ren said knowing full well that it was the event Jaune was talking about, there wasn't anything else that it could have been.

"Yup, you guys probably noticed that she and I shared a few… traits."

"Probably noticed?" Nora said with a kind smile and a soft voice, "Even a blind man would have been able to spot the similarities, it was just that obvious."

"Well, then I guess I'll get to the point… what we saw wasn't a coincidence or a Semblance. Berserk is not my Semblance, I only said that to hide its true nature."

"Then what is it?" Pyrrha asked.

And there it was, the question whose answer was the entire point of this trip. The question that had kept him awake for many a sleepless night wondering if he was even still human anymore. The question that was either going to make or break his stay in Beacon… and he had no idea how to answer it. That wasn't to say that he didn't know the answer, he did or at the very least he knew what Penny and Dr. Gris had told him, and while there was plenty that those two had yet to figure out. They told him that he was indeed still human, that whatever was happening to him didn't seem to be affecting his mind, and that he didn't seem to be a threat to others.

So what was the problem?

The problem was that little voice of doubt that lingered in the back of his head that refused to leave regardless of what new information had been discovered or how close he got to his team. A voice that kept asking the same unanswerable questions over and over again; What if Penny and Dr. Gris are wrong? What if they're right but your friends don't care about the facts? What if they see you as a monster anyway?

All those thoughts were of course ridiculous. He knew these people, they were his friends, nay, they were more than friends. These were people whom he had fought and bled alongside, they were still first-year students but they had already faced down drugged lunatics, terrorists, and soulless monsters. If anyone would give him the benefit of the doubt and accept him, it would be them… and yet he was hesitating. Not only was he hesitating but that little voice in the back of his head was getting louder, it was insisting that there was still time to drop the whole thing and just eat breakfast with his team and that was a tempting idea.

So this is why Riviera warned me about putting this off, thought Jaune to himself. He must have seen many people like me work their way to this point only to stumble at the finish line. I'm willing to bet that each one of them regretted it… fuck this.

Jaune looked Pyrrha in the eyes and told her the truth, "I don't know what it is."

"Well, that was anticlimactic," said Nora under her breath which earned her an elbow in the ribs from Ren.

Jaune was quick to apologize, "Sorry I can't tell you what it is, Dr. Gris has been looking me over and even Penny has given me scans. They just don't know what it is, but I can tell you that whatever happened to me is similar to that woman we killed back at the Rally."

Nora somewhat disagreed, "It was similar in some ways but there are massive differences between you and that monster and I'm not just saying this because you're my friend. That thing was no better than a Grimm, frankly, I think that they weren't even a person anymore. They were already a Grimm in every way that mattered and to be honest, I'm offended that you would even use that thing as a comparison to yourself."

Ren then chimed in, "Not to mention that it had that bone armor while the most you've done is a little shift in eye color and getting just a bit taller and both are temporary."

"Not to mention that even the eye color thing isn't special, Yang does it as well and she does it better!" Nora quickly added.

Jaune had considered many different possible outcomes for this conversation and his friends taking it in stride and cracking jokes was something he thought would be a pipedream, "By the Brothers! If I had known you guys were going to be making jokes then I would have kept this to myself, I'm pouring my heart out to you guys, and you're laughing!" He paused for a second, "Thank you! That means more to me than you guys can ever know… alright then, ask me any question you want and I'll answer."

Nora then asked, "Who's paying for this?"

"The owner of this place owed Riviera a favor so the Booth and everyone's first order is free."

"How did this happen to you? Or was it something that you were born with?" asked Pyrrha.

"As far as I know, I wasn't born like this. As for what happened… I think it was several months ages when I was at a bar in the town of Jouburg, I had a drink to celebrate getting accepted into Beacon when some guy who I barely remember offered to buy me a drink."

His teammates gasped as their minds immediately recalled when they had accompanied Jaune and Riviera to a bar for Huntsmen. They remembered that they had done it as a part of some kind of ongoing therapy for Jaune and that was only confirmed by how he ordered a drink and demanded that he be allowed to watch everything that was placed inside. That led them to assume that he had been drugged in the past and that ordering the drink was a way for him to take back the control that was stolen from him that day.

Now they understood that they were right but that it was worse than they could have possibly imagined.

"I believe that there was something in that drink that made me sick and pass out, the last thing I heard was someone calling for an ambulance. Most of what happened after that is confusing at best and to be honest, I'm not sure which are fragments of memories and which are just my imagination running wild. But if I try really hard I can almost see the back of what I assume to be an ambulance and after that, I see what I think is an operating room and people standing over me before everything goes dark again."

No one said anything for a few seconds, they were too busy trying to wrap their head around what they had just heard. That wasn't to say that they didn't have questions, they had plenty. However, they wanted to be sure that they fully understood what they had been told and its implications. The biggest and most pressing one was the idea that someone was going around and messing with the body and very being of people like Jaune and that creature that was once a woman. And then of course they wondered if there was some sort of connection between the woman at the Rally and the Rage Drug whose users were undeniably people and had no regeneration or shapeshifting but at the same time had acted just like she did… it couldn't be a coincidence that the White Fang had been involved in both cases.

Jaune could see the concern in their eyes, the question that was on the tip of their tongue. "Before you ask, yes, I think that the woman was also a victim like me but I have no idea how she ended up in the Rally and I don't know why her case was different from mine. Or maybe she's just an advanced case…"

Ren shook his head, "I doubt it. Remember how her body was filled with Dust?"

"Of course I do, that stuff made killing her so much harder than it had to be."

"Have you ever considered that more had been done to her than simply stuffing her full of Dust?"

"W-what do you mean?"

Ren scratched his chin and he organized his thoughts, "Whoever took her into Vale and stuffed her with Dust must have had her in their possession for a while, enough time to test her abilities and come up with the idea. But why should we assume that is all they did?"

Pyrrha quickly responded, "Ren is right, Jaune. Whatever happened to her isn't what happened to you. Besides, didn't you already say that Penny and Gris have been keeping an eye on you? If anything started to happen, they would find out long before it became irreversible."

"Wow… you guys are taking this way better than I could have ever imagined," Jaune said with a smile. "I honestly feel a little silly for putting this off for so long."

"To be fair, it was pretty obvious that you were lying about your condition being a Semblance," Nora pointed out. "Seriously, what kind of Semblance leaves its user vulnerable in exchange for what? Regeneration that pales in comparison to basic shielding? Making you a bit stronger as if that wasn't common and done better by pretty much everyone else!"

"It can't really be that bad, can it?"

"Yes," Ren, Nora, and Pyrrha answered without hesitation.

"And none of you said anything?"

"Well, it was obviously a sensitive subject for you, we'd figured that you talk about it when you were ready and here we are!" Pyrrha said while motioning around the table.

Jaune then laughed, "Okay then, let's get something to eat and have some fun!"

Nora raised her hand, "I do have a question."

"Ask away."

"What happened afterward?"

"After what?"

"After you passed out in the bar in Jouburg, what happened after that?"

Jaune leaned back for a moment as he began to recall it all, "Well a Huntsman found me in the woods near Lodun, which is about 40 miles away from Jouburg, and brought me back to civilization. I then found out that a few days had passed after my incident at the bar-..."

Jaune woke up bright and early but was not ready to face the new day, he had far too much on his mind to even think about what he was going to do today. He was still trying to wrap his head around everything that had happened up to now and it almost left like he was imagining the plot of a bad story. I was in a bar in Jouburg and somehow ended up 40 miles away in the forest next to Lodun and my memories of the past few days are a complete blank. My armor was wrecked and I had scars from a Grimm that I only could have survived using Aura which I didn't even have unlocked before any of this… and now I'm sharing a roof with some guy who calls himself a Huntsman and is named after some kind of bird… by the Brothers, is this divine punishment for trying to cheat my way into Beacon?

A delicious smell wafted into the room followed by a man shouting, "Breakfast is almost ready!"

It was at this very moment when Jaune realized just how hungry and thirsty he was and that made him breathe a sigh of relief, "Okay, I'm not some kind of walking corpse… unless corpses get hungry? But what would one even eat?" He shook those thoughts out of his head, they were nothing but an existential distraction that was not doing him any favors.

The man shouted again, "I don't mean to brag but I make an incredible breakfast sandwich, just ask my nieces! So if you don't show up soon I'm gonna eat your sandwich too!"

Jaune's stomach rumbled as if it was also telling him to get his ass to breakfast, "Alright, alright I'm coming!"

It took about a minute or so for Jaune to follow the smell into the dining room which doubled as the living room, the house they were staying at wasn't big but it wasn't familiar either. It didn't help that every room and hallway looked the same and lacked any decoration or furniture to help serve as a landmark, This "House," really is a bunch of shacks mashed together… If I remember correctly this guy said something about the owner being inspired by a cartoon of some kind… but why this? Truthfully Jaune didn't care about the answer, he was trying to distract himself from the fact that he was currently sharing a strange roof with a stranger who he had met under even stranger circumstances.

When he arrived in the dining room he found the strange man already seated at the table with two plates already set along with two mugs containing what Jaune hoped was coffee. The man was using his scroll and mumbling something to himself that Jaune couldn't quite make out, after a bit of hesitation he walked over to the table and sat down. He glanced at the sandwich, it had been toasted until it was a perfect golden brown, on the edges of the sandwich he could see traces of melted cheddar cheese, and he could smell some kind of sausage in the sandwich along with some other kind of meat and vegetable that he could see under the bread. Then his stomach rumbled again and he without thinking grabbed the sandwich and bit into it, the taste was delicious. Everything within the sandwich melded together into a perfect array of complementary flavors and textures, each one was good on its own but here they elevated each other. It was so good, Jaune forced himself to eat a little slower to make the experience last longer so he reached over to the mug and was about to drink when the man sitting with him finally spoke.

"That's black huntsmen-grade coffee, it's strong. Drink it as it is if you want but I recommend heading into the kitchen and using the cream and sugar," the man pointed behind him to show where the kitchen was.

Jaune got up with the mug in his hand and walked into the kitchen, "Thanks… um, what was your name again?"

"Qrow."

"Hold on!" Nora suddenly interrupted Jaune. "The guy who found you was Qrow? As in Qrow Branwen?"

"Um, yes? Do you know him?" Jaune asked in-between bites of the delicious pancake he was eating.

"Not personally but I do know of him," Nora answered. "The man is a highly regarded and prolific Huntsman who taught at Signal Academy and now travels abroad taking jobs as he goes."

Ren then added, "The strange thing about the guy is that he rejects most of the High-End Contracts that are offered to him, and trust me when I say that many are offered to him."

"High-End Contracts?" Jaune asked as it dawned on him how little he knew about his savior.

Pyrrha explained, "Those are the kind of contracts that make careers, they often become your career! For example, all of the professors at Beacon and even the Headmaster himself are technically Huntsmen fulfilling a High-End Contract."

"That's interesting… So why doesn't he take those?"

Nora shrugged, "I guess that he enjoys helping people which isn't uncommon in this line of work, being a Huntsman pays well but it's also the most dangerous job in existence. That alone is enough to filter out many would-be assholes and the Academies are pretty good at catching the rest. But Ruby and Yang would know him way better so you should ask them."

Jaune was confused by that answer, "Why would they know him better?"

"Because he is their uncle."

His eyes widened in genuine surprise, "What?!"

"You didn't know?" Nora asked with a raised eyebrow. "You and Ruby are good friends, didn't she mention him at least once?"

"I knew they had an uncle that helped teach them what they knew but it never occurred to me that it was Qrow… but maybe Ruby's scythe should have clued me in, oh well."

"Oh well indeed," Pyrrha said with a little laugh. "So, you were having breakfast with Qrow when?"

"Oh yeah, so the man tells me that while I was sleeping he went ahead and called Ozpin to talk to about me-"

Qrow took a flask out of his pocket and poured the contents into his mug, "So the gist of it is that I'm gonna be babysitting you for a bit until Dr. Gris can come down here and give you a check-up. Then we'll decide what to do after that."

"Wait… I never consented to this."

Qrow pointed to the door, "You're more than welcome to leave if you want, I'll just be following from a distance to keep you safe until the doc comes or if you prefer we can go to the doc instead."

"Don't I get a say in this?"

"Sure, would you like to know what happened to you, if it's dangerous, and possibly find a way to still live a normal life if it is? Or would you like to flip the coin and gamble your life and future on the chance that whatever happened wasn't a big deal? Fair warning, my Semblance is bad luck so I strongly advise against gambling."

Jaune walked up to a chair and sat down before sighing, "That's not much of a choice."

"Sorry kid, life isn't fair but I promise you this; We are doing this for your benefit and we will find whoever did this to you and we will stop them."

Maybe Jaune was just being naive but there was sincerity in the man's voice that made him want to trust the guy, Besides, it's not like I can just go home without knowing what happened. "Alright then, now what?"

Qrow leaned back on his chair, "I'm not a doctor but I don't think that we have to necessarily wait for Gris to start learning about what happened to you."

"What do you mean?"

"Right now I'm thinking that we have ourselves a little Q&A Session and afterward we get a little exercise in."

"What kind of questions?"

"Nothing serious, I just want to make sure that you got your head on straight so I'll just ask you about your past and family, like if you have any siblings."

Jaune nodded in agreement, "Okay that sounds great! And to answer your first question, I have seven sisters and no brothers."

"A-are you serious?" Qrow asked with an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"My mom and dad love each other… a lot."

"I can see that, okay then, where did you grow up?"

"A large settlement in Mistral by the name of Aoi, it's close enough to Shion that my family would go camping there for vacation."

Qrow nodded along looking rather pleased by those answers, "Okay, your memory seems to be working well enough but maybe it's because my questions are too easy." He shrugged, "I wouldn't know, I'm not a psychologist. So how about instead you tell me about any gaps in your memory."

"Besides the big one?"

"Yeah, besides that."

Jaune thought things over for a bit, there were absolutely gaps in his memory but those were the kinds of gaps that everyone had. It wasn't weird to have trouble recalling memories of early childhood or have trouble remembering days that were remarkable in just how unremarkable they were. So he tried something else, he tried to remember the stuff that happened just before and after those gaps in the hopes that something strange would stand out… this quickly proved to be difficult. The only thing it accomplished at first was increasing the number of gaps as he realized just how flawed human memories were but at the same time, there was nothing unusual about any of those gaps with one important exception; The night at the bar in Jouburg.

"There are a few things that I'm having trouble remembering," Jaune said as he finished off what was left of his breakfast. "But they're mostly early childhood and uneventful days, the kind of stuff that most people don't remember."

"So nothing else besides the usual?"

"I know that you asked me not to include it, but my mind keeps going back to that bar in Jouburg… I don't remember anything that happened in there."

"What do you mean?"

"I went there to celebrate getting into Beacon and that's it, my memories end at the bar and even then that part is a complete blur."

Qrow thought back to everything that he had learned about memory loss from both what others had told him to what he had experienced himself when getting drunk to the point of passing out. "That could be important… or maybe not." He smiled at Jaune, "Once I got you settled, I'll go over to Jouburg and find out exactly what happened. In the meantime…," Qrow stood up from the chair and cracked his neck, "Let's see what you're made of."

"Huh?" Jaune had a terrible feeling crawling down his neck as though he was about to be put through something thoroughly unpleasant.

"I'm just asking if you'd like to do some exercise with me, stretching, a jog, weight lifting, and everything else in between."

"Oh! That sounds great! I don't think I'll be able to keep up with a Huntsman but I'll do my best." I wonder why I was so worried.

"And after that little warm-up, we can do some sparring!"

"Sparing!? I-is that really such a good idea!?" Well, that explains that bad feeling I had just a second ago, this guy is going to destroy me!

Qrow just laughed at the kid's worry but at the same time, he didn't blame the kid. Even a complete idiot would realize that someone who wasn't even an academy student yet was being set up to fail. "It won't be anything serious, just give it your best and I'll give you some pointers. Don't worry about looking bad, I'm not going to grade you nor am I expecting much from someone who was lost in the woods and can't remember how they got there."

"S-sure."

"Great!" Qrow began to loosen up his arms, "Your stuff is in the closest of the room you slept in, grab it and meet me out in the back."

"So I got my stuff, we worked out, and then he kicked my ass," Jaune proudly said as the rest of his team waited for the story to continue. But as far as he was concerned there really wasn't much left to say, his goal was to tell them the truth about his fake Semblance and he did. As for everything else, they already knew that it all worked out in the end since otherwise, he would not have been able to enroll in Beacon.

However that wasn't good enough for them, it wasn't good enough for anyone who had any unanswered questions and there were plenty left. But they didn't say anything at first, the unaddressed question had given them the understandable but incorrect assumption that he wasn't done with the story. They waited in silence for him to continue but soon seconds turned into minutes and before long they realized that if they wanted answers that they were going to have to ask him directly.

Unsurprisingly Nora was the first to speak up, "That's it? You were about to work out and spar with an elite Huntsman and you're just going to end the story there? You just can't blue ball us like that!"

Jaune apologetically shrugged, "Well, what else can I say?" I could tell them about how he realized I faked my transcripts but that might be a little too much excitement too soon, I better not push my luck.

"There's plenty you can say!" Nora was doing her absolute hardest to keep her voice down to avoid bothering anyone else at the dinner but that was proving to be a difficult task. "You can start with the exercises you did."

"Why would you want to know that?"

Pyrrha then said, "As we said earlier, Qrow is an elite Huntsman so it's only natural that we're curious about the habits of one of the best in the business. What kind of exercise routine did he show you, what supplements does he take, and what does he eat and drink?"

"Did he show you any cool moves?" Asked Ren.

Jaune quickly thought it over, "Well he does drink a lot which can't be healthy, and that egg sandwich he made for both of us tasted amazing which probably means that it wasn't good for either of us. I didn't see him take any supplements, I didn't ask him about his diet, and the exercises we did were very similar to what we do here but with an added emphasis on stamina and cardio."

Pyrrha nodded along as she finished off what was left of her breakfast, "Makes sense given his area of focus. Physical strength is important as are speed and flexibility but none of that matters without the energy to use it, even Aura and some Semblances rely on stamina to a degree."

"Now what about that spar you had with him? How did that go down?" Asked Nora.

"I already told you, he kicked my ass."

"But how did he kick your ass?"

Jaune sighed, "Okay but it's not as exciting as you may all be hoping for." He paused for a second to properly remember how it all went down and to figure out a good place to start. "So we walked over to the forest and after checking to make sure that there was no one around who could get hurt, Qrow pulled out his sword and-"

Qrow would not consider himself to be much of a swordsman, sure his scythe Harbinger did have a sword configuration that it spent the most time in but that was for practical reasons. A scythe was a polearm and while his had an adjustable head that allowed for a greater variety of strikes and even thrusts, all of them required space. On the other hand a sword, even one as big as his, didn't require nearly as much space to do anything. Most people were very ignorant of just how easy it was to hurt someone with a sharp piece of metal that had been built specially to hurt people, all it took was a little momentum to draw blood.

When Qrow and Jaune faced off against each other things had started off rather well. The boy was a novice and it showed but an understanding of the basics was there, they were unrefined but they were there.

"Alright, I'm going to start slow and I'll warn you before speeding up," Qrow said as he slowly approached the younger man.

"Got it!" Jaune raised his sword and shield and walked to meet the older man in the middle.

Just like Qrow had suggested the two started with slow telegraphed attacks and responses. Whenever Jaune made a mistake, and he made many, Qrow would pause the match to instruct him on how he could do things better and it was working. Jaune was getting marginally better thanks to the advice and as he did Qrow would make things a tad bit more complicated to keep the challenge up. They were not anywhere near what could be called the approximation of a fight but they both believed that they would get there eventually.

And then Qrow had the bright idea of playing a little trick on the boy; An easy-to-read stab that turned into a slice to the forearm with just a flick of the wrist. Against an experienced opponent, the move would have been seen as a playful jest, against a novice it would be a reminder of how much they had yet to learn… and against Jaune, it became a massive gaping wound.

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?" Jaune politely asked Qrow while calmly applying pressure to the wound to stem the bleeding.

"I- I thought it would be funny," Qrow sheepishly admitted while muttering to himself, "Why didn't his Aura block it? Is he just bad at using it or does he not have it unlocked at all? The latter is super rare but it has happened in the past, either way, this is something we will have to work on."

"DOES THIS LOOK FUNNY TO YOU!?" Jaune took a breath to calm himself down just a little, "And Stop Talking To Yourself, It's Creepy!"

"Look, I'm sorry and I know that you're going to hate me for saying this but this is actually a good thing."

"HOW!?"

Qrow kneeled next to Jaune and extended an open hand, "Let me see your arm."

"Why do you need to see it?"

"Because I'm about to teach you how to use Aura to heal yourself even if I have to unlock it first." A second or two passed in silence before Jaune hesitantly gave Qrow his arm, "Now let's see what's wro-!"

"Why did you pause?! What's wrong?" Jaune asked as he resisted the panicked urge to try and pull his arm back.

Qrow laughed much to Jaune's ire, "Calm down kid, everything is fine. Look for yourself." He then turned the arm towards Jaune's face until the kid could see his own arm repairing itself.

"How is it doing that?"

"Huh?"

"How is my arm doing that? It doesn't even hurt all that much anymore, what's going on?" Now that I think about it, getting cut wasn't all that painful either. Sure it hurt but I was screaming out of shock rather than pain.

"I told you this when we first met, it's your Aura healing you. Now we just need to teach you how to use it to block which will be easy, it's literally the first thing that everyone learns…" A dark look appeared on Qrow's face, "So why don't you?"

"I-Is that really so strange?"

"Yes." The sheer bluntness and speed of Qrow's answer made Jaune flinch even as the older man kept going, "There are only two possibilities, the first is that you unlocked your Aura on your own and did so very recently or that whoever unlocked it for you just left without teaching you anything and that's a crime, a very very serious crime."

Jaune looked at the wound on his arm, he could see the gash becoming smaller and more narrow as the flesh stitched itself back together. Soon the only proof that he was ever hurt would be a hardly noticeable scar, Because of Aura? "Why would that be a crime? This seems to have nothing but upsides."

Qrow pulled Jaune up to his feet, "People are stupid even when they're well aware of their own limits. Now imagine just how much dumber they will be when they think they're bulletproof."

"Are they?

"As long as their Aura doesn't break, then yes, they are bulletproof and more. But that makes them reckless, they take unnecessary risks and drag people down with them when it all goes tits up. Even worse is that Aura isn't all sunshine and rainbows."

"What do you mean?"

"Everyone knows that Grimm are drawn by emotions but they're also drawn to strong sources of Aura. It's part of the reason why Huntsmen are so good at hunting down those monsters, they come looking for us and save us time and energy. There's also the potential issue of Semblances but that's another subject. What's far more relevant is that Aura boosts your physical abilities and allows its users to train themselves beyond what would otherwise be possible and if you're not careful… it gets ugly."

"I still don't get it."

Qrow sighed but tried again to explain it, "Imagine that you have the strength to knock down trees and then you try to give your mom a hug, what do you think will happen if you're not careful?"

Jaune paled at the thought but there was something else that was bothering him, "But that Grimm in the forest, why didn't it attack me at first? If my Aura is as strong as you say it is then shouldn't it have gone right for my throat?"

"That's… a good question." Qrow took out a flask and drank deeply from it, "Tell you what, we'll figure that out when Gris arrives. Meanwhile, let's work on your Aura control before getting back to sparring."

Jaune and the rest of the Team exited the Hungry Ursa with happy full bellies and a mind chock-full of questions that they hoped would soon be answered, "So as you can imagine, Aura training did not go very well."

"But you do have Aura," Ren pointed out. "Otherwise Aura scanners wouldn't be able to display anything."

"Exactly! I do have my Aura but for some reason, it's not shielding me." Jaune answered as he and the group began to walk off in a random direction with no location or goal in mind other than taking in the sights and walking off their meal.

Pyrrha quickly connected the dots, "Your regeneration! We know that it's not your Semblance so what if it's your Aura trying to make do by focusing on healing rather than prevention!"

"You got it, but that wasn't something we figured out until Gris took me back to Beacon and ran medical tests on me."

Nora then asked a question, "Then why do Grimm have a hard time noticing you? You have plenty of emotions and a good deal of Aura but they act like you're not there until you do something to catch their attention. It's like you're some kind of ninja!"

Jaune apologetically shrugged, "We have no idea but I can tell you that it's something that Ozpin is very interested in learning, so I think it's just a matter of time." Though it might have something to do with the stuff that Penny found on my spine or maybe it doesn't. Better let the experts try to figure that one out.

"Any other questions?" Asked Jaune.

"I'm sure we'll think of more before the day is over," Answered Pyrrha with a smile.

Author's Notes:

This chapter was written because there was a large gap between chapters 1 and 2 I thought was worth exploring just a little to give Jaune the ability to finally come clean to his Team. As for his other close friends, he will also approach them and tell them the truth but that will probably happen off-screen unless I can think of something interesting enough to justify repeating a conversation. Please keep in mind that he already had approval from both Oz and Riviera to tell whom he wanted to tell, this is his burden to bear and his decision to make.

Furthermore, I'm still on the fence about whether the next chapter should continue this flashback by delving into what happened when Gris finally arrived. Or whether to move on to a proper transitional chapter for the vol 2 finale. There are certainly things worth exploring and some world-building that can be done but I'm not sure it is worth a chapter on its own. But maybe it doesn't have to be an entire chapter, either way, I'll figure it out while writing.

Either way, we are making progress toward the vol 2 finale and it's going to be good. Spoilers: You didn't really think that I'd skip the Paladin fight, did you?

The part where Qrow says that Grimm are also attracted to strong Aura is based on the canon RWBY novel titled; Before the Dawn