Fixed. I really hate 's editor sometimes. It never copies over correctly. And I was so proud of this word count too...
Jaune did, indeed manage to make it to dinner before the cafetera closed down for the night. The chattering hall fell into a relative silence upon his entrance, his very presence shifting the atmosphere of the hall. Many stopped talking for a while, taking in his blood covered visage. The ranger sighed, moving towards the table where team AMBR and SSSN.
Sun raised his eyebrows at the approaching ranger. "Well, someone had some fun today." he said, moving over to let him sit in between him and Neptune. Jaune gave the monkey faunus an appreciative nod, dropping his quiver down on the seat.
"I am going to go get some food." he said simply, moving towards the thin line. The eight of them shared a look as Jaune turned around.
"He's covered in grimm juice." Reese mouthed to them. Scarlet gave her a wide look.
"You don't say?" he questioned back, to which Arslan shook her head, hoping to cut him off.
"Sush. he might hear you" She whispered to him as quietly as she could. "Jaune's has some really good hearing."
Scarlet nodded. "Right, 'cause he's a faunus?" he asked, this time quieter so that the departed ranger could not hear him. Even when he was gone, his presence still could be felt breathing down the back of their necks. Sun sighed, shaking his head.
"I told you already, he's not a faunus. I've been thinking about it-" he started, leaning in conspiratorally to the group. Reese ohhed, letting out her biting retort.
"Ooh, thinking. Dangerous Sun, dangerous. We don't know what your brain might do when it starts thinking." She snipped at him with a coy smile. Sun sighed, shaking his head. Promptly ignoring the green sprite, the monkey faunus continued with his train of thought.
"So, I was thinking-" he continued, giving Reese a glaring look. "About our new found friend." This section of the sentence was directed to his co conspirator Arslan. "And I'm not convinced, you know? I just don't think he's a faunus." The monkey faunus shook his head, his tail mimicking the cranial motion.
Arslan rested her chin on her hands, letting him speak. "Oh? And why is that?" She asked, genuinely interested as to the decision. "We already have pretty solid proof-" She shook her head, rearranging her words to reflect something a little more accurate. "We have some evidence to him being a faunus." Sun bobbed his head, letting the words bounce around in his head.
"Yeah, yeah, he speaks feral. That's hardly solid evidence that he's got a tail somewhere down his pants." he waved off the fact, finding it not substantial enough to convince him. "Did you get anything else, or is it just that he knows a language?"
Arslan leaned back in her seat. "Alright." She said, thinking about it. "One: we know he has good hearing. That is stereotypically a faunus trait. He also speaks Feral." She argued. Sun rolled his eyes, letting out a huff.
"Again, not something that's usable, Ars. Anyone can learn the language."
"When was the last time you heard of a human speaking Feral?" Arslan asked defensively. "Never. Not once. It's only the faunus that speak it." She took in a breath, taking a short pause in speaking. "But moving on from that, he has a lot of scars."
Neptune gave her an odd look, completely lost as to why that would have to do with Jaune being a faunus.
"What does that have to do with Jaune being a Faunus?" He asked the lioness.
Arslan sighed, really hoping that her insinuation would not have to have been explained. "Docking is a practice among humans… settlements," She swallowed, trying to find the most accurate word. "that is practiced. If he was abused like that, it is likely that his traits have been cut off." She finished. Neptune winced, deciding that his plate of rice and fish was very interesting all of a sudden.
"Or, you know, his dad didn't like the fact that his wife fucked someone else." Sun suggested, giving Arslan a surprising amount of whiplash. "The Arcs are kind of famously a human family. If Jaune's a faunus, you know sure as hell that one of his parent's isn't his parent then…" he trailed off, letting the blatant innuendo hang in the air. The group chewed on their food for a while, the dour tone drowning out any semblance of the usual cheer that was seen around such tables.
Reese cleared her throat, breaking the suffocating silence that had fallen over the group. "So, moving on from that, do we have anything else that could point to Jaune being a faunus? Anything at all?" She probed. "Has he said he was a faunus?"
Arslan wracked her brain for a while. She was coming up blank for now. With a defeated sigh, she shook her head.
"Nope." Sun said. "To both of those."
"What are we talking about?" A voice came from behind them. The eight of them practically jumped out of their skin at the sudden sound.
"Jaune!" Reese called out, plastering on a smile. "You're going to scare us out of our bones if you keep doing that!" She forced a laugh. Jaune raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying it yet. But he sat down anyway, putting his plate down.
"So, what were you guys talking about?" he said coldly, the question having the weight of elephants behind it. The group glanced around to each other, trying to telepathically communicate some kind of cover story.
"We were talking about that old TV show." Sun said, giving his co conspirators a side eye. They nodded, making a uniform sound of agreement. A muddled and unenthused cacophony of Yes, Yeahs, Yuhuhs, and other affirming sounds that started with the letter y. Jaune raised an eyebrow, unconvinced by their poorly coordinated charade. He sat down, deciding that whatever it was was not worth the probing, particularly with Bolin at the table.
They had butted heads rather fiercely last time Jaune had probed for a similar answer.
They're talking about you. B called out. They wouldn't be so cagey if they weren't.
A blew a raspberry, clearly unimpressed with the paranoia. So? He posed. Everyone talks about us. We can hear them whisper behind us, we can hear what they say. He shrugged. Why should we care if they talk as well?
Jaune took a bite of his food, letting the bland substance roll around in his mouth. Not much could be said for kitchens dedicated to mass producing nutrient rich food to fuel the high calorie burning, grimm fighting, and often horny teenagers. There just wasn't the logistical power to make truly appealing food. Jaune listened to them hastefully stitch together a previous conversation through a rather bizarre form of verbal charades.
"Was it the one with Mac Hamble as the main villain?"
"No, no, it wasn't MacThamble. It was some other vaguely attractive white dude. Oh, Oum, what's his name? He was in Timone's Disastrous Life."
"Right… You think it was Andrew Garfold?"
"Na, not him…" Jaune decided to tune them out slightly, letting the conversation about something so unimportant drone on. It shifted somewhere along the line to something a little more philosophical in nature.
"I'm telling you, it doesn't matter what poor thing happened to her, she still did some fucked up stuff." Neptune said.
Bolin scoffed, shaking his head. "It's justified though! She's the best character in the show, and has the right to do what she did to the people that wronged her!"
Reese leaned into the conversation. "I get it, abuse is a cool motive. Still murder though." She injected it. "Motivation really doesn't make an action right."
Jaune tilted his head, looking at the skater. "Then what does?" Everyone turned to look at him, surprised that he had bothered to enter the conversation. He glanced, almost portraying a sense of human nervousness that was overshadowed by his stoney and overpowering posture. "If it is not motivation that justifies our actions to each other, what does justify the actions we take?"
Reese did a take back, leaning back with wide eyes. She clearly had not considered an answer to this question. The group thought about it for a moment, unsure of what to make of it. Jaune decided to continue on, further pushing the subject.
"If it is motivation that justifies action alone, does motivation override the will of others?" He posed.
Arslan shook her head, giving a resounding no. "Absolutely not. That's immoral."
Jaune nodded, seeming to agree with the sentiment. "And in the case of when…" he paused, trying to figure out what he was going to say. Trying to figure out how one phrases harsh questions elegantly. Or did he just say it bluntly, and without finesse. He understood that finesse was always preferred, as elegance and conciseness left the smallest messes when it came to people.
But such always takes more effort on our part. B complained. Best be blunt and get it over with.
Jaune was tempted to agree. And he had always been weak to temptation.
"And Actually, not related." he started, looking down at his plate. "But in the case of the removal of common sense or free will, and in the case of suffering, is the removal of those that pose a threat validated, despite their position as what was once mayhaps human?" the ranger asked, leading to some very confused head scratches. Sun squinted at him, unsure of what to make of it.
"You've lost me, bro. You mind giving a lost motherfucker some context?" Sun asked. Arslan gave him a scolding and scandalized look.
"Sun! Manners! I know you take pride in being a Capybara, but you could afford some respect." She snipped at him, pointing her fork at him. He just rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, mom." He said with no small amount of sarcasm. "And besides, I am far better looking than any street burglar." The monkey faunus returned his attention to the ranger. "But, again, context."
Jaune thought about it, again searching for a way to condense his tortuous philosophical fear. "Think of the zombie apocalypse, but they might have souls."
Sun squinted at him, thinking that the context didn't actually relate to the initial question. "All Right. Yes, you can kill zombies on a whim." He confirmed.
"They're kind of already dead, mate." Scarlet pointed out from over his cup. "They probably don't care."
Jaune leaned back, thinking about it. He supposed that they already were dead, at least in some physical sense. He didn't think anything could look so sickly and not be dead. Or very, very close to it. He gave them a nod, moving to stand up.
"Thank you for your company." he said to the group, bowing slightly. "And have a good night."
Arslan leaned back to look him in the eye. "Leaving us so soon?" She asked, her joke foiled by the melancholy of losing her quiet friend. It was nice having him around. She was never worried about his ego getting out of check, like Bolin. Or that he was going to dismantle something for no apparent reason like Nadir, or that he was procrastinating something away like Reese. She didn't have to worry or fret about him. Until he opened his mouth and ranted at length about what it felt like to be dying and have their own heart ripped out of their ribcage heartbeat stop while looking into the depths of a soda can from a thousand miles away. It hadn't happened yet, but she knew some
Then Arslan found him to be very concerning in a way that she really didn't know how to fix. Jaune gave her a sad little gaze, almost mournful that he would be abandoning her once more.
"Ah, but I must, Ms. Altan. For I am bound by the light, and find myself often somewhere in between the sun and the moon when both have already exchanged their places. If I do not make either haste or peace, I will not find rest until the next morrow" he waxed, a grin on his face that only Arslan seemed to see. And with that, he gave her a bow and left, his cape furling out behind him in a surprisingly Snape like manner. Sun blinked, trying to feel an imaginary wind that might have caused such a motion. The monkey faunus turned to Arslan, the only person that seemed to understand him half the time.
"I didn't offend him, did I?" he asked her. She just shook his head, waiving away her fellow blonde's concerns.
Nadir got the other half of that timeshare.
Jaune did not find sleep anytime soon, rather he found none at all with the hours that had passed since dinner.
We need to sleep, jaune. A suggested, already bundled up and ready for bed. But he just lay there, looking up at the flickering shadows from the burning of a candle on his desk. He let out a sigh of defeat, knowing that he would have to close his eyes eventually. With a wave of his hand, a breeze of wind diverted course, flowing through the candle's flame. It was drowned with the gust, dulging Jaune in the shadows of the night.
Sleep did not come for some time, as jaune plagued his mind with whatever conjourings he could spare. But alas, it twas in vain as he eventually succumbed to the seductive lull of sleep.
The dream had not changed since he had left it last. It was still dark and gray and bland. He wandered through the empty halls, pondering the advice that team SSSN had given him. They were little more than zombies, walking corpses. Jaune had called them such himself. If others had determined that it was moral to slaughter them, particularly when pressed to do so, he should feel little guilt over their death, right? Jaune supposed so, despite his lingering pity and ill feeling in his gut. He found himself loathing the stonework walls more so than he had ever before hand, yearning to go out and return to someplace else. Pulling out the map, he traced the path that would lead him to the main doors. It led him right outside the door of the saint that had sent him down to the gullet of the mountain in the first place. He looked at the door, really quite dreading passing through it. He could hear the saint muttering his rapture on the other side. Jaune looked back, wondering if he had indeed missed some side passage that would allow him to not go through the saint's room. He was sure there wasn't, as he had spent much time pouring over that map.
His shoulders slumped, realizing that there really wasn't any way of avoiding this conflict. With a sigh, he held his breath as he cast the one spell he knew that would keep him from being noticed.
The door opened quietly as Jaune tiptoed his way inside, seeing the titanous man kneeling in front of his little obelisk. He walked through, doing his best to not disturb the formidable foe. He had made it just past half way before stepping on a loosened stone, a cracking in the solid marble left from their previous encounter. The purple titan's head snapped towards him.
"Ahh, Guardian! Back for more challenges, eh! I am so glad you have returned!" He boomed out, raising his hands in welcome. "Welcome to the Trails!" His arm flicked, the powerful purple light engulfing him.
Jaune instantly drew out some weapons, namely a dagger and a hammer. "So, are we just jumping right in, or?" Jaune asked. He got his answer with the armored man leaping forward, his fist sailing forward with the intent to batter Jaune into a pulp. Jaune ducked, dipping down under the fist and letting it slam into the stone wall behind him. The Dreamer looked back at the impact, and gulped at the impact cracking that it had left behind.
Right. Don't get punched. B suggested to him. Jaune couldn't help but let out a sarcasm filled sigh at that advice.
Yeah, no shit dipshit. He snarled back as he dived to the side again, avoiding a kick from the saint. His dagger shot forward, scraping against the side of his foe. The man just shrugged it off with ease, summoning another shield as he had in their last fight. It was swung at him, used as a melee weapon against the dreamer. Jaune shot a hand up, pulling the energy laid within the stone in the floor upwards. A pillar of slate sprung up, coming forward at the behest of the wayward lost man. The shield collided with a cracking sound, lodging itself into the slate stone. Jaune saw an opportunity to take control of the fight. Coating his dagger blade in the icy cold frost magic conjured from the forefront of his mind, the blade started hissing off condensing fog. The subzero blade was slammed into the Saint's wrist, piercing through the thin gap in between the vambrace and the palm plating. It shredded through the thick kevlar like cloth that bound them together, and bit into the flesh of the titan. The frost spread almost as fast as the grunted hiss traveled through the air from the saint's helmeted mouth. It grew and creeped down his arm, attaching to the conjured pillar and pinning the limb there.
The armored man looked at it with interest as Jaune yanked his blade out. "Stasis, Guardian? You surprise me-"
He was cut off by getting hit across the cheek with Jaune's hammer. His head snapped to the side, a large dent being implanted into the stylized helm. The ranger couldn't help but let out a strong huff through his nose, his nostrils flaring in his success. Get fucked. He thought as he gave a returning swing back. It was stopped by the reaching hand of the saint catching it. Jaune's eyes widened as he realized that he might have been in some shit now. With a jerk, Jaune was pulled over the slab by the arm. The purple titan slammed his head down, headbutting the dreamer and knocking him to the ground, concussed.
With swimming vision, he was forced to roll to the side to not be turned into paste from a stone shattering shield slam. The titan turned his head, glaring at Jaune with a look that could freeze juice into popsicles. Already a step ahead, a pillar of ice was conjured just in time to stop the advance of the dreamer's foe. Scrambling to his feet, Jaune made a short swing at the saint, but only managed to scratch the armor. The saint kicked at Jaune, causing him to scramble away and create some space between them. With a grunt, a purple shield was flung at the dreamer. He quickly activated Reed's Regret. The two shields collided, sparks of purple and gold flying from the point of impact. With a grunt, Jaune shrugged off the shield, sending it back at the purple titan. He just summoned another shield to block it. Dashing to the side, Jaune shot at him several bolts of frost. The collided with the titan's shoulder with a thudding crunch, the frost gaining a grip on it.
The retaliation was a punch with the shield. Jaune slapped it down with his hammer. He didn't think that it would have left a hole in his defense. He also didn't think that his terrible foe would take advantage of that hole. An armored fist shot forward, slamming into the dreamer's breast plate. It sheared off the side, ripping the metal away and leaving Jaune's left side bare. He could feel the force of the blow, his entire body being rocked from the rib shattering blow. He coughed, tasting iron as he was flung backwards. He hit the wall with particular force.
Gasping for air, Jaune collapsed to the ground from getting splattered on the wall. The titan laughed, a broken and cracking roar. "Guardian! Do not tell me you are defeated now!" He said, flicking his wrist. Another damned impossible purple shield manifested out of thin air in his hands. Jaune tried to get to his feet, only to be pulled up by his foe.
"You put up a better fight last time!"
Jaune raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah?" he coughed out, forcing up some blood out of his throat with the words. "Well, maybe I just wanted to get close enough." he smiled, collecting his magical energy into a usable form. It pooled at the back of his head, the pressure building almost like some massive zit, waiting to be popped.
The ranger could hear the confusion in the massive armored man's voice. "Oh, what is that?" he asked, waiting for an answer.
"Bonk'' Jaune uttered, ducking his head down. The building pressure that he had forced to the surface exploded. A pillar of stone shot out with the force of a bullet, nay, a rocket, right at eye level to the saint. It slammed into his head harder than any shotgun shell or shock rifle blast. Snapping his neck backwards, the sheer momentum that it came with knocked him to the ground.
Jaune wasn't about to kick a man when he's not down, so naturally upon seeing such an opportunity one must take it. Jaune looked up to the roof above, and wondered if he could collapse it and still make it out in time. Decided that it was too risky, instead molded the stone that was under the formidable guardian. Slabs of rock cracked upwards, wrapping and modeling themselves around his body. Frost filled in the gaps, providing a kind of anchoring glue for the stone.
The guardian Saint seemed to be enjoying this far more than he ought to have, laughing as Jaune pulled out his large maul. "Stasis, Guardian?" he called out, almost mocking him. "You are always full of surprises."
Jaune slammed the large war instrument of war into the guardian's chest. The resounding clang echoed through the stone dome. The hammer bounced off the impact.
Jaune slammed it down again, doing his damned best to slay the titan while he was down and trapped within the floor. His shield wielding foe gave a grunt of pain with the stroke, encouraging Jaune to rear back for another heavy handed blow.
The titan let out a roar, ripping himself from the rock formed prison. With a blinding burst of purple light, the dreamer was blinded by the light. Staggering back and blinking his vision back into existence, what he saw in front of him posed a problem.
There was now a very large dome of purple constructed light in front of him, shielding the saint inside of it. Jaune tilted his head, giving it a confused scratch.
"You stay there, and I will be going." The dreamer said with a flick of his wrist, giving the saint a finger gun. When he turned his back, he heard the telltale whistling hum that emanated from the saint's shields. He dove down, rolling under the tossed weapon. Spinning on his heels, he brought up Reed's Regret to block his foe's powerful fist.
Snapping out Krabkracker in its dual blade form, he let one hang limp from its chain. The other, securly in his hand, shot forward to poke at the saint's stylized helm. The saint stepped back, just out of range. With a flick, he sent the hanging part upwards, catching his foe upside the jaw. A large was sent through the metal, permanently scarring the face of the helmet. A black, almost oil-like substance started leaking out from under the helmet.
Jaune didn't let up, channeling some admittedly weaker wind magic into the material component of his blades, giving them an unnatural sharpness to them. With a quick swing, Jaune cut across the chest plate of the saint. The first cut scraped against the metal, but the second, being dragged along by the chain, ripped it off with the shearing force that came with it.
It fell to the ground with an inordinately loud clang.
But neither Jaune nor the saint stopped their dance. The blonde saw opportunity within the beat, and upon an off tempo measure of their battle forged music, struck at the saint's bleeding face.
Krabkracker was caught with an open fist, blocking the attack with a grunt. Jaune clenched his jaw, giving his blade a pull. The saint held on tight, not letting go for fear of giving his foe the freedom to attack again.
Channeling some wind magic into his shield, coating the surface of it like an electric charge covers a conductor, Jaune slammed his shield into the saint.
Normally this move is used to break someone's guard, pushing against their arms and body and collapse as a weapon based defensive position. That or it could be used as a bludgeoning attack to push away a foe. Jaune was going for the second option.
The wind magic exploded off of the surface of the shield, acting like a landmine strapped dangerously with a roll of duct tape that had seen better days some decades ago. It pushed and expanded, blasting into the saint with the full forceful power of baja blast and crack cocaine combined in a fusion reactor.
The saint went flying, giving Jaune a chance to recover for once. Reaching into his bag, he looked at the glass bottle in his hands. While he was still tepid about drinking it, it wasn't like it was wrong, right? As confirmed by his allies in the waking world, there was no moral issue with-
Oh for the love of god, jaune, just drink the damn thing and kill this fuck! B called out to him, causing Jaune to just pop the cork and chug it like it was a bottle of water in the desert. He could feel his body collecting itself together, sticking bones and bruised muscle back into place.
The saint had recovered from his sudden flight via Jaune Airways and was currently shaking off the skull rattling concussion he had. "That was new, Guardian!" He called out, clearly ecstatic at the fresh ability. "Perhaps I will show you something new, no?" With that, he threw a bright glowing grape purple ball at Jaune with the speed that would have made Shohei Ohtani impressed. He tried to dive to the side, but it, in defiance to man, god, and all things holy (and much to Jaune's dismay at his terrible luck), dived to the side to get to Jaune.
The dreamer could do nothing but grimace as it got brighter and brighter, eventually exploding in a bust of oddly purple tasting energy.
Not that Jaune really cared about its taste when it also ripped apart Jaune's side ribs and vaporized at least what felt like a pound of flesh. Falling to the ground, clutching his bleeding side. With his left hand pulled out more booze to sooth his suffering. His body warmed as his nerves grew numb. Pulling away his hand, he saw that it was on fire. His blood was burning in a purple voidfire.
Ohh, that's not good, that's not good at all. A said, very concerned. Jaune looked up at his foe, who was approaching with incredible stature. Jaune growled at him, preparing up another blast of wind. With a push of his hand, the shockwave of aerial force was unleashed. While it lacked the sheer biblical power of Baja Crack, it did do its job and push the saint into the nearest wall.
With a grunt, Jaune forced his will into the stone work of the room. He forced it to bend to his will, wrapping it around his soul like one twists wrought iron and sin into shape. The rocks crumbled and collided against each other, entombing the purple saint into the very wall itself. A muffled cry came from the inside of the solid stone.
The burning sensation at Jaune's side pulled him away from his victory. Looking back at his side, he remembered that it was on fire. And purple. The concerning part of it was the fire part. Jaune batted at it, trying to put it out. His mild attempts turned to desperate ones as the fire stubbornly refused to go out. Even magically conjured ice could not quench them, and it was consumed with reckless abandon. A thumping, drumming sound came from the magiced wall, as cracks formed under the stress of the escaping titan. Jaune looked in panic at his side, the purple flame becoming more and more a problem.
Now or never, I have to act fast. Jaune thought, pulling out a knife. Placing it at the top of his side, just under his pectoral muscle, he grit his teeth.
Jaune, Jaune! What are you doing buddy? A asked, panic in his voice. This does not look like it complies with OSHA regulations!
The blade cut through, sliding down his side as it lopped off the burning flesh. Jaune screamed, his voice giving out as blood drowned his cry. Heaving, gasping for breath, he poured copious amounts of spirits onto his bleeding wounds. The largest bottle he could pull out was emptied into his side. It could feel his wounds bleeding cease. He was about to let out a sigh of relief, but his stone tomb collapsed, having met the end of its lifespan.
"Fuck off." Jaune sighed, getting to his feet. His body was covered in his own blood, dying his cloak and armor that rusty grunge red. The Titan started sprinting at him, getting ready to splatter him into a thin Jaune paste on the wall, like some kind of morbid painting made by a rather distrubed crow.
Forcing his mana, as weakly as he could with his unstable condition, into a forward facing shield. Leaping forward, the saint brought a shield forward into a battering slam. It broke through the dreamer's mana shield and carried him into the wall. Jaune coughed up blood, spitting against the saint's cracked helmet. With an almost animalistic growl, his hands wrapped around Jaune's throat. Jaune felt his windpipe get crunched like a walnut. Reaching up, he pulled against the hands around his neck. It was futile, as his strength was fading with his vision. He failed to give himself room to breathe, much less remove the hands grasping him. He tried to reach for a weapon, but fumbled and dropped whatever he had grabbed.
Oh, we're going to die again, aren't we? He thought, giving a small morbid chuckle at the mundaneness of the thought.
B shrugged. I suppose we are. Shame. We were so close to making it out too.
Jaune, in these last moments, found a clarity that was fairly familiar to him now. He had been on this brink, too far gone to save, but too close to be lost, many many times before.
And in this moment of clarity, he found his salvation. Gripping at his side, he felt around at his exposed bones. He gripped a rib with a tight ferver, and pulled it to the side. It disconnected from his body with a sickening, terrible crack. His cry of pain was smothered out by the fact that his windpipe was kind of being crushed right now. Twisting the rib in his hand to point the pointed crack at the broken jap in the Saint's breast plate. With the last of Jaune's strength, the rib jabbed up through the mesh cloth that was underneath. And past the false skin the saint had. And the cybernetic flesh. And the veins and organs.
The saint's grip dropped, clearly stunned that he had suddenly been shanked. Looking down at his rapidly wetting chest, at his pouring wound, he let out a final clear breath. With a jolt, the dreamer, at the end of his light, forced the rest of it into the Exo's chest cavity. The saint looked up, at the eyes of his killer. With a vomiting sound, a deluge of his oily blood dripped out from under the mask of his helmet.
"Oh, murder mine-." He gasped, before falling forward. Jaune caught him in his arms, letting him gently to the ground. He looked at the dead thing in front of him, almost expecting him to jump up with another shield. Once he was sure that the muttering saint was finally dead, once and for all, he popped another cork of alcohol.
"Rest well." He spat, clearing his lungs of his own blood. "You were a foe greater than any dragon, nor spirit, or monster known. Rest, son of dreamborne sin." Turning to the small obelisk that was probably devoted to prayer, Jaune took closer inspection. It was a beautiful blue and purple stone, marble like but beyond that. On the small precipice in front, there was a single sake bowl. In it was a little geometric metal sculpture sitting in a purple tinted silver liquid, like mercury. Jaune knew this final step of this dance, the departure of the fight, the stage, the dream. Raising it to his lips, he quenched his thirst.
Images ran through his mind, collapsing and colluding in together haphazardly. A city being built, a small little bird man in the candle light, a forest of endless simulations, possibilities that could never pass. A moon, whole in the sky, succumbing to machines and alien chitinous alike. A purple sphere, similar to the dome constructed earlier, enveloping that heavenly body as a final desperate ploy to save what was considered precious. An abnormal portal leading to nowhere, and then here. Jaune opened his eyes, a single tear having fallen from his face.
"I see. Know you are at peace at last, son of the City." he said, not looking at the hero, the warrior he wished he could have been laying on the ground. Shattered by the horrors here, where he had been at last slain.
At last put to peace. A corrected, consoling Jaune. Staggered, limping, and wishing he couldn't feel the wretch in his soul or his side, he made his way to the next gravestone. He didn't even bother looking at it.
He just wanted to be gone.
God damn, what a chapter. This was really quite an endevor. And I didn't even need to do an inventory check. This should mark a real change in Jaune, and the length he will be able to go to.
That being said, I think I will keep the fights for a little while not so incredibly freaking high octane. or utterly violent. This was a doozy to write and I am still not sure if it was the right thing to write. Should I have pulled it back some, or gone even more ham on it?
In other news, we get conspiracy gang part two, and moving towards first mission arc. I have no idea how long this story is going to be, but I do know once i get past the volume 3 equivalent, I will take a break from this story and write out another fanfiction I've been dying to make. it's a Jaune X Arslan Stardew valley fic, and has been living in my brain rent free for way to long at this point. A nice break from the frankly concerning material this can be sometimes. But i will finish book one, i promise that. Anyway, what do you think is going to happen next?
As always, please leave you review, thoughts, and support in the comments. I look forward to reading them soon!