Jaune, for the first time in a while, woke up at an appropriate time. It was approximately 9:45 on a Friday, one where his medieval weapons and combat history class was fast approaching. Jaune looked at the clock. He would have had to really rush to make it there in fifteen minutes. "Ehh, it's not worth it." he said, rolling back over in his covers. A looked at him like a disappointed mother.

Really? My dude, we have classes. He responded.

Jaune sighed, curling tighter in his blanket. "A class I am doing very well in." He responded lazily.

You have a B, almost a C. A reminded him.

"See? Very well. I think for a class that I've been to three times that is a very good grade." He retorted, turning away from the sunlight. A sighed again, becoming increasingly disgruntled. With a sigh, he crossed his non-existent arms.

I won't say it again, mother fucker, He growled, trying to be threatening, get out of bed.

Jaune let out another sigh, this one much more exasperated and much less sleepy than the previous one. "No." He mewled at the imaginary figure.

You're going to have to bring out the big guns. B called from the back of the brain. A dropped his head, letting it hang there for a bit. He knew that his inverse aspect was right.

You'll get to see Arslan there. He offered, defeated, that this was the option he went with. Threatening Jaune wasn't working, so why not a little more carrot and a little less stick? Jaune pursed his lips.

"Fine." he grumbled, slowly moving out of his bed. He tossed on his uniform haphazardly, only really bothering to tie in his Sendal around his waist. Heading out the door, he strode quickly through the halls. He deftly navigated the halls, making his way past the students in his quiet gait. The crowds of students seemed to part like great oceans in front of him, turned away from his sheer melancholy presence. His shadow loured the room, the white halls turning gray in the dimmed sunlight. The bowed man turned his head, letting it hang low and swoop like some kind of bird or bat. His eyes met those who were bold enough to look at him.

A shame they were not bold enough to keep such a gaze. Jaune walked up to the false wooden door, seeing that class was already underway. He deflated a little, knowing that he was going to be unable to just sneak in unnoticed. Bracing himself, he accepted his fate, and opened the door. The class stopped, turning to look at the out of place ranger. Jaune's jaw twitched, returning a glare at the class.

Professor Cathode cleared his throat, mustering the courage to speak to the looming ranger. "Mr. Arc, I am so glad to see you have joined us. Please take your seat." He managed to speak evenly. Jaune stalked through the class, taking a seat next to his favorite person in the room, Arslan Altan.

She leaned over surreptitiously after the class had settled back down. "What kept you? It's unlike you to be late. You either are early, or never here at all." She asked him. He shrugged.

"My dreams kept me." he answered, pulling out a spiral bound notebook. Arslan always found it so strange, seeing jaune pulling out and using modern pencils. He always seemed to take a particular odd interest in modern things like pencils. As though he was thinking about the wonders of modern production, or the soulless hell it was to live in a formatted and mass produced world. With a spin, the pencil was put onto the paper. This made Arslan raise her eyebrow even more, but she accepted it. She was rather glad to see that Jaune was actually taking the time to be a good student and take notes, even if he was late. Perhaps he felt a little guilty for being late?

She didn't think so. Guilt didn't seem to be something Jaune even had a concept of. Arslan was reminded of when they had first met, and how sorrowful he had looked at his sandal, his sense of pride.

Jaune knew guilt all too well. Arslan reminded herself. She noticed that jaune was writing furiously, his pencil flying down the page at a rate far too fast for note taking. She leaned over, reading the scribblings over his shoulder.

I, no, He was in an eternal maze of vex constructs, like the branching forests of a great tree. The geometric, square almost Bismuth structure is disorienting, particularly with the looping and repeating actions and circumstances. Constant changes as the world is simulated over and over again. I He. he. It wasn't me that was there. It was Him that was there. Arslan watched, finding herself unable to turn away from the page. She watched him continue to write about a forest of simulations, a maze of danger by the machines called the Vex. Whatever they were, they seemed dangerous.

She watched him scratch out and strike though the first person nouns, replacing them with what appeared to be the appropriate third person. He would often mutter to himself. "It wasn't me. It was him that was there." "it wasn't you jaune, it wasn't you."

He misses Osirus, my lover. He misses how he fits right in between his arms. He misses a lot about Osiris. His little huffs and puffs when people dumber than him are making a fool of themselves. I was so happy when I, Saint 14, got back to the city. He could be with his people again, he could be at peace again-

"Who are you writing about?" Arslan asked finally, truly intrigued in the story. Jaune's head snapped to look at her, his eyes full of panic and fear. He swallowed, trying to force out a word or some kind of. Arslan watched his face as it went through more emotion in a few seconds than she thought she had ever seen him make in the near month she had known him. His eyes watered as he just looked at her like a deer in headlights. Arslan's brow furrowed, suddenly worried that she had been intruding on something that she was not supposed to have.

"Jaune?" she asked him, her voice soft and tender. He swallowed, breaking eye contact to look around at the room. It appears that he had gathered a smattering of an audience in his tenderness. He looked back at Arslan. Her eyes, oh god had her eyes always been that green? Jaune gulped. There was something forign in those jade pools, something in them that just felt wholly unnatural- no, it was too natural. Just unfamiliar.

He swallowed. "Are you ok?" She asked him, leaning forward to meet his advertising eyes. Her eyes were filled with this emotion that Jaune could not place.

With an abrupt stand, Jaune broke away from Arslan. He practically vaulted the desk he was at to make it out the door.

"Mr Arc! My. Arc!" Poor professor Cathode called after him, but it was drowned out by Arslan's chasing cry of "Jaune!"

The door slammed, the only sound that Jaune was running away, fleeing the scene. Arslan watched his form recede, dumbfounded at the sudden and frankly not very Jaune reaction. It wasn't calm, collected, or measured. It was wild, sporadic, and emotional.

Jaune was emotional.

Bolin shook his head as Arslan watched the black draped figure turn the corner. He really did cut an imposing silhouette in the school's black uniform.

Bolin shook his head. "Well, that was entirely necessary. I'm glad you didn't chase after him, Arslan. It was the right decision. If he can't respect the teacher's time, he really shouldn't-" Arslan stopped listening, his words seeming to stir some action within Arslans soul.

I need to chase after him. She realized, moving before she had registered that she had told her body to move. She sprinted out the door at a full sprint. When she turned the corner, she practically was at a forty five degree angle with the floor. She could see the bare edges of jaune's sendal pass a turn. She leapt forward, jogging after it. But when she turned the corner, practically flinging herself around the bend.

But Jaune had managed to just get to the next turn he was taking, the only evidence was the wayward student looking down the hall. He gave Arslan a confused look, backing away to give the rampaging lioness some space. She slid, using her hands in an almost feral manner to push herself back upright. She shot down the hall like a rocket, pumping aura through her legs to increase her stride, her strength, her speed.

And yet even with this, even with her desperate gate, all she could see of Jaune was fleeting glances. "JAUNE!" She called out to him. He didn't stop, his march unending and his fleeing pace unwavering. His quiet gait might have indicated that he was calm, aloof even. But Arslan knew better. "JAUNE, Please WAIT UP!" She shouted after him as he made it around another corner. She could feel her heart thump in her chest, pumping like a car engine to move the lioness forward. Jaune just continued walking, somehow always just out of range. Arslan looked down the hall, panicked that she could not see signs of the dark looming silhouette she had been chasing. She looked around, her eyes darting from left to right. She activated her semblance, but was disappointed that he was already out of range.

A door slammed in the back of the hall, drawing the lioness's attention to her prey. She bolted down the hall, pushing her way past a couple of fellow students and unceremoniously sending their papers flying into the air.

"Sorry!" She called out behind her as she approached with rapid speed. Body slamming through the wooden slab, she looked up and saw a dark figure several flights up. Arslan growled under her breath, vaulting the railway and sprinting up the stairs. Her hands hit the stairs, sometimes just leaping up them like a wild animal with all four limbs at a time. She practically fell over herself as she finally made it to the top of the staircase. She pushed through the door, finding herself on the roof of the building. She looked at Jaune, who was just standing there at the edge of the building. He gazed upon the mountain that Haven was built upon, stoic and stoney. Arslan's eyes widened, rushing forward to Jaune.

She pulled at him, trying to pull him "Why don't we step away from the ledge there, Jaune." She said, forcing her voice to be even. Jaune turned his head to her.

"I did…. I did not wish for you to follow me." Jaune croaked out, his pale blue eyes shifting in between the forced facade he had worn for so long, and the true pain behind them. He fell to his knees, crouching down to just sit there on that roof, his head hidden away in his knees. The lioness fell with him, her hand on his shoulder, just in case. She searched for something to say. But what do you say to a broken man? She let out a long snuff, like steam escaping a piston as she tried to find the words that would sound right.

Jaune did her a favor by starting. "You-You ever met someone, and you know that you wanted to be them?" he asked her, looking at her from the crevice of his hideaway. She nodded.

He returned it, his gaze shifting from her to the distant horizon. "Well, I met that man." He said, still looking into the distance. "I met him, and he was everything I wanted to be. Brave, Kind. A knight upon the breaking sun, running down the great many foes of humanity. Cabal, Vex, Eliskni, Hive." He swallowed, coming up to what must have been the painful part. Not that those words ment much to Arslan, but she assumed that they were some subtypes of grimm from some particular nomenclature that she had not yet heard of.

"And I killed him."

Arslan had to do a double take at that. She was ready for several things, but a murder confession was not one of them. "Uhh, I, uhh. Ok. I'm sorry to hear that…" She started. "Do you want to tell me about, uh, why?" She asked the ranger. He turned back to look at her, a sad little smile on his face.

He closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath. "I am cursed, Arslan." He sighed, giving her a small headshake. "My dreams are a purgatory. A private hell of mine that I return to every night." he started. "I can no longer find rest in sleep, nor comfort in the night. I-" he pursed his lips, letting that held breath out. "I fight. I kill. I die." He leaned back, letting his head fall backwards to look at the sky. "Over and over and over again, my dreams…" He let out a sigh, remastering his warbling tone. Arslan leaned forward, her brow furrowed. She had never seen someone sound so defeated before. Her hand rested on jaune's, a comforting notion to let him know that she was there for her. Jaune's gaze shifted from the sky to the lioness.

"Thank you, Arslan." He tried to give her a smile, he honestly did. But it just felt depressing, like a clown trying to paint on a smile. "I- It was in the Dream that I met this man," he explained. "And as all things must come to in the dream, we fought. I won. I didn't know." He let his head fall into his hands. "I didn't know, I didn't mean to. Saint didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve any of that." He sobbed, his back ratcheting as the tears finally were let loose. "He didn't deserve that. He deserved to go home."

Arslan wrapped her arms around the ranger gently, pulling him into her bosom. The warmth of her skin was unfamiliar to the ranger, but a very welcome comfort. It was like being ushered into one's home and put in front of the fire after a cold day. Or held tight during the rumbling storms of bad omens. Or many other things that Jaune suspected he had forgotten during his exodus. During his exile away from the human comforts of life. And because of that, he let her hold him, practically crawling into her grasp. He just sat there, sobbing into Arslan's shoulder, relishing the small simplicity of having another human being there, basking in the warmth. It might have been pathetic, weak, non self sustainable, as he had been for so long. But who cared? Jaune most certainly didn't. Arslan didn't seem to mind either, as she just stroked her fingers through his lengthy hair, only vaguely uncomfortable as her school jacket got progressively wetter. She could hear him mutter prayers for salvation and little asks for forgiveness.

"Oh, you poor thing," She whispered under her breath. "How have you managed all this so far?"

Jaune looked up at her, his watery blue eyes laying his soul bare. "I haven't" He croaked, his voice raw from his hitching sobs. He looked down at the dark splotch on her jacket. "Sorry, I shouldn't have gotten your jacket wet." He apologized to her, wiping at it as though it would somehow magically evaporate the liquid.

His hand almost glowed, cracking with a heated, emberous glow. Her shoulder got warm as Jaune's hand radiated heat, evaporating the wetness as best he could. She swatted the hand away.

"Don't apologize." She told him sternly. "It is no fault to be human, Jaune. So don't worry about it." She told him. Jaune, for the first time she had seen him, gave her an honest, wide smile.

The door creaked open, drawing the attention of the two blondes. They looked up, Arslan suppressing a growl at the person who dared disturb this moment. Dr. Cortez pushed the door open.

"Ah, that's where you two are- am I interrupting something?" His statement turned into a question as he saw the precarious position they were in.

Jaune leaned away from the lioness, looking at the doctor with wide startled eyes. "No-" He started, but Arslan cut him off.

"Yes." She growled at the teacher, pulling Jaune back into her chest. "Yes you are." her fangs were bared, giving every indication for the intruder to get out.

He got the message, nodding. "Right. Well, here are some files for you guys. But take your time." he said, putting two manilla folders down by the door. "It's not all that important."

Jaune let his head thunk into Arslan's shoulder as the doctor went to leave. But before he was past the door, he gave Arslan a thumbs up. She made a shoo's motion, giving the clear indication that it was time for Sebastian to leave. He closed the door, the click of the latch letting them know that they were alone again.

"Hey" Arslan said, giving Jaune a pat on the back. He looked up at her. "You ok?"

He looked up at her, wiping at his eyes with his cracked and scarred hands. "No." he shook his head. "I don't think I'm ok."

Arslan pursed her lips, really thinking that that answer was something she should have expected. Of course he's not ok, the man probably has so much trauma that it's expressing itself in the form of night terrors. She chastised herself. Why didn't I think of that?

"Well, do you feel a little better at least?" She asked him. He gave her another honest smile, a little wobbly, a little crooked, but it was an actual smile. Not an unnatural looking forced one, nor a small, slight indentation that was impossible to see to the untrained eye. It was an honest, good, actual smile.

"Yeah." he whispered, his voice remaining rather rough. "Thank you, Arslan. This… this means a lot to me."

She gave him a good natured grin, her hands comfortingly on his shoulder. "Of course Jaune. What are friends for?" She laughed, trying her best to lighten the mood. And then she got rather serious. "But Seriously? I am recommending you go to student counseling for school has a couple good therapists they can and will connect you too. I can introduce you to some of them if you want." She told him, letting the offer hang. He held up his hand, the open palm a universal sign.

"Thank you Arslan, but that won't be necessary. I will look into it, though." He told her, moving to stand up. He walked over to the manilla folders, picking out his own out of the two. "I wonder what this is about." he wondered, handing Arslan hers. She took it.

"I'll read it tonight. Whatever it is, it can wait until after historical studies." She sighed, tucking it under her arm. "And Jaune." she called out after the ranger, causing him to turn in the doorway. "Do consider my advice." He gave her a nod, heading down the stairs.

Arslan turned to look at the distance, taking in the sight. She watched the sunlight reflect off the roof of the buildings, and the glass of the walls. It was a pretty sight, something that she never really had a chance to appreciate. Finding that she had spent enough time standing there, the lioness herself went down the stairs, heading to her next class.

Time passed, and Arslan found herself in her common space that she shared with her team. She was lazily pawing through the manila folder Dr. Cortez had given her. It was another mission debrief, but this one felt much more like a first year assignment. It boiled down to going up to check on a Huntsman outpost up in the Mistralli eastern Mountains. Something that was a little more normal than being sent to pick up a transfer student.

Arslan recalled the unnatural heat that came from Jaune's fingers. 'Hey, Reese." Arslan called out to her resident dust slinger.

"Yeah?"

"What are the effects of dust poisoning?" The lioness asked the skater. Said skater raised an eyebrow at her leader.

"What aren't the effects of dust poisoning?" She responded, flopping down on the couch. "I mean, the usual progression is incredible pain on the skin as your nerves, along with the rest of your flesh, is burned away, and then you die of blood loss or body failure from the inside out.." She shrugged. "Why do you want to know?"

Arslan tilted her head. Well, that doesn't help. She thought. "And what about in low doses, or if you just have a natural resistance?" She posed. That made Reese suspicious.

"Uhh, why?" She asked, looking up from her scroll. Arslan shrugged, folding the manilla folder shut.

"Entertain me." She asked the skater.

Reese shrugged. "Sure. I suppose if you just took reduced damage from dust, I suppose you would be in terrible, horrible pain, but you would be mostly functional. Worst case scenario, you survive long enough for the dust poisoning to affect your brain, I imagine you would suffer from various forms of brain damage." She said, pausing for a moment. "That would be bad." She clarified.

"Dust poisoning directly in the brain often results in loss of mental function, loss of senses, and various forms of tumors." Nadir said from his doorway. "In some more, uh, unusual side effects are hallucinations and other forms of mental instabilities." he noted, pulling up his scroll. "I see you've figured it out, Arslan."

"You already knew?" She asked him, leaning forward.

"Of course I did," he said with a shrug. "I pieced it together a little after he dropped Bolin like a sack of potatoes. There were a couple things that gave it away."

Arslan's head tilted at the pink haired man. "How did you figure it out? I only realized it today, after all the blatantly obvious was in front of me."

Nadir gave her an understanding nod. "Yeah. it was funny watching you stumble towards the answer though." he said, giving his scroll one final tap. "And as for how I got the answer? Well, there was some information I didn't expect you to know." he admitted that he had a bit of an advantage. Reese was rather lost, missing the particular crux of the conversation.

"I got access to Jaune's file, and found some rather interesting things." he said, gently handing Arslan his scroll. "Firstly, Jaune's file has been directly tampered with. Whatever information there was input was done by hand." Arslan furrowed her brow, reading the frankly confusing dataset.

"It's missing his hometown." She noted, looking at the suspiciously blank file. It was actually missing a lot of things. A hometown, a gender, a country of origin, even a physical description of Jaune was gone, deleted from the file. Arslan looked up at Nadir.

"Can I assume that you managed to find some ghost file or something that has all this information somewhere?" She asked. She knew that Nadir was something of a tech wizard himself, having a kind of vested interest in systems. He had presented to Arslan similar instances, and had managed to magically get through restricted levels, deleted data, and security systems to get information most thought completely gone. She was honestly surprised when Nadir shook his head.

"No. whoever changed his file was pretty damn thorough. They deleted it from the base memory itself, so the metadata is still there." He sighed.

Reese tilted her head at him. "Wait, if the metadata is still there, shouldn't you be able to get to that stuff?"

Nadir sighed at Reese's ignorance. 'No." He explained to her, clearly having already given her this explanation. "The metadata tells you things like when the file was last edited and all that." Reese nodded. "Right. So, what did you find?"

"Not much." Arslan noted, flipping through the ranger's file. "He's missing almost every piece of data that's not his first name. Place of birth, birthday, country of origin, the only thing I'm seeing is his transcription from last year and his aura rating."

"There's a little more than that" Nadir corrected, before shrugging it off, "but that's the important stuff. The aura ranking is what gave it away though."

Arslan raised an eyebrow, looking at the Aura ranking. She let out a low whistle. "Damn, he's got an S ranked aura." She was honestly impressed. S class aura's were rare, and very hard to get. Arslan wasn't fully sure of all the science behind it, but there was a reason the Vale Royal family was really rather inbred.

"So, how does Jaune having an S rank give away whatever it is we're talking about?" Reese asked Nadir. He gave her a wide smile, very proud of his geneious.

"If someone were to do something slightly illegal and pulled some data from the Aura measuring system, they would have found that Jaune only has a C ranking of aura that he can use."

Arslan thought about that, clicking the pieces together. "He's not- " nadir cut her off with a grin, very pleased that Arslan had come to the same conclusion.

"He is." He said. "He's constantly using his Aura to recover and regenerate the damage that the dust poisoning is doing."

Reese shook her head, bringing the conversation to a halt. "Wait, wait, wait." She interjected, "What are we talking about? You guys are acting like Jaune is snorting dust or something."

Arslan and Nadir shared a glance. "I mean…" Arslan trailed off. "You're not wholly incorrect." Reese gave her a wide look, mostly in disbelief.

"We're talking about his semblance." Arslan clarified for the skater.

Said skater just rolled her hand, indicating for Arslan to continue. "And that is?" She asked, expecting an answer.

"Jaune's body naturally produces dust." Nadir answered.

And we're back, with a record breaking time! Kind of a long chapter, because of all the dialog. But we get a huge, huge character moment for Jaune! See, I told you (like 12 chapters ago) that Jaune was going to get better! and this is the first step, admitting that there is a problem. We also get to expand a little more on the whole misconception sub arc i have going on here. I am really happy with this chapter, and with how this story is going.

I am really looking forward to the next couple of chapters, because those will be really fun. plus, we get to see sun again. Big bonus.

Thank you for reading this, and please leave your theories, comments, and ideas. I do want to develop the weird foil/ parallel pointed out by a commenter that Jaune and blake have , but Jaune doesn't return to beacon for what feels like another twenty chapters? maybe more? For a long time. It doesn't help that there are two stories going on, each taking up a decent amount of space and time.