The lie had been a living thing. For months, it had squirmed in his gut, a parasite feeding on his every stolen glance at Pyrrha’s patient smile, every encouraging word from Ren, every one of Nora’s bone-crushing hugs. Now, here in the clockwork heart of Beacon Tower, it was finally being dissected on the Headmaster’s immaculate desk, and Jaune Arc felt strangely, terrifyingly numb.
His thumb traced the worn seam of his Pumpkin Pete hoodie, a frantic, repetitive motion that did nothing to ground him. The wood grain of Ozpin’s desk was too perfect, too uniform. Probably not even real wood. A synthetic laminate, just like the transcripts he’d used to get here. Just like the Huntsman he pretended to be.
“—and so, you see, Headmaster, it’s a matter of student safety.” Cardin Winchester’s voice was slick with false concern. He stood at ease, hands clasped behind his back, a model of a repentant, responsible student. The smugness radiating from him was a physical force, pressing Jaune down into his chair. “We can’t have someone with no training, no—" he paused, for effect, "—Aura control, endangering his team. Endangering the whole school.”
Professor Goodwitch stood ramrod straight beside Ozpin’s desk, her lips a bloodless line. She wasn’t looking at Jaune. She was staring at a point on the wall just over his head, her expression one of profound, disciplined disappointment. That was worse than the anger.
Ozpin, however, was looking right at him. His eyes, behind those tinted spectacles, were ancient. He took a slow sip from his mug. “Mr. Winchester, you have done your duty in bringing this to our attention. You are dismissed.”
Cardin’s smirk widened for a fraction of a second. “Headmaster. Professor.” He gave a short, sharp nod and walked out, the door hissing shut behind him, leaving a silence that was louder than any of Nora’s explosions.
“Jaune,” Ozpin began, his voice calm, gentle, and utterly devastating. “Is it true? Are the documents you submitted to this academy falsified?”
The parasite in his stomach died. In its place, a cold, heavy stone settled. He couldn’t look at them. He looked at his hands, calloused from a few months of holding a sword he didn’t deserve. “Yes.”
The single word hung in the air. He could feel Glynda’s glare finally land on him, sharp as the tip of her riding crop.
“I see,” Ozpin said. It was the same tone he used when discussing Grimm migration patterns. Factual. Distant. “The rules of this academy, and indeed the laws of the Kingdom of Vale, are unequivocal on this matter. Forgery of official documents to gain entrance to a Huntsman Academy is a grave offense.”
Jaune squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for it. Expulsion. Disgrace. The long, silent trip back home to face his father, his sisters, a family of real heroes who would now have to live with the shame of the one who cheated. He could almost hear his father’s voice, not angry, but quiet with a sorrow that would break him.
“The risk you posed to your team, to yourself… it is frankly astounding you have survived this long, Mr. Arc,” Professor Goodwitch said, her voice tight with contained fury. “Your Aura levels are significant, but your control is non-existent. You are a liability in the field.”
“A liability with potential,” Ozpin mused, steepling his fingers. “But potential is not a substitute for integrity. We cannot make an exception, Jaune. To do so would undermine the very trust this institution is built upon.”
He finally looked up. He didn’t beg. He didn’t know why. The part of him that would have grovelled and pleaded seemed to have been scoured out, leaving only a hollow ache. He had taken this gamble on his own. He would face the consequences. He just took one action, his own true initiative, for himself. “I understand.”
Ozpin’s gaze softened for a moment. “I had hoped to see the man you might have become, not the boy who took a shortcut. You have twenty-four hours to vacate your dormitory. A transport will be arranged to take you to the nearest Bullhead station.”
He didn't hear the rest. His ears were ringing with a high, thin whine. He stood up on unsteady legs, his hoodie feeling too large, the weight of Crocea Mors at his hip an impossible burden. It wasn’t his. The sword, the shield, the family name—he was an impostor wearing a dead hero’s clothes. He mumbled a "Yes, sir," and turned, walking out of the office without looking back.
He didn't go to the dorm. He couldn't. He couldn't face Pyrrha’s pity, or Ren’s quiet judgment, or Nora’s confused anger. Their faith in him had been the one thing propping up his rickety scaffold of a lie. Now, with the lie gone, that faith would only crush him.
Instead, his feet carried him through the gleaming halls, past laughing students who would be his classmates for only a few more hours, and out into the crisp evening air. He walked to the cliffs, the same ones where they had been launched into the Emerald Forest on that first day. A lifetime ago.
The green expanse churned below him, a dark, living sea. Home was not an option. Facing his family was a fate worse than death. But what if death wasn't a fate? What if it was a choice? A final, desperate attempt to be what he had always claimed to be. A Huntsman.
He drew Crocea Mors. The metal was cold in his hand. The weight felt right, even if the arm holding it was a fraud. There was no grand plan. No strategy. Just a singular, burning thought: If he was going to fail, he would fail on his own terms. Not in an office, but in the forest, with a sword in his hand and a monster at his throat.
He didn't use the launch pads. He found a steep, winding path down the cliff face and descended into the twilight gloom. The air grew thick and humid, smelling of damp earth and decay. It didn't take long for the forest to notice him.
Red eyes glowed in the undergrowth. A low growl vibrated through the soles of his boots. Three Beowolves, then five. They circled him, sniffing the air, tasting the scent of his fear. He planted his feet, expanded his shield, and held the sword in a clumsy, two-handed grip.
For the first time, there was no one to save him. No Pyrrha to guide his stance, no Ruby to slice through the pack. There was only the weight of the lie, and the sudden, shocking lightness of having nothing left to lose.
The first one lunged. He met it with his shield, the impact jarring his arm to the socket. He shoved, staggering it back, and swung his sword. The blade, guided more by panic than skill, bit deep into the creature's shoulder. It howled and dissolved into black smoke.
His Aura flared, a brilliant white that illuminated the clearing, instinctively protecting him from a swipe he didn’t see coming. But it flickered, unstable. He fought. He swung and blocked and bled. He was sloppy. He was slow. But he was still standing. He poured every ounce of his frustration, his shame, and his self-hatred into every blow. He fought until his arms burned and his lungs screamed for air, until his Aura was a guttering candle flame against the crushing darkness.
Deeper and deeper he pushed into the forest, running from the sounds of his own labored breathing. He stumbled through a thicket of grasping thorns and fell into a clearing that was utterly wrong.
The sounds of the forest were gone. No crickets. No rustling leaves. No Grimm. A profound, unnatural silence pressed in on him. In the center of the clearing stood a structure, a partial ring of smooth, dark metal that seemed to absorb the moonlight. It wasn't stone, like the other ruins he’d seen. There were no carvings of ancient kings or forgotten gods. Only clean, geometric lines and a surface that felt cold to his eyes.
A low hum, a vibration he felt in his teeth, emanated from it. It wasn't the thrum of Dust crystals. It was something else. Empty. Sterile. It pulled at him, a siren song for the truly lost. Exhaustion was a heavy cloak, and curiosity was a sharp needle. He staggered towards it.
He reached out a hand, slick with his own blood and grime, and laid it on the metallic surface.
The hum became a roar. The air crackled, and the symbol of his own family, the twin arcs on his shield, glowed with a light that was not his own. The world dissolved into a blinding, painful whiteness. He felt a tearing sensation, a feeling of being unspooled and rewoven on a cosmic loom. Flashes of impossible things burned behind his eyes: sterile white corridors stretching to infinity, roiling oceans under a perpetual storm, and faces, countless identical faces turning to look at him, all born from a template he had yet to provide.
He hit a floor that was not dirt or grass but cold, polished metal. The air no longer smelled of earth and pine. It smelled of lightning and disinfectant.
He was not in the forest. He was not on Remnant. The last thing he saw before consciousness fled was a tall, impossibly slender figure leaning over him, its huge, black eyes filled with a terrifying, analytical curiosity.