The Unseen Hunt Chapter 53, a rwby fanfic

So, I had to take my mother into the hospital today as she decided to be an idiot and feed the stallion on her own (she raises horses). She knows she isn't meant to because he's a dick and for her age, but there she went as always. She always does stuff like this and just goes "Oh, I thought it'd be okay" after. I kid you not, she's had broken limbs multiple times from this same fucking horse.

And yep, broken collarbone today. Nice. And four hours in hospital with her for me.

Cover Art: Z-ComiX

Chapter 53

Weiss stood respectfully to the side as the coffin was slowly lowered into the grave. A sobbing family of almost ten were closer, some on their knees and the only make holding on to as many as he could, a futile gesture to comfort every one of them at once. The black coffin was varnished with gold scrolling along it, atop which lay a wreath of roses.

The coffin was both empty and not. It contained the body but not the soul of the deceased.

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to think as the first shovels of soil were placed atop it. Grief for one who wasn't dead? Sympathy for a family who could never know the truth? Relief that it was all over at last? The latter was the strongest and she hated herself for it. She turned and walked away, past Ruby, hesitating between approaching the family or not, and also past Adam and Blake, who had come but could never truly understand the grieving.

Other hunters made way for her, all out in their black suits and dresses made damp from furious rain. At the back, Ozpin stood alongside Velvet and Oscar.

"You're not going to say anything?" she asked.

"It wouldn't feel right," the old man said. "He did not die for my sake but theirs. I won't interrupt their farewells to give a few of my own. I can come back later and pray at his grave." He tipped his hat to ward out the rain, and perhaps more that he didn't wish her to see. "I have buried far too many in my time. I've seen this all too often. If there's one wish I have, it is that the next funeral held be my own. Perhaps, finally, that might prove true…"

"Yes." Weiss looked back. "Because of him."

"Because of all of you, Weiss. This was a group effort. And there is still work to do. The Awakened are still as such, even if the Grimm have disappeared. With Cinder gone, her thralls are free from control, but no doubt lost and confused. We need to ensure their safety."

"Another day, Ozpin." Weiss looked back to Ruby, who had finally worked up the nerve to step toward the bereaved family. Something Weiss could not. "Leave that for another day. They need time to heal."

"Yes. That was unfair of me. We've all lost so much."

She'd hardly lost a thing. A father that didn't care for her and a little freedom. Perhaps her name, but who cared for that. Sleep and safety, yes, but she'd lost little compared to Ruby and Jaune and Pyrrha and so many others. Compared to them, she'd come out fine, albeit scarred in ways she couldn't quite explain.

Then I'll just have to make it up to them. Weiss turned away from the funeral. There was work to be done. A peace to be maintained. I won't let your sacrifice be in vain. I will make sure this world remains free.

/-/

She was not human.

She'd never been human.

To think it was a lie, a sick joke. Her skin was that of a young girl who couldn't stand to lose her big sister. Her life was stolen. Even Yang had been misled, tricked by a horrible parasite who stole her sister's body and pretended to be her, all to feast on the love she provided. If there was anyone less qualified to act human, it was her.

And yet, Ruby knew grief. She knew loss. The pain of it.

"M-Mrs Arc?" she stammered. "J-Juniper…"

The woman looked up from her husband's arm, wrapped up with two of her daughters while three more were clutched in her own arms, faces buried in her chest and shoulders. The eldest stood aside, staring at the grass and whispering prayers to her brother. Juniper Arc had streams of tears pouring down her face and though she made some small attempt to wipe them away on her husband's arm, it was fruitless.

"Y… Yes…?" she wept. "C… Can I help you?"

"I'm a friend – was a friend… No, I am a friend of Jaune's. He… He helped me when I lost my sister a few weeks back. Helped me cope when I had no one else."

Juniper Arc couldn't find the words but her husband, Jaune's father, managed a smile "That sounds like our boy. What's your name?"

"Ruby. Ruby Rose. I was… I was close with him. He was all I had for a while."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"No. I have other people now. I just… I wanted to tell you a bit about him." The words tumbled out. "What he was like, how brave he was, how he helped me and other people. He loved you all," she said. "He talked about you all the time. How you're in the military and his mom was a lawyer, how life was growing up with so many sisters. He really loved you."

Juniper cried harder and Ruby wondered if she'd only made it worse, up until Nicholas Arc smiled and held onto his wife. "Thank you." His voice was raw. "That means a lot to hear."

"I'd like to tell you more," she said. "What happened to him. Why. And how he knew he had to stop it because the bad people he stopped wanted to come after you all next. How Jaune knew he was going to die but walked into it to keep his sisters and you safe."

"That… I…" He closed his eyes. "We've heard so many conflicting stories. He was shot down by the police and they said he had a hostage, but now the news is calling him a hero. We don't know what to believe."

"I can tell you."

"I think… Yes, we'd like that. Please." Nicholas held his family close. "And if you can, could you tell us how he was here? Not when he was in danger, but when he was happy?"

Ruby smiled. "I'll tell you everything."

/-/

Drip – Drip

Was he drowning again?

It seemed so long since then, since that bathroom where it all began, head pushed down into a toilet as the world swirled out from under him and he stared into the abyss. Since the abyss stared back with bright yellow eyes and sharp teeth.

Drip – Drip

The tap was leaking again. That reminder deep in his skull.

Drip – Drip

The lonely droplets falling into an ocean without limit, without life, without anything but the deep dark and cold that crept up the body. An endless abyss that stretched on and on.

Drip – Drip

Pit – Pit

That was… new. Something tapped on his eyelid in a pitter-patter motion. Light little taps and picks. A cavernous rumble echoed through his body and the sensation faded. A whoosh of water sounded all around him and then blessed silence. Loneliness.

Pit – Pit

And then it was back again.

Pit – Pit

Jaune grumbled again but this time the sensation didn't go away; it was happening all over his head. With exhaustion still tugging in every deep part of his body, he forced his huge eyes to open, membrane spreading back.

A bright pink and white fish stared back at him. Startled, it darted away with a whoosh.

Fish…? Stupid as the thought was, his mind was as tired as the rest of him and it took a few seconds for the surprise to filter through. His Domain didn't contain fish. It was an empty ocean devoid of any and all life. It was as lonely as it was deep, harbouring a single terrible secret in the form of Leviathan.

More sound from nearby filtered through and a shoal of striped yellow and silver fish swam by numbering in their hundreds. They came close to his face, uncaring or unafraid of him. They hurried by, following each other and moving elegantly through the water. As his eyes tracked them, he noticed more of the pink and white fish to his side, flitting about his own body and pecking at his scales. They were too small to hurt but it explained the noise he kept hearing. Curiously, he watched as one pushed under a scale and tugged back, bringing with it a tiny amount of silt.

Were they feeding off him? Cleaning him…? Some fish did that in the wild.

On earth, that was. Not here. And this was his Domain because he could still feel it, and now that he expanded his senses, he could feel thousands – or even tens of thousands – of tiny life signatures within it. The dizzying array threatened to overwhelm him for a second and all he could do was lay there on the ocean floor and process it.

The sea was alive. Plankton, fish and everything else that made up an ecosystem. He followed one larger fish as it lazily swam through the water before his face, dipped under his eyes and to the left, into a patch of coral which concealed it. Coral…? Since when had there been coral in his ocean? He shifted his head, pushing up sand and sending cleaner fish darting in every direction. As the clouds died down, his vision cleared.

Cinder's body was gone. Or concealed. Engulfed by rich coral that sprouted in so many different colours, bright and alive with teeming fish that darted in and out of recesses, into what must have been a half-decayed ribcage. Much larger fish, some as big as sharks, lazily made their way through with eyes fixed on the ground, while three crustaceans scuttled along by Cinder's head. Or what might once have been her head. It was difficult to tell with all the spider-like coral sticking out in every direction, some with thin strands of plant-like fibres poking out to catch plankton. Given Cinder's sheer mass and size, the coral reef went on for well over a kilometre, explaining the sudden abundance of rich sea life, if not how it happened in the first place.

Pit – Pit

The cleaner fish were back. Having decided he wasn't actively hunting them, they'd returned to use his giant body for protection and a source of food. Strange as it was, he did his best not to crush any as he reared up and pushed off the ground. At least fifty crabs scurried out from the dust, having been using him as cover and now bereft of it and seeking more. Had he become part of their ecosystem as well?

There was something – someone – on the surface. Shaking off what felt like decades of sand, he pushed up off the seabed, swimming slowly toward the surface and leaving Cinder's reef behind.

/-/

Ruby was waiting for him above water.

"You're awake!" She flew over, cloak skirting across the waves as she came to float in front of him. For the first time, it felt like he could see her face. Or the thinnest traces of it. "We were so worried. You were asleep for a long while."

"How long?" he boomed.

"Two months, give or take a few days." Ruby's voice trailed off. "We found your body."

They knew, then. He hadn't thought how to tell them – he'd just been too angry at Cinder and wanting to tear her to pieces before she could follow through and hurt his family and friends. How to tell them all that he was dead and locked to the Grimm world hadn't really crossed his mind. Now, it seemed it wouldn't be necessary.

"Did you turn Cinder's body into that reef?"

"Yep. I wanted to make sure she was dead. Dead and gone. I rotted her all the way through and broke her down. I just kept ageing and ageing her to see what would happen, then poof! Life just sort of exploded out of her."

Through death, she brought life. Or the circle of life anyway. The dead became nutrients for worms in the soil, or in her case she'd become nutrients for coral and plankton, which in turn supported fish. How long all that would have taken when the sea was empty, he didn't know. Ruby either aged her hundreds of thousands of years, or he'd connected his ocean with another when he flooded his way to Cinder's Domain and introduced fresh fish to it. There was no telling.

It's a fitting end for her. She wanted to kill everyone for her own power, and now she dies, and her power is used to bring others to life. There was so much bulk and mass to her that she'd kickstarted an entire ecosystem.

She would not be getting up from that. It was well and truly over.

"What is happening on the other side?" he asked. "Tell me."

"The boundary has been sealed and the Grimm have stopped appearing. The hunters haven't disbanded, though. They still spend time together to reminisce and Vale is their home. Some, anyway. Others have moved out, wanting to start new lives and forget this nightmare. I can't blame them wanting to forget it all. Ozpin is safe. He's retired and has decided to just run his pub as just that."

"And the police?"

"They're under investigation. The blame for everything fell on Alexander Nikos and Pyrrha supported that, telling everyone how her father went mad and killed her mother, then tried to kill you. How you saved her and died in the process. Looking back, they've found evidence of what they think is corruption from her father. Probably Cinder not caring and doing whatever she wanted. It's all worked out and the hunters have been cleared." Ruby paused. "We had to bring her in on the truth. There was no way to hide it and keep her revealing anything."

He winced. "Does she hate me?"

"No. She's hurt but…" Ruby sighed. "She said to thank you for saving her father. Even if his reputation is ruined, she says he wouldn't have cared so long as she was safe. She said he'd be grateful for what you did." Ruby looked away. "She was in tears as you might expect – she's lost her entire family and her father is considered a psychopath. I think she's going to move away as well. Vale isn't a home for her anymore. She did have a message for you, though. Asked me or Weiss to deliver it."

"And that is?"

"That she thinks she loves you." Though he couldn't see it, he sensed her bitter smile. "Or was in love with you. And that she's sorry for everything."

Jaune's luminescent eyes closed. He wasn't sure what he felt – elation, sorrow or nothing at all. It was all a mess inside him. There hadn't been time for attraction at the end and he couldn't say he'd returned her feelings or felt the same way, even if he knew that were the situation different and no Grimm existed, he'd have fallen hopelessly in love with her. Sadly, that wasn't to be.

"Your name was cleared," Ruby went on. "You're being called an American hero."

"Am I getting a statue? Or just thoughts and prayers?" he asked with a snort.

"Thoughts and prayers and Twitter tributes," she said with a sigh. "Politicians, celebrities, athletes, the lot… That's just how life is, I guess. They've all convinced themselves all the crazy stuff happening was because of Alexander Nikos. Chemical testing, terrorist attacks or the like."

"Ignorance in bliss. I hate it but… it keeps the world safe."

"Yeah…"

A great gout of steam came from his nostrils. "My family…"

"They came," Ruby whispered. He knew from tone alone that it had been bad, though that much could be expected. "They were broken up. Obviously. I talked to them a little, to your mom and dad. Told them about us; how we were friends. I didn't tell them the truth, obviously, but I said how much you talked about them. How much you loved them. Also how they were threatened, and you did what you did because you wanted to protect them. Because you loved them."

His breath wavered. "Thank you, Ruby. Thank you."

"I didn't think it safe to tell them the truth. Even if you're still alive here. I made it out like criminals did it to you. Bad people, but nothing supernatural. I can tell them the truth if you want…"

"No. It's better this way. To know is to Awaken, and I'm not really alive, am I? Not as Jaune Arc. They're safe. Hurt, but safe. That's what matters." He hoped they would look after one another. Band together and be strong; remember the good times. At least they knew he'd died for the right reasons. It would have been too painful if they thought him a terrorist.

"You've been buried in Vale," she said. "There was a funeral. A lot of people came. Ozpin, Weiss, Velvet, Oscar – lots of hunters, not to mention Ren and Nora." She laughed weakly. "I think your family were surprised how many people you had. They probably thought we were all just well-wishers who heard about you on the news." Ruby looked up to him. "A lot of hunters owe you their lives, Jaune. You're a hero to them. Ozpin held our own funeral for you in Beacon and every single person was there. It was packed to the brim. There was a huge toast. Speeches. Everything…"

How were you supposed to feel, hearing about your own funeral? Selfish as it may have been, he felt some pleasure. There was also discomfort. He was dead in his world and he knew it but hearing that there'd been a funeral drove the final nail in the coffin. Before, there'd been a naïve and desperate hope. That maybe he was just wounded or in a coma, or that he'd wake up or find a way back. That was impossible now. The only way he could walk the earth again was if he did as Blake and Adam had. And in doing so, weakening the boundary all over again.

"What of those already Awakened?" he asked. "What about Nora?"

"Nora still comes here when she sleeps. It's still dangerous to be Awakened, but Ozpin has passed on the information that everyone should seek the ocean. I hope you don't mind, but he thought it could be a haven for people."

"Tell him I'm more than happy to protect them. And Nora?"

"Already here," she said, "Just awake at the minute. Your other friend, Ren, was pretty broke up about what happened so she's helping him. It's a little easier for her. Even if you're dead, you're not gone. You'll see her tonight when she's asleep. Fair warning, she's probably going to cry."

"I'll weather it," he said, cheering up a little. Nora was safe and he could see her again.

Only for a while, though. Fifty, sixty, maybe eighty or ninety years if she grew as old as possible, but sooner or later she would die, and he would not. It was madness to worry about that now, yet he couldn't escape it. Was this how Ruby felt? Even if she was happier than she'd ever been before with them and Yang, she knew in the back of her head it would be but a brief respite in an eternity of being alone.

In time, the world would forget him and even his sisters and their own future children would grow old and die. That was the thing about immortality; it sounded so tempting until you were there. Will I be tempted to kill a wandering soul in time, just to get a chance to visit the world again? He wanted to say no and knew he would now, but how firm would his resolve be in a thousand years? Or two? Impossible to know.

"I guess things are getting back to normal now," she said. "For Vale, anyway. No Nightmares, no freak storms or fires. Some of the people Cinder kidnapped have tried to tell about it, but people are blaming it on satanic rituals, madness or political conspiracies. The usual. Ozpin says the victims will soon either forget about it themselves or convince themselves it was all hallucinations."

"Amazing what the human mind can adapt to," he said.

And it was adaption. Not just hiding. Repression was something the mind did to protect you – and maybe that was proof of just how much this happened throughout history. For all they knew, their bodies and minds had evolved to form protections against the Grimm over tens of thousands of years of exposure. Just like it could form an immunity to various illnesses it contracted over a lifetime.

None of that helped distract him.

"It's really over then." He lowered his huge head down until his chin was lapped by the waves. "I'm dead. We may have killed Cinder, but she won in the end. I died."

"Yeah…" Ruby obviously didn't know how to address it. "You did…"

For a good cause, the right cause, but he was still dead. Everything he'd fought for was with a will to survive and that just hadn't been enough. Knowing his family were alive was great, but not being able to see them again? After he'd fought so hard to be able to?

"It sucks. It really fucking sucks…"

Sucks? It deserved more than that. Screaming, ranting and raging felt more appropriate, but he lacked the energy. Even after two months of resting his body hadn't fully recovered from the absolute mauling Cinder put him through. And what did it matter if he raged? Who would he rage at? The one responsible was dead now; food for the fishes. Shouting at Ruby wouldn't make it better. Not much would. Anger, bargaining, depression and denial? They were all there, but muted and distant, much like the world he'd come from.

All he could do was accept it.

I'll just have to make a new life here. What else can I do?

"How is everyone else?" he asked, desperate for a distraction. "How is Weiss? What's going to happen to the hunters and her now?"

"Weiss is going to continue them. She says the attacks are cyclical. Think of the old myths and legends. Ragnarök, Atlantis, Leviathan, Jormungandr, the Kraken. Even things like Kappas, Bigfoot and Wendigos. Those were Grimm coming through time and time again. Sooner or later, there's always an Ancient Grimm that will try and break through. Cinder was just the latest of a long line. Weiss is going to make sure there are people on their side to deal with that. And I… I said I'd work on this side," Ruby admitted. "Doing the same."

She was going to dedicate her entire existence to that? The only ties Ruby had to earth was Yang, and she was dead, and yet Ruby would lock herself into an eternal vigil just to safeguard the world that Yang was born into? He wanted to say he couldn't believe it, but he could. He could believe it all too much from her. Maybe she thought it a way to stay connected to Yang or to repay the real Ruby Rose. Maybe she just wanted a way to forever remember her. Whatever the case, she would do it.

What about him? There was nothing left for him in the other world, but things worth protecting. People worth protecting. His ocean wasn't looking quite so dead or desolate anymore. In time, who could say what might grow. Who could say what might happen? The Grimm appeared mindless, but he knew that not to be the case from interacting with Blake and Adam. Maybe there was a life to be made here. Was this what the first pioneers felt when they arrived on the shores of America? Whatever the case, his decision was obvious.

"It won't just be you guarding the boundary," he said, moving slowly toward her. "It'll be both of us. Together."

He pushed his snout toward her.

Hesitantly, shyly, she touched him.

Cold seeped through his scales and they flaked under her touch, and yet the pain was minor, and he pushed through it, leaning in harder to feel the faintest touch of a hand. Soft, gentle and surprisingly warm. He heard Ruby choke back something. Her form wavered a moment and she moved closer, leaning into him. "Together?" she asked, as if she wasn't sure she was hearing right. "Not on my own?"

"Not alone," he promised. "If we're going to be holding an eternal vigil, I'd rather spend it with someone. I know I'll never replace Yang, but maybe I can be something else."

There would be time to see. Time with Nora and Weiss, Blake and Adam. Time after, even, when Weiss died and would come here to roost herself. It wouldn't be an existence quite as lonely as Ruby's had before, and that would make it tolerable. Give a hundred years and Nora would pass on to the other side and take their words to Yang, the other Ruby and her parents. Until then, it wasn't worth feeling down over.

If more Grimm wanted to follow in Cinder's footsteps, they would find them. If the boundary became weak again, they would bolster it. If the Grimm ever found a way to invade the other world, they would cross over themselves and work to seal the breach. And if in time, they became more than just partners? Well, anything could happen with an eternity to speak of. He wouldn't be alone in finding out what did, and neither would she. What might come? Well, they'd see when it happened.

They had plenty of time to find out.

The End.

Not a super happy ending, but then, did this story ever expect it? Jaune gives his life in his world to defeat Cinder, and in so doing seals the boundary between worlds and saves it. That world lives on and Jaune dedicates his life, with Ruby, to holding it from the other side. I don't want to say this ended on a Lancaster pairing because it didn't. Ruby and Jaune aren't together. He's just saying that they might end up it, because they're going to be partners for an eternity and it'd probably be hard for them not to grow close and become mated in that time.

As always, there are little things I had in the plan for this that didn't fully come to fruition, and I do think that halfway through I let the tension fade a little – turning it from the semi-horror of the first 10-20 chapters (not true horror, as it was never meant to be) but all in all, I don't mind this story at all. It didn't include Salem and that was a decision on my part to see how a story went where I could choose to use or not use parts of canon. Sometimes in fanfiction, I try too hard to use "every character" from the show and run into problems because of it. Here, I just chose to paint Cinder as the big bad and leave all the extra cast behind.

I think it worked out for it. This wouldn't be a better story for NOW Salem being revealed as a further big bad behind Cinder and requiring another 10-15 chapters to hunt her down and defeat her.

Anyway, this is certainly one of my more open-ended conclusions and I kind of wanted it that way.

How is Nora? How is Ren? What do Adam and Blake do in the world? Does Pyrrha find love? They're all questions but ultimately unimportant to the ending. Nora and Jaune can still interact at night and what people choose to do with their lives after the story ends is either left open or explained in detail in an epilogue, and I'm not a fan of that approach most times. They have a future ahead of them and good job, they survived Cinder and the Grimm and get to go experience that future together.

Next Story:

So, the way it's going to work is following my rotation rule. Arcanum, which already exists on Tuesday slot, will be moving to every Sunday. A new story will be released on the biweekly Tuesday slot alongside Service with a Smile, and that new story will be Yellow Fang (which will have a different title when it comes out.

I know some people wanted Null, but don't worry, that'll come out after Forged Destiny ends, and Forged Destiny doesn't have too long left to finish.

As always, I'll be taking a week of no update to better plan the new story. That'll work weirdly here because of the rotation. How it will work is that there will be no "Arcanum" next Sunday (but will be one this coming Tuesday), but that Yellow Fang will come out on the Arcanum slot after that one – i.e. in 2 weeks from now. Date included at bottom.

Next Story: Yellow Fang – Tuesday 29th October

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur