To say that Jaune Arc's life was falling apart at the seams would be an understatement.

And as he ran through the streets of Vale, panicking over what he had done, the only thing he could think of right now is that there was still a chance that he could save his friend.

"Our blood is cursed, Jaune." His fathers words echoed in his head, from a time when he was just starting to understand what he truly was. "We are sick people. But our disease isn't one that harms our body, it simply changes it. Science would have us believe that it's simply some strange phenomena that is to be eradicated. But science often lacks a logical answer when it comes to things that cannot be explained. And our disease is from one such thing."

"Where did our... uh.. like- like-an-throw-pea come from, dad?"

He remembered the look on his fathers face as it shifted to one of disgust. "You know of our family motto, right? 'An Arc never goes back on his word.' Well, your great-great grandfather was the man who both invented that motto, and broke his word."

"Breaking a promise gives you a disease?!"

"No, son. It was during a great war, and your grandfather, along with his small battalion crossed the shifting sands of Vacuo in order to aid in the battle for the lands rich resources. During one such excursion into a war-torn oasis, he came across a caravan of innocents."

Jaune often remembered his mother correcting his father, calling the caravan 'Gypsies' and not innocents. He never did look up what a Gypsy was like he wanted to.

"They were low on supplies and arms, only a small family remained. And with the Grimm flooding the battlefield, attracted by the flames of war, they begged your grandfather for his aid. And he gave them his word that he would protect them."

"But," His father would always glance at Crocea Mors whenever he would talk about his family lineage. But it was a look that was filled with disappointment. It was something that Jaune had never gotten used to.

"He didn't keep his word. Instead he abandoned the caravan to aid his allies, and when he returned, he found the family torn to pieces with only one survivor. The wife, also a mother, who had lost everything confronted your grandfather in a justified rage. And with a wave of her hands, and a few bitter words, our families blood was forever cursed with this disease."

"So it's a witches curse?"

"Not exactly. Over the years, the Arc family has learned so much about this disease though. And the most important thing we have learned aside from the moon being our mortal enemy, is that this is a disease that is not bound to us. On the night of a full moon, that is when the disease pushes itself to the surface and becomes the most contagious. A single bite from the werewolves teeth is all it takes to spread the infection to another."

And in those conversations, Jaune would learn something important. Lycanthropy could possibly be cured. But it was only a possibility that largely depended on the person who was infected, and how long they had been infected for. His father would tell him any longer than forty-eight hours would most likely mean that the disease would become a permanent one. And even if they did receive the cure, there was still only a chance that it would work.

Jaune glanced down the list again, just to make sure it was correct. A teaspoon of ground Wolfbane, a eyedropper full of pure, melted silver, and blood from the beast that attacked the person. Mix it all together in a container filled with clean water, and you would have a disgusting concoction that could potentially cure someone of their lycanthropy. There was also a supposed telltale sign that the medicine had worked, but his father had never stated what that might be.

But what mattered most right now was getting the ingredients, and the Wolfbane would be the absolute hardest to find.

Wolfbane, Jaune had quickly learned, was an illegal herb that was known to be highly toxic. Not only that, when ground and added to certain mixtures it created potent drugs that caused hallucinations. The herb was originally rumored to keep Beowolves away from civilizations if it was burned in an incense, but that was quickly debunked. He knew that it would be entirely possible to get some Wolfbane, there was someone in Vale that he knew would have it.

He just had to find him again. And when time was of the essence, he couldn't afford to be wasting it-

"Oof!"

Jaune found himself slamming into a person at full force, knocking both parties to the ground. With a groan, he sat up and glanced up to get a better look at who he had practically tackled. It was a girl, one who seemed to like green by the looks of it. Most of her outfit consisted of the color, a pale green blouse with a few green lines going through it here and there. Where the blouse ended, black stockings with more green stripes began. And glancing back up, even the girls eyes were green. Her hair was surprisingly orange, and she had a pink bow planted atop her head that reminded him a little bit of Blake's black one.

"I'm sorry," Jaune apologized as he picked himself up off the ground quickly before extending a hand out for the girl. "I'm in a hurry and I wasn't watching where I was going. I didn't mean to knock you over."

"Oh, it's okay!" The ginger girl responded as she looked up at him, with a strange stare that seemed to give the sensation that this girl was both simultaneously not all there, but completely sane at the same time. She had yet to move a single muscle, even though she was lying flat on her back in the middle of a sidewalk.

"Uh... Are you okay?"

"Yes, I am perfectly fine!" And yet despite the assurance, Jaune doubted that she actually was.

"Do you want me to help you up?" He questioned, his hand still extended for her to grab onto.

She stared at it curiously for a moment before smiling once again. "Okay!" When she grabbed his hand, however, he had to fight the urge to yelp in sudden shock. This girls grip was crushing, and not only that she seemed to weigh a ton despite her small looking frame! She nearly brought him down on top of her with the amount of force needed to pull her up. But despite all the struggling, she didn't seem to notice at all. "Thank you very much for displaying such a kind gesture!"

"It's no problem..." Jaune rubbed his now sore hand for a moment before looking back up at the girl, who was now uncomfortably close to him.

"Oh my, did you hurt your hand?"

"No, no. It's alright." He lied, mostly just to get away from this girl sooner. He really needed to get back on track.

"I see. Then what about this?" The girl procured a piece of paper and showed it to him. "I'm unsure of whether or not this is litter, but since you dropped it I assume that it is yours?"

As the strange girl's eyes ran down the sheet of paper, they began to widen before she let out a sudden gasp. "Wolfbane?! Oh my!" And she scoot uncomfortably closer to Jaune once more. "Sir, Wolfbane is a very dangerous and illegal herb! You should stay away from it!"

"Woah, hold on." Jaune raised his hands up. "I'm not going to smoke it or anything! And it's not even for me, I swear!"

"Then that's even WORSE!" The ginger grabbed hold of his hand and began to squeeze, tightly. "You shouldn't buy such illegal things to sell to others!"

Jaune recoiled slightly when the girls grip tightened, and again when he stared into the girls big, puppy dog eyes. "I-I'm not, I swear!"

The ginger blinked a few times before she squeezed his hand even tighter, causing a sharp sting that made caused him to rip it from her iron grasp.

"OW!" Jaune yelped as he glanced down at his hand, a very small dot of blood dripping out of his index finger. "Did... did you just prick me with something?!"

The ginger recoiled slightly at his accusation. "N-no sir, I would never do something like that!" She let out a small hiccup as soon as she finished her sentence, something that seemed to come out of nowhere.

But something that was even stranger was the fact that the girl seemed to freeze up after a few seconds. Jaune gazed into her eyes and swore he saw an odd twinkling in them, one that seemed highly unnatural for such a person. Things got worse when he tried to snap some sense into her by waving his hand in front of her face.

"Hey, are you alright?"

The ginger snapped back into reality quickly, and nearly hopped away from him. "Y-yes sir. I-I'm fine. Uh, I apologize but something important just came up, and I must really be going now."

And almost as soon as she had appeared, she vanished. Jaune was certain that he had never seen a person speedwalk away from him with such a speed before in his entire life up until this point. Whatever had gotten that girl into a panic, he hoped that it wouldn't result in a bunch of police offers tailing him down and arresting him. That was the very last thing that he needed today.

With a sigh, Jaune glanced at the ground and noticed that the ginger had dropped his note in the confusion and picked it back up. Wolfbane was still his first objective, and the priority on getting it and getting back to Beacon with the rest of his ingredients was just bumped up a notch.

"Well, I guess my first stop is... ugh... Junior's." With a heavy sigh, Jaune quickly stalked off while wiping the blood on his finger away.

Hopefully that would be the most physical harm that would be inflicted on him today.

The atmosphere in Junior's Club was a bit more melancholy then Jaune remembered it being as he walked through the front doors.

In fact, parts of the building were under heavy construction. When he had been here last time, it was in a solid state and it was also pretty packed as well. But now it was almost as if he were looking at a shell of the club's former self.

He wasn't about to start asking about what happened though, because being nosy around these parts was a bad idea. The last time he had been here, he learned his lesson thanks to the club's owner, Junior.

Jaune still found it a bit narcissistic to name a club after yourself, but he couldn't deny that Junior had been very helpful in getting an audience with Roman Torchwick. The club was a frequent place for the criminal to do business apparently, and it was the same place where he had purchased his forged transcripts for Beacon. And now, Jaune needed the criminals help once again, much to his chagrin.

He quickly sauntered up to the bar, ignoring the odd stares from the strange twins that he had met the last time he had been there and immediately locked eyes with the bartender, who also happened to be the man that he needed to talk to.

Junior was a rather tall individual who wore a very trendy looking suit. A lot of the staff and rabble referred to him as a "Bear in a suit" when talking about him, and the man certainly gave off that description with his short, gruff black hair that seemed to bleed down the sides of his head into a rather fine, closely shaven beard. The constant look of annoyance on his face was also pretty helpful in aiding his intimidating appearance.

"Aren't you a little young to be at a club like this, kid?" Junior asked as he scoot over to Jaune. "Unless you've got an ID, you won't be getting any drinks."

"I'm not thirsty." Jaune responded, earning a pointed look from Junior. "I'm a bit lost, you see, and uh..." How did that blasted code go again? "...I need a torch to light my path."

Junior's pointed look soon morphed into one of visible confusion before he grit his teeth. "Guess you haven't been paying attention to the news lately, kid. Torches all fizzled out. Think you'll need a different light source for your path."

"Oh, is that so?" Jaune had been expecting this. Unfortunately, it just meant that he would need to use more of his precious savings. "In that case..." He quickly dipped his hand into his pocket and procured a small bundle of Lien wrapped up with a rubber band. With a small thud, he placed the bundle of cards on the table and slid them forward. "Think you can tell me where I can find one?"

Junior eyed the currency for a second before quickly accepting it. With a frustrated sigh, he quickly put the cash in his pocket before he picked up a nearby empty glass and began to polish it. "Yeah, think I can. Heard there might be an antique up on the second floor."

Jaune's face scrunched up in confusion. "Uh... what?"

Junior responded with another grunt of frustration and dropped the rag into the glass he was cleaning so he could use his free hand to rub at his eyes. "Just go upstairs, kid. You'll find what you're looking for."

With a quick nod, Jaune hopped off of his stool and quickly made his way towards the flight of stairs situated towards the back of the building. He had to briefly avert his gaze from the two twins who had yet again taken an interest in him. And the brief scowl that the one in white directed towards him as he turned his head away briefly reminded him of Weiss from team RSNN.

One quick trip up the stares and Jaune found himself looking down a very dark, depressing and slightly horrifying hallway. There were many doors situated along each side, and as he began to walk down the hall he briefly covered his ears when he heard a few moans coming from some of them.

He was there to pick up an illegal drug, he really didn't need to be scarred in other ways today.

As he came upon a door situated near the very end of the hallway, his ears picked up the sounds of a very heated argument. Despite the fact that it was an incredibly terrible idea to eavesdrop in shady turf, Jaune found his curiosity once again being the bane of his existence as he pressed an ear against the offending room's door.

"-and I'm telling YOU that the White Fang are crawling around everywhere! I can't exactly do my job when they aren't working for us anymore!" That was a voice that Jaune recognized well enough, for he had done business with the man once before. It was Roman Torchwick, alright.

But then another, feminine voice spoke out.

"If you can no longer do what I ask of you, then what use are you to me?"

"How can you ask that kind of question when we're supposed to be dead?! I can't exactly keep that charade up if everyone sees me robbing stores left and right!"

"Excuse me, normally I wouldn't side with him, but with the White Fang everywhere, he does have a point." A second female voice interrupted. "It's been hard enough for us to move around undetected as is, and given the fact that he's a total idiot, he'll definitely be caught if he tries anything."

There was silence for a few moments, a silence that Jaune could only describe as suffocating. But then the first female voice from before began to speak once again.

"Very well, then perhaps a change of plans are in order." There was a small hum. "Yes, with the growing threat of the White Fang drawing the attention of the law, surely other areas of the city will be... overlooked. I think we can use that to our advantage."

"That's just great. But what about all the dust that they stole from us, huh? I thought we needed that!"

"...I believe we may be able to reacquire our dust, and perhaps bring the White Fang to heel, so long as we simply wait and watch."

There was silence again before Roman spoke out once more. "Fine. But don't expect me to stop all my other plans just because I'm supposed to be singing with the choir invisible."

Jaune continued to listen with piqued curiosity. Roman was supposed to be dead? Did this have anything to do with what happened at the docks? He had heard rumors of Roman Torchwick being there at the scene of the crime and getting attacked by the White Fang, but there was nothing about him dying anywhere in the news.

And just as he was about to get to the good part, he was interrupted.

Or rather, someone grabbed the collar of his shirt and threw him up against the wall opposite of the door. And with a quiet "click" he heard the sound of a knife being unsheathed, with the tip of the blade poking him in his throat. He had to resist the urge to cry out, since doing so would most likely lead to execution on the spot.

"I-I..." He began to whisper before pausing mid sentence. His eyes darted around for a few seconds, trying to look into whoever was holding him's own pair. But instead, there was nothing. At least, not until the tip of the blade poked him once more and forced him to look down.

There, he saw a most peculiar sight. A girl that was almost half his size, with hair that seemed to shift from brown to pink to white, her eyes both following her hairs example with their color coding swapping each time she blinked. This girl was holding him up against the wall with nothing but an umbrella that happened to have a pointed blade on the end, and the half-scowl half-smirk she wore on her face informed him that she could easily kill him if he didn't start talking.

"I'm here to buy something from Roman!" Jaune whispered out, trying not to swallow in fear and risk the blade puncturing his throat.

The girl stared at him for a few moments, her eyebrow raising in curiosity before took her free hand and placed it up to her ear, as if she were listening for something. The two of them stared at each other in silence, the girl's positioning not changing until suddenly, with a disgruntled sigh, she removed her hand from her ear and pointed to him before placing it back.

"Oh!" Jaune yelped as the blade poked his throat once more. "I-I heard yelling and thought someone might have been getting hurt." It was a lie, but hopefully he looked innocent and stupid enough for this girl to buy it.

The girl took her hand away from her ear and looked him up and down for a few seconds before rolling her eyes and pulling her blade away from his entirely. With a quiet click the blade vanished back into the parasol, all the while Jaune had to resist the urge to slump to the floor in relief. But his relief was cut short when he looked down at this murderous girl's tapping foot, which forced him to look up at her rather impatient looking face.

It took him a moment to figure out what she was waiting for. "Uh... Wolfbane. Is there any around?"

The girl sized him up once more, her eyebrow raising just a little bit hire. It certainly didn't make him feel very good about himself. Placing a finger up to her chin, the girl thought for a few seconds before giving him a nod. She also extended her hand as if she were waiting for something.

It took Jaune a few moments, along with an impatient glare, to get him to realize that she was expecting the payment first. "...Uh... How much?" He winced when she held up two fingers. That was very expensive, but if it meant saving his friend, he would pay it.

Once he had paid, the girl turned to enter the door before stopping dead in her tracks. She quickly snapped back around and pointed a finger at him, then towards the wall he had previously been pinned against. It didn't take rocket science to understand that he was not to move from that spot, and once he had shown his understanding of that, the girl finally entered the room he had just been eavesdropping on without so much as a knock.

Jaune didn't even bother trying to eavesdrop once more, now that his presence was most likely known to all parties inside the room. And he didn't exactly want to end up dead before he could try and cure Ruby of her newfound lycanthropy. So he simply waited for the strange multi-colored girl to reemerge from the room once again.

And reemerge she did, only instead of opening the door she seemingly shimmered into existence in front of him. The action nearly gave him a heart attack as he pinned himself to the wall once more, earning a smug smile from his "dealer."

And with one quick toss, Jaune found himself catching a vial of powder. He glanced at it curiously before opening the vial up. With one quick whiff, the pungent odor that assaulted his nostrils confirmed that he had been given powdered Wolfbane. He wasn't even going to question why it was given to him powdered, it saved him the trouble of having to do that himself.

"Uh... thanks?"

The terrifying girl gave him another smug smile before she vanished into nothing once again, something that scared him even more.

And although Jaune tried to keep his cool as he quickly walked out of the building, he knew for a fact that he was probably shaking all the way.

But at least he had the hardest part done. The rest would surely be smooth sailing.

Jaune sighed as he glanced down at the blue shopping bag he had been carrying. He had successfully gathered everything that he had needed to forge a potential cure, minus the ingredients he would need from himself. And now, he found himself at the shipyard that was in ruins two weeks ago.

This was his final stop, and with no injuries from his prior ones, Jaune was feeling unusually confident in himself. At least, as confident as he could feel given the fact that he was finally realizing how right his father had been. If he had never left Mistral, none of this would have happened. And while that meant he would have given up on his dream, and never met his friends, at least they would have been safe.

And he had absolutely no idea what he was going to say to his parents. Especially not his father.

That was something to roll around in his head while he was on his way home, however. And that was exactly why he was at the shipyard now. There were no boats going to Mistral today, but there just so happened to be one heading out early tomorrow morning. That gave him the perfect amount of time to try and cure Ruby, then leave as soon as he had confirmation that she was alright.

Now he needed to only buy his ticket and haul himself back to Beacon, ASAP. And the ticket seller was in a small booth near what he assumed was the ship that would take him back home.

But before he could even walk up to the booth, he felt a hand firmly grapple the hoodie part of his jacket, and with a firm tug he was yanked backwards. Once his reflexes kicked in, he immediately spun around to face his assailant. "Hey, what's the big idea-"

Jaune felt a pang of fear travel up his spine as he was now facing down the receiving end of a particularly nasty glare from Blake Belladonna, his raven-haired teammate looking as if she wanted to kill him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Jaune gulped nervously as he took a step back. "I uh, I was just, y'know, passing by?" The look on Blake's face clearly stated that she did not believe him. But regardless, he still attempted to diffuse the situation. "So uh, what are you doing here?"

"I'm here to find out why you're leaving Vale."

"What?" He was certainly confused. There was no way she would be able to know about his plans. "No I'm not."

"Then explain this note I found!" Blake whipped the piece of paper out and shoved it into his face. "It clearly states that you are leaving and never coming back, and unless I need reading glasses, that name down at the bottom is signed Jaune Arc!"

Jaune stared at the note, his note, in complete confusion. "Wh-where did you even get that?"

"It was sitting on your bed." Blake answered as she crumpled the note up and tossed it into the nearest trash can, earning a protest from Jaune.

"Hey! I spent a long time writing that!" But her answer wasn't one that he could believe. "And there's no way you could have gotten that from my bed, it wasn't even ON my bed!"

Blake's eyebrow raised as her head tilted to the side slightly. "Then explain why it was sitting on your pillow?"

Jaune gulped as he experienced a flashback of sorts. He had been in such a rush that he had actually forgotten to hide his note inside of his drawer. "You... you weren't supposed to see that until-"

"After you were gone, I know." Blake interrupted as she placed a hand on her forehead and rubbed it. "So let's cut to the chase. Why are you leaving?"

Jaune bit his lower lip and turned his face away from hers. "Why do you even care?"

"I care because I'm your tea-" She caught herself mid sentence. "Friend. Because I'm your friend, Jaune, and I care about you."

"You didn't care about me or anyone else at first."

"That's..." She couldn't really lie to him about something like this. She had already admitted it to herself that she had only come to Beacon to learn, not to make friends. "That's true. I didn't. But now I do. So tell me."

"I can't tell you." Jaune sighed, searching for a way to get her to accept that he was leaving. "You wouldn't understand. It's... a... a Faunus thing."

"A Faunus thing?" Blake repeated back to him. "Really? Is that your shoddy excuse?"

Jaune's face snapped back to hers in shock before his nostrils flared a bit. "Shoddy excuse? You don't know anything about me, Blake! Maybe to you it's a shoddy excuse but Faunus-"

Before he could finish his sentence, Blake's arm shot out and grappled his. With great strength that he didn't expect her to have, she began dragging him towards a particularly seedy looking alley. And despite his protests and struggles, he found it much more difficult to break out of her grip then he would have expected. In the back of his head, he figured he must look completely pathetic right now.

"It IS a shoddy excuse, Jaune. Because I know you're lying to me." Blake shoved him up against the brick wall rather forcefully before taking a step back. "This has nothing to do with being a Faunus! You've never made a big deal about being a Faunus!"

"I'm making a big deal about it now because... because..." He found himself scrambling around his brain for a reason as to why it was a sudden problem, but he couldn't. "Because I'm all alone, Blake." He sighed. "There's nobody on that campus who can ever hope to relate to my problems. Because..."

The sharp glare that he was getting from her informed him that it would be best to tell the truth.

"Alright fine... the truth." He had to tell it in a way that wouldn't expose him for what he was, though. "I've done horrible things, Blake. Things that I can't just fix."

"You're wrong."

Jaune glanced up at Blake, her adamance on the issue being strange. "How would you know? You've never done anything bad to anyone. You've never hurt people on accident, thinking that you've had everything under control. You don't know ANYTHING about what that's like, Blake."

Blake's cheeks seemed to heat up as her face scrunched in annoyance. "I know more than you think I do, Jaune." Her hand slowly began to reach up towards her head. "Do you remember last night? When I confronted you in the hall?"

Jaune nodded, despite the night being mostly blurry. The only details he could vividly remember now were the unspeakable acts of violence he had committed in his monstrous lycan form. But he did remember Blake pulling him aside, then chasing after him as he sprinted out into the forest.

Blake paused as her hand gripped her bow, her face becoming more volatile as she shut her eyes. "This is what I was trying to show you." And with one single, hard yank, her ribbon was torn from her head. For a moment, her ears were tangled and pulled by the fabric, but the pain soon subsided as they were freed from the wrappings for the world to see.

Jaune found himself at a loss for words as he stared up at his friends head. Black cat ears wiggled in the air as their owner fidgeted under his gaze. Blake had been a Faunus the entire time, and he hadn't known about it. "Blake... I... didn't know..."

"I know you didn't. Nobody did." She sighed. "And nobody was supposed to know, either."

"But... Why?"

"I have my reasons." She began to idly rub at her arm. "You should know by now that Faunus aren't treated as equals."

"...Well, yeah... But hiding a piece of who you are? Blake, you shouldn't go to such extremes." Jaune briefly pondered if he was being a hypocrite, but that was interrupted by an even angrier Blake.

"How can you say that when you were the victim of prejudice? Do you think Cardin called you a 'mutt' and a 'animal' because they were random nicknames?"

"That was CARDIN though, he's a jerk to everyone. Even other humans."

Blake folded her arms and turned her head away. "Even still, I have more important reasons to hide my identity."

Normally, Jaune would need to poke and prod in order to get a clear answer from Blake. But for once, his brain had a moment of clarity as his mind traveled back to the night at the docks. It had been nearly three weeks since then, but there was one key event that stood out. When the White Fang Lieutenant appeared, he spoke to Blake as if he had known her. And he said something about reuniting her with someone she had known.

"...Does it have something to do with the White Fang?"

The expression of shock on Blake's face seemed to confirm that his statement had hit home. "I'm... honestly shocked that it took you this long to ask that question." She brushed a bit of hair away from her face. "After all, you were there when the Lieutenant spoke. And you didn't even question anything he said... or the fact that I knew his code-name."

Jaune coughed into his hand. "So does that mean it does have to do with them?"

Blake sighed, folding her arms across her chest as she stared at the ground. "I don't really want to say."

"That's fine. We all have our-" Jaune found himself interrupted when Blake suddenly closed the distance between the two of them, pressing him up against the wall further. It was certainly something that he hadn't expected, and it made the blood rush to his face.

"I don't want to say it, but I feel as if I have to. It's the only way you'll understand."

Jaune blinked a few times. "I'm not following you."

"You said that I know nothing about hurting people, or about making mistakes that you can't just fix." Blake took another deep breath. "I know everything about that, Jaune."

"I was in the White Fang."

"...You were... in the White Fang?"

"Yes." Blake finally backed away from him a little, giving them both some breathing room. "I was practically born into the White Fang. And I was one of the many Faunus who took action. I was at every protest and every rally. I never resorted to violence, because I always thought that violence wasn't the answer." She sighed. "Unfortunately, the humans didn't see things the same way."

Jaune felt his hand going up to his mouth. "You weren't... hurt, were you?"

"Do you really think the law enforcement cared about age, Jaune?"

He winced a little at the bite in her comment. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. As the humans responded to our protests with more and more violence, we began to fight back in spades. And eventually, it got to the point where I was... very good at my job." Blake grit her teeth as she stared back towards the ground, her head hanging low. "For once in my life, despite the fact that I had to resort to violence, I felt like we were doing something. That we were making an actual impact. And for awhile, it worked. We got the respect we finally deserved."

"For awhile? Does that mean the humans went back to retaliating?"

"In a way, yes. The respect we earned wasn't as legitimate as most would believe. It wasn't garnered from understanding or wanting to be equal, it was garnered by fear. Fear that we would wage war." Blake glanced back up at him, emotions swirling in her eyes. But the one that he could pick out in particular was one that he knew all too well, regret.

"I was also referring to myself when I said that it worked for awhile." Blake began to slowly pace back in forth in front of him as she spoke, "I began to realize that the White Fang was changing. They were becoming more violent, and they were more eager to take lives whenever possible. They had become bloodthirsty, and I wasn't going to stay and risk turning into something like that. So I left, and came to Beacon."

There was a moment of silence that allowed Jaune to absorb all the information that he had heard. Though, he was almost certain that he had gotten an abridged version of the story. "Well, Blake... I'm sorry for what you had to go through."

"Don't be. The only thing that matters now is that you're not alone like you think you are."

Jaune smiled, but it was an empty smile, devoid of real emotion. "I'm sorry, Blake. But you just wouldn't understand."

Blake almost immediately threw her arms to her sides. "Are you kidding me, Jaune?!" She couldn't believe this! Even after everything she had told him, he still wouldn't trust her! "You can't say things like that if you aren't going to explain yourself! I want to help you, like you helped me!"

Jaune shifted nervously, rubbing the back of his neck as he did so. "Blake, you can't help me. And I can't tell you anything, either. First, you probably wouldn't even believe me, and second... I'm... well, I'm a-"

"Hostile lifeform that must be eliminated!"

Both Jaune and Blake turned towards the alley's entrance only to find a girl swiftly walking towards them. Jaune almost immediately recognized her as the ginger from hours earlier, the one who had crushed his hand and became skittish afterwards.

"It's you!" Jaune exclaimed as he pointed at her. "...Have you been following me?"

Blake turned to him, her eyes widening. "You know this girl?"

"Not really, I bumped into her earlier today and she was acting really skittish before she ran off."

Blake turned back towards the girl who was now glaring daggers at Jaune. Or at least, that's what she was trying to do. She certainly seemed to be having trouble making up her mind on whether or not she was trying to look intimidating or scared.

"What do you mean when you say that my friend is a 'hostile lifeform' that needs to be eliminated?"

The ginger waved an arm at Blake, almost in a dismissive manner. "Miss, I advise that you clear this area as soon as possible. This man has a deadly and very contagious disease!"

Blake's eyebrow raised a little as she gave the ginger a deadpan look of disbelief. "...What?"

"No!" Jaune instinctively took a few steps back. "No I don't have a disease! I'm just some Faunus who's trying to be a Huntsman!"

"You are a liar! You are neither Faunus nor Human!" The ginger girl pointed defiantly at him as she spoke. "I took a sample of your blood earlier today, fearing that you may be a poor soul addicted to illegal substances, but the tests I put your blood through show that you are far more dangerous then I originally thought!"

"I... I'm not, I'm..."

Blake stepped forward, glancing between the two of them. She had absolutely no idea what was going on, but if he wouldn't give her answers, perhaps this new girl would "What exactly IS he, then?"

"This man is infected with 'Lykanthropiosus,' otherwise known as Lycanthropy!" As the ginger gave her explanation, the sound of a hatch opening rang out in the alley, along with the sounds of metal slicing against metal.

"Lycanthropy...?" Blake's jaw fell open as she turned to Jaune, who was continuing to back way while shivering. The same pale look that she had seen earlier that day in the medical wing was firmly plastered on his face.

She had read about Lycanthropy in story books, but now she was suddenly being told that it was real? "So you're saying that Jaune is..."

"That is correct!" The ginger finished Blake's sentence as an array of deadly looking swords burst forth from her back before they began to hang in the air around her. "This man is a Lycanthrope disguised as a human!"

"And for the safety of Vale, he MUST be eliminated!"

Author's Notes

I'd like to apologize for this chapter being two days late. Not only was I sick, but I also went to see Logan on the day that the chapter was supposed to be released (Great movie by the way.) and I had completely forgotten about it.

To make up for it, this chapter is a little longer then most, and as you can see there is a lot going on.
You can also probably see that I suck at making up fake disease names, but this is the only time you're going to hear it called that so I'm sure you'll all survive.

Again, I apologize and hope that you will all enjoy this chapter, I've really been looking at this fic in depth lately and I have been questioning myself on where it's going on how I plan on getting it there, and while I have a much clearer answer before, I am still rather unsure of this fic in general.

That doesn't mean I'm going to just drop it, but I may take a break from it and work on another one of my fics that has been on hiatus for quite some time. If this does happen, then you will most certainly be informed of this within the next few chapters.

Bad news aside, I hope that you all enjoy this chapter, and I thank you for continuing to read my work and enjoy it.