Chapter 8 - Friends are Great But Enemies are Better

"You're blocking too soon, kid." Mister Rouge stated as his wooden sword snuck past my stalwart guard and smacked painfully into my side.

I wheezed as air was forced from my lungs. The powerful blow made me stagger backwards on the sweat-ridden mats below, feet stammering in hopes to stop me before I fell down. One of my hands came up to my left side, and prodded the area where the weapon struck me before I hissed as a sharp pain sparked in my ribs. That was definitely leaving a nasty bruise.

"Hey, hey, no losing focus either!" My opponent warned, and it was only the sound of something whistling through the air that allowed me to dodge the blow. A sound that I was getting better and better at watching out for.

My body curled into a roll, not even needing to see the attack, as I hit the mat with an audible thud before diving out of the way of the overhead attack. The wooden weapon hit the mat the next second, proving that my instincts were correct.

Heart beating through my chest, I spun as I stood. My face whirled to find Mister Rouge staring down at me with his dark, brown eyes, and smiled widely before his sword smacked into the same spot as before.

I growled between the pain, trapping his weapon on my side before swinging at him with my other arm. In the decisive moment, he let go of his weapon, ducked under my own swing, his hairs barely scraping against the hard wood of my sword. As he ducked, he swiftly flipped his hips as he tightened his opposite hand on his practice sword before pushing it deeper into my side in the same movement.

Pain throbbed through the growing bruise, and my vision swam a little as my nerves screamed in protest. Harsh breaths passed through my lungs as all my muscles tensed, stopping myself from being thrown to the floor from the blunted sword grinding further into my side.

Idly, I saw Mister Rouge's eyes widen as his attack was stopped again, and could barely raise a free arm to block my wooden training weapon from smashing his head in. A meaty smack cracked on his forearm as the fake sword collided with his unprotected arm.

However, should there have been any pain in the action, he never showed any reaction before his arm twisted around the weapon, trapping it in his armpit in a familiar maneuver. However, the similarities ended as his muscles tensed all in the effort to forcibly drag me off the ground.

I was weightless for a second, feeling light as a feather. Then wind rushed past my ears as my opponent slammed me into the mats with enough force to break something. If it wasn't for the softer cushions on the floor, then I would be rolling around on the floor with broken rib.

Still, the force of the blow was hard enough as air rushed out of my lungs in a fit of violent coughs as I rolled out of the way of a follow up attack while I was on the ground. I knew he always sent one of those whenever I wasn't in the best conditions, and the hard thump that echoed next to me proved my assumptions correct.

Jumping to my feet, I tried to control my heavy breathing as well as wipe the sweat sticking to my brow. My opponent grinned as our weapons clashed in dull cracks that threatened to break our wooden constructs. Splinters showered out from each collision.

I was half tempted to link to what I now knew was Aura that was radiating off of Mister Rouge. However, gaining the ability to see into the future would defeat the purpose of this training exercise when I didn't have that obvious cheat power.

As such, every agonizing twist, parry, block and attack that I received, gave and stopped was all part of the process. Our weapons would lock for an instant before he would push off and slam the sword into one of the openings that I had, and then I would retaliate.

My teeth gnashed inside my mouth as my eyes narrowed into near slits. Muscles tensed with the sole purpose of burying my sword into him, and I felt some cold fury settle into my stomach as the bruises all over my form throbbed. In my head, I was now truly trying to hit my teacher without caring for any consequence.

Emphasis on try, though. My trainer was something akin to a master in the ways of every single weapon that he laid his hands on, and, while I liked to think it was due to his power helping, I had experienced just how his power worked. And because of that I knew first hand that his abilities were all pure skill.

A skill that I was slowly but surely climbing up to. Well, I was trying at least until he suddenly sped up. He seemed to blur for a second as I lost all track that I had of him, and my trained vision could only catch his shadow before the impact crashed into my stomach. The tip of his sword forced all the air from my lungs as if a steel pole had just been jammed into my diaphragm. I felt tears settle into my eyes while trying to make sense of that just happened.

Whether it was by sheer reflex of the man or some sadistic pleasure he had for letting me know that taking a moment to rest was not welcomed in our fight, I never saw the finishing blow. I was trying once again to get my coughs under order when he smashed an elbow into my chin and backhanded me across the face in what was a mind-splitting smack.

Stars gathered in my eyes as darkness began to creep around the corners of my vision. Everything was swimming in slow motion for a second as I felt so very light on my feet.

"Whoops, sorry about that, kid." The blurry approximation of what looked to be a humanoid fish said. Huh, when did mister Rouge turn into a fish? "I think I put too much strength into that last attack. Let's uh, call it a day alright?"

"Righty-oh!" I saluted as the fish disappeared into a herd of butterflies. They butterflies wrapped a strong hand around my wrist and sat me down.

"Yep, that's definitely not going to be good…" The butterflies vibrated in annoyance, and I wanted to tell them that they are okay. However, my tongue felt like a solid brick in my mouth, so all I could do was burble in what I hoped sounded like pleasantries.

"Right… stop talking, kid." I reached for the butterflies that came together into a person, and slowly I felt something click behind the haze that my mind had settled into.

"Wha…" I slurred, finally feeling something of clarity come over me. "What happened?"

"Yeah, that's my bad, kid." I focused on mister Rouge whose body was still a tad blurry. I had to squint my eyes hard to even pick out certain details of the man. "I keep forgetting that we're not fighting with Aura. By the way, you should get to using that; you might have a concussion."

"Of course," My head thumped painfully behind my eyes. Things were coming in and out of focus faster and faster. "I'll get right on it when I get home."

"Right… say, kid, you still haven't told me why you suddenly wanted to train."

I frowned, tracing the scar on my face as pain, fire and noise blasted in my head. The feeling of being outclassed in almost every way was demoralizing on all accounts. "How much for today?"

"Ah, maybe ten Lien today… I did knock you senseless for a bit until you started to get desperate." He rubbed his chin, angling his eyes at me like I was some kind of animal. He always seemed to do that when I was looking -like he wanted to see how I react to it, and with his power, I felt like he could. "You know, you fight much better when you try not to stick to any kind of… well, when you stop caring for your opponent."

I blinked, confused. "Uh, I'm sorry?"

"No, that's good!" The weapon master laughed. "It means that you're not all that worthless with fighting! I was a little worried when we started when you didn't seem to be taking any of my lessons to heart. You don't want to know how annoyed I was when you didn't really know how to properly block!"

"Thanks?" I asked, moving to my stuff in the corner of the square training room and taking the required Lien out.

"And you're welcome, kid!" He exclaimed, taking the Lien I handed.

Seeing that he wasn't really making an effort to help me out, I took that as my silent cue to leave. Having already gone through several different training sessions with the man I knew that he didn't really have anything to say after we were done, and that he always made sure to give me bruises that I would feel as I walked home. He also never asked for anything more than ten Lien.

Wincing as a particularly painful part of my skin tingled with pins and needles, I turned back to my tentative trainer. "Hey, uh, you know, I can pay more if you want. I mean, do you even have any other students besides me?"

"Don't worry, kid." He smiled, some joke passing through him as he laughed. "I still have my job that gets me enough Lien to pass the time. Honestly, the only reason I offered to train you was because I thought you'd be helpless without me."

I stared at him, giving the best impression of annoyance with how tired I was. "Gee, thanks."

"Yeah, yeah, now get outta here, kid. I got a business to run."

Leaving as he shooed me away with his hand, I shambled my way back home. Luckily, the entire trip only took about a couple minutes before I nearly broke open my door to charge into my bathroom.

Whatever magic Roman had done to fix everything naturally included upgrading my bathroom for some reason. However, I wasn't complaining as the place was the only room I was spending more than a couple hours in nowadays. With getting up early for work, going to get beat up in the name of training in the afternoon and recently gathering information in the dead of night, I was finding myself in the room more often than my bed.

[Liquid contact based accelerated healing. Minor micro-hydrokinesis.]

I felt the link settle over me and the information wash over me like the water that flowed over my body. The various injuries that I had been accumulating were all itching slightly, and my groaning ribs had stopped making creaking sounds after the first week of this treatment. My aching body slowly knitted back together as my pilfered power got to work with helping me.

'One day I need to send a gift basket to whoever it is with this power.' I thought to myself as I used the power which I always took joy in using.

Sighing as I leaned back and relaxed for once in my crazy schedule, I smiled.

I was meeting some friends today.

-x-

The landing zones for the Bullheads to and from Beacon's academy grounds was as grand as Vale could make it. Welcoming vistas and stores bordered the areas around it, and the area where Bullheads roared down from the sky on their massive Dust-combustion engines was made such that everyone would be able to glance at the heroes coming down from the clouds.

However, I was now starting to feel that there was too much money dedicated to saying that Huntsmen and women were the heroes. Though, that mainly has to do with the fact that I was now seeing the darker parts of Vale, and was becoming a tad too pessimistic.

Still, that didn't mean I didn't appreciate the beauty of some of their additions. Where in the afternoon, the place was alight with bulbs of various colors that danced hypnotically in the shade of evening. It was a sort of beauty that cheered me past the previous beating of earlier today as most of the students of Beacon were either coming out to join the nightlife of Vale or heading back for the day.

Sitting on a nearby bench near one of the multitude of exits of the landing area, I tapped on my Scroll as I waited for people who I wanted to be friends with. My legs jittered uncontrollably as I felt some unknown soreness well up from them.

'Why are you like this, Jaune?' I thought to myself, bringing my sweat palms to the sides of my jeans to dry them. 'They're just normal people… Yeah, normal in every way that includes fighting masses of malevolent monsters is a daily thing!'

While trying to distract myself from the growing social anxiety, I began to search up things related to Rouge's Weapons. I respected the man a great deal for training me, but that didn't change the small things that I noticed about him. From having seemingly no business at certain times of day to suddenly becoming missing in the middle of the night when I knew he had a lived-in loft up above his shop.

Of course, I wasn't trying to dig up any dark secrets of the kind man. If anything I was just searching up why someone with such a powerful ability was still unknown. And maybe that fact that I was worried his business might go under with all his questionable sales.

I mean, he sold me Vengeance for such a low price and is even training me for almost a tenth of what some Huntsman-in-Training courses offer at their lowest. He was too kind of a man, I'm sure.

"Jaune!" My eyes traced up to the large man-looking teenager plodding towards me, forgetting about my worries for the older man as new ones filtered through my head. Instantly, noticed the Auras that settled in an even pace around him. One of them I knew very intimately, and the other was just a passing resemblance that I glossed over once before.

I saw the brown-haired Faunus first, bunny ears flopping in some unknown wind. She was wearing some kind of sundress that matched well with the warmer weather of the year. However, my eyes landed on someone who I hadn't expected to see again. A girl in a pair of skintight jeans that matched perfectly with her top and jacket. I knew for a fact that only an increased cosmetic affinity would be able to put those together. All I remembered from that interaction was big guns and trying not to bleed out.

"Hey, Yatsuhashi!" I waved, trying to force a smile as the Faunus, Velvet smiled at me and waved, too.

Clacking of heels on paved road and a disapproving glare was all I received from the girl with a orange highlight. She wasn't carrying her huge pistol anymore, but with her power I wasn't too sure she wasn't hiding something somewhere.

Out of habit I linked to her Aura just in case.

[Variable distraction based focal points. Increased cosmetic affinity.]

'Oh good.' I breathed in relief as I only felt her power warding my eyes off her handbag. 'It's just a purse… wait.'

Narrowing my eyes in suspicion, I tried to find some inconsistency or noticeable bulge that signified a weapon. It was only with the literal days of tailing many persons of interest that I discovered that there were some inconsistent seams along her bag's edges. Something was wrong with it, and my instincts were screaming at me to not try and find out.

"Hey… Jaune." Velvet stammered with her introduction, curling a bit on herself as the rude girl stood a little closer to the Faunus. Her eyes were now boring into me as if daring me to insult the brown-haired bundle of nerves.

As such, I put on the best of my smiles and nodded to the shy Faunus. I liked to think it wasn't the aggression being directed at me, but I was much more comfortable than before. "It's nice to see you again Velvet. I honestly didn't expect to see you again so soon."

While introducing myself I decided to check out the powers of Yatsuhashi's teammates with a little bit of curiosity. I hadn't linked up with Velvet's when I had first seen her due to the odd situation that we met, but now I was very intrigued what sort of power she was packing to get into Beacon. Sure, skill and Aura probably did quite a bit of the work. However, powers brought so many things to a fight.

[Still image combat mimicry. Partial photographic memory.]

[Static range ultrasonic echolocation. Minor sound manipulation.]

Holding in the need to gape at the absurd power of Velvet, and all the information that it was feeding me, I focused instead on the dark skinned teen with rustic hair who walked in Yatsuhashi's shadow. I hadn't even noticed him despite the teen's bigger figure, and had more distinctive scars than some of the gangsters that I tailed at night. He seemed to be very open to his scars since his orange jacket did little to cover his arms. The dark pants were a nice touch, too.

"Hello, name's Fox. Yatsuhashi said you're very dependable." Fox held out his hand, and I could see into the pure white eyes. It was like he didn't have anything but sclera. The small scar on his lip curled with his smile. "I'm not blind, by the way."

"Oh, I knew that!" I took his hand, feeling the heavy calluses that were prevalent on his hands. Hell, they felt like rocks! "I mean, I didn't think you were blind. You look so, uh… observant?"

'And it's not because of your power that I now know all about.' I said in my head, trying not to pay attention to the fact that everyone in a small radius around me was now highlighted in ultrasonic waves. Everyone walking around disturbed quite a bit of the odd bluish black vision that seemed to overlap with my own, and I had to release the link before I gained a raging headache.

"Yeah… what did you say your name was again?" The rude girl finally asked, her eyes narrowing over her sunglasses.

"Ah, Jaune," I answered happily drinking in her dislike of me. There was a thing to be said about feeling comfortable so long as someone is antagonistic towards you. "That's my name, I mean. We met before, you know."

"You did?" Yatsuhashi asked. I almost forgot about him as he became silent as soon as everyone else was talking. He turned to his teammate. "You never mentioned meeting him, Coco." The large teen was frowning now. "Did something happen between you two?"

Coco was good at hiding the grimace that came over her face as she remembered our interaction. Specifically the parts where she was assuming that I was with my significant other causing a rather loud… ruckus…

"No, it was such a short meeting I barely remember it." Coco said, putting a sugary smile on her face. Her power was drawing eyes away from the twitching corners of it making it seem like her lips were perfectly stable and calm. "It's nice to finally meet you Jaune. Velvet has talked about someone who helped her out; someone who didn't seem to care that she was a Faunus, and was capable of sweeping her-"

Velvet slapped her hands over Coco's mouth, a blush spreading through her face. I could practically feel the warmth radiating off her red cheeks. "Coco!" Velvel accused as her features returned to their natural colors.

"Um…" My mind was trying to understand what was going on, and instead, I turned to the other two who had been silent watching. Fox was grinning while Yatsuhashi's face was a mix of worry and amusement. "What's going on?"

"Probably nothing we need to worry about." Yatsuhashi supplied, sparking a small laugh from Fox.

I stared at the white-eyed teen, and he waved me off. "An inside joke, man; you don't need to worry about it. Though, I might tell you later."

"Right… Um, so a whetstone, right Yatsuhashi?" I asked, tearing my eyes off of the fact that Velvet and Coco were now having a conversation with their eyes. They must've been pretty close for that to work since it took me a couple years of knowing my sisters before that even happened.

"Indeed, thank you for offering to help me find one, too. Do you know where one is at?"

A light bulb lit up in my head as I thought of a great idea to fix many problems at once. "Yeah, I know a place; I go there pretty often."

"Do they have something for larger swords?" Yatsuhashi asked, as they followed me through the streets. Fox was falling next to Yatsuhashi, but was also talking to Coco and Velvet about something.

"I think they do," I frowned remembering all the times I had been in there. Vengeance hadn't needed sharpening yet, but that didn't mean that I forgot to buy the tools to take care of it. "I mean, my own sword is rather large, too, but how big is yours?"

"I would say it's pretty large. I don't think that I have seen any one larger than mine since I arrived in Vale."

Behind us, Coco snickered and Fox gave a sort of staggered cough. Velvet continued to heat up and grow a rather interesting shade of red. I was too busy imagining how large of a sword Yatsuhashi had to even understand what they were thinking of, and, with the applications of his tactile gravitational manipulation, I imagined something that was at least a couple times my own sword's weight.

Luckily, I didn't have to think too hard over the fact that I couldn't quite picture how large of a weapon we were talking about as we had reached Rouge's Weapons a little while after we started our trek. It was situated in a rather backwards alleyway now that I had a good look at it, but it was surprisingly close to a great many places. Mister Rouge must have gotten it for a steal due to the awkward area that it was placed in.

"Here we are." I announced, marching down the alley and pulled open the door for everyone.

"This place is… interesting, I guess." Coco warily looked around the alleyway that led up to the store. She gazed at the odd decorations that covered the tinted windows, and frowned a little after judging some of them. "Are you sure they even sell weapons?"

"Of course, I bought my sword here."

"Come on, Coco. Jaune's taking the time out of his day to help Yatsuhashi; you don't need to try and find any fault with him for everything." Fox said, nodding as he stepped into the store.

"Ah, thank you…" Velvet whispered as she walked through the door, but paused as she looked up at my face for a second longer than when we had met up. I knew her brown eyes had found the scar on my face, and I smiled while turning my head so that the line was hidden from her view. The Faunus silently clicked her teeth together as she read the mood.

Yatsuhashi didn't say anything as he nodded in silent thanks while dipping his head to make it through the doorway without bashing it on the frame. I happily followed him through, and immediately halted all thoughts as I found someone at the counter that was most certainly not Will Rouge.

No one seemed to care, though. As, unlike me, they hadn't spent many hours just coming and going from his store without seeing this character. And I was particularly not inclined to believe that this guy had anything to do with the unassuming mister Rouge.

A fringe of longer, dark green hair was shaved down to the scalp on one side and let fall all the way to his shoulder on the other. Piercings littered the man's face with most of them taking up his eyebrows and lips. A pair of acidic green eyes burned over the pieces of hair that settled over his vision.

He didn't look too big, so I knew he couldn't have overpowered mister Rouge and stolen his store. However, from the amount of leather and heavy chains he wore on his outfit, I would be pressed to think he fit in anywhere where there wasn't a large amount of rock music. A file grinded back and forth against his sharpened fingernails that I was sure were not because of any Faunus heritage.

And his burning gaze found me staring at him. "What the hell're you lookin' at?" The man spat.

"Nothing, um…" I paused remembering to scan for Aura, and easily found his instead of mister Rouge's as being the only other Aura user inside besides us. Without a second thought, I immediately pulled on his power as I felt my worries for my trainer settle in the back of my head.

[Aura to acidic liquid conversion. Contact-induced liquid-based forced neutrality conversion.]

"If you got somethin' to say, say it." The acid converter sneered caustically. His face was twisting through a series of emotions that I couldn't quite describe, but one of them was definitely annoyance.

"No, um…" I was sputtering now. This guy was dangerous, and his power was nothing short of deadly, and luckily his little acid conversion was limited to his own Aura or else I would definitely suspect him of murder. I still am, however, I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt at this point. "Where's mister Rouge?"

If anything, me mentioning the actual owner seemed to set something off in the man as he sat up straighter, and eyes me with something along the lines of angry calculation. "Why the hell're you lookin' for Will?"

"I mean, I do train with him…" I answered a little unsure now. This guy referred to mister Rouge by his first name, so that had to mean something.

"You've got to be shittin' me…" The man cursed, pulling out his Scroll before turning to us with a frown. I could tell he was now looking at me with something besides rage and annoyance now, but I didn't really feel like begrudging acceptance fit in the man's image. "Take whatever the hell you want."

Then he stormed into the back of the store throwing up a bunch of curses at someone named Melody. I kind of shared a startled silence with the others who had followed me. We felt like this was all some sort of joke, and kind of just waited for something to happen.

"I think…" Coco decided to break the quiet. "Uh, I know a place that's pretty close to here."

No one rejected her idea of getting out of there.

-x-

There were certain things in life that came naturally to people. Mine was apparently finding myself in rather uncomfortable places and seeing how far I could dig till it became something else.

What I was trying to understand was why things just kind of happened around me. Like how mister Rouge was apparently not in his own place of work, and decided that giving the keys to some guy that he probably picked off the streets was the best idea. Or how the excursion to get a whetstone ended up with all of us spending the night back at my place.

By the time we had found the place Coco had suggested, Yatsuhashi had suggested we find somewhere to eat, but that seemingly innocuous choice of words set off the flood gates that were arguments. Something that we all found was Coco's strong suit as she proceeded to tear into everyone but Velvet till we all wanted pasta.

Another thing we all learned with deadly prejudice was that Coco was only having the pasta that was on the other side of Vale. She forced us into the monorail, and we were then taken to one of the best pasta places that I hadn't even heard of where we all spent the afternoon talking the day away. I finally learned a little bit about how boring Beacon was besides the initiation they all went through, but for some reason, they were all much more tight lipped about that than I thought.

Of course, now that everyone was full and sated, the time where Bullheads flew back to Beacon's campus was long gone. As such, we all waddled into my apartment that now felt much smaller than usual with the addition of four new residents.

"Sorry, about this, Jaune. We could still buy a room in a hotel if you don't want to house us?" Yatsuhashi said.

"No, no, it's fine!" I waved my hands back and forth. "There's no problem with you guys stay here unless you all don't really like the cramped space."

"Well, it's more spacious than our dorm room. Ahh, I miss the space my own apartment had..." Coco commented from the kitchen, peering through the fridge with an interest that didn't seem plausible after all the food we had just eaten.

"Um, Coco… I don't think you should be looking through there…" Velvet murmured beside her friend.

"Nonsense! Jaune doesn't mind, right Jaune?!" Coco smiled happily at me, and I could only meekly nod. I think we were all regretting the fact that wine was provided free to any Huntswoman or Huntsman to be. Sure, the restaurant followed Mistral's age limit for alcohol, but that didn't mean it was okay to get drunk.

Fox placed a hand on my shoulder. "Sorry about her, man. I honestly didn't know she had such a weakness to alcohol."

We both watched as Coco pulled the resisting Faunus to get a better look at my apartment, and I was flinching as how the Faunus was being literally carried by her partner. Fox and I shared a laugh at how Velvet yelped after realizing that her feet no longer touched the floor.

"I don't think that's a weakness." I added, earning another laugh from the teen before a knock on my door startled us.

Looking back and forth between the door and my guests, I smiled awkwardly. I raised a hand and pointed to my newly rebuilt closet. "There are blankets and extra pillows in there, so you can all pick a place on the couch or take the bed for whatever. I'll get the door."

"Thank you again, Jaune." Yatsuhashi gave a small bow.

"No problem."

Making my way towards the door, I instantly felt the familiar warmth of Aura after a small check of paranoia, and I immediately pulled on the strongest powers near me.

[Tactile gravitational manipulation. Biologically augmented internal gravity.]

[Single-target parasitic Aura theft. Activatable shared Aura.]

Information filtered through my head as I connected to the Aura that was outside my door, and felt an unnatural strength suffuse through my body. I felt as light as a feather as I carefully pulled open my door to be greeted with long black hair and a face a smooth a white porcelain that matched with the white nightgown. Bright green eyes flinched as they came in contact with wine, and I barely had time to notice that they no longer were wearing a thick coat of makeup before my hand snapped up to their mouth.

Their initial response to my action was to thrash, but with my tactile gravitational manipulation, I pushed all their actions down into the ground. The criminal crumpled to the floor as they realized that their could barely move with the sheer force that was bearing down on them.

I knew I was straining Yatsuhashi's power to the limit as it wasn't supposed to be used for this sheer constant weight, and I was beginning to feel a sort of exhaustion that was slowly creeping through the link. A sort of realization hit me as I realized that somehow using the Aura of those I linked with. However, I had little time to test why it wasn't until I tried something that a power struggled immensely with to even begin to feel any strain with it.

"Why are you here?" I whispered, sporting a glance over my shoulder just in case my new friends were watching. They were too busy watching Coco be drunk to really pay me any attention, so I careful shut the door before they noticed something.

The black haired girl's eyes narrowed at me as I pressed a hand on her shoulder and removed the one on her mouth. She tried to speak, but the weight pressing down on her was slowly making it harder for her to even breathe.

With a small bit of apprehension, I eased up on the force that I was holding over her, but continued to keep a hand on her shoulder.

"The hell, asshole?" She growled, coughing halfway between grateful gasps. I eyed her hard and tried not to feel bad when she visibly winced at my gaze. One of her hands came up to her stomach as I saw shivers begin to come over her. "What the hell do you want?"

I shook the guilt I was feeling as I told myself that this was the girl who almost took out my eye, and I breathed out once to calm my nerves. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to tell you to quiet the fu-"

"Mel, do you need help?" The girl's twin poked her head out of the door right next door with a fitting red nightgown, and her green eyes trembled as they found mine. Her hands began to shake as she clenched the door with white knuckles. "I… I, please let my sister go…" She whispered, fragile.

I felt something inside me shake from the sheer fear that radiated off of her. Whether it was out of pity or guilt, I released my hand from the girl's sister. There was a tense silence that settled in the wake of my actions, and I don't think anybody knew where to go from there as no one moved a muscle.

"Sorry," I tried.

"Whatever," The girl in white said, moving with a slight limp to their door. "Just keep it down."

"...thank you." The girl in red meekly responded as she never looked me in the eye after she saw who I was. They shut their apartment closed with shaky hands, and for some reason I felt sick to my stomach.

I had caused them to be like that.

Entering my own apartment, I was greeted with Yatsuhashi taking up the floor next to my couch while Fox settled into the couch. They waved at me.

"Someone you know?" Yatsuhashi asked.

Meekly I nodded, wondering when and why those two moved in next door. I was certain that they hadn't been there before me blowing up their place. "Yeah, we just… had a bad first impression of each other."

"Then why don't you smooth it over?" Fox grunted into the conversation.

"I mean," I stumbled over my words. "I don't think that would be good…"

"Well, I think you should at least try, Jaune. Whatever the case, it seems to be eating at you." Yatsuhashi reasoned, and I knew what he said was true. Their reactions were something that I never wanted to see even if they were criminals. I wanted to be a hero, and I was willing to inflict terror in my enemies, but they were wounded and traumatized because of me.

"I guess I'll think about it." I allowed before making my way to my room.

"Ah, wait Jaune." Fox stopped me. "Velvet and Coco took your room, so we got you an extra blanket."

"Oh," I blushed, looking at the closed door to my bedroom. "Thanks."

Taking a spot on the floor, I stared at the ceiling long after everyone had gone to sleep and only the soft sounds of breathing or hard snores kept me company. My thoughts centered around the twins next door, and how badly I hurt them both physically and mentally.

I was a hero who beat up criminals, but that didn't mean I couldn't help them when they were at their own low points as well.

I went to sleep, knowing that tomorrow would be complicated.