Yang's fists clenched. "Jaune…" Her voice cracked against her will. "What—what do you mean not anymore?"
Jaune finally turned toward her. His expression didn't break, but his eyes… there was weight in them. A depth she hadn't seen before, like the boy she'd sparred with in training, the one who tried too hard and laughed at dumb jokes, was buried somewhere under a mountain of shadow.
He didn't answer her question. Not directly.
Instead, he dragged a hand through his messy blond hair and exhaled again, a sound heavy enough to make her chest ache just hearing it. "My dad's... fine but he's not going to be here anymore."
Yang's pulse spiked. Her skin prickled in confusion. "O-oh... I don't understand?"
The question was stupid—she already knew.
Jaune's jaw tightened. His voice wasn't steady, but it cut like glass. "My dad... is... well, he left the house to me."
Silence pressed down on the room like a weight.
Qrow muttered something under his breath, too low for Yang to catch. His raven cawed softly, wings ruffling, and his crimson eyes flicked toward the boy again.
Yang, though, couldn't stop staring. Couldn't stop thinking about the way Jaune had said it—flat, final, like there was no room for hope.
She opened her mouth, desperate to say something, anything that might reach him. "Jaune, I—"
But Qrow cut her off with a sharp look, one hand subtly lifting, palm out. It wasn't just a warning. It was a command: not now.
Yang's jaw snapped shut. Her heart pounded with frustration and worry.
Jaune looked between them, then back at the floor. His hands curled briefly into fists before he shoved them into his pockets. "That's it."
Qrow finally spoke again, his voice low, careful. "Kid… this isn't it. I'm going to need details. Every single one. You understand?"
Jaune's lips twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Yeah. I understand."
But the way he said it—the way his voice carried no light, no warmth—made Yang's chest feel colder than the night outside.
Yang's fists clenched at her sides, the tension in the air enough to make her jaw ache. Qrow had been quiet for too long, the raven on his shoulder giving a low, rattling caw as though it was clearing its throat. Finally, he turned, his red eyes settling on her with that strange mix of authority and familial weariness.
"Yang," he said, voice firm. "It's time for you to head home."
She blinked, stunned. "What? No way. You just show up out of the blue and tell me to leave? Forget it. Jaune's not okay. Look at him!" She jabbed a finger toward the blond boy, who hadn't moved much since admitting, in that muted voice, that his family wasn't "here" anymore.
Jaune, for his part, just stood quietly, shoulders slack, expression unreadable. If her instincts hadn't been screaming at her, Yang might've thought he was just… tired. But it was worse than that. She could feel it.
"I'm not asking," Qrow said. His tone didn't rise, didn't get sharper. It stayed calm, even, and it made Yang grit her teeth harder than if he'd yelled. "I'm telling you. Go home."
"Like hell I will!" Yang snapped back. "I don't care if you're some big-shot Rank 2! That's Jaune in there—he's my friend. You expect me to just walk away when he looks like… like that?!"
The raven shifted its talons against Qrow's coat, letting out another croak, this one sharp, like a blade being drawn. Qrow didn't flinch. He just watched Yang, the tiredness in his eyes deepening.
"It's good that you care," he said finally. "But this isn't up for debate. Jaune needs to come with me to see Ozpin. And you—" he pointed at her, hand wrapped in the black leather of his trench coat "—you need to step back and relax."
Yang's breath caught. That tone—low and cutting had no room for negotiation. It reminded her of her dad when she was younger and had gotten into real trouble. She hated it.
She opened her mouth to argue again, but Qrow cut her off with a raised hand. "This isn't family fun time. I wish it was. But it isn't." His gaze flicked briefly toward Jaune, then back. For the first time, she saw a flicker of something apologetic in his expression, though his voice stayed flat. "I'm sorry, kiddo. But I'm not asking. I'm ordering."
The words landed like stones in her gut. Yang's nails bit into her palms. Orders. Right. He wasn't just her uncle. He was Rank 2, which meant he was basically untouchable in terms of authority. Higher-ranked operatives outranked everything below them, no matter the personal connection. And if he worked directly under Ozpin like he'd just implied… then Qrow was more important than she'd ever realized.
Jaune finally moved, breaking the silence. His eyes flicked from Yang to Qrow, then back. "It's fine, Yang," he said quietly, his voice still muted, still carrying that strange hollow tiredness. "I'll go."
The simplicity of his words made Yang's chest tighten. He didn't argue. Didn't ask questions. Just… agreed.
"See?" Qrow said, looking back at her. "He'll be fine. I'll make sure of it."
Yang's lips trembled with unsaid words. She wanted to shout that Jaune wasn't fine, that Qrow's calm reassurance wasn't enough. But when Qrow shifted his weight and glared at her, she knew teh conversation was over.
Grinding her teeth, she stepped back, swallowing the fire that threatened to spill from her chest. "…Fine," she muttered. "But I don't like this."
"Didn't expect you to." Qrow's mouth twitched in something that wasn't quite a smile. He turned to Jaune. "Come on."
The three of them stepped out of the house together. The air outside was cold, the street unusually quiet, almost watchful. Yang's arms wrapped around herself as if she could hold in the frustration building inside.
Then, before she could say anything else, the raven on Qrow's shoulder let out a loud caw and spread its wings. The shadows stretched unnaturally from Qrow's boots, spilling across the ground like ink. Jaune glanced at Yang once, gave a small nod, and then—
They sank.
The shadows swallowed Qrow, Jaune, and the raven in one smooth motion, pulling them into the dark pool that rippled once before fading back into an ordinary shadow. And just like that, they were gone.
Yang froze, staring at the empty spot where they had been. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths.
"Dammit," she hissed. The word came out shaky.
After a long moment, she dragged her phone from her pocket and hit Ruby's number. The line clicked after a few rings.
"Yang? What's up? You sound—"
"Ruby." Yang cut her off, voice tight. "Something happened. With Jaune and his dad. And Uncle Qrow, showed up too."
She explained quickly, pacing the sidewalk, words spilling faster the more she talked. Ruby stayed quiet for most of it, save for a few shocked gasps.
"…He just… disappeared?" Ruby finally exclaimed, anger seeping through her voice.
"Yeah," Yang muttered. "Into a damn shadow puddle. Qrow took him. Said he needed to see Ozpin."
Ruby was quiet again, and Yang could picture her sister chewing on her lip, worried out of her mind.
"I'll let the others know," Ruby said finally.
"Already on it," Yang replied. She hung up and immediately messaged the group chat, firing off a blunt explanation to Nora and Ren about what had happened. Her fingers hovered over the screen longer than she expected before she hit send.
And then… nothing.
The rest of the night passed in a blur, Yang was unable to sit still, her thoughts circling the same questions. What had happened in Jaune's house? Why had Qrow taken him to Ozpin? Why hadn't he even argued?
She didn't see Jaune in the dream that night. The absence gnawed at her. She'd half expected to run into him, maybe even yell at him for scaring her so badly. But he didn't appear. Not Saturday night.
Not Sunday morning.
Not Sunday afternoon.
By the time Sunday night rolled around, Yang's frustration had curdled into unease. She hadn't heard from him once. No reply in the group chat. No answer to her calls. It was like he'd disappeared off the face of the earth.
When she finally entered the Dream base of LUCID, the heavy metal halls, familiar and strange all at once, she spotted Nora and Ren waiting for her. Their expressions told her everything before they even spoke.
Ren gave her a small nod. "Yang," he said, his voice calm but carrying an edge. "Jaune is... ready."
"Ready?" Yang repeated. She looked between them. "Ready for what?"
Nora gave an uncomfortable grin. It didn't reach her eyes. "To Rank up, silly."
Yang froze, her brain stuttering. "Rank up?"
Neither of them blinked.
Yang shook her head, the words slipping out in disbelief. "…What the hell is going on?"
Yang's voice cracked the silence.
"Hold up." She planted her hands on her hips, eyes narrowing between Ren and Nora. "How the hell did Jaune already get enough rune fragments to not just make a skill, but also get his stats high enough to Rank up? That doesn't just… happen out of nowhere."
Her tone was sharp, but the unease thrumming in her chest kept it from being as steady as she wanted.
Nora and Ren exchanged a glance, one of those silent conversations she'd seen them have a thousand times. Normally it was playful or conspiratorial. This time it looked heavier. Nora's grin faltered almost instantly, leaving behind something small and uncertain.
"We… don't know," Ren admitted. His calm voice carried the faintest tremor of tension.
Yang blinked. "Don't know? You're his teammates. You've been watching him fight, right?"
"Yeah, but that's just it." Nora's fingers fiddled at the hem of her jacket. "Like—literally a day ago, Jaune wasn't even at the peak of Rank 0. He was close, sure, but he wasn't there yet. Then suddenly…" she gestured vaguely at the hall they stood in, "boom. Rank-up ready."
Yang's stomach tightened. "That doesn't make sense."
"It doesn't," Ren agreed, his arms folding across his chest. His gaze softened, but his brows were drawn together in a way that betrayed unease. "When he fought the Amalgamation spawns in the waking world, the day before yesterday... it should have only been enough to give him around a hundred runes at most. That would put him close—but he still would've needed at least twenty more Grimm to push over the threshold. At least."
"And yesterday?" Yang asked.
Ren shook his head. "Yesterday it was just Nora, Oscar, and me on patrol. Jaune wasn't with us."
Yang's pulse spiked. "So he just—what? Pulled a miracle out of nowhere? That's your answer?"
Nora winced. "We asked him about it. He didn't… exactly answer."
Yang's eyes snapped between them. "What do you mean exactly?"
Nora chewed her lip. "…He said it was classified, Ozpin's orders."
The word dropped like a hammer.
Yang's jaw clenched. Her uncle's words from last night rattled around in her head—about clearance, about things she didn't have the right to know. She wanted to punch a wall. Or maybe Qrow.
"Classified," she repeated flatly.
Nora nodded, voice barely above a whisper now. "Yeah. And…" She hesitated, glancing toward Ren. He gave her a subtle nod, and she continued. "Yang, I'm worried about him. Jaune's… different. He's a lot quieter. Less… him, you know? Like something got sucked out of him when nobody was looking."
Yang's chest squeezed. She thought about the way Jaune had looked at her in his house—eyes dull, voice muted, like he was half here and half gone. Different. Yeah. That was one way to put it.
She didn't like where this was going.
"Come on," Ren said softly, motioning for them to follow. "You'll see for yourself."
They walked through Beacon's underground base, the cold metal walls and humming lights of LUCID always reminding Yang more of a bunker than a school facility. The deeper they went, the more her nerves buzzed.
Finally, they stepped into the training chamber.
It was one of the larger rooms—steel floors polished to a sheen, high ceilings reinforced with gridwork beams, glowing panels casting a sterile white light. It looked more like a facility designed to break someone down than to train them.
And waiting inside was almost everyone.
Pyrrha stood off to the side, posture straight but hands loosely clasped in front of her, green eyes steady. Ruby bounced on her heels, though even her endless energy seemed dimmed by the gravity of the moment. Blake lingered near the wall, arms crossed, her gaze cutting toward Jaune with unreadable thought. Oscar hovered beside Ren, quiet but attentive, while Nora's usual grin twitched faintly on and off.
Mocha sat cross-legged near the back, her expression unusually serious, eyes sharp beneath her bangs. And Weiss—Weiss, of all people—stood in the corner with her arms crossed, lips pressed into a thin line, though she didn't leave.
They were all here for this.
For him.
Jaune.
He stood in the center of the training floor, eyes closed, arms loose at his sides. The air around him felt still, heavy, like he was pulling something in without moving a muscle.
Yang swallowed. She couldn't help it. "Jaune?"
His eyes cracked open at the sound of her voice. For just a second, she saw that same muted weight in his expression, but it vanished almost immediately, tucked away like he was hiding it.
"Yeah?" His tone was quiet, steady.
Yang shifted her weight, uneasy under the gazes of everyone else. "…Is it true? You already condensed a rune?"
The room held its breath.
Jaune's lips twitched—not into a smile, not into anything warm. Just an acknowledgment. He nodded once. "Yeah. I did."
Yang blinked, heart thudding. "What kind?"
For the first time, Jaune's eyes actually flickered with something—something sharp. He let the silence stretch before he spoke, as if deciding whether to say it at all.
Then, finally, the word dropped.
"Meta-type. Weakness."
A ripple went through the room at that declaration.
Yang's breath caught. "Weakness?"
Jaune nodded again, gaze steady. "Yes."
The weight of that statement hit harder than anything else could have.
There were two categories for runes. Regular and meta-types. Meta types weren't simple Rune skills. They were principles and fundamental concepts that could manipulate logic itself. People spent years, decades even, trying to form one, let alone trying to comprehend it to reach Rank 2.
And Jaune—Rank 0 Jaune, condensed one.
Yang's fists clenched at her sides, trying to hold onto something solid in the whirlwind of disbelief. Her mouth was dry, but she forced the words out anyway.
"Jaune… are you sure that's the rune you want to use to Rank up?"
His eyes locked with hers, and for a heartbeat, she swore there was something sad behind them, something that didn't belong in a boy her age.
"…Yeah, I'm sure. This rune... It is the rune that I need." he said softly.
The silence that followed was deafening.
The silence in the training chamber cracked the moment Jaune nodded.
...
...
The screen floated in front of him, a pale pane of red text and numbers that felt far heavier than the clean bloody glow suggested.
.
[Rank up available]
.
[Jaune Arc]
[Rank: 0]
.
Aura: 10
Will: 10
Body: 10
.
Runes: 0
Rune Skill: [Weakness]
.
All three stats were now maxed. All three waiting at the summit of Rank 0, pressing against the barrier like water at the edge of a dam. One push and it would spill over. One step and he would no longer be what he was now.
Jaune's hand hovered, but his eyes didn't leave the screen. His chest rose and fell slowly, deliberately, like he was trying to keep something inside from clawing out.
This was it. The point of no return.
When he ranked up, everything would be reset to zero again. All the progress he had clawed and scraped for—the training, the blood and the aching frustration of days spent failing would be wiped clean. And yet, not erased. He'd be stronger still, about five times stronger in every way. His body would sing with new potential, his aura, vaster, and his will, sharper. He would be reborn.
But what lingered and what would stay, what defined him forever—was his new rune.
And his rune was Weakness.
The word echoed in his skull, softer than a whisper and heavier than stone.
'Weakness. What else would I have chosen? What else could I ever have claimed as mine?'
He remembered every time it had haunted him. Standing in the shadow of the Dream as monsters bore down on him and his feeling of helplessness.
He remembered how it felt to freeze when it mattered most, to fail to have the strength act and to choke under pressure. To know that if someone had needed him desperately in that moment, he would've let them down.
Weakness wasn't just a choice. It was the weight he had been carrying since he started this second life.
But Weakness, he thought now, wasn't just a curse.
Weakness is the shadow cast by strength. Weakness is the crack where light slips in. Weakness is what gnaws at the heart and teaches it to hunger. It is the reminder that you can fall, and in falling, you learn what it means to rise.
Maybe that was why, when the system's invisible scan had swept through his mind asking for his Rune creation, his soul had answered with this, Weakness. This rune was honest. Weakness was his reflection in the mirror, stripped of excuses. Weakness was the forge that had burned him, again and again.
And now it was his power.
Jaune let out a breath. He remembered what the briefings had said—how rune condensation wasn't always precise. People asked for fire and ended up with sparks, lightning and got static. Sometimes you reached for greatness and caught dust. But for him…
No. This was exactly what he wanted.
A meta-type rune.
Even the word carried weight. Meta. Not an element, a weapon, or a straightforward power. Instead, it was an idea. Concepts sharper than steel, broader than flame, more absolute than thunder. If he could grasp it, if he could master it, Weakness could become a weapon unlike any other. He could tear the concept of strength out of enemies and unravel foundations. Shatter the unshatterable.
But the warning clung to him too. Meta-runes weren't simple. Comprehension was everything. If he couldn't understand the principle, if he couldn't grow with it, if he couldn't carve its truth into his bones—then he'd fail. He wouldn't just stagnate. He'd collapse.
And the time limit—
Jaune's throat tightened at the memory. His father, standing across from him in the Dream, atop their house in Vale. The black sky ahead and red broken moon, cold and merciless. The words branded into him like iron:
"Two years. Reach Rank 2. Then we'll fight. And if you fail… you know what comes next."
The threat wasn't vague. It was a blade pressed to his throat. The promise of annihilation, not just of him, but of everything that mattered.
His family...
Jaune clenched his fists, then forced them to open. The path was set and all that was left was to walk it.
He stared at the system window one last time. The numbers burned in his vision. He reached forward and prompted the command.
.
.
[Initiate Rank-Up?]
[Confirm.]
.
.
The words dissolved.
His eyes closed as the world itself shifted.
His body lifted, weightless, rising into the air. The sensation was both freeing and terrifying, as though the invisible shackles of the waking world were loosening their grip for just a moment.
And he felt it. That strange suppressive presence—the invisible law pressing him down, smothering the translation of his Dream self into the waking world—it was there. He could sense it somehow, wrapping around him like chains forged of nothing.
But there was slack now. Space in the links. A gap where resistance could bleed through.
Ten percent. Ten percent of his stats would cross the threshold into reality.
Enough to matter and maybe even enough to change everything.
Behind him, the rune flared. Weakness.
It spun slowly, its geometry reshaping, folding, collapsing into lines of essence that streamed forward. They poured into his chest, his arms, his very soul, searing into place like they had always belonged there. For the first time, Jaune could feel it. Not just a mark etched into a status screen, but a companion thought and a pulse of potential he could summon with less than an instant of focus.
The weight of it settled into him.
And then he descended.
His boots touched the steel of the training room floor with a faint clang. His eyes opened.
Everyone was watching. Pyrrha, Ruby, Nora, Ren, Yang, Mocha, Blake and even Weiss—all of them waiting for him to smile, to nod, to prove he was still Jaune, still their friend.
So he did. He smiled. He let them see what they wanted to see.
But inside?
Inside his body hummed with new strength, his senses sharp as razors, the air clearer, the ground more solid beneath him. He was alive in a way he hadn't been before.
And deeper still, beneath the triumph, beneath the rush, something stirred.
The hunger.
The endless ache that had whispered to him in his weakest moments. The craving not just to fight, but to never feel powerless again. To climb, to claw, to take, until no one and nothing could ever strip him down again.
Jaune exhaled. The invisible shackle pressed faintly against him. Tomorrow, in the waking world, he'd see what it felt like. Ten percent of this. Ten percent of him.
It wouldn't be enough.
But it would be a start.
.
.
(Yang pov)
In front of them, Jaune didn't waste any more time or give anyone else a chance to argue further. With a breath drawn through steady lungs, he raised his hand and behind his back, the Rune appeared.
It shimmered into being, black lines etched with a faint, blood-red glow, geometric yet fluid, as though reality itself struggled to contain its shape. It rotated slowly in the air, pulsing faintly with each turn. The atmosphere of the chamber thickened immediately, like unseen gravity pressed down on all of them.
And then Jaune rose.
The lift wasn't sudden or dramatic—it was quiet and inexorable. His feet left the polished floor and his body drifted upwards like gravity itself was being rewritten. The Weakness rune turned once, orbiting him like an alien star, its trails of energy lashing faintly against the air.
Yang's breath stilled slightly. For a split second she thought the room itself was warping—the walls bowing inward, the ground rippling like water disturbed by a pebble. The air grew cold, the kind of cold that bit at her skin. Her fists flexed reflexively, but she held her ground, eyes fixed on Jaune.
Then the rune split apart.
It dissolved into hundreds of tiny motes of light, streaking like falling stars straight into Jaune's chest, his arms, his head. His whole body seemed to glow faintly, like something beneath the skin was waking up.
Yang blinked. The ripple vanished. The world was solid again.
Jaune lowered slowly, his feet kissing the steel floor with the lightness of snow settling. For a long moment, he stood there, shoulders rising and falling with a single heavy breath. Then he exhaled, the tension rolling off his frame like smoke.
The Rank-up was complete.
Ren was the first to speak, softly. "Nice."
Pyrrha stepped forward and clapped Jaune lightly on the shoulder, a proud smile tugging at her lips. "Congratulations, maybe now I can put in even more effort into our spars?"
Ruby squealed, darting forward to grab his arm and shake it like she might shake a present on her birthday. "Jaune, that was pretty cool! Did you feel it? Did you feel how—how huge that was? You looked so cool floating like that!"
Nora wasn't far behind, latching onto his other arm and rattling him until his teeth might've clicked. "Yes! Mr. Rune Condenser Extraordinaire! Our fearless meta-type pioneer!"
Oscar gave him a polite nod. Mocha gave him an assessing hum. Even Weiss, though she said nothing, allowed the faintest dip of her head in acknowledgment. Yang couldn't help but notice that Weiss looked a lot better than she had a day ago. It seemed she had taken advantage of the therapy sessions that LUCID gave out to operatives for free.
Jaune smiled at them all, letting their congratulations wash over him like warm water. But Yang noticed.
It didn't touch his eyes.
That smile was soft, but distant. Like he'd pulled it from a drawer and dusted it off for their sake, not because he had anything to smile about.
The rest of the group didn't linger long. Eventually the crowd thinned, people breaking off to head back to reality or drift into other parts of the base. Jaune excused himself quietly, and though Yang wanted to stop him right then, the look on his face warned her off.
She let him go.
.
.
The next night, Monday, training ran long. Everyone was exhausted, sweat was still slick on Yang's skin as she left the LUCID sparring hall. The corridors of Beacon's underground facility were buzzing with talk—most of it about Jaune. How fast he'd progressed. How strange the Weakness rune was. How lucky, or dangerous, or both, it might be.
Yang didn't join in.
Because she already knew where he'd gone.
By the time she was outside the base, near building A of Beacon, the moon had just crested high over Vale, spilling pale silver across the rooftops. Yang scaled the structure in less than five seconds, boots catching on ledges until she crested the edge.
Sure enough, he was there.
Jaune sat with his legs dangling over the edge, shoulders loose, gaze fixed on the glittering sprawl of Vale in the distance. The city looked alive from here, arteries of light stretching across the dark like veins of molten gold.
For a moment Yang just stood there, watching him, debating whether to interrupt. But the silence was too heavy, and her worry too sharp.
She cleared her throat. "You know, you could've picked a less cliché spot to mope."
Jaune turned, surprise flickering across his face for a second before he managed another one of those soft smiles. "Hey, Yang."
She walked over and dropped down beside him, letting her boots swing in the air the same way his did. The city stretched wide before them, the breeze tugging faintly at her hair.
"…You okay?" she asked quietly.
"I'm fine."
Yang frowned. "You don't look fine."
He chuckled faintly at that, but it sounded hollow. "Guess I'll have to work on my poker face."
"I'm serious, Jaune." Her voice was firmer now. "You've been off ever since… whatever the hell happened in your house. Everyone sees it. Nora's worried sick, Ren's tense, Ruby keeps asking questions, and even Pyrrha's frustrated. Nobody knows what's going on because you won't tell us."
Jaune's smile dimmed, his eyes shifting back toward the horizon. "…I can't."
Yang leaned forward, trying to catch his gaze. "Can't or won't?"
He didn't answer right away. His silence was heavy, deliberate.
Finally, he sighed. "…Let's say both."
The words twisted in her chest. She wanted to yell, to shake him, to demand he stop hiding behind half-truths and vague smiles. But the look on his face stopped her cold.
Because she recognized it now.
She was wrong. It wasn't sadness or depression. It wasn't even fear.
It was hunger.
Not the kind that gnawed at your stomach or drove you to the fridge at midnight.
This was deeper. A gnawing void that existed behind his eyes, pulling at everything around it. His smile, his warmth, his ease—it was all gone, consumed by something vast and dreadful that wanted more.
Hunger for strength. Hunger for control. Hunger that could swallow the world if it meant filling the emptiness inside him.
Yang's breath caught, the realization hitting harder than any punch she'd ever taken.
She had thought she was worried before. She realized now she'd underestimated it.
Because this wasn't Jaune being tired, or sad, or even traumatized. This was Jaune standing on the edge of something dangerous, something corrosive. Something that could change him in ways none of them were ready for.
"Don't worry, Yang," Jaune said softly, almost kindly, as if trying to soothe her. His eyes still gleamed with that hollow hunger. "I'm going to be just fine."
The words rang false, echoing into the night like a promise he had no intention of keeping. Yang clenched her fists on her knees, staring at him. For once, she didn't know what to say.
All she could feel was the cold.
And the hunger staring back at her through his eyes.
.
.
.
AN: Long ass chapter with the rune finally revealed! This is the last chapter for Volume 2. My patrons will get to enjoy the chapters of Volume 3 ahead of time. For now, I'm going to go on a short break. Around a week or so. I hope you've enjoyed your reading experience so far.
Advanced chapters available on patreon.