With a shudder that was all too familiar by now, Yang woke up.

She sighed before trying to curl up closer to Jaune as she normally did, before her brain caught up to her body and revealed to her that he wasn't in the bed, and she was reaching out at empty air.

That sent her upright, staring at the vacant space next to her. She wasn't about to go totally off the hinges from it, sure, he'd promised not to leave her alone like that again, but the bed looked slept in, and she remembered going to sleep with him by her side, so it wasn't like the time he'd been in the training gym torturing himself. She was well aware that sometimes he'll likely get up to go to the bathroom or something. It happened.

However, as her eyes drifted across the room, she noticed some things missing. Namely, Jaune's armour and his sword. Two things he wouldn't need for a bathroom break, unless he had a fear of toilets that he hadn't told her about.

The more she thought about it, the more it worried her, because even when he went to train that one night, he hadn't been in his armour when she found him. Then she heard some noise from down the hall, and the sound of the front door opening, so Yang quickly got to her feet, grabbing a pair of pants to slip into and then picking her jacket off the ground. She put on her boots with two swift tugs and after a moment's hesitation grabbed Ember Celica off her nightstand and latched it onto her wrist, making sure it was loaded.

Never know what you might run into in the middle of the night, after all.

It took only a few long strides to reach the main room, and from there Yang burst through the front entrance, head on a swivel to catch a glimpse of her Jaune.

Off, nearly out of seeing distance, Yang spotted familiar white armour with a flash of blonde hair above it, cutting down a pathway that lead up to Haven Academy. She frowned hard before breaking into a run to catch up. Why was Jaune going to the Academy? What was he up to?

Whatever it was, Yang decided, it had to be something bad, or stupid, because he'd left in the middle of the night without telling anyone about it. That raised a lot of red flags in her mind.

She sighed as she ran after him, slowing to a more discreet pace once the caught up in order to follow him to his destination. She couldn't help but wonder what was going on with him.

Was there something wrong? Jaune had seemed a little more off the past few days, often she caught him lost in his thoughts and spaced out, but she'd brushed it off at the time, after all, was she really any better off lately?

Evidently, she may have been.

"Why don't you just talk to me." She grumbled, near silent. Even as she said it though, she knew that was hypocritical. She'd very quickly come to realize since arriving in Mistral that she and Jaune were alike in quite a number of ways, including the fact that they would bottle everything up and pretend to be okay so that nobody had to worry about them, because they thought that they needed to deal with everything on their own.

Sometimes she thought that maybe the both of them needed to take a few whacks to the head to get their heads on straight. Maybe tonight that'd be what she had to do for Jaune, whatever he was up to.

It took about ten minutes to reach the grounds of Haven Academy, including a long trek up stone steps that Yang was very surprised to have managed to climb without Jaune realizing he was being followed. She was, for the first time, thankful for Jaune's lack of awareness of his surroundings. Anyone else in their group would have realized before they'd even gotten to the steps at all.

It looked like Jaune was heading to the main entrance, and when he reached it and grabbed at the handles, it didn't budge, obviously locked. For a brief second Yang wondered if he'd actually expected the doors to the school to be open at four in the morning, before deciding he'd just tried it to be sure.

Once he started to pull his sword out, seemingly intent on forcing his way into a Huntsman Academy, Yang cleared her throat behind him, standing only twenty feet from the entrance. She watched as he froze, turning like a guilty child to face her. She crossed her arms and cocked her head to one side, stance making it clear she wanted answers.

The tumble of emotion that crossed Jaune's face told her a few things. He felt guilty over whatever he was doing, as well as worried and angry. It was obviously not something he really wanted to do without question, which made Yang wonder what exactly was making him do it.

Not to mention what it was he was doing in the first place, but considering where he'd been breaking into, Yang had a sickening feeling in her gut that she knew exactly what he was after. She just didn't know why.

"Whatcha up to, Jaune?" she asked, using as casual a tone as she could manage.

He was frowning at her, "Yang, you're not supposed to be here."

She did not like that answer very much.

"Where should I be instead then? Back at the house you left, sleeping in the bed you left, like all the other people you've left?" she watched with some satisfaction as he winced each time she reminded him that he had left. Good, he deserved it.

Her arms went outstretched to her sides in question, "So what's this all about, Jaune? Breaking into the School at night, when we're literally going to be here tomorrow? What's the play?"

He looked away from her, turning more towards the entrance of the Academy, "Just go home, you wouldn't understand."

Yang let out a growl, taking long, slow steps to close the distance between them.

"Try me." She bit out as she neared, causing him to turn her way again at the closeness of her voice. His eyes widened in surprise and he took a step back, which in turn make her stop, only a few feet away.

His hand had gone to the pommel of his sword, the other on his sheath, ready to activate his shield. She could see from this distance that both hands were visibly shaking, and his eyes were wide.

Was… was he afraid of her?

Her anger melted away in an instant at the realization. "Jaune." She tried, far more softly. His hands didn't leave their positions, but his eyes met hers, and she was once more thrown by the fact that his were wet with unshed tears that she hadn't noticed in her anger.

"Jaune?" she repeated, lowering her arms.

"I have to." He said, breaking eye contact, "I can get her back, they'll bring her back. I have to, Yang."

Yang shook her head, eyebrows scrunching up, "What are you talking about? Jaune, whats going on?"

For a while, he said nothing, but Yang waited patiently, waited for Jaune to tell her what had him so torn up inside that he could barely even hold himself together. She didn't think she had ever seen him like this, except for maybe when she found him training to Pyrrha's…. Yang's brain slowed to a halt.

Coincidentally, this happened at the same time that Jaune started speaking.

"I-I've been having dreams, or… or nightmares, whichever, I don't care. I – They said that the Relic Ozpin is hiding can bring her back. That all I have to do is get it for them and they'll bring her back." He couldn't look at her as he spoke, not that she was able to do much more than stare at him with wide eyes and a heartbroken frown as he stumbled through his explanations.

"I'll never get a chance like this Yang, I can't… I need to do this." Now he brought himself to look up at her, tears falling freely. Yang knew that she should feel anger. After all, what he was doing was wrong, the 'they' he kept referring to was almost certainly Salem and her followers, the very people who had killed Pyrrha in the first place. However, looking at the broken expression on Jaune's face, all she could feel was pity.

"Jaune," she said, softly, stepping towards him with slow, measured steps so that he wouldn't feel threatened, "You know that this isn't right." She said, "I know you miss her, but this isn't the way."

Some of his anger broke to the surface, "This is the only way! You think I don't know it's wrong? I hate it!" he shouted at her, "but it's the only way I'm getting her back, giving her another chance!"

Yang shook her head at the exclamations, hands coming up placatingly. She wanted to just reach out and drag him into a hug, but she had a feeling a sudden move like that wouldn't go over well with Jaune in his current state of mind.

"Pyrrha wouldn't want this, Jaune." She pleaded, hoping that the mention would manage to get through to him. It did, but not in the way she had been hoping.

Jaune's sword came out in a swift movement, and he pointed the tip her way, preventing her from taking the last few steps to reach him.

"I don't care, what Pyrrha wanted!" he yelled at her, before continuing in a quiet and bitter tone, "She didn't give me a choice when she threw me in a locker and got herself killed, why should I give her one now?"

That one had Yang beat. No matter how much she wanted, there wasn't any argument she could pit against that, he was right. It didn't make what he was doing the right thing, but she didn't think that there were any words to stop him if he was so far gone he didn't care. However, she'd tried to argue objectively, and by appealing to his love for Pyrrha, whatever she might have been to him, but she hadn't tried arguing for herself, and like anything else, you could always cut deeper when it was personal.

"And do you care what I want?" she asked, throwing him off with her change of tone from soft pleading to borderline anger. He looked at her in almost shocked surprise, and she continued, "Or are you just like everyone else who breaks their promises and leaves?"

Jaune flinched once again, looking away in shame but keeping his sword in her face.

The blade dropped the barest fraction of an inch before he spoke, "This isn't about you, Yang."

At that, Yang couldn't stop an angry sob from bubbling its way up her throat, "Of course it is," she croaked, "If going along with this stupid nonsense actually brought Pyrrha back, you can't be with both of us." She watched his eyes close in resignation, forming a break in the trailing tears on his face. "You won't pick me, and you know it." She took a step away from him, and that seemed to have more of an effect after what she'd just said than any of the words she'd said up to that point.

"I can't give up on her, not now." He whispered. Yang let the first of her own tears fall.

"I know," she replied, deploying her weapons, "but I can't give up on you either."

She moved first, closing the short distance between them and batting his sword out of her path with her Gauntlet. It was quickly followed up as she reached out and grabbed at the top of his chest plate, getting a tight grip and using it to lift him up and spin herself around, throwing Jaune away from the doors of Haven, putting herself between them and him.

He got to his feet slowly, deploying his shield out to his arm once he was up again. His gaze trailed behind her for a moment before he focussed, and with a pained cry he came at her, bringing his sword down in an overhand strike.

Yang used her robotic arm to deflect the blow, bringing her leg forward to kick Jaune back a step so that she could advance on him. Her next move brought her gauntlet forwards as she fired off a shotgun round at him, making him grunt at the impact as he was pushed back another step. She tried to get him again, this time with a shot from her arm barrel, but Jaune brought up his shield to absorb the blow.

His shield came down and he brought his sword around in a wide arc as Yang lunged at him, ducking forwards under the swing and bringing a fist to his side, followed by a second that he caught on his shield, the impact from her robot arm jarring him.

He let his shield arm hang limply for the moment as he heaved a deep sigh, "I don't want to fight you, Yang. Please." He pleaded, looking at her with a begging expression. "Then come home with me, and you won't have to." She offered, a final ultimatum to try and avoid her having to knock him out or disarm him so that she could carry him back there herself and make sure he would be okay.

Instead, Jaune chose against that future. Yang watched as his eyes narrowed, still wet with emotion, and he brought his shield back into ready position. She followed suit, settling into her combat stance.

This time around, Jaune moved first, stabbing forward at her midsection with speed she didn't know he had.

Yang found herself just barely able to sidestep his attack, but he recovered seamlessly, throwing a punch to her side that caught her off guard before he stepped behind her, arms raising. She recognized the move from when they'd trained together, and growled at the thought of him using something like that now, when he was betraying her, betraying them all.

Her elbow shot back as she spun around, ramming his arms aside before she caught him with an uppercut as her spin built momentum. She watched as Jaune went flying backwards, landing roughly on his back, and something in her snapped.

"I trusted you." She shouted, "I trusted you to be there for me, like I was for you. To take care of me like I wanted to take care of you! I thought that Arcs kept their word, Jaune?"

"Yang-" he coughed, pushing himself up, but she wasn't done yet. She stepped up to him, bringing a boot down hard on his face to knock him back down to the ground. White hot pain and anger ran through her body as she did so, both directed towards Jaune and herself. The sensation only made it harder to ignore the lack of feeling in her right arm.

"No, you don't get to make excuses!" she spat, reaching down and grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, lifting him up enough to throw him into the wall of the school. "You promised you wouldn't leave me! Was that just empty words? Was I just the stand in for you to toss aside once you had Pyrrha back?" she had stalked her way over and slammed him against the wall again with both hands. "Did any of what we had even mean anything to you?" she asked with a broken cry, slamming him again, not noticing his aura flicker at the blow, "Did I mean anything to you?"

Yang let go of him and took a step back, watching with crimson red eyes as he slumped to the ground, groaning in pain. She could feel sympathy trying to make its way out of her gut, but it only served to renew her anger.

"Get up." She spat, "If you're going to start this fight, you better be willing to finish it."

Whatever else Yang might have had to say about Jaune then, she couldn't deny that he didn't back down from challenges like that. He managed to pull himself to his feet, pushing up against the wall to do so. She glared, trying to ignore the fresh tears on his face.

To Jaune's credit, he managed to anticipate her sudden attack, bringing his shield up to block her first punch before he pushed off from the wall to force her back and give himself some breathing room.

He was heaving deep breaths, but brought his sword and shield up into a defensive position.

"Yang, I-" she cut him off and attacked again, forcing him to move as her robotic fist put a dent in the wall behind him, and using his shield to block a shot at his retreating form. Yang went at him again without hesitation, but as she closed in on him, Jaune stopped running and brought his shield to bear, bracing his shoulder against it to slam it into her head. The blow knocked Yang flat to the ground, cracking the cobblestone beneath her, but she managed to fire off her gauntlet as Jaune made contact. She didn't see the result, but heard Jaune's cry of pain to confirm she'd hit him.

Shaking her head in hopes that it would make the ringing in her ears stop, Yang let out a groan as she pushed herself off the ground.

Jaune was a few feet away, hunched over behind his shield gasping for breath while he leaned on his sword. He looked up at her with wide blue eyes, pleading, "Please." He gasped.

Her fists clenched. Who was he to ask anything of her now, like this? Acting like he hadn't done anything wrong. She growled, it was time to finish this. He was already having trouble breathing, a one two to his jaw and chest would be enough to have him unconscious, or at the very least unable to fight back any longer.

Then they could fix this, somehow.

She shot forwards, and Jaune's eyes widened further at the action. He tried to bring his shield into her path, but she batted it aside and out of his grasp before he could manage, bringing her robot fist to bear on his jaw before she drove her other hand into his gut, firing off her gauntlet for good measure.

However, the usual sound of her shotgun rounds was accompanied by a sickening squelching sound, and a splatter of liquid covering her hand and hitting her arm and torso.

She looked down in horror, the red in her eyes fading fast, replaced by the red of the blood that covered her shaking fist.

"Oh gods!" she sobbed, looking up to lock gazes with pained blue eyes. "Your aura, what-" he let out a watery cough, "Broke it on your last hit, guess you didn't notice." His tone was somehow dry, despite everything.

"Okay, okay, we can fix this." She declared desperately, trying to stem the flow of blood from his riddled torso. "C'mon, c'mon" she mumbled, tearing lengths of fabric from her pants to try and use as gauze. Her frantic movements were stopped when Jaune's hands reached out to grab her own and hold them still. "Yang." He sighed, making her shake her head.

"No no no no no, I can fix this Jaune, I did this, I have to fix it!"

He let his fingers intertwine with hers, keeping them gripped tightly, "This is my own fault, not yours Yang." He whispered. She could see in his face that he was resigned to this, and turned away, unable to stand the sight. "I can't lose you." She croaked, leaning down to bury her tears in his shoulder. He let go of her hands, letting her grip him tightly as he put his arms around her in an embrace.

"Nope," he said, pulling back and placing his arms on her shoulders to push her back so he could face her properly, she watched as he gave her a sad, bloodstained smile before placing a hand on her chest, just over her heart, "You'll always have plenty of me right there," he said, "and nobody can take that away from you, no matter what they do."

Her tears dropped onto his cheeks, prompting him to reach up and brush his thumbs across her face, wiping away the streams that flowed there. "That isn't fair." She whined. The childish tone made a laugh bubble up in Jaune's chest, and he grinned at her for a moment, "Life isn't fair." He reminded her, as if either of them had ever needed more evidence of the fact after the fall of Beacon.

"I'm sorry." He said, finally able to get the words out with the fight over, "I don't know what was wrong with me, what I was trying to do." He said, before he looked down at his wounds. "I'm glad you stopped me." He croaked, "I just wish I'd been able to stop myself."

Yang leaned in, lacking words, and kissed him desperately, hands clenched in his sweater. Jaune took the chance to run his fingers through her hair and hold her tightly.

"Please, don't leave me." She begged quietly after they broke apart. He tightened his hold further, closing his eyes.

"I'll stay as long as I can, I promise."

.

.

AN: To start this one off, I'd like to let everyone know that this was where this Fic was going to end since the moment it became more than a Oneshot. Started on a car ride with my Beta and a joking "I could just kill them." came out. It very quickly became a serious "I could just kill them." (Yea, Yang was originally going to be implied to die as well, but this was pre-V5 ending and the plan didn't work with canon so it was scrapped.)

Was definitely a very interesting and challenging chapter to write, as well as build up to with subtle hints that things weren't going to end on a high note in a few previous chapters. Hopefully it turned out well. I pretty much exclusively listened to "To Build a Home" by the Cinematic Orchestra while writing this chapter, and let me tell you that made it a lot more painful. Totally worth it, but damn.

I will be changing the Friendship genre tag on this to Tragedy at some point, once the initial wave of viewers passes, so as not to spoil anything.

...Sorry not sorry.