Forged Destiny [Book 1: Ch. 9]

"I think we should end this here."

It didn't go well.

"What?"

"End it?"

"Arc, what on Remnant do you mean!?"

"You can't!" The last came from Ruby, though almost everyone had raised their voice to say something, or just to look at me with shocked expressions. Ruby looked horrified, mouth open and one arm outstretched. She shook her head, "Just because I got hurt, you can't just ca-"

"This isn't about your injury," I interrupted, cutting her off entirely. As the younger girl went silent, my eyes roamed across the others. "Frankly, this is about everyone else. Myself included."

"Explain yourself," Weiss demanded.

"I was planning to!" Weiss' eyes went wide as I snapped at her. "This is what I mean, all of this. We're not fighting like a team, we're at each other's' throats, we're divided and argumentative." I waited, just to see if anyone would say anything to that and prove me right. They all stayed silent. "Weiss," the girl jumped a little, "You're our main source of long-range damage, not to mention the best we have at controlling the flow of battle, but you're so busy sniping at Blake and making her life difficult that you're as good as useless."

The white-haired girl made to argue, but I'd already moved on, spearing the golden eyes of Blake – right as she'd been about to open her mouth.

"And you," I growled, "I invited you here because I respect you, Blake – because I wanted to prove to everyone that you're a good person. But you're as guilty as Weiss. You keep baiting her, pushing her buttons when you know this is a serious situation. If you think Weiss' comments are immature, then why not try and show some maturity yourself?"

Blake crossed her arms but didn't look away. I'd noticed she did that often, fierce glared whenever she didn't like something. Well if she didn't like this, she could glare all she wanted. We no longer had the time for it.

"Yang," the blonde girl blinked at me, "I know that Ruby's your sister and I know that right now she's unarmed, but by staying out of the fight you're putting everyone in danger. If you don't agree with what I've decided then damn well say so, don't just brood in the background. We need you in the fight or we don't need you at all. Choose one or the other."

"Tch…" Yang glanced to the side.

"Nora, Ren," my two friends looked up at me, surprised. "The two of you are better than everyone else, but you're still sticking to yourselves. I know things aren't going well in the group, but I need you guys to help fix it, not just retreat to one another and leave everyone to flounder."

"My apologies," Ren sighed, "I hadn't even realised…" Nora sulked too, while I turned to the final person.

"And me?" Pyrrha asked sadly.

"Help me," I begged, dropping the harsh tone. Her green eyes widened. "You're better than me, Pyrrha. You're stronger than me and it's clear you know what you're doing more than I do. Please stop forcing me to be the one to give out orders if you've got a better idea. Just say something, please."

Turning back to the others, I held my arms wide, "We're not a team of eight people. We're Yang and Ruby doing their own thing, we're Nora and Ren sticking to themselves, Weiss and Blake fighting with one another, me feeling sorry for myself and Pyrrha unsure what she's meant to do. That's why I think we might as well give up and go home. We're not going to manage this. Quite frankly, we're useless."

Spent at last, I let my arms fall and slumped down against the wall. I wish we'd never found this damn place. Maybe then things could have still been normal. The others did much the same, not a word exchanged as they all sat in subdued silence. What little morale there was left, I'd surely killed. Some Knight I was…

"I was a fool to think this could work." I whispered, referring more to my charade than the Dungeon we were currently inside.

"No you weren't," Ruby's voice whispered. I peeked up to see her stood before me. Even then, something had changed between us. Where once she'd have felt happy talking to me, now she looked nervous and upset. I sighed and looked down at the ground between my knees.

"I'm not giving you your scythe back, Ruby."

"I know…" she sat down next to me, back against the wall and knees propped up before her. She didn't look at me, however. "I promised you I'd make sure you wouldn't regret inviting me on this," she sighed, "I guess I didn't do a very good job of that."

Part of me wanted to lie to that, to say that I didn't regret it. The expression on my face would have given that away. I did regret bringing her along… though not for anything she had done wrong. I regretted bringing us all here.

"I can fight, you know."

"I know you can, Ruby," I sighed. "I saw you fight the Geckan. I think you could take me on as well." Not that such was a difficult task. "But what happened back there… it's not you that's weak."

"If I was stronger, then it wouldn't have hurt me," Ruby whispered.

"If I was stronger," I pointed out, "then it wouldn't have ignored me to go for you in the first place. You didn't do anything wrong. I did."

"Then why keep me away from the fighting?" Ruby asked. "I have to fight, Jaune."

"Why do you have to fight?" I sighed, suddenly tired of it all. "What do you even mean? Your weapon is trash, Ruby. It couldn't hold up to that Beowolf, chances are it wouldn't hold up here, either."

Ruby hesitated for a few seconds, "I… I just need to fight," she said at last.

"Well we're not going to fight," I said, pushing myself up. "None of us are. We're headed back to Beacon. We're not ready for this."

"Are you so sure?" Ruby asked with a curious smile.

I wanted to ask what she meant, but a group of faces interrupted me before I could. Weiss, Yang, Blake, Nora, Ren and Pyrrha… each was different. Some smiled, others looked embarrassed, while even Blake managed to somehow look awkwardly neutral.

"Ahem," Weiss coughed, "I believe I put my own thoughts and feelings before the welfare of the group. If my sister could see me, she would have been deeply ashamed. Though it was poorly put and arrogantly given, I ap- I app-" she seemed to struggle with the word, "I appreciate," gods, but it sounded forced, "your advice."

"I apologise," was all Blake said. My head fell to the side… that was probably all I was going to get out of her.

"I'll fight in the next encounter," Yang said, crossing her arms. "I didn't mean to be like that. I was just looking out for Ruby. I didn't mean to place anyone else in danger."

"I know you were, Yang," I said. "I wasn't angry… no one can blame you for that."

"Still," she grinned and slammed a fist into her palm, "I'm back on form now."

"Renny and I will do better too," Nora cheered, rushing up to hug me tightly. She backed away before I could do anything more than gape. "We're used to fighting alone a lot, so we just forgot what being part of a group was meant to be like."

"We shall do better," the pink-eyes Monk smiled, "If you will give us another chance."

"As will I," Pyrrha finished, striding forward to clasp a hand onto my arm. "If I have my thoughts then I will share them. Please forgive me if I put too much pressure on you, Jaune. It feels like in my efforts to avoid responsibility, I instead forced it onto you. Thank you for pointing that out to me."

Thank me? All I'd done was insult her, insult all of them. Yet now they looked at me as though I'd given them the answer to life itself. And more than that, there was a sinking feeling in my stomach.

"You all want to do this," I whispered, "don't you?"

"We do," Pyrrha nodded. "We've come this far. I don't want to go back empty-handed. Not after everything that's happened."

That was all well and good for her to say. But did we actually have a chance of winning the next battle? They were all looking towards me, waiting for my answer. Why they thought they needed my input anyway, I had no idea. Since when had I become the leader of this raid?

"Trust in us," Ren urged, "We can do this."

My eyes drifted shut. I didn't have the right to decide for them. And in a way, hadn't they already made their own minds up?

"Okay..." I said, praying that I hadn't doomed us all, "Let's do this."

—Forged Destiny [Book 1: Ch. 9]