"He's stumbled into a MURDER CASE?!" Ruby flinched as her sister roared in incredulous anger, her hair igniting into golden flame. "HOW?! I left him alone for TWO MINUTES to get- ugh! This plan's already coming up a bust!"
"Plan?"
Yang sighed, her hair returning to normal as she reached out pull the hood of Ruby's cloak over her head. It hid her sister's pretty yellow sundress with a short skirt length that Ruby was pretty sure dad wouldn't like as the edge of her white and red hood pulled down over her silver eyes.
"Ah, don't worry about it, Rubes." Yang sighed as Ruby pulled the hood back up so it didn't cover her eyes so much, "I lost the initial WOW factor, but I'll just figure something else out. Not like I still don't look great. Oh, Jaune said he needed something, right? What'd he say? I'll pass a shortwave message to Nora and Em on the Scroll. Let's maybe not worry his family over Jaune getting himself involved in something stupid this time."
"Uhhhh-" Ruby flipped Jaune's note to read the back.
He had really neat handwriting. Better than Ruby's, which made her frown. She'd been practicing on making her handwriting more legible, but Jaune just scribbled shorthand and it was better than hers! That was kinda unfair.
Ok well, there was something written on the back of the first note, but it just asked what kind of cookie she wanted as a reward for helping him later, and that was totally important too, but that didn't seem like what Jaune had been talking about.
Because there was a full second folded up piece of paper he'd snuck into her palm at that time. This note was what Ruby assumed was supposed to be what he was really talking about, but why didn't he just say that?
Ruby also didn't like how almost mechanically focused Jaune looked then. Something about it made her eyes itch and it made her worry for him. Like he was suddenly going to disappear in front of her.
She bumped up next to Yang as she showed her Jaune's secret note, whispering as she read it after unfurling it.
"Need U 2 verify something 4 me. Ask others, parents included, 4 help incase. 1) Check w/ Captain 4 emergency stop last night. Give 1st Note 2 him. Was off seeing Sat. group & wasn't on board-"
Yang grumbled darkly. Man, her sis really didn't get along well with Weiss. Which was weird because while Weiss was worse at making friends than Ruby herself, she was kind of nice in a hard on the surface but soft underneath it kind of way.
It made her think of a character trope from the manga series that Jaune bought for her birthday a year ago. What was it? Tsun? Tsun-something. Ruby forgot.
"2) Dblcheck #1 w/ adults 3) Ask 4 anyone that ate last night's din 4 leftovers. Bring scraps 2 me. Say helping crew if asked. Need 2 check 4 something."
Yang frowned, her lilac eyes glowing faintly reddish.
"Well I don't like having to go around asking for people's dinner scraps, but fine. It'll help him out, right?" Her sister sighed in discontent, her mouth twisted to the side. Actually I'm pretty sure the ship did make a bit of a hard stop last night, though. Certainly woke me up. Almost thought we'd run into a rock."
"Yeah, it almost threw me out of bed!" Ruby nodded, agreeing with that fact. "The sailor we talked to looked super surprised to see us out in the halls asking questions as well. Think he said something about avoiding a crash or something?"
While the Belladonnas always insisted on making sure both Jaune and Ruby's families were brought over to their Kingdom (weird how the other Kingdoms still wouldn't acknowledge them) with the best treatment possible, there weren't enough First Class accommodations for them all, so a bunch of the kids doubled up in Business Class. Yang and Ruby were sharing one, obviously.
It was part of the reason why Jaune's siblings (aside from Ren and Nora who were also Blake's friends) usually came on rotation to try to not take up too many suites. Funnily enough, even though Jaune was supposed to take one of the First Class suites, he always gave it to his parents in secret, taking a Business Class suite with Emerald.
Yang didn't like that, but seemed to angrily accept that Emerald slept in a cot they set up in a different corner. Weird, because Emerald was super nice and polite, and was super respectful of all of Team STRQ.
Economy class was just a large section of what used to be the cargo hold with a bunch of thin walls put up to make 'rooms' and it wasn't the greatest. Functional was the word. Not necessarily comfortable. And the more space Jaune and Ruby's families took up the more people they were forcing into economy class.
Nobody ever said anything, but Ruby was sure that all of them weren't super comfortable with that fact.
"I don't think I've heard anyone complain about it though, even though I've been all over the Finn today to stretch my legs."
Ruby gazed around the deck, seeing it more sparse than usual. Definitely less than normal from what she'd recalled from their yearly trips to Menagerie.
Even though taking a flight from Vale to Argus had only taken a mere handful of hours, and a train ride from Argus to Oniyuri had taken a bit over two days, the boat ride from Oniyuri to Kuo Kuana took four days at minimum, depending on the weather.
And from how clear the 'summer' skies had been (Jaune said it was summer down by Menagerie as it was south of Remnant's equator, which sounded like crazy talk to Ruby, but Jaune was usually right about these things) they'd either be arriving tonight at the latest.
But either way by this point people would have been pretty restless and getting some fresh air on the main deck, but there was only a small handful of people (that weren't part of the crew or the White Fang) on deck today, and that was with Ruby and Yang.
"Weird, but I guess we have an answer for that. Let's go see the captain while Em goes and gets the food scraps for us. She's dressed like a butler, so people will be less weirded out by her doing it."
"Makes sense. Guess we can have Nora and Ren talk to our parents-"
"Rubes, think about what the situation is again. Think how all the adults will react to Jaune stumbling in and taking charge of a murder investigation."
"Uhhhhh. Wouldn't they be proud he's helping?" Ruby asked, not seeing an issue still.
"I mean, yeah, but then they'd worry too, right? Even though Jaune can totally handle himself, they'd probably want him to back out of it and that'd get in his way. You said it himself, he managed to prove that other kid innocent, but they still don't know who did it."
"Isn't that more reason for us to get our parents?" Ruby scuffled her red boots together, the leather outsoles rubbing nervously, "That means a potential murderer is on the ship. This just seems kind of important. Even Jaune wrote-"
"Sure, we could do that. Honestly, you're right Rubes, we probably should. But think about it. Imagine that we manage to help Jaune crack the case, manage to do it all under the radar!" Yang's words were slightly feverish, they slipped past Ruby's defenses and filled her with a sense of excitement that began to override her caution. "Think about how impressed Jaune would be and all the cookies he'd give you."
Oddly, the words 'think about how impressed Jaune would be' reverberated in her mind ever so slightly more than the thought of his cookies. Just a little. She still wanted cookies.
Tasty cookies.
Ruby wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth.
"If we get into trouble, I'm going to tell our mommies it was your idea."
"Rubes, just say moms, you're thirteen."
Sun couldn't keep the goofy grin off his face after his girlfriend Velvet had comforted him with kisses and warm hugs (warm emotionally, her body temperature was actually always a little concerningly low) to take his mind off everything.
Sure he… well he'd just lost his uncle. They weren't super close, but Sun and Uncle Sanzang had always gotten along really well because Sun was close with his older cousin Starr, his daughter. She'd even been there when Sun first unlocked his Semblance, Via Sun.
It hurt losing him, but it had happened so suddenly and while he'd been asleep. It was still kind of hard to process it all. Velvet definitely helped a lot, either way.
Especially knowing for some reason he'd been drugged unconscious.
He hadn't thought Uncle Sanzang had enemies like that. Shouldn't have. Most people liked him and he was never strong enough to be a problem or threat to anyone. He was a good man and didn't even get caught up in territory wars between some of the more aggressive clans in Vacuo or with any of the cartels.
Nobody should have been trying to kill him.
Clearly they didn't know him well enough to know he didn't like pork. They'd ended up drugging the wrong guy, even though… even though it had worked out for them in the end anyways, as Sun had been asleep and unable to help his uncle defend himself. Assuming this was even premeditated, that was.
But even if his Uncle's Aura was weak… for his neck to break like that.
Something stunk.
"Sun, it's not your fault. You were drugged unconscious." Velvet reassured, leaving a light kiss on his nose as he sat on a bench on the upper deck. "Don't blame yourself."
Her hair, dyed black, fell in his face as she sat in his lap.
Her Aura was soft like her name, velvet waves against his own Aura. The scent of midnight rain, the light of the moon. Cold, but weirdly comforting. Maybe living with the eternal heat of Vacuo made him appreciate her Aura more?
"Yeah. Thanks." Sun smiled as he leaned up to leave a kiss on Velvet's cheek, laughing as she impetuously turned her head to demand one on her other cheek. He let out a sigh afterwards. "I'm going to go back and take a look at the room again, though. See if I can't help Jaune notice anything important."
"Want me to go with you? No, I'm coming with you." Velvet demanded, her neatly maintained brows furrowing. "I'm not letting you face this alone."
How was he so lucky? Sun smiled, knowing that Velvet would call it dorky.
"Your eyebrow's roots are showing again, by the way."
"Muuuu." Velvet's hands rose to cover her eyebrows. "Tell me that sooner!"
"It's really fine. I like your normal hair color."
"Flatterer." Velvet stuck out her tongue at him, making Sun want to capture it in a kiss. "You know I'm sensitive about it."
"Alright, alright." Sun chuckled, "Want me to help with it before we head back down?"
"I'd love that." Velvet smiled warmly. "Thanks, Sunny."
Sun felt like everything would be alright whenever Velvet smiled at him like that.
"Jaune? What're you doing up by the ventilation grate?"
His eyes were narrowed on the small scrap of cloth that had gotten caught by the bottom of the grate. Weirdly enough, while it was high enough that nobody should be peeking into the other room, a lot of the Business Class suites were linked like this with small ventilation grates between pairs of rooms. No matter how Jaune looked at it, it must have been the result of some amateur designer at work. It was too weird to be anything else.
He'd lent BOLT units to remodeling the ships that Atlas had donated to Menagerie, but he himself hadn't been involved in their actual designs, most of that having been left to Menagerie and the White Fang.
He pried the small cloth scrap from where it'd stuck itself regardless.
Light green cotton with smaller dark green dots that were made of some slightly rubbery plastic material, catching a bit of light.
Nothing odd about it, if anything, it looked a bit commercial in quality.
"Jaune? Bud, you good?"
"Hmm? Oh, hey Sun." Jaune smiled as he pulled out a small plastic dimebag to place the cloth in, labeling it with a marker as "Speckled Cloth -Vent', just still going around and figuring out what I can.
"I'll say." A girl's voice called out from behind his new (hopefully) friend, black rabbit ears peeking over the taller boy's shoulders. "You look busy."
That must have been Sun's girlfriend, Velvet. The one he'd originally seen fretting by a doorway where a Guardsman had been yelling from inside.
She was looking over at a wall where Jaune had taped up some sheets of paper with thoughts of the situation alongside some auxiliary evidence he'd found. The bit of boot wax covered glass, the blue piece of glass bell, a sample of pork from the uneaten side, the container of boot wax that Novak Sanzang used in the first place, all in separate clear plastic bags and labeled.
"Yeah, I mean, I'm not taking any of this lightly." Jaune hopped from the bed to the wall, posting his new piece of evidence to the wall. "There's a pretty solid chance that even if this was an accident, there was a third party involved that tried to hush this up. No way to write a 'death note' with a broken neck."
He'd forced the Guardsman to stay on watch outside the room, making him promise to allow Sun back alongside Jaune's friends and family should they come looking for him. Nobody was free of suspicion at the moment. Even if he was sure THIS Guardsman wasn't involved in Novak Sanzang's death, that didn't mean another Guardsman might not have been.
Sun grimaced, making Jaune wince.
"Sorry, Sun."
"Naw man. Thanks for not just taking this all lightly after ya proved I'm innocent. Means a lot. Uncle Sanzang deserves to have his killer caught."
Jaune saw small pale hands reach up to rub Sun's shoulders comfortingly.
"We really do appreciate it." Velvet's voice softly followed up, soothing and gentle. "Do you mind if we ask what you've found so far?"
"I can do a quick summary after I get Sun to read something for me. If that's alright. I know it might be a bit to ask, and I can do it if you feel uncomfortable, but your uncle had a diary. I was wondering if there were any recent entries that might be of note and I didn't want to invade a dead man's privacy without being family or asking permission." Jaune pointed to the small work desk in the corner of the room next to the wardrobe as he stepped by Sun and Velvet to close the door behind them. "Is that ok?"
"Yeah," Sun nodded, "Better his nephew read it than a stranger-er… no offence."
"Look, none taken." Jaune shrugged, scratching the tip of his nose. "That's why I waited."
They started with the last thing that Novak Sanzang had written, quite fortunately what he'd written just past midnight.
"...Can't sleep. It's 1:36 AM and all I can think about is if Menagerie really has become the paradise people claim it is. When I'd last been a decade ago, it'd been pretty but destitute. People living in huts and fishing all day just to put food on the table. No matter how much of a genius the 'Little Professor' is, can it really change that much? Can I put my future down on the line? The pay to come and teach at my own dojo was good though, so perhaps I am allowed to hope. Even if I could never become a Huntsman myself, I could be involved in the next generations."
Sun gave a small, sad smile before continuing.
"Meanwhile my bonehead nephew's snoozing in my wardrobe. Dumb kid insisted that he stowaway so that we all save a bit of Lien, despite the fact that I'm certain we could have negotiated for me to come with two tagalongs instead of just one. Even insisted on his girlfriend take the official economy class ticket and he'd just stay holed up for a few days. She's wasted on him, but they're cute together."
"Oh, mister Sanzang…" Velvet muttered sadly.
"If only that whistling sound would stop. Stepped out to complain to a sailor, but was told I was hearing things and they'd heard no such thing. Weirdly on edge, too, but I would be as well if I had to be the one suffering a night shift. Strangest thing though, was when I stepped back inside. For a moment I thought I'd seen a speckled band. And that's it. That's all he wrote."
Jaune turned.
"Speckled band?" He stepped to pull the taped scrap of cloth in a plastic dimebag off the wall. "Must have been this. Or a part of whatever it had been, which means your neighbor is involved in some manner, though it might just be a kid playing a prank."
There were some muffled sounds of people outside the door to the room, before there was a knock on the door.
When Ren had learned through Nora that Jaune had gotten himself embroiled in a Closed Room Murder Case, he hadn't been the least bit surprised, though a bit disappointed in his own inability to stop his brother from finding trouble at every opportunity.
He'd even coordinated with Yang to give her the chance to confess that she'd wanted, hoping that maybe getting a girlfriend would slow him down a bit.
And while Yang was… well slow isn't the word he'd ever use to describe his friend in any manner, even Yang had a whole world's worth more common sense than Jaune had.
Nora hung off his side, chattering about a bunch of hair-brained theories about how mermaids must have come up and assassinated a passenger in the night, and how they should go fishing to prove it, but with bombs. She'd even offered her Magnhilde ammunition to the cause.
It made him want to smile at her excited chattering and dumb theories, but Emerald was here to his other side, carrying a large brown paper bag filled with multiple plastic ziploc baggies with the remains of many members of the Business Class passengers' dinners. It wouldn't do to look like he was indulging in Nora's fantasies, even if he often did in private.
It really did help that as a result of her chosen Huntress outfit being effectively a neat and tidy butler's uniform (despite the hidden armored layers, her weapons hidden under the coat, plus a few hidden blades all throughout) Emerald did look like she might have actually even been working as a member of the ship's crew.
Even if a few people did recognize her as Jaune's 'secretary' as that was another role that Emerald had 'stolen' for herself over the past few years.
"Is that why the hell you've had me off inspecting parts of the ship all day?" A somewhat familiar woman's voice could be heard down the hall. "I asked you to handle the accident, not turn it into a PR nightmare."
"Sorry, Leader Khan! I thought it would be better to-"
"No, you didn't think! You turned a horrible accident into a fake murder! Now I have to explain to Jaune Arc that this isn't all some big conspiracy! This is the last thing I needed today!"
Ren's eyes widened.
Her white hood was pulled up over her head, toned and tanned arms with black tattoo stripes crossed over her torso, one hand reaching in under her hood. Possibly to apply pressure to a temple or pinch the bridge of her nose.
A pair of Guardsmen (a relatively new thing in the White Fang) stood at attention, though one of them looked confused.
"Sienna Khan?" The current leader of the White Fang?
"Great. Now a bystan- hmm? Ah. Young Ren! So sorry you had to hear that." Sienna Khan pulled her hood back, letting her dark hair flutter, orange tiger Faunus ears flicking up at attention. "Alongside little, well maybe not so little anymore, Nora Arc, and the Little Professor's personal assistant, Emerald, was it?"
She gave a tired smile, slight bags under her eyes as if she hadn't slept well last night. Which was understandable as both he and Nora had been nearly flung out of their own beds at roughly two in the morning.
She wore flowy sleeveless white robes that hugged her lithe form, her hood now pulled back and hanging off her shoulders. It covered every part of her form modestly, unlike when she was out of her leadership garbs. A blue sash tightened the robes around her waist.
She was Adam's boss.
The same Adam that still refused to make amends with Jaune even now.
It sort of pissed Ren off how Jaune was still trying to earn the older boy's trust even now when he'd made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with Jaune after his friendship with the Schnees. It wasn't as if Ren couldn't fully understand why, but Winter and Weiss weren't responsible for anything. They'd simply been kids too when Adam had suffered.
His hatred wasn't completely not understandable, but that didn't mean that Ren had to like or approve of it. Perhaps it was only because he was an outsider looking in that he felt that the sentiment was immature and childish. Ren wondered if he would have felt differently if he too had been branded and lost an eye, but still found it hard to sympathize with the older boy.
Still he tried to not let his dislike of Adam color his opinion of the Leader of the White Fang.
"Good morning to you, Leader Khan." He nodded politely, "What are you doing on the Marching Finn?"
"You're Professor Arc's family, so just Sienna is fine." The older woman waved off casually with a smile, fairly warm even though it was a politician's smile. "Really. If anything, I find that I must apologize for seeming to be the cause of quite some misfortune."
"Leader Khan, you can't-"
"You shut up already. I think you morons have done enough. I appreciate the loyalty, really I can't put how much I appreciate it into words the lengths the lot of you are willing to go, but there is honestly such a thing as going too far." Sienna Khan glared, making the Guardsman wince. "Taurus trains you all well, but you're way too… blunt. Yeah, let's go with blunt. Good gods."
"Mreow."
Ren blinked owlishly.
"That would be my pet cat." Sienna laughed at his expression, reaching to pull up at the hem of her robes to show a small dark gray kitten with black stripes rubbing up against her bare dark skinned ankles. There was a collar with a bit of a broken bit of blue glass dangling off of it. "Tabitha's unfortunately caused… well, an incident. Which I think, judging from the bag that Jaune's little secretary is carrying, might have been responsible for. Or rather, absolutely is."
"Your cat planted fake evidence at the scene of the crime?" Nora, of course, took that away from the situation at hand.
Sienna sighed again, this time sounding a bit amused, even though tired.
"No, that's one of the bonehead Guardsmen who I'll be severely reprimanding and punishing for the incident. Or even putting in a cell, depending on what the victim's nephew wants." She gestured to the door where Jaune was probably inside still piecing everything together. "Why don't we step inside and I can help elucidate everything all at once?"
"So it wasn't mermaid assassins from the deep?" Nora sounded genuinely disappointed. "Awwww."
Ren stifled a laugh as Sienna Khan gave a truly confused look at his… sometimes he really wondered what Nora was to him. Their relationship was something that was hard to put into words. All he knew was that he enjoyed being at Nora's side.
"Let's just step inside. We still have to give Jaune the food scraps he asked for."
"Yeah, if that's the remains of yesterday's dinner, it's probably all laced with sleeping drugs." Sienna glared at the Guardsman again.
Ren blinked.
"What? Why?!"
Juniper knew that it couldn't be helped.
Jaune was just a trouble magnet in this life. He really was. It beggared belief.
But it was also true that to maintain his own mental clarity (and the method wasn't even properly perfect) it was necessary for him to enter small bursts of hibernation throughout the day to be able to function properly. Like sleeping but half as restful and thus requiring twice as much stillness as a result. Thus it was difficult to keep track of his little brother consistently.
Prana helped him stay stable, but it also meant that he needed to consolidate the magical power every single time as well, though it was also when Pyrrha's presence became the most active, giving him a warm share of happiness.
But not only was seeing Velvet Scarlatina be a much perkier, self-confident girl with black dyed hair and eyebrows just the strangest thing. Especially when she was dressed in a sort of black goth-punk style, with none of the makeup to match.
Oh and dating Sun WuKong because WHEN AND HOW DID THAT HAPPEN, but he'd come down to find Jaune to the sight of Sienna Khan apologizing that her pet cat had caused the accidental death of Sun's uncle.
Because that was a Sunday afternoon in the life of Jaune Arc nowadays, it seemed.
"Let me get this straight." Sun looked like he wasn't really able to process what was happening either. "Your cat snuck away from you, climbed away, leapt through the ventilation and ended up in my uncle's room."
He pointed at the cat toy in Sienna's hand. A length of cloth (a piece of it torn and missing) connected to the end of a simple wooden stick.
"That's the speckled band that my uncle mentioned in his diary because with that and whistling you tried to get the cat to come back to you, but it couldn't climb back because while you had hung a curtain by your bed for privacy that he could climb, we didn't have the same in our room."
Juniper turned as he saw Jaune point up at a few hooks that hung from the ceiling of the room.
"That checks out. It's possible."
"You can step around to look at my room next door to see it." Sienna offered with a sigh. "Still got the claw marks running up it now."
"So you stepped around, revealing the LEADER of the WHITE FANG was secretly on board and just in Business Class for some reason-"
"First class was… fully booked." Jaune winced, "But I also thought that you'd be back in Menagerie, Leader Khan. I didn't even know that you'd ever even left."
"I had some business in Mistral, actually. A bit more hushed because Mistral has the least friendly idea of Faunus out of the Kingdoms. It would have been bad if some zealous bigots with an agenda knew I was out and with minimal guard." Sienna offered truthfully, though keeping the details to herself.
Juniper saw Jaune nod, seeming as if she'd detected no lie.
What was the leader of the White Fang doing in Mistral, though?
"Wait, why was the food drugged last night, then?" Velvet frowned, "I don't react well to sleeping medication, so I didn't fall asleep from it, but even the economy class passengers were unconscious. I had thought there was a bit of a strange bitterness in the pork, but I thought it was just some herbs that were too strongly used."
"I boarded the ship last night at a bit past midnight." Sienna glared at a trio of Guardsman that were standing at attention to the side. "I had requested for the Marching Finn to make a slight detour so that I could be delivered to the vessel as it passed by and had told them I wanted to be able to board a bit discreetly. I didn't think that anyone would be so dumb to try to drug the ENTIRE list of passengers as a result of it!"
"Loyalty must be tempered by logic." He heard Emerald chide the older Faunus Guardsmen who (surprisingly) seemed to take her words without insult, "Nothing is more embarrassing for a blade than to forget the intent of their master."
"Ok, then putting the food issue aside, why the secrecy?" Jaune asked quietly.
"Sorry, Professor. That's not pertinent to the situation on hand. It was White Fang business, is all. Just some underground aid to those who needed our helping hands."
"Enough that the Leader of the White Fang herself went in secret to help?"
"If a Leader cannot step forward and fight the good fight with her fellows, what worth does their leadership hold? What weight lies behind their words? Nothing, I say." Sienna challenged, her eyes glinting. "I simply did what I thought I must. But once again, this has nothing to do with the tragedy at hand. At least not directly."
Jaune and Juniper both chewed their lips in sync.
"Look, if the boss lady says it has to be secret, then fine. So you came over to our room, explained the situation with the cat and asked for his assistance in retrieving it. When you joined him inside to look for her, the ship rocked. You saw my uncle step on your cat's bell as she darted in your direction, breaking it as he slipped. Then the ship rocked again at that moment, causing him to fall towards the bed, land wrong, and his neck snapped over the bottom bedpost? As hard to believe as that is… why frame me?!"
"That was my fault." One of the Guardsmen stepped up. "I had thought at the moment that instead of calling attention to the presence of Leader Khan, it would be best to pull the attention elsewhere until at least she'd arrived safely in Menagerie. I had ordered the other Guardsman to pass along my plan once we arrived on shore, and after a day or two you would have been acquitted from lack of hard evidence."
He bowed in apology, though it was almost military in feel rather than genuine.
"I arranged for a short emergency stop around 2AM so that we could bolt the room shut without being inside and have a proper suspect, but again, didn't know about your Semblance. I didn't know you had a Clone Type Semblance and would have become a stronger suspect than planned for. Naturally as someone that had been sealed in, you couldn't have done the deed and we could have acquitted you without issues. The Guardsman that discovered you in the morning did not know anything but the fact we'd made an emergency stop."
"Once again, I am so sorry." Sienna bowed, her kitten mewling at her without a care in the world as she curled on her back, paws batting up at her owner, asking for attention. "I will take full responsibility for this tragedy. Even if it wasn't intentional, it is true that I bear blame for your Uncle's death. Whatever you ask, I will provide."
"Leader Khan! Please do not! It was me!"
"I as well!"
"The shame of a squad is born together. It was me then as well."
The three Guardsmen stepped forward, bowing their heads.
Sun made a complicated face.
"So it was just… an accident? Then you idiots made it worse out of… ugh. Fine. I… I'm upset but fuck it. Let's just all move past this. I don't even want the little kitty to pay for this. This is all just a load of weird and stupid shit. This all just sucks. I just want his body to be sent back to his family so he can be buried with them."
"I swear upon the honor of the White Fang that we will safely deliver your uncle's body to your clan." Sienna smiled apologetically as she raised her head. "Alongside every condolence we can afford to send."
"I think it's worse because it was just a complicated series of unfortunate events and there is no villain to blame and point at." Jaune sighed. "Nobody was trying to kill anyone, you just got scapegoated because of a non-murder agenda, but happened to have a Semblance that suddenly elevated you to an actual theoretical killer instead of an unfortunate suspect."
Still his little brother gave Sienna a look of faint suspicion.
It was likely related to the fact that she'd required so much secrecy. If she'd been lying about the events that had unfolded, Jaune would have either called her out on it, or used a piece of evidence to prove her wrong.
But to Juniper it was still unnerving.
The White Fang hadn't become the terrorist organization it had been in his own lifetime, but…
…death yet followed in Sienna Khan's wake.
Accident or not… it left a bad taste in his mouth. Thus it must have for Jaune himself as well, as Juniper and Jaune were two sides of the same coin.