The world had already shattered by the time Jaune realized he was falling.
There was no stable sense of direction nor clean divide between sky and ground. Fractured stone and liquid fire churned beneath him as the mountain that had once stood beneath their feet collapsed into ruin. The air burned with and force as pressure from clashing domains scraped against his skin and clawed at what remained of his body, as though the very space around him was trying to grind him down into nothing.
Fortunately, something moved.
From below, within the roiling shadow-lava itself that he was going to fall into, tendrils surged upward and wrapped around him in an instant, forming a cocoon of dense shadow that cut through the worst of the heat and pressure like a shield slamming into place at the last possible moment.
Jaune barely registered it.
His vision flickered and his mind lagged behind the damage that his body had already taken. Blood filled his throat as he coughed violently, the sound was wet and raw. Parts of his body had completely disintegrated from the force of the attack. He had lost his entire right leg and half of left torso. There was no pain at first, only absence. Then sensation returned in jagged fragments, nerves screaming as reality tried to stitch itself back together.
A figure appeared in front of him.
Raven.
She did not speak or hesitate. Her eyes flicked over him once, sharp and assessing, before her form blurred and vanished again. Gone in a ripple of darkness as she moved to intercept others who were still falling, burning and dying.
Jaune barely managed to stay conscious. His mind snapped inward.
Aura.
He forced it to move and dragged it toward one of the prepared runes embedded within his runic gear. The process felt sluggish, like trying to swim through tar, but the command went through.
Activation.
The rune flared.
Warmth flooded his system, spreading rapidly from his core outward. The healing rune latched onto his damaged form and began rebuilding it with ruthless efficiency.
Flesh reformed and bone knitted. Shadow-body and spirit aligned once more under the guiding structure of the rune.
Jaune gasped as sensation returned fully, dragging in air that tasted like ash and iron. His figure lurched forward as the last of the damage sealed itself, leaving only lingering weakness behind.
He was standing.
Beneath his feet, a platform of shadow had formed, stable enough to hold him above the churning lava below. Around him, others began to appear as Raven returned, dragging survivors out of the chaos one by one.
Pyrrha landed with her footing steady even in the aftermath. Sun and Neptune followed, both looking shaken but intact. Auberyn hit the platform hard, rolling once before pushing himself upright. Rajah and Coppal were next with their conditions less stable but alive.
Jaune's eyes flicked across them.
The rest were gone. Either dying in that initial strike or lost somewhere in the collapsing terrain below.
His jaw tightened.
Before he could say anything, the platform beneath them shifted slightly as Pyrrha raised a hand. Metal flowed from her Aura, spreading outward and stabilizing into a more solid construct beneath their feet. The shadow dissolved beneath it, replaced by something firmer, something they could trust.
Jaune barely noticed. His attention had already shifted towards the far horizon.
The horizon that was moving.
No, not moving.
Breaking.
Shockwaves rippled across the distant landscape, tearing through mountains and sending waves of molten shadow crashing upward into the air. The battlefield stretched far beyond their immediate surroundings, a clash between entities that existed on a level none of them could truly interfere with.
He saw it. With eyes as good as he had, he could see him.
The Sleepless Rank 3.
A distant figure, small only by comparison to the devastation around him, yet radiating a presence that twisted the world itself. Each movement carried weight and each strike sent ripples through the domain space that distorted everything in its wake.
The Formless Stalker had been launched far across the battlefield, its body crashing through layers of terrain before stabilizing. However, it retaliated. Vast sections of the Shadow Realm rose up in response as entire swathes of ground tore free and surged towards the man like tidal waves made of solid darkness.
And still, he stood.
Jaune exhaled slowly, tension coiling in his chest.
Behind him, Raven reappeared once more, setting down another injured member before immediately turning to leave again. This time, she paused just long enough to speak.
"I'm going."
Jaune met her gaze. She did not wait for a response.
"I'll hold the line with them. You handle this side. You know what to do."
Then she was gone.
A ripple of darkness swallowed her form as she plunged straight into the battlefield where the Rank 2s had already engaged.
Jaune clenched his fists.
'I damn sure don't know what to do Raven!' Jaune cursed.
For a moment, he stood there, caught between two impossibilities. Then he turned back to the group.
"We need to call for reinforcements," he said, his voice steady despite everything. "In reality and let them know about what happened. I don't think we can handle this on our own."
The senior researcher, who had just been stabilized by a healing rune, shook her head immediately.
"It won't work."
Jaune frowned. "Why not?"
"The beacons have been destroyed," she said, gesturing toward the devastated landscape. "That explosion wiped out everything in the immediate area. Even if we rebuild, calibration takes time and we don't have that."
Silence followed. Neptune shifted slightly, glancing toward the distant battlefield.
"Then what if we don't wait?" he said. "What if we help with the extraction instead?"
That drew everyone's attention.
Their gazes turned.
In the distance, the Rank 2s were fully engaged. Qrow and Taiyang moved in tandem, their attacks colliding against a cluster of Sleepless operatives. Glass constructs erupted around them, forming barriers and prisons in an attempt to lock them down while waves of fire crashed in from another angle.
Jaune recognized it instantly.
Cinder.
His expression darkened.
"So that's how it is,"
The realization settled heavily in his chest.
"That beacon was probably planted by Cinder."
His eyes narrowed.
"She's been with Sleepless the whole time."
A pause.
"Which means…" he continued slowly, "Emerald and Mercury…"
He didn't get to finish the sentence because a sound interrupted the moment.
Clapping.
It echoed across the platform, cutting through the distant chaos like a blade sliding across glass.
Jaune turned.
They were standing there.
A group of Sleepless operatives, their forms steady against the unstable terrain. Grimm masks hid their faces, but their presence alone was enough to send a ripple of tension through the group.
And among them—
Emerald and Mercury.
Mercury's hands came together once more, the sharp crack of the clap ringing out as he tilted his head slightly.
"Congratulations, Arc," he said, his voice laced with something between amusement and mockery. "Took you long enough. Considering that you're his son, it's a little disappointing, gotta' say."
The air shifted.
Jaune stepped forward slightly, placing himself between them and the others. Because now, the real fight had come to them.
"Seems like everybody and their dog knows about my father," Jaune said, his tone flat, cutting through the tension that had settled over them. His eyes locked onto Mercury without wavering. "That's you, by the way. The dog."
Mercury tilted his head slightly, as if genuinely weighing the insult. After a moment, he let out a small breath through his nose. "Yeah," he said dryly. "Trash talk's not really your specialty."
Jaune didn't respond.
Outwardly, he remained still and composed, almost indifferent. Inwardly, his mind was moving at a blistering pace. Every detail was being catalogued. Every stance, flicker of movement and subtle shift in posture from the figures standing across from him. He was already building the fight in his head before it had even begun.
But something was wrong.
His weakness sense, wasn't functioning properly. It brushed against the figures in front of him and found… nothing. Like trying to perceive something through warped, uneven glass.
They were there. But they weren't.
Jaune's eyes narrowed slightly.
Some sort of Interference.
It had to be some kind of rune. Something that didn't just conceal their presence, but actively altered how they were perceived.
Even so, that didn't change the reality of the situation.
Jaune could feel the strength coiled within his body, heavy and potent. Ever since merging with Gula, his shadow body had transcended the limits of Rank 1. He wasn't a true Rank 2, but he stood close enough to that threshold that the difference didn't matter. The only thing that was limiting him was his Will and Aura stats.
So essentially, he was a false Rank 2.
His physical strength alone was overwhelming compared to those in front of him. If he moved decisively and committed fully, he could kill one of them instantly.
The thought came without hesitation.
Still, he chose to speak first.
"What's Sleepless's goal here?" Jaune asked, his voice calm, almost casual.
And when Mercury opened his mouth to respond, Jaune moved.
The ground beneath him shattered as he launched forward, body compressing power and speed into a single explosive motion. The air cracked around him as he crossed the distance in an instant, both swords carving downward toward Mercury's head with lethal precision.
Mercury's eyes widened, but he couldn't move away in time. Jaune's blades passed straight through him.
There was no resistance or impact. Not even a sensation of making contact.
Nothing.
Jaune's eyes snapped wide as his momentum carried him through empty space. His instincts screamed, forcing his body to twist mid-motion as he redirected his strike toward another Sleepless operative.
The result was the same.
His blade sliced through as if cutting through fog.
Jaune skidded to a halt, grinding against the hot shadow ground as confusion surged through him. His thoughts stumbled, struggling to reconcile what he had just experienced.
Illusions?
All of them?
But it didn't feel that simple.
The world around him seemed to tilt and the edges of his vision distorted in a subtle, unnatural way. Details blurred, then sharpened and then blurred again.
No.
Something deeper was happening.
His weakness sense turned inward.
There.
A foreign presence. It coiled subtly around his mind, hidden so well that he hadn't even noticed it until now. It wasn't an external illusion alone, but something embedded within his perception itself.
Jaune's mind sharpened.
The memory of suppressing Gula's monstrous consciousness surged forward. The same resistance and same instinct to push back against something invasive.
He focused and forced his weakness rune inward, directing it toward the interference itself. It felt like trying to grasp something intangible, like smoke slipping through his fingers. Weakness was quite limited against intangible things, however, because it was his mind, the rules were slightly different. He pushed harder, forcing his will against it.
Then, for a single moment, it slipped and the interference destabilized.
The world shattered.
"Jaune! Snap out of it!"
Pyrrha's voice tore through everything.
Jaune's vision snapped into clarity, and what he saw made his chest tighten. They were already fighting. The illusion was gone.
Chaos had taken its place.
Pyrrha stood at the center of her platform, her expression strained as a storm of conjured spears hovered around her. With sharp, controlled motions, she sent them flying toward her opponent.
Rajah.
Jaune's breath caught.
Rajah stood across from her, his expression unnaturally calm. Space itself warped around him, bending and distorting the trajectory of every spear that came his way. They curved mid-flight, deflected by something invisible, rendered useless before they could reach him.
"Rajah…?" Jaune whispered, disbelief creeping into his voice.
To the side, Auberyn clashed with Coppal.
But Coppal was different.
Heat radiated from him in violent waves, his body glowing faintly as if something within him burned at extreme temperatures. The air around him shimmered and warped, each movement leaving behind distortions like heat haze. Auberyn's starlight constructs collided against him, each impact sending bursts of light and heat scattering across the battlefield.
Further out, Sun and Neptune fought together against a blood red-haired man wielding a blade that pulsed with a deep, blood-red hue.
The man moved with terrifying precision.
Every strike he delivered forced them back. Their coordination kept them alive, but only barely. He controlled the flow of the fight completely, dictating every exchange with effortless dominance.
Jaune's heart pounded.
"What… what just happened…?" he muttered under his breath, his thoughts fractured.
How long had he been trapped and how much exactly had he missed?
His head snapped to the side as he saw the reason for the mental intrusion.
Emerald.
She stood apart from the chaos, untouched, her posture relaxed as if she were merely observing a performance. When she noticed his gaze, she smiled and waved.
The gesture was light and mocking.
A cold sensation settled in Jaune's chest, but before he could move against her, she raised her hand and snapped her fingers.
A rune formed instantly in front of her, its structure intricate and tightly controlled. Jaune didn't need to analyze it deeply to understand its function.
An imbued meta rune.
Suppress.
The moment it activated, he felt something clamped down on him.
His body shuddered as the overwhelming strength he had been relying on for two days suddenly diminished. Not entirely, but enough to feel like something fundamental had been stripped away.
His muscles tightened and his senses dulled. The weight of his body increased as if gravity itself had turned against him.
His false Rank 2 state collapsed.
What remained was still above a normal Rank 1 and vastly stronger than most, but the difference was staggering. The gap between what he had been moments ago and what he was now was immense.
Jaune staggered slightly, struggling to stabilize.
Then something moved in front of him. A gray haired man whose face was hidden by a grimm mask, blade already in motion.
Jaune barely had time to react by raising his blades.
Steel flashed a dozen times in rapid succession.
Each strike came faster than the last, arcs of cutting force overlapping in a relentless storm. Jaune managed to block the first few blows but the impact rattled through his arms.
The next strikes slipped through.
A shallow cut opened along his side and another grazed his shoulder before a third slammed into his blade and forced him backward.
His footing broke.
Jaune skidded across the soils, scraping as he fought to regain control. His mind raced, trying to adjust, trying to compensate for the sudden loss of power.
In an instant, everything had changed. He had gone from overwhelming advantage to barely holding ground. His grip tightened around his swords and his breathing steadied.
Confusion still lingered, but it was being forced aside, crushed under the need to survive.
Focus.
Jaune raised his blades again, eyes locking onto the gray-haired swordsman in front of him.
"Damn it," he muttered.