The camera shimmered into focus with the usual polished brightness, the signal crackling ever so slightly over the network lines still recovering from a fractured world. Lisa Lavender appeared onscreen with that perfectly sculpted smile, one part charm, one part veiled curiosity. The banner below her read:
BREAKING: TEAM RWBY ALIVE? VACUO IN SHOCK.
"Good evening, this is Lisa Lavender with VNN. And tonight, we have a truly unbelievable development stirring across the sands of Vacuo and beyond."
She leaned in slightly, voice dropping to that conspiratorial hush that always meant something scandalous was coming.
"Eyewitnesses report that earlier today, a group of individuals arrived at Shade Academy. One of them was unmistakably clad in a crimson hood. Could it be... Ruby Rose? And she wasn't alone. Sources close to the academy claim she was accompanied by individuals matching the descriptions of Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long. The legendary Team RWBY. Presumed dead or lost after the catastrophic events in Atlas, they seem to have returned under mysterious circumstances."
The footage shifted to blurry images taken from a distance. A red cloak billowing behind a slight figure. The glint of white against steel. A flash of gold hair. The crowd was kept at bay by Shade security, but the rumours had already exploded across every available feed.
"Initial reports suggest the group arrived through an unknown portal, accompanied by a man in heavy Armor, identity unconfirmed, and a woman resembling the infamous Neopolitan, a known associate of the late Roman Torchwick. And yes, dear viewers, your guess is as good as mine."
She paused, letting the air thicken with suggestion.
"Is the red-hooded girl truly Ruby Rose, once regarded as a symbol of hope for all the Kingdoms? And what does this mean for Remnant now that heroes thought long-dead walk among us again? What of the armoured stranger and the criminal at their side? Are they friends... or threats?"
The screen flickered once more, cutting to a still frame of Shade's gates surrounded by sand-covered figures watching from afar. Just shadows against the late afternoon sun, but the buzz was deafening.
Lisa smiled again, this time with a glint of hunger behind her eyes.
"We will keep you updated as more information comes in. For now, stay tuned, because it looks like the fairy tale... isn't over yet."
The screen cut to black.
"Well... shit." Qrow summed the news report as the screen went dark. The room was quiet for a moment. The glow from the projector lingered faintly against the sandstone walls of the conference chamber deep within Shade Academy. The air inside was dry and cool, carrying none of the outside heat that beat down on Vacuo.
Seated at the head of the long table was Professor Theodore, headmaster of Shade. He was tall, broad across the shoulders, his face weathered from years of harsh desert sun and harder choices. His salt-and-pepper beard was trimmed with precision, and his expression bore the weariness of a man used to balancing diplomacy with survival. His golden robes, lined with sand-colored armor plating, reflected both his academic position and combat readiness. He sat still, hands folded, eyes unreadable as they flicked from the fading projection to the team gathered across from him.
To his right, Qrow leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, one foot tapping restlessly against the floor. His face was pulled into a familiar scowl, but there was something softer behind the eyes. Tension and fatigue layered over quiet relief.
Next to him sat Winter Schnee, posture straight, fingers laced in front of her. The only hint of her fraying calm was in the stiffness of her jaw. Her uniform was immaculate, as always, but her gaze was distant, fixed on nothing in particular.
Raven stood against the far wall, her arms crossed tightly. Her presence felt like a shadow in the room, silent and uneasy. She hadn't spoken since entering, and no one had expected her to. She watched everything, but her eyes flicked to the door more than once.
And above them, on a large wall-mounted screen, was Glynda Goodwitch, her image slightly grainy from the unstable comm relays. Her face was drawn and pale, deep lines under her eyes betraying a level of exhaustion that makeup couldn't hide. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, and likely hadn't. The war effort and political collapse back in what was left of Atlas had taken their toll.
At the centre of it all stood Ozpin, arms clasped behind his back, gaze calm and patient. He had listened without interruption as the news broadcast played, taking in every word, every image. Now, he turned to the young Huntsmen and Huntresses gathered on the opposite side of the room.
Ruby. Weiss. Blake. Yang. Neo, Jaune still to arrive.
They stood together in a loose formation, each carrying the weight of memories that hadn't been shared yet.
"We're not here for speculation," Ozpin said, his voice quiet but firm. "We are here to understand the truth. What happened in Ever After. What you encountered…Mr. Arc is yet to join us but we may begin…"
He paused, letting that hang in the air.
"And then we will bring you up to speed on the world you've returned to."
The room was still. Even Raven, who usually scoffed at meetings like this, didn't speak.
"You may begin when ready."
"Ever After is like super weird." Ruby began eliciting a snort from Qrow. " Everything that was written in the Girl that Fell through the World was real. The Red Prince, The Cat, Even the Cookie Land it was real!" Ruby chattered trying not to feel the exasperated gazes of her teammates because of the little incident that she had in the Cookie Land." But…"
"That place was way more…twisted than the books described." Weiss neatly cut in taking over the story." The Author clearly ended up there since the descriptions were too precise to be a coincidence and somehow he found his way back just like us…for reasons unknown he…make it look like a fairy tale land instead of…madness that it was." She sighed remembering the weirdness she saw there.
"Nothing made sense there…time was nothing but an illusion…"Blake added. "You could go alone to the bush and come back in what seemed like 10 minutes but for others you were gone for a day, week, month…"She shivered thinking of how Yang was gone for a whole month once…
"Not to mention the creeps that were there, you think Grimm are bad? Ever Afterans make them look like toys…I think the amount of scars you see on each of us says a lot of what we encountered…"
"So what is this Ever After?" Winter asked." Is it some…world like ours?"
"We are not sure…we spent there only few months and most of this time we were focusing on not dying." Yang replied with a shrug." Funny thing is that Ever Afterans technically can't die." She said shocking the gathered.
"Ok Firecracker, I'll bite what do you mean by technically" Qrow asked.
"You see when they are killed they do not die but…ascend…that's how they call it. A person who died gets reborn as something similar but something else too. They don't remember who they were previously but they become something new…"
"It's hard to put it in words really. It's like…"Weiss frowned." It's like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. Each time they die they change to something more…"
The gathered exchanged confused looks.
"So it's something similar to reincarnation concept?" Glynda asked feeling the headache.
"That's the closest analogy I guess we can use." Blake agreed. " We-"
She suddenly got interrupted by the doors opening. Heads turning into that direction, she let a sigh escape her mouth.
Jaune entered the room followed closely by Nora and Ren.
With what little remained of her faith in higher powers Blake thanked the Brothers for the fact that her nose was not violated this time…
Jaune's Armor had been de-rusted and cleaned, parts that were too much gone replaced by new ones. While it still needed polishing at the least one could see that it used to be white, long time ago. His helmet present on his head and his crystal green claymore strapped to his back with now clean cloak covering it.
"Pardon my lateness." Jaune's voice rang through the room. " I needed to become…presentable."
"We told him to go bath again, go to barber and clean his Armor, I mean somehow even the metal smelled!" Nora chipped in giving everybody disarming smile.
Everyone blinked at how unhinged she was with her energetic patting of Jaune's back.
"Nora we agreed to not discuss Jaune's hygiene inhibitions in open yes?" Ren added. The duo decided to do everything in their power to make Jaune feel at home, which meant that their usual banter had to come back.
So first thing in the morning Nora banged at Jaune's doors. Upon opening she instantly saw that he most likely did not sleep and for sure he cried. Hard. So after hugging him and refusing to let go up until he hugged her back, as awkward and mechanical it was she dragged him to the bath again and the rest is history.
'Brother Gods thank you for Nora.' Team RWBY thought looking at now clean and rancid smell free Jaune.
Who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here.
"Of course." Ozpin coughed in his fist. "So Mr. Arc we're in discussion of a nature of EA, while Team RWBY tried to fill us in, you who spend there the most time might shine more light on the matter…" he left the question hanging.
Jaune took a deep breath as if he was carrying an unbearable weight.
"Ever After…is a land of fairy tale…a land of madness…but before all else it's a land where Gods are born." He spoke gravely. His words shocking everyone present. " Brother Gods were Ever Afterans."
One could hear a pin drop with how the silence was defeating.
The gathered here weren't people who could be easily shaken with how many unbelievable things they went through but this one clearly took the cake.
Even Ozma, a man who reincarnated hundred times was speechless. The being that cursed him and Salem to this eternal war…were something for the place this young people…children in his eyes went.
"You are fucking with us, aren't you Jaune?" Yang was the fist one to reply. Yes she went there but that was too much.
Jaune gave her a flat stare.
"Can you elaborate more Mr. Arc?" Ozpin said slowly feeling like he needs something stronger than his usual coffee.
"Did they explain ascension? "He asked, when the gathered nodded, he continued. " When Ever Afteran dies it goes before the being known as Blacksmith…I guess we can call it…the First Ever Afteran. She…it…might be responsible for creating the Ever After or maybe she was just the first one to be born there, this I don't know. But when you die you stand before her and you are given a choice…an offer to be reforged into something else.
"H-How do you know this?" Weiss asked softly looking at Jaune in such way it made him turn his eyes from her. He could not accept what she was giving him.
"I died once there."
Again the silence fell on the gathered as white haired girl covered her mouth in terror similarly to Nora who felt like fainting.
"H-How-" Ruby was about to ask but she was cut.
"That is irrelevant to the discussion at hand." Jaune cut her bluntly." If you take her offer you are reborn into something else…something better…or something different. Yet unlike Ever Afterans we humans remain with our memories intact…"
"I feel a but coming." Blake whispered, her throat dry as the dessert around Vacuo.
"We become less of ourselves. Like our memories belong to someone else and what we were is now something like a movie we watched."
"Did you…" Nora spoke with trembling voice.
"No…I refused her." Jaune spoke instantly. "The price was too much…at that time." He added sending shiver down her spine. "Yet coming back to main topic every time Ever Afteran ascends he or she or it becomes stronger, more sentient…you all probably noticed how…oriented the denizens of Ever After were, how they were like dolls with their roles given to them…they could feel but they could not reason or break from their role unless they ascended enough time to gain independence."
"Chesire…" Ruby whispered.
"Yes, the next God to be in whatever world he lands too." Jaune agreed.
"So what you are saying Mr. Arc is that Brother Gods originated in Ever After?" Ozpin asked.
"Yes that was what Blacksmith told me…she was…surprisingly open to questions." Jaune admitted.
"But how a being that YOU could kill, can become a God here?" Raven spoke for the first time." You are not that powerful yourself?"
Yang had to do everything in her power to not scoff at her Mother.
"You're still under impression that your primitive definition of strength is of any value?" Jaune deadpanned.
"Uffff" Yang, Qrow, Nora and surprisingly Neo, who made a mouth imitating the sound added. " Sizzling hot burn here Jaune." Yang added.
Raven frowned grabbing the hilt of her blade but Jaune was unimpressed ignoring her completely which only irked her further, like she wasn't a worthy challenge to him.
"Answering the question, ascend enough time and you can become something of power so immense that you can create something from nothing…Brother Gods became too big for Ever After so they went out to became Gods of their own lands…just like Blacksmith is in Ever After."
"That's a lot to take in Mr Arc. "Glynda spoke looking like she aged few decades." But that pose a question of which Raven moved. If they could ascend as you call it, how is that you as Knave of Hearts was so feared? If the terms of getting more powerful are just with the death shouldn't they be, well maybe not happy but at the least content that they can evolve?"
Jaune let a very long sigh out grabbing the hilt of his sword. He pretended not to see how everyone around tensed with Neo and Raven grabbing their respective weapons. Slowly in non-threatening way, or at the least what seemed to be not threatening for a person to pull out a claymore he removed the jagged green blade out of his pouch.
"There was an exception to the rule."
The tone he spoke was hollow as he saw his reflection in the blade. As in the back of his mind he heard screams or lives he extinguished.
"Cheshire…Jabberwalker and the Goose…those three were the closest to become a new Gods." He spoke slowly trailing his thumb along the flat edge of the blade. I have slain the latter two with this blade…" He lifted his head and looked straight into Ozpin's eyes. "The Vorpal Blade. The First Blade…the blade that can kill the soul."
The gathered did not know how to process the news. That was simply too humongous to process. Ozpin again as the one who have seen too much in his multiple lives was first to speak.
"Does it mean?" He asked slowly methodically.
"Yes this blade can kill an immortal…it can permanently kill anything." Jaune told them eliciting a sigh from Ozpin.
"Wait, wait, wait…" Yang suddenly spoke." You mean that you fought US with this thing knowing that if you kill us and we would not come back!?" She exclaimed with her eyes burning red.
"Yes." Came the curt reply that felt like a slap.
"Wait you were trying to kill them!?" Qrow growled, rising to his feet with dangerous weight. Raven's hand slid toward her blade, eyes glowing. Winter stood as well, the faint shimmer of maiden energy coursing at her fingertips.
"Yes. Under the Queen of Hearts' orders I was trying to kill them." Jaune said it flatly. Calmly. As if he were commenting on the weather. He didn't even look up as a wave of killer intent crashed against him from all directions.
Behind him, Ren and Nora stared at his back, silent and unmoving. Shock flattened their faces, confusion and disbelief bubbling just beneath the surface. Nora felt her heartbeat thudding louder than anything in the room. Trying to breathe became a task in itself.
To hear that Jaune had killed in Ever After was something they could process. Eventually. Maybe.
But to hear him say that he had been trying to kill them, his friends, that was something else entirely.
The tension was suffocating. Like the very air had turned to glass, waiting to be shattered.
"WAIT!" Weiss suddenly stepped forward, before any violence occurred. "He's skipping a part where he was under a mind control of Queen of Hearts!"
The gathered blinked.
"What?" Came smart reply from Theodore who at this point went through at the least 3 mind shattering crises. " You mean that there is someone else capable of mind control?" He asked remembering the dramatic mess with Jax and the crown some time ago.
"Not anymore." Jaune told him. " I made sure to kill Queen of Hearts…" He paused something flickering behind his visor." She's no more."
"So he wasn't really himself!" Weiss added seeing how close her sister was to attacking him." She ripped part of his soul out and made him the Knave!"
"No."
Weiss head snapped to Jaune's direction panic in her eyes.
"It wasn't Queen doing who made me Knave…it was myself who did this…it was my choice to become what I became. I was the one to kill Jaune Arc." Jaune's voice was still calm. Too calm. He looked at her, again this disgusting darkness swirling in the darkness of his helmet." My sins are mine to bear and I will not push responsibility to anyone else.
Again the tensions flared as two maiden's powers became active.
"Then way did you HELP us after we gave you your heart back!?" Ruby shouted marching up to him. Which in hindsight was funny with the height difference. " Why did you replenish our aura's and then even came to help us to fight that monster!?" She began stabbing her finger in his chest, with tears in her eyes as memories of fighting the worst monster she had ever seen flooded her mind.
The Palace of Hearts groaned under the weight of madness.
Twisted marble columns, veined in crimson and gold, spiraled toward a ceiling that breathed like lungs. Heart-shaped chandeliers hung from blackened chains, pulsing with dim pink light, casting grotesque shadows that danced like broken puppets on the checkered floor. The stained-glass windows no longer held depictions of royalty or grandeur. Now they showed torment — spiraling, fractured images of screaming Ever Afterans and burning lands.
At the far end of the throne room, atop a dais of jagged rose-thorns, sat a mockery of a throne. Once ornate and regal, it had been twisted into something monstrous. Its back was high, lined with sharpened cards, and its cushions bled wine-colored liquid that dripped down the steps like tears.
And on that throne sat the Queen.
She was still.
Waiting.
And then, the doors slammed open.
Team RWBY entered as one, their silhouettes outlined against the flickering red light that poured through the stained glass. They moved as a unit. Weapons drawn. Faces hard.
"You've run long enough," Ruby said.
The Queen rose.
Her corrupted form unfurled like a nightmare. Once the image of a girl, now something far worse. Her face was stretched into a twisted porcelain smile, spiderweb cracks spreading from the corners of her mouth. Blonde hair flowed in matted curls, streaked with black. Her limbs were elongated, fingers jointed too many times, talons tapping against the blood-slick marble.
Her dress was a tattered thing of velvet and bone, its skirts stitched with the faces of those she had broken. Her wings twitched — more skeletal than ever — malformed bones jutting from her back with strands of flesh hanging like ribbons.
And her eyes. Glowing red, endless and wrong. Full of something beyond cruelty.
But when she saw them that cruelty twisted into something uglier.
"You took him away from me."
Then the world screamed.
Ruby lunged first. Petals erupted behind her as she blurred through the air, Crescent Rose spinning. She aimed for the chest, hoping to land a clean blow.
The Queen caught the scythe mid-spin.
Her fingers cracked and bent in impossible ways as she twisted Ruby's weapon, hurling her through a wall with a wet crunch.
"Ruby!" Weiss cried out and cast a barrier just in time to block a geyser of purple-black flame erupting from beneath her.
Yang roared and charged, gauntlets flaring. She ducked a swipe from the Queen's claws and drove a punch into the monster's midsection. Bone cracked. Something screamed inside her.
The Queen laughed. Blood sprayed from her mouth, coating Yang's face as she leaned in and whispered:
"He was mine, you know. Mine. I held his heart in my hand and it beat only for me."
Yang recoiled in disgust. "You're insane."
"I gave him purpose. I gave him strength. You left him to rot."
She shrieked as Yang's punch sent her across the floor, shattering tiles and spraying black ichor.
"You used him," Blake snarled.
"I cherished him," the Queen screamed back, twisting upright with an unhinged grin. "He cried in my arms. He bled for me. He killed for me. He was perfect. Oh so perfect! "She moaned almost like in extasy, her head twisting at unnatural angle.
Weiss hurled ice javelins, dozens at once. They pierced her limbs, pinning her to the bleeding floor. Frost spread over her twisted dress.
For a second, silence.
Then the ice cracked.
The Queen shrieked. A sound so high, so unnatural, it made the chandeliers rattle. Blood exploded from her wounds, but it wasn't red. It was ink.
"You took him from me," she spat at Weiss. "You always do." She growled with hate. " You and other hussies!"
She raised her hand, and the stained glass shattered inward.
From it came twisted monsters — gummy hounds and candy abominations — each bearing traces of Jaune's old symbol, burned or defaced.
"You polluted him. Made him weak again."
"No," Ruby groaned, pulling herself up. "We brought him back."
The Queen twitched, and her voice cracked like broken glass.
"He was never Jaune with you. He was incomplete. He was whole with me."
Her throne pulsed behind her as she hovered midair, wings spread wide. "And I will carve you out of him like rot from fruit."
Yang screamed and charged. Ruby followed, Crescent Rose glowing. Weiss flew in the air with her angelic wings start contrast to the skeleton ones, FROM SHADOWS Blake was ready to strike.
The Queen laughed. The throne room erupted into chaos.
The Queen of Hearts surged forward, her wings spreading wide as she threw herself into the air. The mist around her deepened into a choking fog of black and violet, coiling like serpents with every flick of her fingers. Her laughter echoed between the veined columns, unnatural and triumphant.
"Fight me, little lights," she snarled. "Let me rip the last of him from your grasp."
Blake's shadow clones burst around her in flashes of smoke and steel, but the Queen tore through them with glee. She caught one of Blake's real blades with her clawed hand and snapped it in two.
Yang flew in from above, fire roaring from her gauntlets.
The Queen caught her by the face.
"You were nothing but noise in his heart," she hissed, slamming Yang into the floor with a sound like thunder.
"Burn in hell," Yang spat.
"I dragged him through worse."
She flung Yang into a pillar.
A glyph bloomed beneath the Queen's feet, radiant, white-blue and shaped like an angel's wings.
Weiss descended, her rapier glowing with summoned light, her silhouette framed by a pair of luminous wings behind her. The contrast was stark, purity clashing against corruption, grace against madness.
The Queen shrieked and recoiled, the light searing her flesh. Black smoke poured from her wounds.
"You." Her voice dropped, trembling with fury. "You were always there. Whispering in his mind when he cried in the dark. When I cut him open, it was your voice that held him back."
Weiss landed with a dancer's grace, frost spreading in a circle around her.
"You think your obsession was love?" she spat. "You never saw him, you only saw what you could make of him."
"I saw him better than you ever did," the Queen said. Her eyes burned. "I held every broken piece of him. I remade him. I made him beautiful. You, you and the other two…"
Her voice turned venomous.
"You were the chains. The last three strands of weakness tangled in his soul. I tore and I burned and I flayed, and yet he still thought of you…Snow Angel." She spat with venom enough to kill.
Her claws trembled in rage same as Weiss hands.
"I could make him scream. I could make him bleed. I could make him beg. But I could not make him forget you."
Ruby's breath caught in her throat. Her grip on Crescent Rose tightened so hard her knuckles turned white.
"Stop it," she whispered.
The Queen tilted her head toward her, smirking.
"You most of all," she said. "The perfect little sister of the dream. You haunted his thoughts. Even at his lowest, he would mutter your name. Like prayer. Like apology."
Ruby's eyes shimmered.
"You twisted him," she said, voice trembling. "You found him at his worst and pulled him deeper."
"I saved him," the Queen replied with a dreamy, broken smile. "I cradled him when no one else would. I kissed his pain and made it mine. I made him whole."
"You made him a weapon," Ruby shouted. "You made him forget who he was!"
"And yet some part of him stayed mine," the Queen said. "Even now. Even here." She pointed her heart. "If only you and this other hussy…what was her name? Pyrrine? Pyrried? Ahh Whatever did not exist."
She reached to her chest, claws curling, as if digging for something invisible.
"I hollowed him out and lived inside the space he left behind."
Weiss shook with rage, her aura flickering.
"You are sick."
The Queen's wings snapped open.
"I am complete."
She flew at Weiss.
Swords clashed. Glyphs exploded. The angelic light of Weiss's wings burst into the chamber, searing the twisted stained glass, casting shadows like demons fleeing the holy.
But the Queen fought like something with nothing left to lose.
She grabbed Weiss by the throat mid-dash, slamming her into her own glyph with such force it shattered into splinters of white.
"You could have had him," she snarled. "But you hesitated. And I devoured what you left behind."
Blood ran down Weiss's lips.
"You… did not break him."
"Did I not?" the Queen asked, her face mere inches away. Her breath smelled like decay and roses. "Then why does he still wear the mask?"
Weiss blasted her with ice, forcing her back.
"Because of you!" she screamed.
"No," the Queen whispered, bleeding from her mouth and smiling through it. "Because deep down… a part of him liked it." She laughed deeply from her chest. "He liked when I hurt him." Her eyes glowed with inhumane blood red light. "He loved when I bit into his flesh and tased his blood! When I pinned him down and…" A shiver when down her body as she wrapped her arms around her twisted frame." Made him mine."
Ruby screamed and charged, Crescent Rose glowing in her hands. The Queen spun, intercepting her in a brutal crash of red petals and bone claws. Ruby swung again and again, each strike carrying the weight of grief and fury.
"He is not yours!" she screamed. "And he never was!"
The Queen laughed.
"Everything is mine! Ever After, Remnant and my sweet Knave! All belong to me!" She spread her wings wide. "World with bow before me and I will become Queen of Everything!"
The throne room trembled with the echoes of Ruby's charge, petals scattering like blood-soaked feathers. Yang's gaunets barked each time she put down Queen's abominations. Blake moved like shadow, her cut precise and deadly. Weiss raising a construct of her own to combat Queen's army.
But then, from the shadowed archway behind the shattered doors, came a sound.
Heavy footsteps. Causing whole pandemonium to pause.
Measured. Steady. Final. The figure moved forward. The red haze of the throne room reflected off the jagged crystal blade strapped to his back. His Armor, bore the weight of war. His helmet's visor burned dark like an eclipse, empty and endless.
Jaune Arc, The Knave of Hearts stepped into the hall.
He stopped beside the broken pillars where his friends stood bloodied and breathless, then raised his head toward the dais where the Queen floated among the ruin of her madness.
"You will become Queen of nothing."
The words echoed like steel drawn across stone. Cold. Sharp. Unflinching.
But the Queen didn't react to the insult.
Her red eyes widened. Her talons quivered at her sides. And then…
"Oh… you poor thing," she cooed.
She drifted downward as if gravity meant nothing to her, her feet never touching the floor. She smiled, not with malice, but with adoration so deranged it froze the air.
"What did they do to you?"
She landed just ahead of the throne, hands pressed to her heart, tilting her head with mock pity.
"Did they poison your mind again? Make you believe you were him?"
"Don't worry," she whispered, stepping closer. "You're not broken. Just... dulled. And I can fix that. I can fix you."
Jaune said nothing.
She took another step.
"You're tired. I see it. You're tired of pretending, of carrying that heavy skin. You've been playing Jaune Arc again, haven't you? Wearing that name like a mask, letting them crawl back into your mind with their smiles and their pity."
She extended her hand.
"But you don't have to pretend anymore. Come back to me, my Knave. Let me take the weight again."
Ruby's breath caught.
Yang raised her gauntlets.
Weiss took a step forward, lips trembling.
Blake eyes glowed with rage.
"No," Weiss whispered. "No, she's trying to—"
"Let me peel away the lies," the Queen said, her voice syrup-sweet. "Let me remind you who you really are. Let me tear out the guilt, burn away the shame. It hurts now, I know, but we'll make it stop. Together. As always."
Her eyes shimmered, not with power but with obsession.
"Do you remember how I held you when the screams wouldn't stop? How I kissed the blood from your lips? You belonged to me. Every scar, every scream, every bone I bent until you finally stopped fighting. That was love."
"No," Ruby whispered, but the Queen wasn't listening.
"I will make you remember. I will put you back together piece by piece. It took so long to build you and I will not let them take you again. You were so beautiful when you broke." She licked her black lips hungrily, her sharp teeth shining." Let me break you again and rebuild you again!"
Jaune didn't move.
His visor hid his expression, but the silence around him grew heavier by the second. Even the Queen's madness seemed to echo inside it.
A pressure hung in the air.
The others stood frozen, watching, as the nightmare leaned toward the man she made so twisted. arms outstretched, voice full of something far too close to love.
He didn't raise his blade.
He didn't speak.
He simply stared.
Waiting.
And for the first time, a flicker of uncertainty passed across the Queen's face. The silence stretched like wire. Team RWBY nervously looking between them.
The Queen's arms were still open, her fingers trembling as if she expected him to collapse into them.
But Jaune moved.
Not toward her. Not into her arms.
His hand dropped to the Vorpal Blade strapped across his back.
In a smooth, merciless motion, he drew it.
The screech of crystal scraping metal echoed across the throne room like a scream from the depths of the Ever After.
And the Queen's smile cracked.
"You still cling to that thing?" she whispered seemingly with sadness. "That shard of hate I gave you?"
The only answer was steel.
Jaune lunged.
Their blades met in a white-hot spark, throwing light across the fractured windows. Her claws lashed out, hooked and jagged. His blade answered each strike with blunt, brutal force, not dancing but hammering forward. Every swing was heavy. Every parry rang like a war drum.
There was no grace in his fighting.
Only fury.
Only weight.
He drove her back with unrelenting momentum, each step forward grinding into the broken tiles of the throne room. The Queen laughed as she deflected, blood and black smoke spraying from her arms with every contact.
"This is how you say you missed me?" she giggled, claws slashing in wild arcs.
He didn't answer.
He cut.
A long gash opened across her torso, splitting the velvet dress and the bone-studded corset beneath.
She shrieked—not in pain, but delight.
"That's it! That's my Knave! Cut away the lies! Cut away the weakness!"
Jaune shoved forward, knocking her off balance.
His next strike slammed into her shoulder, nearly severing her arm. She howled, stumbling backward.
"You never stopped loving me," she hissed. "This pain—this rage—this is ours."
Jaune roared and drove the hilt of the blade into her stomach, sending her crashing into the throne. The jagged spikes pierced her back. Her scream pierced the heavens.
The others stood in awe, unable to look away.
Ruby, hand over her mouth.
Weiss, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.
Yang, stone-faced.
Blake, trembling reaching for her lover's hand.
They weren't watching a battle.
They were watching a man tear out his soul over a woman who violated him in way unimaginable.
Every blow he dealt screamed:
This is what you made me.
Every time he struck, he relived it.
The shackles.
The blood.
The humiliation.
The names he carved into stone.
Every motion was a rejection. Not just of her, but of what he had become beneath her hand. Each swing of the Vorpal Blade carved away another layer of himself, another shadow of the Knave. Another lash over his tarnished soul.
Another cry for help.
The Queen bled across the tiles, but still she smiled.
"You're magnificent when you hate yourself."
He drove her to the floor, blade raised high.
"You're perfect when you break."
He hesitated.
Not from weakness.
But from the weight of what she said.
And what part of him still feared might be true.
Then the blade fell. Straight into her cold black heart.
"I love you, my sweet Knave."