Chương 30: The Fractured Shield

The evening sun bled across the cliffs of Beacon Academy, casting long, jagged shadows that stretched like dark fingers toward the edge of the courtyard. The sky was a bruised palette of deep crimson and fading violet, a stark contrast to the raw, unglamorous struggle unfolding on the grass. Jaune Arc gasped for air, his throat burning as if he were inhaling shards of glass. His arms, locked in a rigid angle beneath his chest, shook violently.

Every single muscle fiber in his shoulders screamed in protest, a deep, hot ache that pulsed down into his spine. His workout clothes were completely saturated with sweat, clinging to his skin like a cold, heavy second layer, and the crude athletic tape wrapped around his knuckles was damp, stained with small, dark blooms of blood where the friction had torn his skin.

"Eighty... eight." Jaune wheezed through gritted teeth. His jaw was clenched so tightly that his teeth ground against one another, a low, grating sound that barely carried over the whistling wind. He forced his body upward, his vision blurring at the edges.

"Jaune, please. Just stop." Pyrrha Nikos stood a few yards away. The legendary champion, the girl who usually carried herself with the flawless grace of a statue, looked entirely undone. Her hands were pressed tightly against her chest, her fingers digging into the fabric of her uniform as if trying to hold herself together. Her emerald eyes, usually vibrant and filled with unwavering focus, were wide, clouded with a profound, mounting panic.

She had been standing there for over an hour, watching him systematically destroy himself.

"I'm... I'm fine, Pyrrha," Jaune panted, his voice ragged and wet. He lowered himself again, his chest barely brushing the grass before his elbows buckled. He forced himself back up by sheer, stubborn volition.

"Just... twelve more. I can... I can finish the set."

"You are not fine!" Pyrrha's voice broke, the sudden spike in her volume cracking against the quiet evening. She took two hurried, desperate steps forward, her boots sinking into the sod. She dropped to her knees beside him, her hand reaching out instinctively to catch his shaking shoulder, but the moment her fingertips made contact, Jaune flinched away violently. He collapsed sideways, rolling onto his back and drawing his knees up slightly as his chest heaved.

He stared blindly at the darkening sky, his eyes hollow, completely devoid of the boyish light he used to carry.

"Jaune, look at your hands," Pyrrha pleaded, her voice dropping to a desperate, trembling whisper that drifted over to the hidden students. Tears were finally welling in her eyes, blurring the sharp green of her irises.

"Look at your arms. You are tearing your own muscles apart. You haven't used your Aura to heal yourself in days. You're refusing to let it click in."

"Because it doesn't help," Jaune cut her off, his voice flat, devoid of its usual warmth. He didn't look at her. He just kept his gaze locked on the empty sky.

"Aura is just a safety net. It masks the weakness. If I let it fix me, I'm just relying on a cheat code!"

Meanwhile, walking along the stone pathway leading back from the dining hall, Team RWBY, Nora, and Ren were deeply caught up in casual conversation.

"I'm just saying," Yang chuckled, throwing her arms behind her head, "if the cafeteria keeps serving that mystery meat on Tuesdays, I'm going to start sourcing my own protein from the Emerald Forest."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Yang," Weiss scoffed, adjusting her collar.

"The culinary standards at Beacon are perfectly acceptable for a combat academy. Though, I wouldn't mind if they imported a better selection of teas."

"I think the food is great!" Nora chimed in, bouncing on her heels.

"Especially when you stack the pancakes high enough to block Ren's face from view! Right, Ren?" Ren offered a small, patient smile.

"As long as you actually finish them, Nora." Ruby opened her mouth to speak, but her words died in her throat as a sharp, emotional shout echoed from the cliffside ahead.

"Wait," she quickly held up a hand, stopping the group in their tracks.

"Guys, look." Through the fading twilight, they saw Jaune roll onto his back, drawing his knees up slightly as his chest heaved. He was staring blindly at the darkening sky, his eyes hollow. Pyrrha was kneeling right beside him, her shoulders trembling.

"Shh! Get behind the pillar!" Ruby whispered urgently. Moving in unison, the six students scrambled behind a massive, decorative stone pillar, stacking their heads in a perfect vertical row to watch and listen.

"Look, Pyrrha. I get it that you are worried about me," Jaune said.

"But I'll be fine, truly! I just need the strength to be real!" Pyrrha flinched as if he had struck her across the face.

"This isn't strength, Jaune! This is self-destruction! You've been like this ever since the breach, ever since the Battle of Beacon."

"Since the tower," Jaune corrected, his voice suddenly rising, sharp and biting. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, his boots digging into the dirt as he finally looked at her. The raw frustration inside him flared.

"Since I had to stand there and watch a total stranger fall out of the sky to save you because I couldn't do a damn thing!" Jaune's eyes flashing with a dangerous, volatile mix of fear and inadequacy.

"Do you know what it felt like? Standing on that tower, watching you walk toward a fight you weren't going to come back from, and realizing that my entire existence didn't matter? That I was just a liability?"

"Jaune, that wasn't your fault!" Pyrrha's tears finally spilling over her cheeks. She reached out again, her voice cracking under the weight of her own lingering trauma.

"Nobody could have predicted what Cinder's forces would do! Nobody expected her to hold that kind of power! We did what we had to do--""No, you did what you had to do!" Jaune shouted, pushing himself all the way up to his feet, though his knees visibly wobbled under his weight. He towered over her, but he didn't look powerful. He looked fragile, like glass strained to its breaking point.

"You went up there to die like a hero, and I was just the dead weight you had to shove into a locker to keep safe! I am tired of being the one who gets protected, Pyrrha! I don't care if it hurts. I don't care if my body snaps in half. I need to be strong enough to stand next to you! To protect my friends! To... to protect you!" Pyrrha looked up at him from the grass, her breath hitching in her throat. The sheer, desperate intensity in his face terrified her.

"But you're killing yourself to do it!" Pyrrha answered.

"You're trying to follow a routine meant for someone who isn't... who isn't even from this world! Saitama doesn't have limits, Jaune, but you do! If you keep pushing past them like this, you won't be strong! You'll be crippled! You won't be able to hold a sword, let alone protect anyone!" Jaune's jaw tightened, his breathing shallow and rapid.

The exhaustion, the lingering nightmares of the tower, and the toxic weight of his own deep-seated insecurity twisted her words in his mind, corrupting them into something cruel. He let out a harsh, bitter laugh, stepping back.

"Oh. I get it now," Jaune whispered, a defensive, ugly edge creeping into his tone. Pyrrha blinked, staring at him through her tears, utterly bewildered by the sudden shift in his demeanor.

"What? What do you get?"

"You think I can't do it," Jaune said, his voice trembling with a volatile mixture of anger and deep, bleeding hurt. He gestured vaguely toward the main academy building.

"You look at Saitama, and then you look at me, and you think, 'Jaune's just the fake from Mistral who cheated his way into Beacon'. You think I'm just playing dress-up. You don't actually believe I have what it takes to get strong."

"No! Jaune, that is completely untrue!" Pyrrha rose to her feet instantly, her hands reaching out, her face twisted in absolute horror at his words.

"I have never thought that! Not for a single second!"

"Then let me train!" Jaune roared, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the courtyard, drawing a sharp, ragged breath.

"Stop trying to pull me down just because you're terrified that I'll actually catch up to you! That I won't need you to save me anymore!" The accusation hung heavily in the cool evening air, sharp and suffocating. Pyrrha froze. The words seemed to physically pierce her, draining the color from her face. Her lips parted slightly, but no sound came out. The sheer, blinding injustice of the comment, the realization that he truly believed she wanted to keep him weak, shattered something fragile inside her.

A single, heavy sob escaped her lips, and she covered her face with her trembling hands.

"Is that... is that really what you think of me?" she whispered, her voice so small, so utterly broken, that it was barely louder than the rustle of the grass. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Jaune stood frozen, the adrenaline suddenly draining from his veins as the echo of his own voice caught up to him. He looked at her small, trembling frame, and a cold, sickening wave of regret flooded his chest.

"Pyrrha... wait. I didn't... I didn't mean it like that, I just--" But the damage was done. Pyrrha turned away, burying her face deeper into her hands, and bolted blindly down the dark, stone-paved path that wound into the dense, quiet foliage of the academy's outdoor gardens. Her quiet, choked sobs trailed behind her in the twilight, leaving a deafening silence in their wake. Jaune remained standing alone on the cliffside, his hand half-extended toward the empty path, his fingers twitching.

The anger was entirely gone, replaced by a crushing, hollow guilt that felt heavier than any weight he had lifted. He dropped his head into his bandaged hands, letting out a miserable, broken groan, and sank heavily back into the dirt. He wanted to run after her, to pull her back and beg for forgiveness. But the sheer, agonizing protest of his torn muscles kept him pinned to the spot. Behind the pillar, the row of hidden students finally collapsed inward, expressions grim.

"Yikes," Yang muttered, leaning her head back against the stone with a grimace.

"That was... a textbook couple fight. And it went about as bad as it possibly could."

"Jaune, you absolute idiot," Weiss sighed softly, pinching the bridge of her nose, her usual icy demeanor melted into genuine sorrow.

"How could he say something so incredibly cruel to her? Pyrrha has done nothing but sacrifice her own time and energy to support him since the moment they arrived at this academy."

"He's terrified," Ren said quietly, his arms folded across his chest.

"He's letting the fear of his own helplessness dictate his actions." Blake nodded in agreement.

"Jaune thinks brute physical strength is the only answer to his trauma, and he's blind to everything else right now."

"We have to go out there," Nora said, her voice completely devoid of its usual high-pitched energy.

"He looks like he's about to fall apart, and Pyrrha's already gone, and everything is just completely broken!"

"What are you guys doing?" All six of them leaped into the air, letting out a synchronized, high-pitched yelp of pure terror. They spun around wildly to find Saitama, in his green Beacon janitorial suit that he had been assigned for his faculty duties, standing right behind them. He was holding a small plastic convenience store bag that contained a single, sweating carton of milk.

"Saitama!" Ruby gasped, clutching her chest as her heart hammered against her ribs.

"Don't do that! You almost made me jump right out of my skirt!"

"You guys are the ones crouching in the dark like a bunch of weirdos," Saitama said, completely unfazed, inserting a straw into his milk carton and taking a lazy sip.

"So, what's up? Are those dangerous black dogs got loose on the campus? Because if not, you're totally blocking the main path to the vending machines." Ruby looked at the man in the green janitorial jumpsuit, then peered back over her shoulder at Jaune, who was currently trying to force his trembling arms back into a push-up position, his teeth bared in silent agony as he collapsed again. A sudden, desperate realization struck her. She lunged forward, grabbing Saitama's forearm with both hands.

"Saitama! You have to go talk to him!" Ruby begged, her silver eyes wide and pleading.

"What? Talk to who? The banana-hair kid?" Saitama asked, taking another sip of his milk.

"What's even going on over there? Did he drop his wallet or something?"

"Jaune just made Pyrrha cry," Blake explained, her voice quiet but laced with heavy disapproval as she looked toward the distance.

"He's been pushing his body to the absolute limit for days, and when she tried to give him some advice to actually rest, he completely refused to listen to her. They got into a horrible argument."

"Yes, and he said some incredibly thoughtless, defensive things to her," Weiss added, crossing her arms and letting out a sharp, frustrated sigh.

"Pyrrha ran off toward the gardens in tears. The six of us are going to search the campus grounds to find her right now." Ren nodded in agreement, his dark eyes locking onto Saitama with quiet, unwavering intensity.

"We will handle Pyrrha and try to comfort her. But Jaune... Jaune won't listen to any of us right now. He's locked himself in a dark place, and he's deaf to our voices. We are sure that you are the one Jaune needs to hear from right now, Saitama." Saitama scratched the back of his bald head, looking thoroughly unenthusiastic as he glanced between the determined, pleading faces of the students and the miserable, trembling boy on the hill.

"Ugh, why me?" Saitama grumbled, his shoulders slumping.

"I'm literally just a janitor here. I don't do life coaching or teen drama. Why don't you guys just give him some space?"

"Please, Saitama!" Nora begged, stepping right into his line of sight and clasping her hands together.

"He actually respects you! If you don't say something, he's just going to keep tearing himself apart!" Saitama let out a long, agonizingly loud sigh that caused his entire frame to deflate, his shoulders dropping three inches.

"Man... this is exactly why I hate being listed as a 'Tactical Kinetic Evaluator' or whatever," Saitama muttered, tossing his empty milk carton into a nearby recycling bin with a perfect, effortless flick of his wrist.

"Fine, whatever. Go look after the red-haired girl. I'll go see what his deal is."

"Thank you, Saitama!" Ruby whispered, her eyes shining with relief. With a silent nod, Ren led Team RWBY, Nora, and Blake back down the path toward the gardens to search for Pyrrha, leaving the courtyard empty save for the remaining two figures. Saitama looked at Jaune for a moment. He walked a short distance down the corridor toward the glowing faculty vending machines. He fished two coins out of his pocket, dropped them into the slot, and pressed the button for a chilled generic fruit juice twice.

Two aluminum cans thudded into the bottom tray. Saitama picked them up, the condensation cool against his palms, and walked back out to the stone walkway. He trudged forward, his sneakers scuffing against the stone walkway as he made his way toward the lonely figure on the cliffside. Jaune didn't even notice the heavy footsteps approaching. He was currently forcing his raw, bleeding palms back into the dirt, his breath hitching as his left shoulder popped uncomfortably.

He was trying to force his body down for number eighty-nine, his eyes shut tight against the pain.

"Your form is total garbage," a flat, monotone voice announced from right above him. Jaune startled, losing his fragile balance entirely. His arms gave out, and he fell face-first into the grass with a dull thud. He scrambled backward, spitting a few blades of grass from his lips, and looked up to find Saitama standing over him, one hand buried deep within the pocket of his green janitorial suit and the other holding two cans of juice.

"S-Saitama," Jaune stammered, his face flushing with embarrassment as he tried to force himself up into a standing position. His legs shook like reeds in a storm, his left knee buckling slightly before he caught himself.

"I'm just... I'm finishing my reps for the evening. I'm almost done." Without a word, Saitama tossed one of the cold juice cans through the air. Jaune's fumbling hands barely caught it against his chest, the icy metal sending a shock through his raw, burning palms.

"Drink that," Saitama said bluntly, stepping closer.

"You look like you're about to turn into dust." He slipped the second can neatly into the side pocket of his janitorial jumpsuit, saving it for later. Saitama then buried both hands back into his pockets, his small, dotted eyes taking in the blood-soaked athletic tape, the dark, purple rings of exhaustion under Jaune's eyes, and the way the boy's entire posture leaned heavily to the right to overcompensate for a severely strained lower back.

"You're moving like my grandpa," Saitama said, looking down at him.

"If you think this is how you get strong, you're completely wrong. You're just destroying your own parts before you even get to use them." Jaune gripped the juice can tightly, his knuckles turning white as that same defensive, desperate anger flared up again.

"I don't care about the damage! I have to push through it. That's exactly how you did it, isn't it? You told us your body hit absolute hell, that your legs felt like they weighed a ton, and you kept going anyway!"

"Yeah, but I didn't have a girl crying her eyes out over me while I was doing it," Saitama replied casually, jerking his thumb back toward the path leading to the gardens. Jaune's face drained of color, the remaining adrenaline completely evaporating. He looked down at the trampled grass beneath his boots, his shoulders slumping in total defeat.

"She... she just doesn't understand, Saitama," Jaune said.

"Pyrrha is... She's the Invincible Girl. She's a prodigy. She was born strong. She doesn't know what it feels like to be the guy who can't do anything. I almost lost her back at the breach, back at the tower, until you appeared... If I don't get strong enough to stand by her side... next time, I won't be able to save her." Saitama stared at him for a long, quiet moment. The wind picked up, rustling the leaves of the nearby trees and whistling softly off the edge of the cliff.

The bald hero reached up, slowly scratching the back of his bald head.

"Hey," Saitama said, his voice dropping some of its usual bored, detached cadence.

"Why do you think I wanted to get strong?" Jaune blinked, looking up in confusion, holding the unopened can.

"To... to defeat evil? To be a legendary hero who protects the world?"

"Nah. I just did it because I was bored and wanted a hobby," Saitama said simply, looking out over the distant, glittering lights of Vale.

"But you know what happened when I actually got this strong? Nothing changed. I mean, sure, I can blow up giant monsters with one punch, but I can't find a decent fight anymore, and my daily life is incredibly boring." Jaune frowned, shaking his head slightly.

"What does that have to do with me?"

"You're putting a lot of weird, heavy meaning into a bunch of push-ups, kid," Saitama said, turning his head slightly to lock his dull gaze directly onto Jaune's eyes.

"You think that if you get a big, musclebound body, all your problems just disappear? You think that if you become 'invincible,' you won't ever feel scared or helpless anymore? Trust me. Being the strongest doesn't fix your life. It just means when things go completely wrong, you have absolutely nobody left to blame but yourself." Saitama took his hands out of his pockets, taking a step closer.

"That red-haired girl isn't crying because you're weak, Jaune. She's crying because you're treating yourself like a piece of trash that needs to be thrown away and rebuilt. If you want to protect her so badly, maybe start by actually being a person she can talk to, instead of turning into a gym ghost." Jaune stood completely frozen. The words weren't elegant. They weren't a grand, inspiring speech from a legendary Huntsman.

It was just a guy in a green janitorial suit telling him he was being incredibly stupid, but the blunt reality of it cut straight through the thick, suffocating fog of trauma in Jaune's brain. He looked down at his blood-stained hands and the cool juice can. He thought about the expression on Pyrrha's face right before she turned around. The pure, crushing heartbreak in her eyes. It hadn't been pity. It hadn't been doubt. She wasn't looking down on him.

She was watching the person she cared about most slowly erase himself.

"I... I really messed up," Jaune whispered, his voice cracking as the full, ugly weight of his actions finally hit him.

"Well, you definitely look stupid," Saitama remarked, turning his back and heading toward the courtyard. After a few paces, he stopped. He didn't look back. But his voice carried a flat, undeniable finality over the evening breeze.

"And one more thing," Saitama said, his voice low.

"You are not me, kid. You can't be like me." Jaune's breath caught in his throat. He stared at the back of the green janitorial suit, the words striking him like a physical blow.

"If you're genuinely going to keep doing the routine, then do it," Saitama added, his tone returning to its casual, dry drone.

"Just make sure your back is straight tomorrow. Bad posture ruins the workout. Anyway, I've got floors to sweep before tomorrow morning." With that, the bald hero continued his walk, leaving Jaune standing alone under the crimson sky. Jaune's hands slowly crack open the tab of the juice can. The lingering terror of the Battle of Beacon hadn't vanished, but the suffocating weight in his chest had finally eased. You are not me. You can't be like me.

Saitama's words echoed repeatedly in his mind, settling deep into his subconscious like a heavy seed waiting for the right moment to grow. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he took a slow sip of the cold liquid, his mind entirely consumed by the regret of what he had done, wondering how he could possibly face Pyrrha again.