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She can see that the building is burnt. That much is plain and obvious. As is the smoke radiating off the wreck, the scorched wooden frame, the still burning embers. What she does not see is an explanation, the why of it. Why had the apartments burned down? Had there been an attack? She can see no signs of Grimm activity, no spent ammunition, no additional wreckage other than the smouldering one before her.
Of course, there are many reasons other than a Grimm attack for why a residential dwelling might burn down in the kingdom of Vacuo. No malice, just simple apathy. The laws of Vacuo extend no further than the walls of its academy. Outside, they are simply words written on paper with no weight behind them. Corners can be cut, safety regulations can be overlooked, and electrical systems in a residential block could, when every resident was using the power all at once, overheat and burn.
She is too late to assist as it appears that everyone already has the blaze under control and it looks like that, thankfully, no-one was seriously hurt. Everybody appears to have made it out alright. Hang on, what’s he doing there?
Once upon a time, his height ironically made him look younger, more boyish. The proportions were all off and he more resembled a lanky stick figure than the great warrior he wanted to be. It didn’t help that he was constantly tripping over himself. She had never seen a person more uncoordinated in her entire life. Ruby may have her endearingly clumsy moments but, put a scythe in her hand, and the girl turns into a swirling vortex of death, almost unstoppable. He, on the other hand, seemed incapable of staying out of his own way.
Nowadays, he seems better on that front. Less jittery, more balanced, greater self-control. And his proportions are certainly better. He has filled out, less lanky, more bulk to that frame.
She has most certainly noticed that change in him.
Shut up, Yang. You too, Blake. But mainly Yang. Ruby’s fine. Honestly, the universe’s heat death could have come and gone before that girl noticed something like that. How she missed her sister and Blake… well how could anyone miss something that obvious?
He’s on the ground, flat on his back. No signs of injury, just exhaustion. And filth. He is absolutely filthy! He sits up as one of the building’s now former occupants, a young girl that could be no older than twelve, leans down to hand him a bottle of water which he drinks down greedily.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice raspy and brittle and then he pours the remainder over his head and collapses back to the ground. Wait, had he been in there?! That’s not dirt covering him, it’s soot and smoke.
She immediately stalks over to him and he seems happy to see her. “Hey there,” he says tiredly.
She sits down next to him. “What happened?”
He shrugs. “Not a clue, the place was already up in flames by the time I got here. I was the only Huntsman around for a mile so I, uh, lent a hand.”
Lent a hand?! He looks like he sprinted in without any plan or safety concerns whatsoever. What was he even doing here in the first place?
A sarcastic retort to that effect is on her tongue just waiting to be unleashed on the idiot before her, but it dies when a sudden creaking sound interrupts her thought process. They both turn in the direction of the noise in time to see the building’s roof cave in, crashing down to the ground with a thud.
“Damn!” The curse is quiet, almost whispered, but no less furious for its lack of volume. “Goddamnit.” With sudden violence, he kicks the water bottle away from him, sending it towards a nearby parked car, the plastic container bouncing harmlessly off one of the tires. She flinches at the movement but says nothing. He says nothing. They sit there in silence, looking at the wreck.
Eventually, the still growing tower of smoke billowing off from the ruined building attracts more onlookers, including what passes for a fire department in these parts. She is not impressed. There is no organisation, no planning, not even the semblance of proper safety gear and uniforms. She knows it’s not their fault, not really. They are, after all, purely a volunteer force with no funding other than what they themselves have donated to the cause. But she can’t help herself; this is an absolute circus.
The makeshift firefighters eventually get some sort of hose set up and get around to watering the fire. Far too late to save the building but at least the fire won’t be able to spread and hurt anyone else. Once the flames die down, voices start raising. People want to go back inside! She is shocked. Shocked and horrified. That wreck is an unsafe death trap and they want to go in?
But these people had their whole lives in there. They want to try to retrieve whatever possessions that have survived the inferno and they want to do it before the possibility of loot becomes an attractive possibility to certain folk. While she does not particularly care for the anti-refugee rhetoric they seem to be leaning towards, she is forced to concede the point.
Everything that these people owned would have been in there and this building is (or was) their home. They are entitled to recover what is left of it.
But it is unsafe and she makes it clear that she does not want people just strutting about a building with the kind of integrity that would exceed that of a Schnee Dust Company executive. She produces her Huntress licence and says that only Huntresses, Huntsmen, and firefighting volunteers are to enter. So strong is the force of her expression that nobody argues with her.
She smothers a smirk. Still got it.
“Okay,” she declares, “Here is how we will do it. Absolutely no-one is going in by themselves. This is a big building, it’s unstable, so we are going in pairs. Everyone is to stay five steps away from their partner unless the space does not allow for it. That way, if something caves in and someone gets stuck, hopefully their partner will still be free to help.”
Everyone is paired up and they all cautiously enter.
She can’t hear anything from him but she can certainly feel it. She turns to see a small, wry grin on his face that he can’t quite manage to hide.
”What?” The question possibly comes out more petulant than she would like.
He shrugs, that grin only widening. “Remember that first night at Beacon? When Ruby and the others were too loud for you? I dunno, you bossing us all around made me all nostalgic.”
“I do not boss people around!” She has just enough self-control to avoid stomping her foot. “You take that back this instant!”
“Yes, ma’am, whatever you say. I take back my vicious slander and apologise for ever insinuating you would want to boss people around.” His eyes are wide and a hand presses over his heart, the most false attempt at innocence that she has ever seen.
Her eyes soften. Damn, he’s got her pegged. “Okay, maybe I can be a little… forceful sometimes, but it’s only because I like things being managed neatly and effectively.”
”Of course.” There is a playful tone in the voice but it’s marred by something that the former heiress just cannot place. Something darker.
The first apartment that they check is a complete non-starter. It looks like either this or the neighbouring one was where the blaze originated and all that is left is charcoal. It was so bad that the roof had been burned away in places and the apartment above had partially collapsed inwards.
This is where she realises that any personal treasures that they recover will be the exception rather than the rule and her heart aches for the people waiting outside. Where will they go? What will happen to them?
Once upon a time, the plight of such people would have never occurred to her. She managed her own life and expected other people to do the same. After all, you could hardly expect to spend your whole life asking for a free handout. But that was her father talking through her lips. She had since learned how the other half lived, had seen what happened to refugees after they had lost everything, what happened to the people society had deemed unimportant.
Some nights, her former views still occasionally make her want to vomit with self-loathing. For all that about never being like him, she had grown up to be very much like him. It was not until she had met her teammates and been forced to confront her own privilege that she could finally realise just how stacked the deck had been in her favour.
Which is all the more reason to help now.
Suddenly, her thoughts turn to Blake. The cat Faunus had done more for her than she probably realised, simply by existing and refusing to let the injustices of the world stand without response. She resolved to do something nice for Blake at the next opportunity.
“We may have better luck in here.” His voice interrupts her musings.
“Pardon?” She looks up and sees that they are at the next apartment.
“It doesn’t look as bad in here,” he clarifies, “We may be in luck.”
He opens the door to reveal that he is somewhat correct. While the dwelling is still clearly smoky and burned, is is still visibly an apartment. She can see the remains of furniture, a melted television set, and the kitchen is surprisingly untouched by the blaze.
“I’m going to check the bedrooms, see if anything made it,” he says, moving further inside. She notices that he is panting slightly and suddenly it all clicks.
She can no longer hold it back. “Jaune, what were you doing here?” She follows him towards the bedrooms.
He looks back, confused. “What do you mean?”
A perfect eyebrow raises. “What do you think I mean? You ran into a burning building and, correct me if I’m mistaken, it does not look like you activated your aura.”
He pauses for the merest fraction of a second. But she notices. “I was in a hurry. I guess I forgot.”
Her expression, with a force akin to that of a tactical nuke, indicates that his response was precisely the wrong thing to say. “You forgot?!” The words come out as a hiss.
Helplessly, he tries to make his turning away from her look casual. He busies himself with trying to shift a collapsed beam that had blocked off access to what appeared to be a child’s bedroom.
But she will not let him get away that easy. “Do you want to die?” She had intended for it to be accusatory, to break through his thick skull. Instead, the words that pass over her lips are quiet, sincere.
If the question reaches his ears, Jaune makes no sign. Ostensibly preoccupied with that stubborn beam. “It’s a little stuck, just gimme a –”
“Jaune!” It’s not a yell, not quite, but it still demands his attention. The heavy beam drops back into place with a crash. Icy blue eyes meet sad blue eyes.
He shrugs. “I don’t really know. Before, I-I thought I did. These days… less sure. You know, I see all these people coming together, the one’s that got Ruby’s message and wanted to help and…” He smiles, a melancholic, little smile, but still a smile. “It’s pretty amazing.”
He slumps against a wall and slides down until he is sitting, not caring at all about the soot that is covering his trousers.
She decides to try something. “Penny wasn’t your fault,” she says suddenly.
His head jerks up. “Well, you don’t beat about the bush, do you?”
“It tends to save time.” She carefully crouches next to him, making sure that no part of her skirt touches the filthy floor. “Look,” she begins, “She was already going to die in a matter of minutes, we’d lost Yang, Ruby, and Blake, Cinder was closing in, and there were no good choices. Only bad and worse. I…” Her voice trails off as she considers her next words. She needs to think about this, to be certain that what she says is the absolute truth. “Had it been me, I think that I would have done the exact same thing as you.”
“But it wasn’t you,” he says. “It was me.” He looks down at his hands.
“Jaune,” she says quietly, “Are you ok–?”
“I killed her, Weiss,” he says, interrupting her. “There was this amazing thing, this incredible, new thing in the world and I killed it.”
“It’s not your fault, she was–”
”I killed her,” he repeats it, stubbornly, his nails digging into his palms. Suddenly, he’s weeping, sobbing like a child. “I killed her and I have to live with that. How do I-I… How do I live with that?”
She’s no longer crouching, she’s sitting being him in the ash, skirt be damned. And she’s holding him. “Then you won’t have to live with that alone.”