tornheart | there's no way you can save it now

While Jaune has seen first hand the personality shifts that can occur after fully Awakening, he hasn't had to deal with it much himself. There are a few points of conflict with, what he likes to consider, the two sides of himself, but nothing so extreme as to cause him much worry. He understands that he might be a lucky exception, he certainly prefers to try and help others over having to think about his own potential issues. It's just easier.

After the exchange on the app, Jaune had started getting some snacks together. He had a hunch it was going to be one of those get togethers and he HAD just been talking about that being a skill he could use to contribute outside of combat. Thankfully, he didn't have to worry about anything accidentally burning when the knock came. His mother was still at the restaurant and his sister was either at school or pulling a shift--he wasn't entirely sure which, but she certainly wasn't home.

"Hi, come on in," he said after opening the door. He stepped aside to let Kei inside. It was time for another post-Awakening conversation he supposed.

'Kei' headed in, looking around and trying to determine if he could hear anyone else inside before he dropped the smile a bit, taking a deep breath. "Sorry... about all of this. I'm not trying to be a downer or anything... or a bother." Normally he'd just... fake his way out of this, but there was no real way to go back and pretend what he said and did didn't happen.

Jaune noticed him looking around and added, "We're alone. My mom and sister are still at the cafe...and I don't think you're a bother." He was picking up on the fact that this was going to be a difficult conversation. Jaune thought back to previous post-Awakening conversations he'd had, but he felt like this might be a little different.

"Would I be correct in guessing this might require some snacks?"

Taro nodded, tugging the bottom of his shirt a little sheepishly. He wasn't normally this reserved, but this kind of talk... "Snacks might be good. Food always helps. ... I'd ask for a drink, but I don't think I'm legal here and I don't want to get you in trouble."

If it played out like other conversations -- it would be a little awkward at first. But Jaune had found himself spilling his guts to virtual strangers a few times now, it was hard not to when this situation was just so stressful and foreign. It was hard not to fall on relationships John had established, especially since (so far) Jaune had none of his friends from home to help make sense of this. He had to start somewhere.

He led the way into the kitchen then. Figuring that would give them a place to snack and a room where they could get a warning if his mom or sister came in through the front door.

"Mom doesn't keep much alcohol around anyway," Jaune admitted. He was 18, so technically he probably could have gotten some for Taro -- who couldn't have been too far behind him -- but as he just said at this point it didn't really matter. Instead, he focuses on pulling over a plate of cookies he'd been working on and moving them onto the counter to rest in front of Taro. He hoped that would serve as enough of an ice breaker to get the real conversation going.

Taro followed along, sighing. "Yeah, I thought that might be the case. It's fine. I don't have the same sort of stamina here anyway, I think." He leaned against the counter, grabbing a cookie and taking a bite, trying to think the whole situation over.

It took a few moments until he swallowed the cookie, and he stared at the partial cookie in his hand before looking up at Jaune. How to begin...

"... Have you ever had a situation where you know you did all you could, and it ended up in failure for you anyway?"

Jaune didn't really have a response for that. Aside from memory changes and having to build up his strength again, being here wasn't so different from what he dealt with back home. Of course, he knew he was probably in the minority there. He selected a cookie for himself, not expecting where the conversation to go.

When Taro asked his next question though, he nearly choked on the cookie. Not only was that a pretty good summary of his life to a degree...it was a particularly sore spot in terms of one of the memories that still made it hard to sleep sometimes. Jaune wiped away the crumbs he had spewed, looking a little sheepish and pale at the same time. "Uhm...yeah I guess you could say that," Jaune said.

... Oh. He glanced up at Jaune to make sure he wasn't going to die or something before looking back at the cookie. "I... okay. So a little explanation. There's a sort of... system, I guess you could call it, in my world, or at least in America. The Underground. It's for supernatural creatures who just... humans won't accept us. They outnumber us, and even if we have magic, we just... can't outlast them. So we hide. We use black markets, forgery, whatever we have to in order to survive without being detected. Each Underground is split up by region - European Underground, Asian Underground... we don't mix well."

"Except... there's been a shift in power. The people on the top are getting in contact with the gods again. We know they exist - my best friend's mother is Inari. But they're... they don't talk to us, really. But the people on top are trying to get more power and they're setting up cults and stuff to give worship back to the gods... and it's not right. So I've been collecting information." He just put the cookie down, pressing his head into his hands.

"I stole things that I swore I'd never try to touch. I bribed people with more than I should have. I did everything I could to try to get information, and it wasn't enough. And they tracked me down. They tracked me down and sent an assassin after me and I don't know if it's going to be enough for Toshiko to find and follow up on. But what if she does? What if she... I don't want her to die, too!" He wiped his face, trying and failing to not cry, breaking down into sobs. "I... I shouldn't... I trust her, and she's smart, but I don't want her to die... she's my best friend. She's like my sister. And she's the only one I have left. The only one who didn't die in hunger and pain..."

No, no dying from Jaune just yet. He feels awkward, but that's nothing new for him really. He grabs a stool, sitting down to listen to his friend's explanation. At first he thinks it sounds a little like to relations between Faunus and Humans...except perhaps worse, but the longer he listens the more he realizes it is much worse.

He gets that it is serious on some level, but Jaune doesn't quite understand how serious until it actually causes the other to sob. Oh...jeeze this is not what he thought they'd be talking about at all. Jaune gets back up from his seat and crosses over to Taro, resting a hand on his shoulder, "Hey...it's...," he catches himself before he can say 'okay' because it might not be. That was probably the biggest lesson he learned out of the fall of Beacon, that sometimes things just weren't going to be okay. What should he say? "It...sounds like you made some bad choices, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to come back from that."

"... I'm dead, Jaune. Maybe not here. But I just... shit, I hope she's okay. I want her to be okay..." He leans into his friend's chest, trying to catch his breath. "I hope she can finish what I started. I want..." He sniffs, and wipes his nose on his sleeve. ... He can wash that later.

"Sorry. I shouldn't be springing this on you. I mean... heh. I just... people like me are just like any human. We want the people we care about to be safe. We want to have fun. We want to live our lives. But... I never imagined any of this would happen when I helped set up our branch like a century ago. I just wanted us to be able to be safe."

Right. It's hard to remember that detail when you're sitting together at a kitchen table eating cookies. Jaune immediately feels pretty idiotic, but he hopes it's at least a little understandable. "Sorry. I'm---I'm sure she'll do what she can," he says, thinking of how his own group picked up after their losses. Because while Pyrrha was the one that hurt the most, they had certainly lost more than just her in the past few months he can remember.

Jaune considers it, leaning back to the counter and offering him some napkins. It isn't as nice as tissue -- which would probably be elsewhere in the house -- but it's better than nothing. "I think everyone wants that if you really get down to it, safety that is. That's what spurred a lot of the conflict and negotiations for peace where I'm from...though it always seems to be a pretty delicate balance because there's usually something else at stake that people want to defend," Jaune says. "I think," he hesitates, "I think as much as we may want it...one person can't keep the world safe like that...or even a small group for that matter."

"Besides...it sounds like a lot to be holding in. I know the memories can be rough...but yours sound like they might be a lot more than anyone else I've talked to," Jaune admits, thinking about the fact that if he's at least a century old then that's a lot to process...on top of apparently being dead. "I...can probably only just listen, but I hope that helps in some way," Jaune adds.

He takes the napkin and wipes himself off a bit, trying to look presentable. "... Negotiations are always tough, yeah. But... I know one person can't always save everything. But... one person can at least make a difference." He has to believe that. He has to hope. If he doesn't hope... there's nothing left, really.

"But... um. ... Thanks. I'm not normally so open about this sort of stuff, it's just... this whole thing has been weird. And - shit." He groans, and presses his face into his hands again. "Shit, the survey things. Speaking of weird, some of the answers I had there..."

"Well...on that we can agree at least," Jaune said, also wanting to err on the side of hope and optimism. Wasn't that his whole reason for continuing on anyway? Whether it was here or back home -- he hadn't given up yet that he and his friends could do something about the terrible things about to happen. He may not have always been the strongest, but he could be pretty stubborn when it was called for.

Jaune has to think for a minute. So much had happened since the survey part of the app had been used. "Oh...you mean the whole soul eating thing?" Again, tact Jaune, you should really work on that. To his credit, he doesn't seem scared so much as confused and perhaps a little worried or curious. "Sorry...that probably wasn't the best way to phrase that...I mean the app always brings up stuff we wouldn't necessarily want to go around sharing," he's babbling, which he does a lot these days, especially when he's put his foot in his mouth.

Jaune stops, takes a breath, and tries again, "Look. I don't want you to feel obligated to share everything with me. It...it feels unbalanced, since I was already Awakened before you and so you weren't there for when I was a mess. You don't have to explain yourself or share these things your uncomfortable with if you don't want to. You aren't obligated to..."

He wants to believe that the person he has memories of here isn't completely gone, but he also knows that might be something he'll have to accept. That's probably been the hardest part in dealing with all of this: consolidating memories of two different lives and trying to come to terms with that.

But...the guy was openly sobbing in his kitchen a few seconds ago. Surely he can't be a complete monster. As he insisted before on the network...there has to be some kind of story, right? And while Jaune just said that he isn't obligated to share, there's a part of him that really wants to know.

He winces. "Yeah. That. I... there's a logical explanation for that, even if it's not a pretty one. But yeah. I promise I didn't... actually kill anyone on that front. I've... never killed anyone, not even a guard when we were robbing a place. Maybe by accident if the guy we knocked out actually had a heart attack, but... I'm pretty sure I'm in the clear."

He's still been wrestling with the idea of Kei existing. the guy seems to have everything Taro's wanted, and still he's not satisfied. Would he be, if he got what he wanted? He's not sure.

"... You don't have to share with me if you don't want to, either. It's just... even as much as this stuff hurts... it's nice to be able to actually say stuff in the open. Not... not even my family, when I had one, actually knew. I was just a kid they adopted and then disappeared one day. ... I didn't want to hurt them by making them think their relationship was with someone who wasn't really who they though they were. ... Like the family I have here."

Jaune stares at the counter for a moment, considering his options. He really doesn't have anything to really hide, and honestly a lot of it seems minor compared to what he's heard others openly discuss. That doesn't necessarily make it easier to talk about though.

"One time, a few nights after my team had been put together, we swapped stories about ourselves so we could try and bond a little I guess...it was Pyrrha's idea," he hesitated, he knew this wouldn't really mean anything to Taro, "Maybe we could do something like that. Just take turns talking about what we need to get off our chests."

He set his cookie down, getting up to go get a drink from the fridge, but stopped and turned back to look at Taro, "I'm...glad to hear you didn't kill anyone though. I really didn't think you had, but it's still a relief."

"... Yeah." He smiled a little, looking back at Jaune. "Pyrrha's a teammate of yours, then? What kind of team?" He... really didn't know anything about Jaune's life at all, now that he thought about it. He couldn't take whatever life the guy'd had here as any sort of indication for what his previous life had been like. Hm.

Jaune rummages in the fridge, pulling out two sodas. It wasn't alcohol, but at least it was better than just water. Right? Unless Taro wanted something different. He turns back, setting one within reach of Taro and opening his own. "JNPR," he says, a name he hadn't really said aloud since coming here, although when he says it it sounds like the flower 'Juniper' instead of the initials it is actually spelled as.

"That was the name of our team. Pyrhha, me, and two others, Nora and Ren. We were attending a school that trains us to fight monsters known as Grimm and keep the kingdoms of Remnant safe -- they're a lot like the Shadows are here. It's insane to try and fight Grimm by yourself, so from the beginning they like to put huntsman and huntresses in teams so that we can learn to fight as a unit and watch each other's backs."

He took a drink from the soda, looking away from Taro because he felt strange talking about this all of a sudden. Even though he had suggested it, he was starting to realize that he actually hadn't vocalized much about his memories since they'd first started coming to him all those months ago. "I somehow got made the team leader -- despite every one else being so much better at combat than I was at the time."

Taro grabs his, staying quiet while he listens to Jaune talk. "... So you're used to this kind of thing." His tone is... kind of gentle as he speaks. "It sounds... bad. I wish you didn't have to live in a world that's dangerous."

Because why would they put people - really, why would they put kids - in a school to train them for that if it wasn't a bad situation? Kids aren't police, or military, and they shouldn't have to fight if they don't really need to. So the situation must be dire enough...

Still, the latter comment gets him to smile. "... Leaders aren't always about physical skills. Even in something like that... I've seen plenty of leaders in the Underground come and go. Some of them are chosen on might, some are chosen on policy, and some are chosen on heart. So whoever picked you definitely made a good choice. A leader's got to care - and you care a lot."

He points his thumb at himself, grinning. "Hell, I helped set up my branch and I've avoided taking a leadership role for a reason. I care about people, yeah, but I don't think I could deal with caring about them for a full time job. You're a stronger guy than I am, and you're... what, a tenth of my age or something? So you're already a better guy than I am in some ways. And don't say 'oh, but you're a good person'. I know. But I also accept that I'm shitty when it comes to some things. That's part of knowing yourself. You'll understand that when you're older."

Jaune considers it, shrugging slightly, "Not exactly...but close enough that fighting the Shadows tends to remind me of Grimm every time we do it." He knows his world isn't perfect, but it's also the only world he's ever known until now. Of course, this one seems to have a plethora of problems on its own, so he's not sure if there really is a world that's much better.

Taro's words do make him feel a little better -- his teammates and friends had often said similar things -- but there's something about Taro saying it that makes it stick in a different way. True, he still doubted himself sometimes, but even he had to admit he'd come a long way from the kid who got himself stuck in trees and thrown around by monsters on a regular basis. He smiles, "Thanks...and while I believe you when you say you're that much older -- sometimes it's really hard to take that part seriously." He knew the humanoid form before him was more or less an illusion or...something, but that didn't make it any less of a truth to some degree.

"Yeah, I know. Ended up picking this form or slight variations of it with different names. It lets me party with human college kids a lot. That's kind of how I like to treat things unless I really have to."

Kei had been similar, which makes it easier to accept that maybe that was his version here... but the kid was rebelling, not celebrating. There's a key difference there. "I'd rather laugh than cry, and I'd rather be around people than be alone. Tanuki... there's supposedly some that have lived away from humans, but I'm not sure how possible that is nowadays. I ended up... shit, like five thousand miles away from where I first appeared? More than that, probably. But I fit in with other people. I don't... I have an attachment to this body and face because I've worn it so long, but it's not 'me'. I don't spend much time in my real form, but... it's still what I really am. I can pretend to be human, but I'm not."

Jaune nods. He doesn't completely understand, but he imagines that false memories are weird enough without adding on top of it a false body or form. "That must be a lot of information to process if you have that many memories...do you have nightmares too?"

As soon as he asked the question he felt like it was a bad move, like maybe that was going a step too far.

"Sorry...I was just thinking of something else. You don't have to answer that."

"I... yeah. About my death and..." He hesitates. This part... it's not pretty. It requires some background information.

"One of the memories that came back before everything else did... there was a war, and the country we had moved to got involved. The family that I had run away from... they, like everyone else from that country who had moved there, were rounded up and put in... custody. Because they could be spies, or... some reason. It doesn't matter. It's complicated to explain all the reasons on all sides, and it doesn't matter."

It's stupid. It's stupid and ugly and it's one of the reasons he hates politics, even in the Underground. "But I had already run away from them. I hid. And... when I went looking for them after the war, they... had died in that camp. ... I never even got to say goodbye. So yeah. I have nightmares, of the family I was with just... dying alone, in pain. Without me to help comfort them. To help find them food or health care or... I would have outlived them anyway, but I wouldn't have abandoned them."

Taro reaches up and wipes his face, trying to keep his emotions in check. "... I know it's good to get stuff out there. But I... it's hard sometimes. And... and I want you to know you can be honest with me, too."

It's still hard to believe that someone or maybe several someones could be back from the dead here. He supposes it isn't completely crazy, as evidence is right here, but it mostly just raises questions about the nature of this place all over again. Jaune takes a deep breath. He knows his life isn't as chaotic as all of that -- but he can relate to some of it. Loss of life, refusing to abandon someone in need...it's not quite the same, but it has some similarities enough.

"I know," he hesitates, but decides that if his friend can share this information, his own life story won't hurt, "...before all of this I lost someone dear to me. My friends were always trying to get me to talk about it, but it just didn't feel right. Now...now I feel like it would help if I did, but I don't even know if it matters any more. I think that's why I have been having nightmares about her...I'm the only one here that knows anything about where I'm from and what happened. I had to live through it all again..." As he talked, he couldn't help but think of Pyrrha--the girl he'd loved and lost. Jaune felt tears on his face again, he didn't have the experience to keep his emotions in check.

Taro grabs a napkin and holds it out to Jaune, pressing it gently into his hand. "I'm sorry, Jaune. ... It matters if you think it matters. I can listen, if you want. But you don't have to talk. It's not like I'm gonna force you. But I'm here. Might not always be the best person to give you advice, but I can try. Or... just listen. Or distract you with stupid shit. It's up to you."

He accepts the napkin, using it briefly, but even Taro's reassurances help a little as he manages a slight smile. "Listening and distractions would probably both be helpful," he admits, thinking that both would be tactics his friends would have implemented if they were here. He crumples the napkin in his hand, thinking if he should share or not.

"One of the last memories I have from my other life is going on a quest with some friends to find answers for the murder of a friend of mine...but now I may never get those answers."

"... I'm sorry." He... really hopes Toshiko only sticks to the finding answers part and not taking it to the extreme of trying to get revenge. He's... pretty sure Jaune isn't a revenge guy? But he also doesn't really know him. "I'm sure you'll find them if you keep looking. Once you leave here, I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Jaune's never had to face this sort of action before either, so to be honest he's not entirely sure of what he will do either. He knows he needs information, and now it is for something more than just Pyrrha's death. Still, he knows that Taro is just being supportive and won't have an easy answer for him.

"I hope so...I really do," he takes another breath, "But...I guess we have this place to figure out first."

"... Yeah. But we'll figure it out. We've got to. There's too many mysteries to solve! Man, this makes me miss my old van..." Rest in peace, Mystery Machine.

there's no way you can save it now

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cw: world war ii

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