“I’m sorry, I just don’t really understand…” Orianna admitted.

After Solana’s comments, Jaune and Second, with a bit of help from Aurelius, had tried to explain just what Second was. But there were… issues.

His mom took things from the top. “Honey, you always told me that your semblance was a… how did you phrase it… an extension of your soul.”

Aurelius nodded.

“And that… that makes sense, in a way… it certainly fits for yours, at least.”

Second looked very interested in that comment, but wisely held his tongue to avoid the conversation confusing his family even more.

“But I don’t… how can an entirely different person be an extension of your soul, Jaune? If you ignore his looks, he’s very clearly not you.”

“Well, only someone who was insane would pull a stunt like he did. Maybe Jaune has a split personality-” Clementine started.

“-and Second is the other part of him, but like, with his own body. It would explain his stupidity.” Citrine finished.

“I’m not crazy!” Jaune ignored their jab at his… his stunt of suddenly running off to Beacon, and quickly rebutted the suspicion of lunacy, having gotten enough of those accusations out of Weiss earlier in the school year. “Besides, if there’s any split personality, it’s you two.”

The twins looked at each other with suspicion in their eyes, and then at the same time, said “Fair.”

“I’ll admit I’m no expert in semblances,” Kiara added, “but their theory doesn’t seem so outlandish to me. I’ve never heard of anything like it, and there has to be some explanation for the oddity. Don’t be so quick to rule out options without thorough study first.”

“The next one to suggest my son is crazy is grounded!” Orianna put her foot down.

The rest of his sisters chose not to test their mother.

Kiara adjusted her glasses. “I suppose that theory does neglect to account for the alleged future knowledge.”

Jaune sighed. “Look, I don’t have answers either! Professor Oobleck-”

“Doctor.” Second corrected.

“Doctor Oobleck is probably the closest thing to an expert on semblances in the world right now, and he seems confused by the whole thing. I’ve given up. Second is my semblance, I’m stuck with him whether I understand it or not.”

“Stuck with me? What a vote of confidence…” Second rolled his eyes.

“It’s more like he’s stuck with you.” Solana chimed in. “I can’t imagine a fate worse than having to hear your thoughts.”

“Hey! It’s better than being stuck in your head!” Jaune instantly fell back on years of experience, hitting his sister with the dreaded no, you.

Nobody seemed impressed.

Second shrugged. “Eh, he’s not so bad. I can think of plenty of people who would be worse… partners for me.”

“Like who?” Aurelia asked. “They can’t be as bad as Jaune.” She stuck her tongue out at her brother.

“Well Ozpin would probably be in the top five…” His semblance instantly responded.

Aurelius sighed. “Aurelia, stop saying that sort of thing.” Though he obviously intended that for all of them, given the jabs from the others. “Be nicer to your brother.”

Aurelia pouted. “Well he should have been nice to me and stayed at home instead of just leaving! He doesn’t love me, so I don’t love him!”

A heavy silence followed that. Trust the youngest to not care for dancing around a subject.

Jaune didn’t know how to respond to something so blunt. Of course he still loved his sisters, but… he could see how she thought otherwise, now that he was thinking about how things looked to them…

Aurelius, having already dealt with the awkwardness yesterday, quickly tried to move past it, latching onto the last thing that was said. “What would be so bad about being in Ozpin’s head?” He looked to Second Thoughts. “He’s… a good man. Accomplished a lot in his life.”

Jaune suspected that it had something to do with what the man had told him of his own mental hitch hiker. To have your mind blend with the other… especially when it had already happened to Ozpin. If the headmaster had gotten Second Thoughts as a semblance, each of the minds would only make up a third of what was left in the end.

Though now that he thought about it, had they ever gotten more out of the headmaster about… what had he called it… Ozma, than what he originally gave them? It seemed weird that he got the voice in his head and whatever his semblance was.

…what was his semblance?

Did he know anything about the headmaster?

“Oh, you know…” Second started to answer, obviously stalling so he could come up with a reasonable response that didn’t reveal Ozpin’s secret. Though maybe it was only obvious to him…

“He’s… old, and has to deal with the school,” his blue counterpart quickly decided. “Dealing with a bunch of students for a few years is bad enough, can you imagine doing it for your whole working life? Plus I’d probably get stuck doing half of his clerical duties for him…”

A lightbulb went off in Jaune’s head.

“I am not doing your homework for you!” Second quickly nipped that thought in the bud.

Zinnia hesitantly spoke up. “I thought you couldn’t hear each other’s thoughts right now?”

“Don’t need to when his line of thought is so obvious.” Second scoffed.

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His mother’s eyes narrowed. “There will be no cheating, young man! I don’t care if you… if you…” she couldn’t seem to bring herself to admit that he’d forged his transcripts, “I don’t care how you got in, if I find out you’re cheating, you’re in for a world of hurt!”

“There’s no need for that.” Aurelius put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “A huntsman’s education and training is his lifeline. If he skips out on it now, it will surely come back to bite him in the future.”

Left unsaid was that the consequences would be a lot more serious than his mom’s threat of a butt kicking. Even he knew that, though he seriously wanted to forget it sometimes in Port’s classes…

In the brief stint of silence that followed, Zinnia broke away from her sisters, and walked right up to Jaune.

Second was of no help. He was hesitating, not knowing whether he should interfere or encourage this.

His dad was no better. Probably not expecting Zinnia of all his sisters to do anything rash or rude.

But his heart started to beat faster. Was it her turn now? Was she going to be like Aurelia and just tell him that she hates him now?

She stared into his eyes. Her slightly darker hair and all black outfit made it easy for his eyes to focus solely on her. To give her his full attention.

“...are you happy here?” she asked him.

That… hadn’t been what he expected.

He thought about it for a moment. He’d been thrown so off guard that he couldn’t give an automatic, knee jerk response.

Life at Beacon had been… stressful. Constant meetings with powerful people, having to deal with Second’s invasion of privacy and then his secrets, being put in a coma and then almost dying to Cinder.

But it had also been… nice. He’d met a lot of new friends here. Ones that he couldn’t have even dreamed of having before lying his way into the school. He’d been able to go from the moron who did that to winning the Vytal festival. Even if that was 99% Pyrrha’s accomplishment…

“Yeah, I’m happy here,” he eventually answered.

She nodded, a small smile coming to her lips.

And then she slapped him across the face, shocking all of them.

“That is for suddenly running away and not saying anything.”

Jaune had barely even felt it, physically. He got hit harder than that when his friends were playfully nudging them. Huntsmen and huntresses just operated on a different level of physicality.

But for Zinnia to slap him…

“Now, Zinnia, I understand that you-” his father started, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop her second move.

His thoughts were washed away when she just as suddenly wrapped him in a tight hug.

“This is because I missed you.”

Jaune awkwardly wrapped his arms around his sister, returning the hug. He didn’t know what to do. And so he looked to Second, who seemed to have the answer quite often…

Only for his semblance to smile and give him a thumbs up, like everything was going perfectly fine.

Useless bastard.

----------------------------------------

“Alright, spill. What did he tell you.” Yang demanded from her partner.

“...I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Blake countered.

The rest of the group looked at her with disappointment for even attempting such an obvious lie.

Blake sighed, marking her page and setting her book down. “Fine. It was personal matters that he was wise enough to talk to me about directly and alone.”

None of them backed off.

“Which means it’s none of your business!”

“Puh-lease,” Nora rolled her eyes. “We don’t care about that! We care about what made you more giggly than Ruby when she sees a new weapon!”

“Hey! I do not-”

“Yes you do, Ruby, now be quiet.” Weiss covered her partner's mouth with her hand.

Blake carefully considered her options. “He may have… given me some ideas.”

“What sort of ideas?” Ren prompted. “Are we talking about the kind that will have Professor Goodwitch murder us?”

“The kind that are in your smut?” Weiss continued.

“The kind that will help us grow closer as friends?” Pyrrha suggested.

The rest of the group looked at her.

“What?! That’s a possibility!”

“That’s actually kind of sweet, so I don’t want to insult it, but seriously?” Yang answered.

“It’s okay, Pyrrha. We all know what you really wanted to ask.” Nora patted her on the shoulder reassuringly.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe it was an idea for a new weapon!” Ruby excitedly exclaimed.

“Seriously! What was that supposed to mean?!” Pyrrha repeated, to no avail.

Blake finally gave in.

“Well… apparently an Arc never goes back on his word.”

Weiss raised a brow. “And?”

Ren had already caught on, though. “So you’re saying that if we can get him to give us his word…”

“I don’t buy it,” Yang denied. “No way he’d actually go along with anything interesting.”

“Did he give you any examples?” Ruby asked, audibly mumbling about how she might use this knowledge to gain cookies.

“Well…” Blake smirked. “Supposedly there was a decent possibility of him attending the dance in a dress…”

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“Are we really going to do this?” Vernal asked.

“First of all, there is no ‘we’ involved,” Raven countered. “If they already know that I’m the Spring Maiden then your involvement would be pointless. Nothing more than a liability, if you assume I wouldn’t just abandon you.”

Vernal’s smirk made it clear that she thought that wouldn’t be the case. A good attitude to have, but an annoying one at the moment.

“Secondly,” Raven continued, “You heard the terms that were agreed upon. In what world would I not take that deal? I have to waste a bit of time, be in the presence of people I don’t particularly like… and in exchange, I get all of that, plus the powers of the Spring Maiden become obsolete for our lifetimes. Some other poor fool will suffer eventually, but it won’t be our problem anymore.”

“You could always see what other interested parties have to offer. Something along the lines of never having to deal with pathetic minions… or maybe even the grimm?”

Raven thought it over for a moment. It didn’t take long, though. That was a possibility she’d spent many nights contemplating, long before an offer like Winter’s had been made.

“No. Ozpin… and his merry band of fools, even if they think themselves acting against him, differ from Salem and her forces in a very important, very fundamental way. They’re simpering morons who hold sentiment and feelings above pragmatism. Ozpin will always see me as another one of his many mistakes. Qrow will always see me as the sister who he could turn back to the light, if only I would give him a chance. And with my daughter dragged into the mess, even the next generation will hold sympathy for me, though it may be buried under other useless emotions.

Salem doesn’t have that problem. Being of use to her today is one thing, she would gladly turn one of Ozpin’s pawns against him. But afterwards… Well, I would be nothing but a potential liability. Someone for them to stab in the back as soon as the relic is retrieved. My semblance is to be feared by everyone involved… but Salem is much more willing to kill me to eliminate it from play.”

Vernal nodded along, accepting her superior reasoning.

But the fact that she was here explaining it to the girl at all was concerning. Did she feel the need to justify her actions? Did she doubt herself?

Was she growing weak?

“Grab a weapon. We’re sparring again. It’s been far too long since I last put you in your place.”

Vernal grinned, as if she were looking forward to eating the dirt. As she should.

Now was not the time for doubt. It would be a simple matter. In and out, grab the relic and hand it over.

She would survive, like only the strong could.