RWBY Through Worlds

184: Everything Inside

"I didn't think about it that way," Jaune said, "like all of it together might actually have purpose. But what purpose?"

Pyrrha shrugged uncertainly.

"I guess..." Juane thought. "I just didn't want to think pain was inevitable. I wanted to think I could stop it."

"But Jaune," Pyrrha said quietly, "your literal Semblance is to heal... It only protects you. I don't think we can keep everyone else from getting harmed--we just try to help them when it happens."

Jaune stared at her thoughtfully.

"And... maybe it would be better to just be grateful for that," he said slowly, "instead of wishing that stuff just didn't happen... Maybe that's what you've always been telling me this whole time."

"If God can't prevent things always, or won't, out of some wisdom, then who are we to question it?" Pyrrha echoed her earlier thought. "If that's how you want to look at it... You know, I wish sometimes I could do what you do. I really only can try to prevent bad things from happening. I don't know anything about fixing them later. That's what you've always known better than me."

"I wouldn't say that," Jaune said.

"I believe it's true," Pyrrha said. "Honestly, Jaune, it's always been that way. And I guess I like to help other people get there. Like Shine, I guess. But you know, if something happens, and it always does, someone has to pick up the pieces. That's so important."

She glanced upward.

"Especially right now..." she muttered.

Jaune glanced upward and then down again.

"Maybe I've been missing it," he mused. "Maybe the answer was right there the whole time."



"...And then I felt chills in my bones
The breath I saw was not my own
I knew my skin that wrapped my frame
Wasn't made to play this game
And then I saw him, torch in hand
He laid it out, what he had planned
And then I said I'll take the grave
Please just send them all my way. And then I felt chills in my bones
The breath I saw was not my own
I knew my skin that wrapped my frame
Wasn't made to play this game

"I began to understand why God died. The air begins to feel a little thin
As we're waiting for the morning to begin
But for now you told me to hold this jar
And when I looked inside, I saw it held your heart
For me to walk away with.
I began to understand why God died."

Pyrrha was peering ahead. It was getting darker by now, but she thought she saw movement.

Was that a pink parasol?

"Neo?" she called. "Neo, is that you?"

The parasol promptly disappeared into the rocks.

"Roman might be close," Pyrrha said. "Careful, it's really uneven here."

She pulled herself over the rocks and scrambled after Neo.

Jaune followed her closely but ended up slipping and falling part of the way down into the indent between the rock formations.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha called.

"I'm okay..." he wheezed.

"Neo's hiding. I can't quite make out what she's saying, but this might take a few minutes. Can you watch the perimeter for Grimm?"

"Is she saying that Roman is gone?" Jaune called.

"No, not that. I can't make it out... Just hang on."