"Draw them into the cliffs!" Jaune yelled to his men. His soldiers were fighting a defensive battle in a valley below some tall, sloping cliffs and hills. "Slowly!" Jaune sidestepped a stray spear that flew by and stuck into the ground, waggling back and forth. He snatched up the spear and threw it back out over his own soldiers at the mob of Vacuoan soldiers, striking some poor, unfortunate foe in the chest.

Jaune's soldiers were positioned in a tight phalanx, large rectangular shields overlapping to form a near impenetrable wall. It wasn't quite at the point of being invincible, but the formations and shields together reduced casualties to a bare minimum. The downside was that the casualties they could inflict were also limited because his soldiers couldn't go on the offensive. That wasn't Jaune's job though. His job, with his armored soldiers, was to form defensive lines and to use their armored advantage to draw enemy soldiers into traps. Like this one.

"Hold here and stay alive, men!" Jaune ordered. The line was holding without issue at the base of a cliff, even as outnumbered as they were with Jaune's fifteen hundred against a Vacuoan brigade of six thousand. Though they were doing well, every life was precious and Jaune knew how best to aid his soldiers. Jaune opened himself up to his near immeasurable amounts of aura, filling himself with glowing light and aura that begged for release. He obliged and forced his aura outwards from himself in an ever expanding wave. His aura infused his soldiers with energy, washing away their fatigue and healing their wounds.

His soldiers cheered, thankful for the rush of energy and health that Jaune had gifted them. They put their newfound energy to good use, the soldiers in front reinforcing and strengthening their lines while those behind pulled their own ranged weapons to fire into the mass of enemy soldiers. Jaune collapsed to one knee, the sudden expenditure of aura exhausting him. His honor guard swarmed around him, linking shields around and above their commander to protect him while he was vulnerable. "Just a little longer, and we'll be okay." He panted. Jaune heard a horn in the distance. "Good timing, Pyrrha." He sighed in relief.

The horn was followed by battle cries as Pyrrha and her three thousand soldiers flowed into the valley that Jaune had lured the Vacuoans into, trapping them in the valley. With Pyrrha's soldiers joining the fray, the numbers were closer to evening out at forty-five hundred to six thousand. Pyrrha herself was on the front lines of her side of the battle, leading the charge. With a great battle cry, they crashed into the enemy soldiers.

Jaune's earpiece crackled with static for a moment. "Jaune, get your soldiers as close to the cliff face as you can." Weiss' voice ordered when the static cleared.

"Already there, Weiss." Jaune replied.

"Good. Hold out for just a little longer." Weiss' channel cut out.

"Got it, boss." Jaune mumbled to himself. He turned to his soldiers to shout encouragement. "Just a little longer while-"

"Fire!" A loud voice interrupted from far above Jaune.

"That was quick." Jaune mumbled as a series of blasts went off on the cliff face above him. He looked up to see more than a hundred rockets and streaming down from the cliffs above, launched by the renowned Hammer Company. The rockets crashed into the middle of the host of Vacuoans, bursting into fiery blossoms of destruction that threw bodies every which way. Only seconds later, a second salvo of rockets leapt towards the Vacuoans, continuing the stream of destruction.

Over the explosions, Jaune could swear he could hear Nora laughing on the cliff above, firing off grenade after grenade into the Vacuoans. Then he collapsed, unconscious.

Chairman Crane knocked on an ornate wooden door with his cane. "You there, old man?"

"Yes, yes. Come in." Ozpin called out. Chairman Crane opened the door and hobbled in on his prosthetic leg, cane clicking on the hardwood floor. "Long time no see, Chairman. Been too busy with your new position to come and see the newly rebuilt Beacon and visit an old friend?" Ozpin joked as he stood and shook his friend's hand.

"It's only been a year since we last saw each other." The Chairman laughed. "It's a lot of effort trying to lead a council to make productive decisions." Crane joked. "I'm glad to see Beacon rebuilt, though. How long has it been now since the attack? Eighteen months?"

"Somewhere around there, yeah." Ozpin agreed vaguely. "It's good to have Beacon up and running again."

"It's good to see it up again. Looks better than before, too." Crane added.

"I may have added a few of my own ideas to the blueprints that weren't there before." Ozpin said coyly.

"I see." Crane chuckled. "How about initiation? I've seen some strange reports coming across my desk from hunters."

"So even the council has heard, then? We've had to change Beacon's initiation, yes. The Emerald Forest is almost completely empty of Grimm now, so we've had to make some adjustments with such training. Though I haven't quite worked out what I'm supposed to be teaching huntsman and huntresses to fight if the Grimm are all dying off." Ozpin shrugged.

"You're a clever man, I'm sure you'll figure it out." Crane assured Ozpin.

"You give me too much credit." Ozpin grinned. "Glynda does a lot of the work."

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. The door opened without waiting for a response from Ozpin and Glynda let herself in. "Headmaster, I have the roster for… oh, Chairman Crane." Glynda gave a slight bow. "My apologies for interrupting."

"Not at all, milady." Crane took Glynda's hand a placed a light kiss on the back of her hand. "I hope you're doing well?"

"I am well, thank you." Glynda answered courteously. "I'll just leave this with you, headmaster." Glynda set the student roster down on Ozpin's desk.

"Thank you, Glynda." Ozpin picked up and opened the roster as Glynda left the office.

"Good news?" Crane asked conversationally.

"Not really." Ozpin replied. "Enrollment is down a few percent."

"Enrollment has been down everywhere since the war started." Crane said. "People don't want their children getting ideas about joining the war like Miss Schnee and her hunters. They've become quite infamous."

"That was unexpected, I will admit." Ozpin agreed. "Do you have news from the battlefront? I'm afraid I haven't heard anything from them since they left last year."

"Lord Commander Schnee is doing brilliantly." Crane answered. "Our army hasn't lost a single battle since she took command."

"She's far surpassed any expectations we've had, then." Ozpin said.

"You are right, of course. Your plan was a success. Hunters are the only thing keeping us in this war." Crane tapped his cane idly. "I suppose I should get back to the capital. I'm in negotiations with Mistral and Atlas again, trying to secure some reinforcements or support for the war. It's almost like they've forgotten they were attacked too."

"Out of sight, out of mind." Ozpin said, standing up and opening the door for Chairman Crane. "The war isn't on their doorstep, so they don't see it as their problem. Or they think that they can leave us to deal with the war without getting their hands dirty."

"Well, tragedy changes people. There's no denying that." Crane said somberly as he walked to the door.

"No, there isn't." Ozpin agreed sadly as his friend walked away.

"Okay, thanks Pyrrha." Weiss said an hour later. "I'll see you once you're done." Weiss shut off communication with Pyrrha and set down her headpiece. "Another battle done." She sighed. Their latest plan was simple- Blake and her covert operatives planted false information for the enemy, luring a smaller chunk of the Vacuoan army away from the main group so that they could deal with it without being overwhelmed by their numbers. Such tactics were necessary when the enemy outnumbered you so much that a head to head battle was out of the question.

Right now, Pyrrha's forces were off making sure that no Vacuoans had escaped while Jaune and his men recovered and Hammer Company restocked their supplies. The rest of the army remained with Weiss, who remained camped in place to deceive the enemy into thinking they hadn't moved. Soon enough the Vacuoan commanders would discover they had been deceived and realize they'd been led into a trap and Weiss would have to order her army to reposition once again.

Weiss was walking a line more fine than she had imagined possible with her army. Just over a year of battles, through four seasons. The guerilla tactics of a snowy winter, the slow trudge through the wet and muddy spring, the frantic and heated battles of summer, and the careful maneuvering of autumn. And now they were once again in the midst of winter, at a stalemate, with spring fast approaching. A year of battles, and Weiss had led the army to victory at every single one. It was an impressive accomplishment, if one didn't bother to look at the big picture.

While Weiss and the Vytal army may not have lost a single battle, they were most definitely on the losing side of the war. Weiss could only field a small fraction of the amount of soldiers that Vacuo could, and even when Vacuo lost five or even ten times as many soldiers in a battle as Weiss did, they could afford it while Weiss couldn't. No matter how good Weiss did, the numbers were so far against them it almost didn't matter. And this fact was a source of great stress for the Lord Commander.

"I need a vacation." Weiss grumbled.

"Don't we all." Blake said as she walked into Weiss' command tent. "A year of constant marching and fighting tires you out."

"Has it been that long already?" Weiss sighed. "I lose track of time."

Blake held up a packet of reports. "Just dropping of the latest batch of reports. All successful." Blake reported.

"Thanks, Blake." Weiss said. "I actually wanted to talk to you about some of the missions you've been taking actually, now that you're here." Weiss said. Blake's soldiers all worked as covert operatives and black ops specialists, and so they had a different process that they operated by, as per Blake's request and Weiss' design. Weiss would set up lists of missions that needed to be done based on the information and objectives they had, and send them over to Blake. Blake would then decide how many soldiers would be appropriate for the mission and then post the list to a bulletin board in her unit's command tent, where her soldiers would sign up for missions that played to their strengths. It was a system that allowed Blake's men to have a little more freedom, to decide what part they could play. Some soldiers were better scouts than they were spies; others were better spies than assassins, and so on.

"Sorry, could it wait?" Blake asked. "I'm on a tight schedule with my next mission. I'll talk to you after I get back, all right?"

"Wait-" Weiss tried to stop Blake from leaving, but she quickly dodged out of the tent before Weiss could confront her. Weiss quickly followed her out of the tent, but Blake was nowhere to be seen. "Damn it." Weiss had to find a way to confront Blake eventually, before the worst happened. She pulled out her scroll and contacted Velvet.

"Yes, Weiss?" Velvet's voice answered. "You need me?"

"Are you near Blake's tent?" Weiss asked quickly.

"Yeah, why?" Her interest was piqued.

Weiss breathed a sigh of relief. "Go there and wait for her. Stall her and keep her there for as long as you can." Weiss began swiftly walking towards Blake's tent.

"Is something wrong?"

"Just keep her from leaving!" Weiss growled agitatedly before ending the call. Weiss kept moving towards Blake's tent, hoping to get there in time to confront Blake before she could slip away on another mission.

As she finally got closer to Blake's tent a few minutes later, Weiss could hear a commotion coming from inside. "Blake, why do you have to leave so soon? You only just got back from your last mission this morning. You need to take a break." Weiss could hear Velvet speaking to Blake.

"I don't need a break, I'm perfectly healthy." Blake argued.

Weiss stepped into the tent. Velvet was standing just a few steps inside, in front of the flap. She was blocking Blake, who was making an attempt to move past her and leave the tent. "Blake, there you are. I need to speak to you."

"I really should get going on this mission, you two." Blake growled.

"It can wait." Weiss ordered with finality.

Blake glowered at the two standing against her. "Fine. What do you want to talk about?"

Weiss placed a hand on Velvet's shoulder. "Do you mind giving us some privacy?" She asked.

Velvet looked confused and concerned, but nodded in agreement. "Sure. I'll be back in the medical tent." She ducked out of the flap and left Weiss and Blake alone.

Blake tapped her foot impatiently as she shifted her weight to one side. "So? You wanted to talk?"

"Blake, please. You know what I want to talk about." Weiss said.

"No, I don't think I do." Blake argued back.

"Please don't make this difficult." Weiss asked softly. "You know that I want to talk to you about these missions you keep going on."

"What about them? They all end in success, right? Something wrong?" Blake asked innocently.

"Yes!" Weiss raised her voice. "You keep taking the most dangerous missions. Missions meant for squads. And you're doing them on your own, without back-up! You're going to get yourself killed!"

"I'm still alive, aren't I?" Blake countered. "And I'm keeping more of my soldiers alive this way."

"That argument may work on Velvet, but I'm not in love with you so I know better than to believe that." Weiss argued. "You're taking dangerous missions because you're hoping that you'll get killed on them."

"I'm not-" Blake started.

"Don't try to tell me that's not what's happening, Blake!" Weiss continued. "I know you!"

"Are you saying I'm trying to compromise the war effort?" Blake responded.

"Of course not." Weiss answered. "You don't want to lose the war or just let yourself die. If you wanted that, you would have just killed yourself or let yourself get discovered on a mission and gotten it over with. You want to die fighting."

Blake just silently stared back at Weiss. "… Is that so?"

"Blake, ever since we started fighting last year you've been on missions constantly." Weiss lowered her voice back to normal. "You're out on missions so much that you haven't been with the main army for more than a few weeks total, and never for more than a day at a time. Even Velvet sees you only once every couple weeks, and she goes out of her way to try to wait for you. "

Blake's shoulders sagged, just a little. "That's not a real problem. She knows that we're all busy with our duties." Despite Blake's words, Weiss could see that Blake was at last feeling at least a little guilt about leaving Velvet alone for so long.

"We are busy, but what you're doing is borderline suicidal. Tell me I'm wrong, Blake. For once, I really want to be wrong." Weiss pleaded.

Blake could only stare quietly back in response. Weiss stared right back into Blake's eyes, waiting for an answer. After a long silence, Blake finally broke eye contact and sat down on her cot, defeated. "Okay. You win." Blake's shoulders sagged with a heaviness and sadness that she tried to keep from everyone else for so long. "What do you want me to say?"

"There's no winning here, Blake. Just friends, trying to help each other." Weiss sat down next to Blake. "I know I'm not the best person to talk about feelings with, but I can do my best to help. Talk to me, Blake." Weiss reached over and squeezed Blake's hand in an attempt to comfort her.

Blake stared ahead in silence, still ever reluctant to express her own feelings, even to close friends. Her free hand idly fingered the orange scarf that she wore around her neck while she wasn't on missions. This didn't escape Weiss' notice, and the significance of the subconscious act wasn't lost on Weiss either.

"You're lonely." Weiss said quietly.

Blake looked over at Weiss with eyes softened by moisture. "Yeah." Her composure began to crack as the moisture built up in her eyes. "I miss her so much." Blake's voice cracked as the wall she built finally crumbled now that she was being confronted by Weiss.

Weiss pulled Blake into an embrace, holding her friend against her chest as Blake finally let out a year's worth of tears and grief that she had kept hidden inside. "I know, Blake. I know." Weiss whispered as she stroked Blake's hair.

Blake sobbed against Weiss' chest. "She had to just go and be a hero, and I couldn't be there to protect her, and I didn't even get a small chance to say goodbye and…" Blake couldn't continue as another bout of sobbing took over her.

"I know, Blake." Weiss whispered in understanding. "But she did what she did because she loved you. And you're hurting because you love her."

"It hurts, Weiss." Blake whimpered. "I feel hurt and empty in my chest."

"We're here for you, Blake. Me, Velvet, Jaune, Pyrrha." Weiss assured her. "Even Nora, in her own way." Weiss added offhandedly.

Blake let out a quick, single hum of laughter. "Nora is too far gone to reassure anyone."

Weiss chuckled as well. "I suppose you're right. She just wants revenge, now."

Blake lifted herself off of Weiss, wiping her cheeks and eyes of tears. "I did too. But one year and hundreds of assassinations later, I'm still empty Weiss. I don't want revenge anymore. It's done nothing for me. I still just want Yang back."

"I know how you feel, Blake. But that doesn't mean you have to die to see her." Weiss said. "Do… you want out? To stop fighting in the war?" Weiss asked cautiously.

"And leave you alone?" Blake asked with a small smile. "Where would you be without me?"

Weiss chuckled. "Probably a lot less successful than we are right now."

Blake finally laughed. "Thanks for the flattery."

"I realize this may be tactless, given the context, but what about Velvet?" Weiss asked timidly.

"What do you mean?" Blake asked as she walked over to her storage crate and pulled out a towel to clean her face.

"Well, it's not exactly a secret among us that she's sort of… you know, in love with you." Weiss said. "What about your feelings for her?"

Blake stayed quiet as she wiped her face dry. Once she finished, she placed the towel back in her crate and turned back to Weiss. "I… like her. She's nice, and cute, and caring and loving. But I think that's about where my feelings stop for her. I can admit that without her I probably wouldn't have made it this far, and I get the feeling she needed me too. But that's it." Blake said with a sigh.

"Does she know, at least?" Weiss asked as she stood up as well.

"I'm not sure, to be honest." Blake admitted. "I know she's in love with me, as you said. I want to believe that deep down she knows that I can't feel the same."

"I'm sure she does, and understands." Weiss assured her.

Blake stretched her arms above her head with a yawn. "I'm sorry for avoiding you for so long, Weiss. Thank you for forcing me to talk, too."

"What are friends for, if not to cry on and stain their uniforms?" Weiss joked.

Blake laughed. "Sorry about that. But I have to go post the new mission assignments now."

"Wait, you were serious about that?" Weiss asked in surprise.

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, to be honest I thought you were just saying that to avoid me." Weiss said, embarrassed.

"I kinda was. I made it out to be more urgent than it actually was, I don't leave until tomorrow." Blake admitted, also embarrassed.

Both girls just stared sheepishly at each other for a second before they both burst out laughing again. "Well, anyways." Blake began after they finished their initial burst of laughter. "I really should get going."

Weiss grabbed Blake's hand before she left. "Promise me you won't take reckless missions anymore?"

Blake nodded. "I promise. I'll be sure to take a proper squad with me tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow's mission?" Weiss asked as they left the tent.

"We're infiltrating Fort Verraten to gather as much information as we can." Blake explained as they walked.

Weiss stopped in her tracks. "For Verraten? Why are you infiltrating their headquarters?"

"You don't remember? We finally found it last week. You signed off on an infiltration order just the other day." Blake continued.

"I did?" Weiss asked as they walked. "Oh, yeah. I remember now. I need more sleep." Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut.

"You really should try getting more sleep, I agree." Blake said.

"I'll see if I can pencil that into my schedule." Weiss joked.

"I told you we needed to reinforce the frame to compensate for the increase in the amount of dust in our grenades." Nora complained to her hallucination. Nora was doing a bit of maintenance on Magnhild as she sat on a small fold out stool in the medical tent, surrounded by a variety of spare parts and a plethora of tools. "Look here. If we had increased the dust load anymore, Magnhild would have broken." She held up the frame and pointed to a spot near the launcher trigger mechanism.

"Okay, okay, you were right." Her hallucination admitted.

"Of course I'm right, Nori. You're an idiot." Nora spoke as if to a child. Once conversations with her hallucinatory personality became commonplace, Nora decided that a name would be necessary, as long as it was appropriately cute.

"Hey, it was a simple mistake." Nori shrugged.

"A stupid mistake, you mean." Nora shot back. "You should know better than this."

"You were the one who listened to me." Nori smiled.

"Oh, shut up." Nora groaned.

Jaune groaned on the cot in front of Nora, shifting positions in his sleep.

"You should quiet down, you might wake him up." Nori chuckled.

"He's slept long enough, there's nothing wrong with him waking up now." Nora grumbled, but she quieted down nonetheless. During the earlier battle Jaune had used his aura to protect and empower his soldiers at the cost of his own energy and had collapsed from the rapid exhaustion. He had sustained no serious injuries from the battle, though; His honor guard had done an excellent job of keeping him from harm. Nora knew that Pyrrha would normally be the one here with him, but she was ordered to lead a fresh unit of soldiers on a clean up to make sure there were no straggling Vacuoans lingering about.

"Maybe you have a point." Nori conceded. "He isn't even hurt. A couple hours of rest is plenty for someone who's just tired." Nora just grunted in agreement as she continued maintenance on her weapon, replacing screws, adding support, and replacing parts.

Pyrrha hurried through the camp, attempting to rush to the medical tent as quickly as she could without making it look like she was actually rushing. She was mostly unsuccessful as she quickly shifted from power walking to jogging without noticing herself. Finally reaching the tents, Pyrrha slowed down to a walk to regain composure before entering. Pyrrha saw Velvet as she entered. She was wearing her medical officers' uniform and examining a scroll that had the medical data of the various patients she currently had in her care. Velvet directed her medical staff around this tent and the other medical tents, her medical training and instincts overcoming her dislike of crowds and unfamiliar faces.

Pyrrha waited patiently for Velvet to finish giving out her orders before approaching and greeting her friend. "Good afternoon, Velvet."

Velvet turned around. "Afternoon, Pyrrha." Velvet gave a lazy salute. "I put Jaune in his usual room." Velvet waved her hand in the vague direction of the curtained off rooms in the far side of the tent that were meant for people who weren't seriously injured but were stable and in the process of recovering.

"Thank you, Velvet." Pyrrha started towards Jaune, but Velvet stopped her.

"Um… Nora's there with him." Velvet explained.

Pyrrha's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "She is?" Nora had never visited Jaune or Pyrrha in the medical tents before, so Pyrrha was genuinely surprised. Had something happened?

"Yeah. She's been sitting by his bed while she does some repairs or something with her weapon." Velvet's eyes glanced towards the room before returning to Pyrrha. "She's been… keeping herself company."

Pyrrha understood. "Thanks for the heads up." Pyrrha thanked before making her way towards the tent. That was Velvet's way of letting Pyrrha know that Nora had been talking to herself. While it seemed Nora acknowledged that she was speaking to a hallucination created by her own mind, other people pointing it out was not something Nora tolerated, much to the dismay of the first unfortunate soldier who did so last year.

"Nora? Jaune?" Pyrrha whispered as she poked her head into the small room.

"He's still sleeping." Nora answered in a normal voice without looking up from her repairs.

"Oh, thank you, Nora." Pyrrha began.

"Hey, your lover's here." Nora jabbed Jaune hard in the ribs with two outstretched fingers.

"Wah!" he yelped as started, nearly falling off the bed. "What happened? Are we under attack?" He looked around urgently. "No?"

"No." Pyrrha chuckled. Jaune fell back into to bed with a sigh. "How're you feeling?"

"I'm better now. Just a little tired." Jaune answered as he stretched.

"I'll be off now." Nora interrupted all of a sudden. She tossed her spare parts and tools into a large bag and threw it over her shoulder.

"Wait!" Pyrrha reached out and grabbed Nora's arm before she could leave. "I'm sorry if this sounds rude or ungrateful, but… how come you came to see Jaune? You've never visited us in here before." Pyrrha sounded nervous, as she wasn't sure how Nora would react to being confronted about this event.

"Because you weren't here." Nora stated simply.

"What do you mean?" Pyrrha asked as she let go.

"Whenever one of you is here, the other one is too. You weren't here this time. So I came." Nora explained as if Pyrrha was daft for not understanding.

Pyrrha was shocked because she was sure that Nora had long ago abandoned any semblance of friendship with others. Jaune was also shocked, though he was less obvious about it as Pyrrha was. "…Thank you, Nora. For looking after Jaune."

Nora didn't respond or acknowledge the thanks; she just turned and left the room in silence. Pyrrha stared after her a moment, still processing what had just happened. Then she turned to Jaune. "I don't even know what to say." She admitted.

"Maybe she isn't as far gone as we thought." Jaune said with a shrug. "Maybe a small part of her still cares enough about other people to help when they need it."

"We'll just have to see. Over a year of ignoring us is a hard thing to make up for." Pyrrha grumbled. Pyrrha had taken Nora's rejection and abandonment particularly hard, and the last year had not helped matters.

"She may ignore us in person, but she always comes through for us in desperate situations." Jaune assured Pyrrha. "Remember a few months ago; when my unit got cut off in that valley?"

"Don't remind me. I thought I lost you." Pyrrha shivered at the memory.

"You would have, but Nora went out of her way to bring Hammer Company to us rather than wait for her orders." Jaune continued. "It may not be the most obvious thing, but I think she does look out for us. At least a little."

"I hope you're right." Pyrrha said. "But while I'm here- I thought you promised me you wouldn't do that anymore!" Pyrrha sat down on the bed next to her lover and smacked Jaune in the shoulder. "You know it's dangerous to expend that much aura at once. You were really hurt last time you did that."

"I'm sorry, Pyrrha. I'm being more controlled about it now, though. I'm only using it to help the soldiers on the front lines rather than all of my soldiers." Jaune reasoned.

"That's still several hundred soldiers!" Pyrrha complained. "I know you have a large pool of aura to draw from, but you don't have enough for that many other souls and bodies. You need to stop doing that."

"I just don't want to see any more of our soldiers die, Pyrrha. We've lost so many of them already, and we can't afford to lose anymore." Jaune explained. "You've seen Weiss when she thinks we aren't looking. She's worried."

Pyrrha sighed. "I know." She agreed. "We aren't doing as well as we need to do to win the war. I feel bad for Weiss- she's done the impossible with our army and it still isn't enough."

Jaune pulled Pyrrha into an embrace, and she laid herself down next to him in the bed. "I heard through the grapevine that Chairman Crane might be able to get us some reinforcements from Mistral and Atlas. That will definitely help."

Pyrrha snorted with disgust at the mention of her homeland. "I doubt Mistral will help, they're a bunch of cowards."

"The entire kingdom isn't like your parents, Pyrrha." Jaune chided gently.

"I know. I just couldn't believe they thought yelling at me to 'come home where it's safe' would be what I wanted." Pyrrha said with a sigh.

"They just wanted to protect their little girl." Jaune smiled as he poked her in the side teasingly.

Pyrrha spun in the bed and smack Jaune again playfully. "Whatever." She kissed Jaune on the nose. "Let's go back to our tent since you're awake now." Pyrrha hopped off the bed and left the room.

"Shouldn't we report our losses to Weiss and give her a status report?" Jaune asked as he stood up and followed Pyrrha.

"Already did it when I did my after action inspection." They heard Velvet call out from across the tent. "She already has all the numbers."

"Oh." Jaune still had not gotten used to Velvet's amazing sense of hearing. "Thank you, Velvet." Jaune said as he clapped Velvet on the shoulder.

"No problem." Velvet said without looking up from her scroll. "You two should get some more rest. Weiss wants us marching again tomorrow before Vacuo can retaliate." Velvet added.

"What about our wounded?" Jaune asked.

"There aren't very many, actually. But I'll be sending the ones with more serious injuries back to the rear base to heal in a small caravan. They'll be fine. Your little stunt left you with very few injured. Either they were already dead, or you healed them." Velvet explained. "And Nora didn't take any losses. You also took very few because of your surprise attack." Velvet added while looking up at Pyrrha.

"I guess a few is better than a lot." Jaune said. "Silver lining and all that."

"Certainly makes my job easier." Velvet agreed.

Pyrrha gave a quick shake of Velvet's hand in thanks. "Well, thanks for filing those reports for us, Velvet. We'll get out of your hair now."

"Yup." Velvet answered, already distracted by a report from one of her medics.

Jaune and Pyrrha left the tent and made their way through the camp. "Have you been practicing using your aura to sense things like Vimentis?" Pyrrha asked as they entered their shared tent.

"Yeah, but it's not very accurate." Jaune said. "I can kinda just sense things that are alive, and what direction they're in. And if there are a lot of living things together then I sense it as one giant blob. And not very far either."

"…so not much progress from last month?" Pyrrha laughed as she changed out of her uniform into sweats and a t-shirt and flopped down in bed.

"None at all." Jaune said with a sheepish smile. Pyrrha held out her arms to signal to Jaune to come join her in bed. "I'll be there in a second." Jaune chuckled as he changed into a matching outfit. He tied the tent flap closed behind him before lying in bed next to his girlfriend. Once he settled in on his back, Pyrrha rolled over onto Jaune and straddled him. "I think Velvet told us to rest, Pyrrha." Jaune said as he ran his hands up Pyrrha's sides.

Pyrrha leaned down to kiss Jaune's neck. "We can rest later."