Five Arabian Nights

The anger within him let him realize

The importance of

Maturity and integrity.

For the maturity controlled him

From acting rashly and selfishly.

It let him have second thoughts

And reconsider his own morals.

For the integrity allowed him

To be honest and open-minded.

It let him show his thoughts

With courage and steel will.

Within anger lied the key to honesty.

Chapter 8

The Third Night

Jaune Arc's eyes slowly cracked open.

The factory was no more. All had vanished. Instead of the iron ceiling that spread across the machinery-filled room, several wooden logs appeared before him.

The factory. The machine.

Cardin.

Bell.

Lilium.

Jaune bolted up from the bed sheets that covered his body. He took a good look at himself. The battle was not an illusion; it had happened. His armor and clothes were torn and scratched at. The gloves were torn, with Jaune's healthy skin showing underneath them.

So he had overcome the hateful machine.

The thought of death would never become commonplace to him. He had heard and seen of it. Death was a plague that coexisted with life. So whenever he thought of murder, his consciousness of death only grew. It made him feel hateful. It made him feel useless and outraged. It made him want to break out of his school and hunt down those who thought so little of life and haul them into an eternal prison. The pressure of it all angered him.

But he knew how much he hated the idea of taking away another's life. Yet, there were some cases where people would want to end their own lives. "There is no value," they say, but no, they were wrong. Everyone was different from one another. A cliché? No, that statement was not a cliché, but a fact. Some take their own lives due to the world becoming "boring," but the world could never be boring if everyone was different from one another. Something always riled other things up; that much was common sense.

Some take their own lives due to being unable to bear the pressure of trivial matters. Some take their own lives due to being unable to handle the torment of harassment.

They had no hope.

Jaune Arc had realized that he was not useless. He knew he had meaning, he just sought out to know what it exactly was. But through joy, he entered a state of calmness where he could ponder about sadness. His thorough self-analysis allowed him to find his honest self within the malicious undertones of his anger.

He brought down the mighty machine- a hardship everyone had to defeat- to discover more about himself.

Jaune calmed down. His breathing collectively gained a steady pace, his eyes staring aimlessly at his hands. As reality settled in, his hands clenched in fists of both anger and motivation. If he had so many thoughts plaguing his mind, he would not give up to some trivial matter that could trigger a fuse of insanity within him. He would work tirelessly to put a fitting end to these thoughts of malice before they ended him.

Before he could be honest with others, he needed to become honest with himself.

He did not know how much time passed. So when he felt something nudge his shoulder, his train of thoughts halted as he stopped clenching his fists.

A child of fire stood next to him. The fire blazed and lit the room with a warm color, yet none of the wood around her was set on fire. Her eyes glowed a bright orange as a small grin entered her fiery features.

She leapt on his bed and poked his forehead.

The child began poking relentlessly at Jaune Arc, who just woke up from fighting a demented machine of hatred and violence.

"…? Wha- Hey!"

As Jaune waved the child off, the girl leapt off the bed and laughed. Her voice was that of a piano's, her laughter resembling the mashing of high-pitch keys. Satisfied, the child of fire turned to his sword and shield, both of which leaned against one of the log cabin's walls.

She picked the sword up and started swinging it around aimlessly.

"That's dangerous!" Jaune warned as he got off the bed sheets. As soon as he spoke, the child of fire jumped and stopped swinging the sword, staring at Jaune with wide eyes. She turned to the blade, then to Jaune.

Puffing her cheeks out, the child of fire put the sword at where it once leaned against before shouting out a bunch of loud and incoherent keys. She then stood still, crossing her arms with an annoyed look.

This kid…

Jaune sighed as he walked over to Crocea Mors, his sword and shield. Turning his shield into a sheath for the blade, he strapped it by his waist. The girl of fire remained still, an annoyed look still on her face. She looked away from Jaune.

An honest and immature child.

Ignis.

If Jaune were to become a father, he would not be a good one. He realized this as soon as he took out his trusty weapon and handed it to the child. After all, she did not seem to have any intentions in killing him. Jaune also believed he had nothing to lose anyway.

Her face brightening at the sight of the blade, Ignis took it. Her open smile was enough to show her satisfaction as she inspected the weapon out of fascination. She did not swing the weapon, though; that already got her shouted at. Jaune looked through one of the windows within the log cabin. Outside the cabin was an endlessly snowy world.

Bell built a snowman with Lilium. The dark-haired child held onto her dear flower with one hand as she picked up snow with the other. Meanwhile, the child of joy went nuts with completing the snowman. The jingling of bells echoed across the snowy field of endlessness.

Jaune wondered if the world he was in actually had an end to it.

…

…

…

The Third Night -END-