Jaune and Pyrrha were alone on the roof of their dormitory, as Pyrrha had been earlier that morning. However, the roles of the sun and the moon were now opposite, as the sun was escaping behind the horizon just as the moon began to peek in. As they had for the past month, Jaune and Pyrrha trained on the roof every other night. The moon's cobbled reflection was their only source of light at this hour. The dim light illuminated Pyrrha's defined face. Her cheekbones were strongly defined by the shadows surrounding her, and her hair looked much darker than normal without light illuminating it.

Their combat training could look like a dance to an uneducated eye. Pyrrha twirled around barefoot, rapidly landing blows upon Jaune's Crocea Mors shield while Jaune himself did not use a weapon for this training. With the upcoming tournament in Vale set to be fought in pairs, the two friends had decided that Jaune would focus entirely on defense while Pyrrha used her years of experience and natural talent to keep constant pressure on the opposing teams. Jaune lightly stepped around Pyrrha, allowing her to practice a move in which she would leap into the air and use her opponent's own body to catapult herself over the enemy and land a blow in the back. The red-haired girl propelled herself off of Jaune's shield and finished the move with a soft kick to Jaune's back. Beads of sweat glistened on her entire body, reflecting the light of the moon in the night. She sat down in place, exhausted.

"I don't understand how you do it, Pyrrha," Jaune managed, breathing heavily. He stripped off his heavy white armor, leaving him in an undershirt and pants. He let the chestpiece clutter to the ground and took his place across from Pyrrha.

"How I do my acrobatics?" asked Pyrrha. She took out her headband, granting her hair the freedom to fall loosely around her shoulders. "I could teach you, if you would like." She glanced up at Jaune and smiled, her perfectly white teeth contrasting with the blackness around them.

"I don't think I'd be much good at it," Jaune admitted, combing through his hair with his fingers. "Is it just natural talent? I've never seen someone as agile as you, especially when wearing such heavy armor." Jaune motioned towards Pyrrha's heavy bronze armor.

"It is a combination of natural talent and practice. In all honesty, though, I am limited by my armor," Pyrrha stammered, almost reluctantly. "If you want, I could show you what it's like without my armor."

Jaune blushed a bright crimson and looked away from the woman in front of him. "I-I… wouldn't that be… awkward?" He had never seen Pyrrha perform intensive actions without her armor. It appeared to be almost as much a part of her as her weapons, Miló and Akoúo̱.

"No, not really," Pyrrha said. "Now, please, would you mind helping me out with my top while I take off my greaves?" She turned her back to Jaune, exposing the thread which held her armor in place. Jaune, blushing even more than before, scooted closer to Pyrrha and began unthreading the back of her armor as she unstrapped the heavy bronze greaves climbing up a large part of her legs.

Pyrrha's breastplate clattered to the ground, and she rose to her feet. Now, clad in only her miniskirt and a light leather vest, she took a deep breath and sprinted as fast as she could towards the edge of the roof.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune shouted as Pyrrha flung herself off of the roof. He ran over to the ledge she had jumped from, and was both shocked and relieved to see her leaping from windowsill to windowsill. Finally, after climbing across the entire façade of the dormitory, she leapt back up to the roof.

"Jaune, set up your shield on an incline!" She called out. Jaune did as she commanded and braced himself behind his shield, now expanded to cover his entire body. He peered over the shield to see Pyrrha midair jumping towards his shield. She landed on the shield gracefully, then propelled herself into the air with an astounding leap. As she came down from the near twenty-foot drop, she put herself into a tight roll, ending right next to Jaune.

Jaune's mouth was agape. Pyrrha's acrobatics with armor were impressive, but without they were god-like. "Now, Jaune," Pyrrha said, gulping. "I want you to take off my vest for me." She, again, turned around to display a similar back to her previous armor.

Jaune yet again turned red, but did as Pyrrha commanded. He slowly began to unthread her last piece of armor, fully exposing her flawless back to Jaune.

"Jaune, I want you to know something," Pyrrha said, abruptly, as Jaune was about done with unthreading her top. She waved her hand to signal for him to continue, and as he finally finished and Pyrrha's armor fell away it became apparent what she wanted to say. "Jaune, I'm dying." She turned to face Jaune. A large portion of her chest was covered by a black-purple infection. Except for the tan piece of cloth covering her breasts, her entire left side was blackened.

"Pyrrha, what's going on?" Jaune asked, revolted by the unsightly infection.

A lonely tear fell from Pyrrha's left eye, falling for what seemed like an age before she spoke. "Where I come from, in Mistral, there is a terrible genetic plague. One in every one thousand children is born with a small black mark on their side, which develops over time to create," she paused and indicated the blackness on her body, "this. From birth until age sixteen, it is insignificant. It does nothing except foretell the doom of the person whom is born with this. But now, its power is manifesting itself. What that means is, unless I find an antidote in my home region, I will die before the age of eighteen."

Jaune was speechless. Here he thought Pyrrha was invincible, a force of nature, and now she was confessing the fact that she has been doomed to die at an early age since the day she was born.

"Jaune, I need your help. Desperately." Pyrrha grasped his hand within hers and stared directly into his eyes. "This is no longer about training to be a Hunter. This is no longer about faking your transcript to get into this school. This is about me and you, and whether or not we can have any sort of future. I'll give you the night to think about this, but I need an answer soon."

Pyrrha stood up, laced her breastplate up and strapped on her greaves; she leaned down to give Jaune a hug and then was gone.

Jaune, you have to do this,Jaune thought to himself. What are you going to do without Pyrrha? He gazed up at the shattered moon, now high in the sky, and appealed to the gods, whether or not any of them existed.