The sound of his voice was the first thing he remembered, calling out the name of a friend in complete and utter desperation.
"Just-- h-hold on! My semblance--"
There was blood all over her. Staining her clothes, pooling around her form-- as his hands desperately hovered above her in golden light, before one of her own gently pushed them away.
"No. There's not enough time to heal me. She can't get the staff.. and the power. But there is something.. you can do."
"Let me choose.. this one thing.. trust me..!"
And then.. all he saw was red.
Everything hit Jaune all at once-- Cinder's attack, Penny's words, her hand gently tracing his sword in a gesture meant to ask him something she couldn't ask anyone else. Only him.
He was the only one who could do it. Who, in her time of need, could plunge the blade into her chest and end her life before Cinder did; giving her a choice of who to give her Maiden powers to. So that he and the others-- all of their friends, their families, the entirety of Remnant-- had some shred of hope to keep themselves going. Even if one life was lost, her sacrifice had undoubtedly saved many.. but..
But he.. was the one who killed her. Jaune was the one who took Penny's life. Not Cinder. Not Salem.
It was all his fault.
Not again. He couldn't save someone so important to him.. again. He couldn't save Pyrrha, he couldn't protect Penny before it was too late-- there had to have been something else he could have done, anything, so why.. why did he..
Why couldn't he protect anyone? No matter how hard he tried?
Why was nothing he ever did enough?
His throat had run raw by this point, sobs and bile slipping through his fingers as his other hand scraped at the wall of his bedroom; having collapsed to his knees as the memory replayed in his head over, and over again. Her gentle smile, the pain in her eyes, the reflection of his own, horrified in the gleam of his blade--
Her blood at his feet. His scream that echoed through the emptiness.
And this place had ripped it all away from him. Allowed him to live in temporary peace that he didn't deserve. The relief he felt to see his friends, the pure joy at seeing someone he never thought he would again--
Jaune deserved none of it.
He let.. all of them down. Everyone. There was nothing he could do to mend what he had broken, no amount of Aura that could put the pieces of his broken heart back together; curling into himself as the tears continued to fall from his eyes, over, and over, and over.
