Remnant's Tactician

Chapter 12: Arc Redemption

Things have been going rather well for the past few weeks in Beacon. I got to know a lot about the other first-year students here and gotten closer to my team and JNPR's. But recently, I've noticed Jaune acting a little... off. He hardly shows up during lunch, starting to fall asleep in class more often, and even avoiding our questions about his behaviour.

I've asked Pyrrha if she knows anything that happened to him. She looked rather irritated when she starts to even mention about Jaune. Since then, I've started to notice Jaune along with Team CRDL. No doubt they must be the reason behind all of this.

In the attempts to prove my suspicion to be correct, I started to follow Jaune from a distance whenever he was alone. As expected, he would be hanging out with Cardin's team. As I continue my watch over Team JNPR's leader, Cardin would have loaded Jaune with works and assignments given by the professors.

This would explain Jaune being tired all the time. But what edge did Cardin have to make Jaune do all his team's work for them? I did report this to Glynda, but Team CRDL insisted that they did all the work that the professors handed to them and were just "helping" Jaune to catch up with class. Although Glynda wanted to believe in what I said, there were no evidence that they made Jaune do all their work. He even denied that Cardin was forcing him to do anything and was just hanging out with his supposed "friends".

During one of our classes, professor Peach, someone who rarely shows up and would have assignments ready whenever we get to her class, spoke about a field trip to Forever Fall for an assignment. We would each have to get at least one jar of red sap from the trees.

It was getting late. Ruby and I were walking back to our dorm discussing about the field trip tomorrow when we spotted Jaune outside of his dorm. Curious, we went up to him.

"Hey Jaune." Ruby said.

"Guh!" Jaune got out, startled at our sudden appearance.

"It has been a while." I said, turning to the door of his dorm. "Did you forget your Scroll again?"

"Oh uh, nope?" He shook his head nervously, taking out his Scroll. "Heh, got it!"

"So, where have you been lately?" Ruby asked.

"I uh..." Jaune paused for a moment, looking around before he sighed. "I messed up..."

"How so?" I got out.

"... I did something I shouldn't have and... now Cardin's got me on a leash. Sorry for lying, Robin..." He apologised. "And Pyrrha won't even talk to me..."

"So that explains why she was mad at Jaune..." I murmured.

"I'm starting to think coming to this school was a bad idea." Jaune slumped onto the wall and slid down, plopping onto the ground with his head down. "I'm a failure..."

"Nope." Ruby got out.

"Nope?" Jaune looked up.

"Nope." She repeated. "You're a leader now, Jaune. You're not allowed to be a failure."

"But, what if I'm a failure at being a leader?" He questioned.

"Mmm... Nope."

Jaune let out a small chuckle as do I. We both sat next to Jaune as he looked to us.

"You know, you're not the easiest person to talk to about this kind of stuff." He spoke.

"Nope!" Ruby repeated again.

"Look Jaune, success isn't something that anyone can come by." I said. "Perhaps if you were a failure when you're a kid."

He slumped down from hearing that.