The moment Jaune's shadow tendrils shattered, Pyrrha knew.
It was not a thought formed through logic or careful analysis but through instinct. Raw instinct that struck through her with absolute certainty.
She was going to die.
The protection around her was gone, blown apart by a force that belonged to an entirely different level of power.
Then, she saw Cinder descend through the fractured space of the collapsing structure like an inevitable falling star wrapped in fire and glass.
Pyrrha felt terror.
It seized her body, locking her muscles and tightening her chest as her breath hitched in her throat. She had faced monsters and powerful opponents. She had pushed herself beyond her limits countless times and even fought against odds greater than she should have been capable of.
Yet, none of that compared to this.
This was the end.
And yet, even as that realization settled into her, her eyes did not remain on Cinder.
They turned toward Jaune.
He stood at a distance, in slight shock at what had just occurred, but he was still attempting to push forward towards her despite the impossible odds. In that instant, everything narrowed, her world collapsing down to a single, fragile thread of thought.
If she died here…
He would be alone.
The idea struck deeper than fear. It cut through her in a way that no physical attack could. Leaving him behind. Leaving all of her friends behind.... leaving everything unfinished.
And Jaune…
She still hadn't told him her feelings.
Not properly or fully.
Her chest tightened, something fierce and unyielding rising up within her.
No!
She refused!
The world slowed.
"Pest."
The giant palm of glass and fire descended toward her, vast and overwhelming, distorting the air around it as pressure built in violent waves. She could see the minute details. The rippling of heat. The way the air bent and twisted under the sheer force of the attack. Even the faint shimmer of microscopic particles being displaced in its wake.
And in that moment, Pyrrha did the only thing she could think of. She overclocked her rune's power on her body.
Her Ferrous Rune was already active, her body already being forced into motion beyond its natural limits.
But she pushed further.
She accelerated the flow of her blood.
It was not a gentle increase but viscerally violent.
Abrupt.
Her heart slammed against her ribcage, beating faster and harder as she forced oxygen and nutrients through her system at an unnatural rate. Her veins strained under the pressure, her body protesting as it was driven into a state it was never meant to sustain.
But her mind sharpened, and time around her seemed to stretch thin to the point of moving at the pace of a snail's pace.
With increased blood flow came increased oxygen delivery to her brain, enhancing neural activity. Signals fired faster and connections formed more rapidly. Her thoughts accelerated, racing through possibilities at a speed she had never reached before.
Her first instinct was simple.
Defend.
If she reached for metal, for anything she could manipulate, and compact everything using her Density Rune, she would be able to survive.
But the idea collapsed the moment it formed.
It would not work.
She understood it instantly.
Force equals mass times acceleration. The kinetic energy behind Cinder's attack was not just high, but, overwhelming. Even if she created the strongest shield she could, the energy would not simply disappear. It would transfer into the structure and through it, Into her.
Her defenses would shatter.
And even if they didn't, her body would.
Internal organs would rupture under the pressure. Bones would fail. The shockwave alone would kill her.
A Rank 1 could not withstand a Rank 2 through brute resistance. Especially one that was at the Peak of Rank 2.
That path was death.
Or... was it?
Something clicked.
Her Density Rune.
Up until now, she had used it to increase density. To compress matter, to make her constructs stronger, heavier, more durable. Increasing density meant increasing mass per unit volume. More tightly packed particles and greater resistance to deformation.
But that was only one direction.
The Density rune was not just about increasing.
It could also decrease.
The realization hit her like a spark igniting dry tinder.
Her body tensed as a new line of thought formed, racing ahead of everything else. If increasing density made something more solid and more resistant, then decreasing it would do the opposite.
Less mass in the same amount of volume, which meant that particles would spread further apart and because of that, it would have less interaction with external forces.
Her mind grasped the physics almost instinctively. When an object interacts with another, the force of that interaction depends on the contact between their particles. If she could reduce her own density far enough, reduce the number of particle interactions, then…
The force would have nothing to act upon...
Her eyes widened slightly.
She had been thinking about it wrong.
She did not need to become unbreakable. She just needed to become untouchable.
A fierce, almost feral determination surged through her as she acted.
She flooded her body with the runic energy of density.
It activated at full capacity, not to reinforce, but to unravel. She forced it into herself, into every part of her body, commanding it to decrease.
Her mass remained, but its distribution changed. The tightly packed structure of her physical form began to loosen at a microscopic level. The space between particles expanded and molecular cohesion weakened.
Her body did not vanish, but it thinned.
Less interaction, resistance and less presence in the physical sense.
She pushed further.
Her brain screamed in protest, the strain immense as she forced the rune beyond anything she had attempted before. Control wavered. Precision faltered. But she held it together through sheer will.
Further and further.
Until there was nothing left to decrease.
Time snapped back and the palm struck down.
It came down with catastrophic force, crushing the ground beneath it, shattering stone, glass, and metal into a violent explosion of debris and flame.
But it did not touch her.
It passed, moving through her body as if she were no longer fully there. The shockwave dispersed around her.
The heat failed to latch onto her.
The pressure had nothing solid to compress.
For a single impossible moment, Pyrrha existed in a state that defied the reality of the battlefield.
Then it ended and her control collapsed.
Her density returned to normal in an instant, her body snapping back into full interaction with the physical world.
And the consequences hit immediately.
Her aura was gone.
Every last fragment had been consumed in that single act.
Her body, already pushed beyond its limits, failed.
The accelerated blood flow, the strain on her cardiovascular system, the extreme neural activity, all of it rebounded violently. Her muscles spasmed and weakened, microtears spreading through fibers that had been overworked beyond safe thresholds. Lactic acid flooded her system. Oxygen debt hit like a wall.
Her brain fogged and her limbs refused to respond.
She was unable to even brace herself as debris collapsed around her, burying her beneath fractured concrete and twisted metal.
Pain came in distant waves, dulled and unfocused.
She could not move.
Under normal circumstances, she could have forced herself up. She had done it before, pushed through injuries that should have stopped her. But this was different.
Her body was spent.
Completely.
She lay there, half conscious, barely aware of her surroundings as muffled sounds filtered through the rubble. Distant impacts. Shockwaves. The continued battle above.
Jaune.
He was still fighting.
The thought flickered weakly in her mind, a small anchor keeping her tethered to awareness. She wanted to move. To get up and to help, but she couldn't.
Time passed.
She did not know how long. Eventually, the noise faded, then something shifted.
The weight above her moved, debris being lifted and pushed aside. Light filtered through cracks as the rubble parted.
A figure appeared.
Jaune.
He stared down at her, his expression frozen in something between shock and disbelief. His eyes searched her, wide and intense, as if trying to confirm something impossible.
Pyrrha tried to speak.
Her voice came out weak, barely more than a whisper.
"Ugh... Jaune…"
It took effort just to form the words.
"Do you… have any healing runes… left?"
Her lips felt dry, her body unresponsive.
"I… can't move…"
For a brief, fragile moment, neither of them spoke.
Jaune simply stared at her, as if afraid that even blinking would cause her to disappear again. Then something in him broke. His breath hitched, sharp and uneven, and tears spilled freely from his eyes.
"Pyrrha…"
Her name came out in a strained whisper.
His hands moved almost frantically, though he tried to be gentle at the same time. He cleared the remaining debris around her with shaking movements, lifting broken slabs of concrete and twisted metal as if they weighed nothing. When he finally reached her fully, he slid his arms beneath her with care and pulled her out of the crater, holding her as though she might shatter.
He set her down carefully on a relatively clear patch of ground, still hovering close as if unwilling to let go completely.
"I'm sorry," he choked out, his voice breaking. "Pyrrha, I'm… I'm out of aura too. I can't… activate any healing runes for you, yet."
Pyrrha blinked slowly at him.
For a moment, she did not fully process what he said. Her mind lagged behind, still swimming in a haze of exhaustion and overstimulation. But she saw his face clearly enough.
He was crying.
Because he thought she had died.
A faint, embarrassed warmth flickered somewhere deep inside her, muted by the overwhelming fatigue weighing her down. She wanted to reassure him, to tell him she was fine, to say something that would ease that look on his face.
Instead, what came out of her mouth was a low, thoroughly undignified groan.
"…ugh…"
There was a pause.
Then Jaune let out a short, almost disbelieving laugh, the sound breaking through his tears in a strange mix of relief and lingering shock. He leaned forward and pulled her into a careful hug, pressing her lightly against him as if grounding himself in the simple fact that she was there.
Alive.
Pyrrha would have blushed like a cactus.
At least, she thought she would have, if her body had been cooperating.
Instead, all she could really feel was pain. A dull, all-encompassing ache that spread through her muscles and bones like a lingering echo of everything she had just endured.
Her thoughts drifted.
Blushing…
Red.
Cactuses were red, right?
No.
Green.
Definitely green.
And also… not capable of blushing.
Her brow furrowed faintly as her thoughts continued to wander in strange directions.
What else was red?
Potatoes?
No, that didn't sound right either. Potatoes were… brown? Or maybe that was just dirt. There were different kinds of potatoes. Some were red.
Or was that something else entirely?
Some other type of toes.
That was it.
Something about toes.
Her gaze dropped slightly, though her vision blurred at the edges.
Speaking of toes…
She could not feel hers.
At all.
A slow realization filtered through her fogged mind.
Ah.
That was probably not ideal.
Pyrrha blinked again, her thoughts stuttering as she came to a simple conclusion.
She was… definitely a little out of it.
The damage had been more severe than she initially registered.
Time passed in a strange, hazy way. She was aware of Jaune staying close, of his presence beside her, steady and unwavering even as his breathing gradually calmed.
After what felt like both an instant and an eternity, something shifted.
Jaune exhaled slowly, his posture straightening slightly as a faint flicker of aura returned around him.
"Hold on," he said quietly.
A soft glow formed in his hand as he activated a healing rune, the energy flowing outward and settling over both of them.
Warmth spread through Pyrrha's body.
It was immediate and deeply relieving. The pain dulled, then receded further as torn muscle fibers began to knit back together and the strain on her system eased. Her breathing steadied, and the fog in her mind began to lift.
She let out a soft groan, though this time it was entirely different in tone.
"…mm…"
Relief.
She remained where she was for a moment, simply lying there and letting the sensation wash over her. The ground beneath her felt oddly comforting now that her body was no longer screaming in protest.
Eventually, she pushed herself up.
Her movements were slow at first, testing, but her body responded far better than before. She rolled her shoulders slightly, then took a steady breath as she fully stood.
Her gaze shifted across the ruined surroundings.
And then she saw him.
Grise.
His body lay not far from them, still and unmoving. The sight drew a quiet sigh from her as she took a few steps closer before stopping.
There was no mistaking it, he was gone.
Pyrrha lowered her gaze briefly, then reached out and gently patted Jaune's shoulder as she returned to his side. He had calmed significantly by now, though traces of what he had just gone through still lingered in his eyes. There was fatigue there as well as grief.
But also something else.
Relief.
A quiet, undeniable happiness.
"You're… alright," he said, as if reaffirming it to himself.
She gave a small nod.
"I am."
There was a brief pause before Jaune spoke again.
"How did you survive that?"
Pyrrha exhaled softly, gathering her thoughts before explaining. She spoke of the moment, of the realization, of how she had used her Density Rune in a way she never had before. Decreasing her own density instead of increasing it, reducing her interaction with the incoming force until the attack had effectively passed through her.
Jaune listened carefully, his expression shifting as he processed her words.
When she finished, something clicked in his mind.
"You reached comprehension," he said quietly.
Pyrrha blinked.
Then she nodded again.
"I believe I did."
That realization carried weight. Comprehension of her rune was not a minor milestone. It meant she had finally crossed a threshold. This one would allow her to advance further.
Rank 2.
Anytime she chose.
Her gaze softened slightly, though she did not dwell on it for long.
Instead, she looked back at him.
"What about you?" she asked. "How did you defeat Grise? And Adam?"
Jaune's expression grew more serious.
"My Plunder rune reached comprehension too," he said.
He hesitated briefly before continuing.
"Its capabilities are quite strong now. Maybe even a little too strong in the way it functions"
There was a faint tension in his voice, as if even he was still trying to come to terms with it.
"At comprehension, I can take more than just stats now. Even…" he paused, "…other aspects tied to a person."
Pyrrha studied him for a moment.
"That does sound… incredibly powerful," she admitted.
Then, more lightly, she added, "We should test it properly later. Once we're not in the middle of a battlefield."
A faint, tired smile tugged at Jaune's lips.
"Yeah," he said. "Later."
He glanced around the ruined structure, his expression settling into something more focused.
"We should head to the Mistral base," he added.
Pyrrha let out a long breath.
"Yes," she said, then groaned slightly. "And after all this is over, I am going to need a very long and very proper relaxation session."
Jaune huffed a quiet laugh.
"Fair."
They began to move, stepping out of the wreckage together. The air outside felt strangely still compared to the chaos they had just endured.
Then Jaune stopped.
"…Did you hear that?" he asked.
Pyrrha paused and listened.
There was nothing.
"No," she said. "I don't hear anything."
Jaune nodded slowly.
"Exactly."
He looked out toward the distant cityscape, his brow furrowing.
"There should be noise. The Rank 2 fights, the other teams… something."
But there was silence.
An unnatural, heavy silence that seemed to press down on everything around them.
Pyrrha met his gaze.
"Do you think something happened?"
Jaune hesitated.
"I don't—"
The shadows beneath his feet shifted.
Both of them reacted instantly, turning as the darkness rippled unnaturally before peeling back.
A figure stepped out.
Raven.
She looked… worn.
More than that. Battered. Her posture held, but there was a visible weight to it, as if she had pushed herself far beyond what was comfortable. Her emotions flickers faintly to Jaune's senses, unstable at the edges.
"Raven," Jaune said, stepping forward slightly. "Are you alright? Where's Qrow, and what happened to that Sleepless leader guy?"
She gave a short nod.
"I'm fine, and so is my brother." she replied, though her tone suggested otherwise.
Then she looked between them.
"However, the situation right now is a bit complicated."
"Complicated how?" Jaune asked.
"Sleepless has escaped, and Velik's body has been rejoined with its fragment."
She paused briefly.
"Sort of."
Pyrrha frowned slightly.
"What does that mean?"
Raven exhaled quietly, her gaze shifting for a moment before returning to them.
"I'll explain later," she said. "We don't have time to stand around."
Her tone sharpened just enough to cut through any further questions.
"We're heading to the Mistral base."
Jaune and Pyrrha exchanged a glance and nodded as Raven dragged them through the shadows.