Akashic

"I thought you vowed not to eat the academy meals again?" Ashe asked from the Tome that was floating next to Arthur.

"I did, but that was before I got a bruised lung, and I'm tired, and I can't be bothered to cook." Arthur admitted "Also please get back in the satchel, everyone's looking…" Indeed everyone was watching the flying book and the man it was following. There was also chatter amongst the different teams, from what Arthur could hear they mostly spoke about a flying book, Arthur's duel with Cardin and the damages Cardin incurred during it. More often than not the boys who had not been there also clenched their legs shut as they stared at Arthur in horror once they heard the tale of 'the nutcracker' which had somehow become a new commonplace rumour amongst the different years in the span of a few short hours.

"Aww, someone getting stage fright~" Ashe sang as the Tome began to bob up and down.

"Ashe… You know I'm already on edge, there are too many people here and the attention is not making it any easier" He complained, looking over his shoulder and seeing a veritable horde of students within the dining hall, many of which were looking at him. 'Deep breaths Arthur, deep breathes.' He chanted in his head.

"Arthur!" Ruby called out as she stood up and waved to him from a table within the crowd where both team RWBY and team JNPR were sitting.

Taking a deep breathe Arthur began to nervously walk towards her while his head darted from left to right as his mind projected a scene of fire and the screams that accompanied it. Arthur began to pant as his body froze in place, his eyes slowly turning blank.

"Oh, no" Ruby said as she quickly ran to Arthur's side

"Is, he okay?" Jaune asked as he watched Ruby disappear into a trail of rose petals.

"I don't know…" Weiss and Blake responded, having never seen Arthur act like this before.

"This happened before…" Yang spoke to the group "…during the speech Ozpin gave us on the first day. He went all dead eyed and unresponsive, he didn't move throughout the entire speech and we had to drag him off to somewhere quite so we could wake him up." She explained, keeping her eye's on Arthur, concerned he may revert to that same state.

The table turned quite as Weiss, Blake, Pyrhha, Jaune and Ren all looked at him in concern. Nora on the other hand was too busy devouring pancakes to even look up.

"Do… you know why this happens to him?" Pyrrha asked

"Honestly, no. He told us about some of his past trauma's but never anything about this…" Yang responded to the red haired gladiator.

"You should ask him." Nora told swallowing her mouthful of syrup with pancake mixed in.

"It's not that easy, Nora" Ren replied with a sigh.

"Doesn't matter. It help knowing someone care's." Her voice containing a hint of sorrow as she looked down and played with her last pancake slice while her teammates turned to her and Ren let out a weak sigh. Nora soon flip-flopped to her regular emotional state as she quickly devoured the last pancakes with a happy expression, confusing everyone at just how her personality can change on a dime.

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"Arthur!" Ruby called out as she arrived in front of the heavily panting Arthur whose head wouldn't keep still as it darted between the various people within the room, following their every movement. Every noise, no matter how low caused his head to bolt towards it before getting distracted by another. The tray in his hand began shaking as his hands clenched onto it tight.

"Arthur! Look at me!" Ruby placed her hands atop his in an attempt to calm him, but only the opposite happened as Arthur's head quickly turned towards her, the tray shaking even fiercer as he imprinted the dying face of a woman he had wished he could forget.

His eyes remaining unfocused as tears began welling up in his eyes but slowly disappeared as the shaking in his hands vanished and his expression turned blank his eyes losing their shine. 'Oh, crapbaskets.'

"Arthur! Look at me! You're okay, nothing is happening! Everyone is okay!" She attempted to breakthrough to him. Her calls attracting more attention from the surrounding students who began whispering between each other about Arthur's state.

Suddenly a loud crash could be heard coming from the side causing Arthur's head to swivel to it as his entire body began shaking. Taking a quick glance Ruby saw that a student had dropped their plate, shattering it.

Turning back to Arthur she quickly grabbed the sides of his head and forced him to look into her eyes. "Keep your eyes on me, Arthur. It is okay. Breathe, close your eyes and breathe." She told him.

Luckily Arthur was still lucid enough to hear her as he closed his eyes and began to take deep controlled breathes until his mind had cleared enough.

"Good, let's get you out of here, okay?" she asked getting a light nod and smile from Arthur. Turning back to Yang she inquired with her eyes and got a nod which she returned as she began to pull Arthur towards the exit while the curious stares of the nameless crowd followed them.

Yang picked up hers and Ruby's plates and stood up "I'm going with Ruby, you guys coming?" she inquired to the table getting small nods and an excited "Yup!" from Nora.

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Arthur had placed his tray down onto the grass as he lowered himself onto the grass with Ruby slowly helping him down due to his still shaking body. Ruby taking a seat next to him watching as he rested his back against the tree they had taken purchase under.

Lifting his hand Arthur saw it was frantically shaking and in an effort to calm it he began to massage it with his other hand. Letting both fall as it didn't seem to help. "Thank you…" he lowly muttered while giving Ruby a weak smile.

Another scene flashed before his eyes of a green eyed girl, her skin accentuated by the crimson glow of a fire, her brown hair charred and burnt from the resulting heat and close calls with smouldering debris. He watched her push him away at the last minute with a smile as a crash resounded through the fires and a burning pillar crashed down onto her. The girl's image overlapping with that of Ruby causing Arthur to feel a bubbling sensation in his gut forcing him to cover his mouth in fear of being sick.

"Arthur!" Ruby yelled quickly coming to his side patting his back to try and clear up what was causing his distress Arthurs body flinching at her contact "Deep breathes." Ruby muttered to him

"I-I'm good, sorry about that…." He weakly voiced out.

"It's alright, I'm always happy to help."" She said, giving his back one final stroke before sitting back down with her knees to the side as she propped her body up with one hand on the ground. Letting the calming sound of the wind rustling the leaves above them.

"I-I'll be fine… Give me time…" he muttered

"Of course you will be. I'm going to help you after all." Ruby responded.

"Huh?" Arthur turned to Ruby, his eyes wide open "Why" he asked

"Because, you need help."

"You don't have to…" he tried to respond but was interrupted

"Nope" Ruby popped the P.

"What?" He replied in surprise.

"Nope" she responded again "I want to help you, and I'm not going to let you say no." She gave him a heartfelt toothy grin.

Arthur's expression softened "You really are the sweetest." He commented, getting an even wider smile from Ruby in return with a light flush on her skin.

"I know! She really is the sweetest, aint'cha sis?" Yang said walking up to Ruby and Arthur followed by the rest of team RWBY and the members of team JNPR, effectively destroying the atmosphere between the two, which evidently annoyed Ruby, judging by the small twitch on her cheek when Yang appeared.

"Oh, was I interrupting something?" Yang chuckled into her hand while watching Ruby's expression go from, happiness to annoyance to hiding behind a smile anger. Yang seeing the range of emotions smiled and commented "Oh, my. Seems my little sister's gotten a possessive of her fi.an.cé" she teased successfully getting 'embarrassment' onto Ruby's face, while Arthur began choking on his food and began coughing.

Ruby began to stutter, but was unable to form a coherent sentence and opted to just hid under the hood of her cloak. Arthur on the other hand quickly grabbed a bottle of water and tried to wash out the food he had been choking on, while not making eye contact with anyone.

"You really should stop teasing them like that." Weiss told Yang "The more you do it, the worse Ruby gets at being a leader than she already is" She continued getting a "Hey!" from Ruby who broke out of her embarrassment for just a moment.

Deciding not to get involved in the team teasing that was going on Arthur turned to team JNPR "Well, uh. I guess this is our first time meeting apart from initiation. Arthur Fielder" he introduced himself nodding towards them "And you are team JNPR. Apart from Jaune, I haven't met the rest of you."

"Right! Uh, Arthur. This is Pyrrha, Ren and Nora" Jaune introduced

"Hello" Pyrrha said a small smile on her face

"Hi" Ren calmly announced

"Hiya!" Nora rapidly waved her hands before jumping to Arthur and getting all up in his face asking "What was that!? It looked so cool! You're arm turned into a giant claw! Is that your semblance? What does it feel like? Does it hurt when it changes? Oh, oh, oh, can. it. make. Pancakes!?" she motor mouthed almost screaming as she thought about pancakes, spinning Arthurs mind as he tried to catch up to her rapid rate of speaking.

"Wait, Uh. Let's see if I got this right…" taking a deep breath Arthur answered her "Innocence, no, like a giant arm, no and what? Why would it do that? I think I got them all." He answered, muttering the last line.

"Awww… I want pancakes…" She sulked

"Didn't she just have pancakes?" Arthur asked clearly remembering a stack of empty plates next to the orange haired Valkyrie.

"Yeah… she never stops… it's tiring." Ren responded his shoulders slumping slightly.

"I, would imagine…" Arthur murmerd as he watch Nora suddenly fall to the ground, snoring once she hit the ground. "Does she…" he pointed to her

"Yeah, you get used to it." Jaune sighed out

"She's quite fun once you get to know her" Pyrrha said with a smale smile and chuckle at Nora's antics.

"I hope so… Anyways, nice to meet you, Pyrrha, Ren. It's an honour to meet the face of pumpkin Pete's marshmallow flakes in person." He teased getting a little curtsy from Pyrrha along with a giggle.

"You're honoured to meet her because of the cereal? Not because she's won the Mistral Regional Tournament four years in a row?" Weiss interjected as Pyrrha's body slumped slightly.

"Nope. Means jack diddly squat here" Arthur responded taking a bite out of his sandwich. While Pyrrha looked happier and confused at his words.

"Excuse me!? It means a lot!" Weiss continued, not noticing that Pyrrha was happy that Arthur didn't take her celebrity status to heart.

"Weiss…" Arthur sighed out in exasperation "It means nothing, or at least it doesn't mean as much. Pyrrha is an amazing combatant, possibly one of the best in Beacon, but that is in duels. It means nothing if she's fighting a pack of Beowolves, it means nothing if she can't cooperate in a team, It means nothing in a battle between life and death. Just because she can beat most others at one on one combat does not mean she will be a great huntress, it just means she has a head start." He explained, silencing Weiss while a Pyrrha was smiling

"Plus, Pyrrha seems to be the humble type. Not one to let her fame to get to her head, she's a lot like the me now… Although swap fame for infamy…" he finished getting an even wider smile from Pyrrha as well as confusion when he muttered the last part.

"What do you mean by that?" Pyrrha asked

"Oh, it's nothing. Where I'm from I was 'famous' but not for the same reason as you. Where you are famous for your skills and prowess, I was known for death and being a curse upon humanity." He mocked himself.

"That… Why woud you be known for 'death' you don't seem like the violent type. And a 'curse upon humanity'?" She added

And so Arthur retold his story to team JNPR while not going into the more graphic details about his stay in Parrallel.