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Ozpin looked at the capsule containing the Fall Maiden, pondering on the course of action. The Vytal Festival was approaching, and they still had no clue on just who the attackers were. Qrow was the only one who might have recognized the ones who had attacked Amber, so he was still weeks away.

Ozpin pulled up Amber's medical chart, noting nothing had changed ever since they had put her into the medical capsule, still in a medical coma. Ozpin had hoped that Amber would wake up, but as the days passed, this hope became nothing more than a fading dream. The study of Aura was still a mystery, even to someone like Ozpin.

Plan B if Amber didn't awaken was to forcefully transfer over the remaining powers of the Fall Maiden to another host, training her to take back whomever stole the other half. Pyrrha Nikos had been the perfect candidate in Ozpin's opinion when he saw that he had applied to his school. She fit all the criteria perfectly, and most importantly, was ready. James Ironwood had been swift and kind to offer Winter as a candidate, but he rejected it, mostly because he knew Ironwood wanted Winter to, ironically enough, succeed the Winter Maiden currently at Atlas. The Winter Maiden was growing too old, far past her youth, but still powerful. Winter had been taking care of the Winter Maiden whenever she had the chance to increase the probability of having it passed to her. It would be wrong to steal her just for a chance that may not work.

Yet Plan B wasn't as stable as he thought it would be. Pyrrha wasn't participating in the Vytal Festival due to the expulsion of her partner. That wouldn't have mattered too much to him. In fact, he would've preferred it. Unfortunately, Pyrrha had requested to be able to leave Beacon during the Festival to attend some private matters since her team was no longer participating in the Vytal Festival.

Ozpin had no reason to deny her request, especially since he hadn't even approached her about the topic. He was already trying to find a possible replacement that fit the criteria, but he was coming short.

Besides the obvious traits, Pyrrha was also skilled enough to fight against graduates already. They needed someone ready to fight the person who had stolen half of the Fall Maiden's power to reclaim it back, with a strong and righteous character.

Nor could they use anyone past their third year. There just wasn't enough time to teach their chosen one while being under the protection of Beacon, and Vale did not have a military escalation ladder like Atlas did.

Ruby was one for consideration with her talent, but she was too young, not to mention already a possible target due to her silver eyes. Yang Xiao Long was another, being the daughter of Raven Branwen, one of the strongest female Huntresses to graduate until she defected back to her own bandit tribe.

Velvet was another consideration. Her Semblance, Photographic Memory, allowed her to mimic fighting styles, meaning training her to fight would be much faster. With the Maiden's full power, she wouldn't need to rely on her newly developed weapon, Anesidora. It was a fascinating piece of weapon that allowed Velvet's Semblance to come to full bloom, but the hard light copy of weapons was too limited as they required an extensive amount of dust and did not last long.

The only problem was that Velvet was too shy, despite her friendship with Coco, who managed to bring up her confidence, but it wasn't enough.

"If only we could find the suspect," muttered Ozpin as he scrolled across the statistics in regarding Amber's life, never seeing any changes as he swiped right,

Ozpin began rapidly scrolling through the timeline, his eyes getting slightly blurry and tired that he almost missed it.

"Wait, what's this!?" said Ozpin loudly as he quickly put his finger on the touch screen, slowly swiping left.

There, in Amber's Aura levels, was a sudden spike of activity that dimmed down. It had been too fast, and the spike had happened at night, when nobody was monitoring her closely. By the time anyone came back to check up on her, the time had passed that the recorded spike disappeared from the monitoring system.

"But what could've done this?" whispered Ozpin as he leaned back, pondering about this phenomenon.

Perhaps Plan A could still be viable, but he knew that without knowing what he was missing, it was unlikely.

Ozpin winced as he heard his back crack, reminding him of a few sleepless nights or bad posture when sleeping. The crack ended up reminding him of the sore muscles he had around his body.

"Perhaps an appointment with Beacon's masseur is in order," chuckled Ozpin as he stood up, "Never thought I'd be thankful that we hired a masseur within Beacon that allows us easy access to. Especially with one who invented a new type of massage that is applicable to those with Aura."

Ozpin stood in the elevator, riding it up towards his office as he drank his mug coffee. It was only when he reached the top of the floor, where the afternoon setting sun was shining into his office did he realize his own words, and almost spat out his drink. He couldn't believe he had been so blind to see a solution right in front of him, especially since he had been the one to hire Jaune because of his unique massage.

Quickly settling into his chair, he turned on his computer, quickly accessing the schedule list. Scanning through it, his mind compiled a possible chance before sending a message to Jaune to meet him at his next available free time. Though not after making sure he made an appointment for a massage. He needed to take care of his body, after all.


Salem had safely arrived back to the Land of Darkness, heading back to her room while Hazel took care of the luggage. Once again, she was inspecting her own body, gently touching the dark purple veins that had receded back. So far, they had shown no signs of receding nor growing, but it was too early for her to tell if Jaune's Aura massage could cure her or just treat the symptoms.

'More likely the latter,' hummed Salem, but she didn't mind that too much. Just meant she would need to see the boy more often, and despite everything, the boy certainly knew how to give a massage.

Still, she would at least have Lionheart reach out to offer Jaune a suitable location, one private enough that she could easily visit whenever she wanted to.

Finished with her introspection, she donned her dress once more, walking towards her seat to contemplate the future. It was at this point, she noticed the castle was rather quiet. There was still the call of Grimm beyond the castle, but she knew something was amiss.

"Hazel," said Salem, beckoning him to come as he entered the throne room, "Where are Watts and Tyrian?"

"Watts left to follow a new lead in regards to the Spring Maiden," said Hazel, "He also wanted to check some information in Atlas, and said that he would be taking Tyrian with him."

Salem frowned as she took that information in. Watts was supposed to inform her in regards to any of the Maidens immediately, and yet he had taken off without a word. Though she supposed being at Vale when he discovered this information made him decide that the information couldn't wait and took off. Salem would take that into consideration, but the fact still stood that Watts had disobeyed a firm order.

Though she was suspicious why Watts had taken Tyrian. The fanatic man had a tendency to leave a body count if she didn't leave express orders. And why would Watts need Tyrian for?

She closed her eyes to meditate, going through her memories before remembering one of the Grimm Seers she had floating in the castle spying on Watts, playing around with a specific website and scheduling tab. Specifically hovering over her own appointment.

Salem was aware of the rivalry that Watts seemed to have with Cinder in regards to her favor, and merely watched in amusement as the two battled it out. As long as they didn't interfere with her long term goals or her personally, it didn't matter. Watts seemed to have understood that when she had the Grimm Seer give Watts a gentle reminder that anything that directly influenced her own schedule was not to meddled with. Though knowing Watts, he had some sort of loophole he was trying to operate with to one up Cinder. And she had a suspicion it had to deal with the new masseur that Cinder had introduced her to.

Salem hummed in silence before making a decision. Jaune Arc was merely a passing thought that she had given, and would not invest any of her rather vast resources into the boy. But since one such agent happened to be conveniently near the boy, Salem would just instruct said agent to keep an eye out for the boy.

If Cinder managed to convince him to move to Mistral, then so be it.


Jaune was back at full force once he returned back to Beacon. His schedule was packed with both students and staff eager for his massage. Students were returning from their mission, weary both physically and mentally before having to dive into their education to ensure they graduated on time. Not only that, but they were squeezing in as much training as possible for the upcoming Vytal Festival Tournament. That meant stretching out the muscles, and sometimes overworking them by accident. Jaune ended up having to give a few lessons on how to treat overworked muscles.

There were a few students that tried to mimic Jaune's Aura massage, but for some reason, couldn't get it right. The ones being tested could feel a huge difference between Jaune's version of Aura massage and their own bastardized version, as Jaune's felt comforting while theirs felt extremely off. Nobody knew why, and Jaune couldn't explain it, as there were no real studies on this field of subject. So they ended up just capitulating back to Jaune for their massages.

Jaune stretched his arms, having finished early for the day due to Ozpin's request. Getting a snack to eat, Jaune left his office, going up the elevator into Ozpin's office, though puzzled by his request to meet him while also requesting he not use his Aura for anything today.

Shrugging at the request, Jaune entered the elevator, ascending to the top floor. Upon stopping, the doors opened to reveal Ozpin and James Ironwood, standing behind Ozpin's desk.

"Mr. Arc. Please, take a seat," gestured Ozpin.

Jaune obediently did so, wondering what was going on.

'I'm not about to get fired am I?' pondered Jaune, 'I don't think I've done anything that broke rules or protocols. Ok maybe something to due with the cafeteria, but that's on the stupid chef, not me!'

Jaune had recently gone to the cafeteria to get dinner, having been too lazy to cook his own. However, the food he got was….. rather disappointing to say the least. So much so that Jaune marched into the kitchen to have some words with the head chef. The argument resulted in Jaune grabbing a loaf of bread to bean the man. The consequence was the head chef having to go to the hospital for a concussion and possible head fracture. It was both sobering and amusing that the bread that had been responsible for this was made by the head chef himself, only for it to harden enough that a usually soft bread could mimic the density of steel. The hardness told just how 'talented' the head chef was.

"I hope you're enjoying your position here at Beacon," began Ozpin, "I can see a lot of the students have come for your massages, and you've even begun a small lesson on muscle treatment."

Jaune nodded, not knowing where Ozpin was going with this.

"It made me think of something, though," said Ozpin, "Are you comfortable in doing your Aura massage treatment for a coma patient? The said patient is a Huntress, but an accident has caused her to fall into such a state. As of right now, she is on life support, but we would prefer if her body did not deteriorate while in a coma. Electrotherapy is useful to trying to keep her muscles from deteriorating, but I feel like a new approach is in order."

"So that's why you didn't want me to offer Aura massages today," muttered Jaune to himself before clearing his throat, "Sure, I don't mind helping. Is the patient in the hospital?"

Ozpin shook his head, "The said patient is also a rather important witness to a vital case before falling into a coma. We could not put her in a hospital in fear for her life, so she is in a hidden room somewhere. We will bring you to her, but I will need you to wear this to ensure you can't trace your steps."

James brought out a helmet designed to disorient a person's sense of direction, blocking out any source of sound, and even make the user incapable of walking straight. Of course, a visor was included that blocked out Jaune's vision.

Jaune took a second to glance at the imposing helmet before nodding, trusting Ozpin wouldn't do anything dangerous to him. Ironwood quickly put the helmet on Jaune, reassuring him that it would be fine before activating the helmet.


A second later, Jaune was lying down on a stretcher while James and Ozpin took each ends, purposely walking around the room in random direction, even as to simulate going down some stairs before walking into the elevator. And even in the elevator, they would walk a little with what room they had as the elevator went past the ground floor, going into the hidden underground vault that only a select few had access to. They took Jaune through the dimly lit green room through a hidden door to the side, where Glynda was already there waiting, along with the patient in a more brightly lit room.

James quickly took the helmet off Jaune, guiding him up to his feet as Jaune looked around him. To him, it looked like his usual room where he did his massages. Never did he realize this room had been hastily constructed thanks to Glynda's semblance. The space never existed until Ozpin had Glynda and a few others knock down the walls to create this space for this sole purpose.

"Is that whom I'm treating?" asked Jaune as he saw the only possible patient lying on the bed face down.

Not only that, but he could see she was hooked up to what seemed to be a lot of complicated machinery that he couldn't possibly begin to fathom what each one did, but he assumed it was the life support machine. Not only that, but her face was covered in a mask as well.

"We can't risk you finding out who she is," explained James , "Even by facial features. Standard procedure."

Jaune merely shrugged before warming up, getting his hands ready while washing them in a basin they had provided. Glancing at his choices of oil, he happily took arnica oil and mixed up a few spices for the treatment.

Before Jaune could ask, Glynda piped in, "Don't worry about your massage affecting the patient. We will be monitoring the situation the whole time, and if the need arises, we will have you stop."

"No questions then," nodded Jaune as he began his work, focusing on the limbs first. Once warmed up, Jaune began to flare his Aura into his hands. It was there he noticed a significant difference between his usual customer base for those with active Auras.

The only unique differences he could say was Ozpin, Ashley Taylor aka Salem in disguise, and now this patient.

'It's like….. a sink with the drain open,' mused Jaune, feeling his Aura rushing through his patient's body, but never quite staying, always draining towards somewhere, 'And this feeling….. It feels like it's only half full? Weird.'

Curious, Jaune began to move his hands towards where he felt the Aura being drained.

Ironwood, Ozpin, and Glynda were all focused on their tablets, taking a look at their readings.

"It looks like it has some effect," whispered Glynda, noting the numbers on the tablets, "Her brain waves seem to be more active."

"Yet it's not enough," frowned Ozpin, "His Aura lingers for only a moment before it disappears for some reason. I can't fathom why when we've all had his Aura massages before. His Aura tends to linger in the body for longer before dissipating."

James merely grunted before putting the tablet down. It had been a wild shot that he had to admit held some merit, but in the end, it was still a wild shot. Still, it was something he understood that needed to be tested, even if it posed a minor security risk. Instead, he wanted to use this time to ask a few questions.

"Mr. Arc," began James, "Do you mind if I ask you some questions while you continue your massage?"

Jaune grunted in reply, nodding his head as his hands began tracing towards the area of interest.

"This Aura massage… What was the motivation or basis for this technique?" asked James.

Jaune titled his head for a second before replying, "I was doing a massage for a Beacon student when I noticed she had a lot of knots in her whole body, whether from stress or other activities. She had booked a 90 minute massage, but I knew that with the amount she had, it wouldn't be enough. So I decided to try it out. I know that using your own Aura to heal your own muscles is dangerous, but it never went into detail about Aura from others. I noticed that the moment my Aura touched my patient's body, she instantly loosened up instead of tensing against my hands. Test on a few other people with permission before releasing this as a menu choice."

"I see," nodded James, "I know I've asked you about training at Atlas Academy before as a Huntsman and masseur, but would you be interested in being a guest lecturer at Atlas for a few weeks? Perhaps after the whole Vytal Festival."

Jaune glanced up in surprise at that, though continuing his task at hand. Both Ozpin and Glynda also glanced over at James's words.

"This Aura massage that you've done. It's certainly something that should be explored more," explained James, "Although a rather mundane exploration branch in the field of Aura, it is still something that should be researched upon. I know dozens of retired Huntsmen, Huntresses, and retired soldiers with active Aura who want to do something other than a desk job. This could be another path for them that they might like, to be able to use Aura once more."

Jaune hesitated for a second before James continued on, "You don't need to feel pressured about this. Take your time to think about it, the offer is open even after the Vytal Festival is over. For now, just focus on your patient. I'm sorry I brought this up all of a sudden."

Jaune nodded before continuing his massage. His hands were now tracing right over the middle of her spine, right on her stomach. It was there he could feel where it was 'being drained'.

'I wonder,' hummed Jaune, pondering what to do. Then he remembered an old conversation that he had with Pyrrha's old partner, Oreo. The one where he had misinterpreted the conversation as an attempt to use Aura to create hand-like constructions. He had seen Ozpin create a barrier in front of him before, and he had 'hinted' it was what Aura could do.

'I'm going to plug up that sink then!' thought Jaune naively.

Instantly, he created a plug with Aura in his mind to stop the drain.

Deep inside the patient's body, who was actually Amber, the Fall Maiden that had half of her powers stolen, was a Grimm parasite responsible for her current coma state. It was hidden and kept moving, avoiding any form of detection that Ozpin and the others tried to use. The parasite fed on Amber's Aura, and transferred it over to Cinder whenever it could as a one way street.

Currently it was gorging on the Aura Jaune was pouring into Amber's body, causing it to swell up. Because it was Jauen's Aura, it couldn't transfer it to Cinder, and so the Aura remained in its body, growing fatter without stopping. So when Jaune created a plug right above it, it couldn't move.

The problem with the plug was the fact Jaune had been the one creating. Without realizing what he was doing, he created a stake instead, with the pointed edge directly above the parasite.

Without hesitation or knowledge of what he was actually doing, Jaune plunged the Aura stake down to the source of the 'drain', stabbing it straight through its whole body.

Though Jaune had no idea what he had done, nor did he even feel it, the results were staggering.

To Jaune, however, he merely commented to himself in his mind, 'Hey, the drainage is gone! Looks like I plugged it up. Hope this lasts long enough for me.'

As Jaune continued massaging away, Ozpin and the others saw a sudden spike in Amber's vitals, and pondered what was going on. At this rate, there was a good chance that she could wake up once more.


Another location

Cinder was at another hidden location, dealing with the final preparations when she glanced at her scroll. She had received a message from Hazel in regards to Jaune, telling her that Salem merely wanted for her to keep an eye out on the boy, and perhaps convince him to move to another location, preferably Haven.

Cinder knew that they had Lionheart under their thumb, as it was his authority that allowed her group to infiltrate Beacon as students. Also among the messages was that Watts and Tyrian had disappeared from the castle.

The half Fall Maiden couldn't help but suspect Watts was doing something to sabotage her once again. It was always a constant war between the two of them. Watts was always trying to demean her, diminish what she had accomplished while exemplifying his own. It always annoyed her, and it made her so tempted to just gut the man to shut him up. Her other two associates commonly found in Salem's castle were more affable. She shared her same almost maniac devotion to Salem as Tyrian did, though she did not express it in Tyrian's unique way and knew how to control herself and work in the populace. Tyrian's default state was to kill anyone in his way, and had no intention of controlling such impulses. Hazel, a stoic man, at least acknowledged her works, even if it was by mere nods or grunts.

Cinder was in a room alone when she felt something change in her body. Then her body spasmed in pain as she felt her Aura go haywire. She could feel it fluctuating, sometimes going higher than her own reserves before dipping down. Flames flickered on and off her right eye as she stumbled.

'What's happening!?' thought Cinder as she began to panic, 'The Fall Maiden's power. Is it slipping away from me? Did they somehow destroy the parasite within her body? How did they even find it!'

With a final roar, Cinder let out a ring of fire that blackened the room, incinerating everything inside. If anybody had been inside the same room, they would have burned to death.

Cinder breathed heavily as her eyes were closed, trying to regain control of herself. Slowly, she picked herself up, looking at her hands.

"I… feel…. complete?" questioned Cinder in confusion before bringing up a spark of flame without any effort, similar to when she had taken half of the maiden's power, but it felt much easier.

Cinder quickly felt her body to detect for any abnormalities, but couldn't find anything wrong. In fact, she felt more powerful than before.

"Did the other maiden die?" questioned Cinder in confusion, "If so, this'll make my mission both easier and maybe harder."


Jaune stretched his arms, having finished his task. Ever since he 'plugged' up the drain, he could feel his Aura lingering around his patient's body. So he quietly kept going, trying to not only sooth the muscles, but also massage them to help keep healthy, stretching them out for a bit.

"Alright, I'm done," said Jaune, noticing they kept looking at their tablet, then back to the patient, then to Jaune, and then back to the tablet on repeat.

"Is something wrong?" asked Jaune curiously.

"Oh, no, just checking on some reports," said Ozpin hastily as he put his scroll away, causing the other two to quickly snap back at attention, "Glynda, could you escort Mr. Arc out?"

Glynda quickly nodded as James put the helmet back on Jaune. Glynda used her Semblance to carry the stretcher and Jaune out of the room, taking the same steps to 'mislead' Jaune, even though he had absolutely no clue where he even was.

As the two left, Ozpin took out the scroll once more.

"This looks promising," said Ironwood as he began to move Amber back into the life support pod. It had been a risky move to even take her out, but they theorized that Amber would be fine outside the pod for a few hours as long as she had the mask for life support.

When Ironwood removed the mask, he almost dropped it in shock.

"Ozpin, look," whispered Ironwood, pointing to Amber's face.

Originally, Amber had facial scarring from whatever attacked her. Those scars had shrunken down significantly now, and her face began to regain some color. A second later, an audible groan could be heard from Amber before she fell silent once more. A vast improvement from when she had first been put onto life support after the attack.

"Hopefully, she will awaken soon to identify her attackers," said Ozpin calmly, "For now, we can only wait."

However, Ozpin felt hope rising. He could feel the Fall Maiden's power within Amber rising up to completion, as if the missing piece had returned. But even he was confused on how this had happened.

What had happened was when Jaune 'plugged' the parasite after letting it gorge on his Aura, the parasite managed to make a death throe by sending all the Aura into the parasite connected to Cinder before dying. The Aura sent to the other parasite caused it to also be destroyed due to the foreign Aura that it was not used to. The Aura seeped into Cinder, but thought it was foreign, her body unconsciously recognized it as Jaune's. One whom she had just recently gotten an Aura massage from. The explosion of Aura from the parasite's death went into both Cinder and Amber, miraculously filling up what was missing from their 'soul'. Without knowing, Jaune had somehow fully split the Fall Maiden's power into two people without any real consequences to their body.