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She flew under blinding lights and between buildings of glass and steel as bright as the moon. The wind clawed at her cloak, tugging at every stitch like eager fingers. Arcadia sprawled beneath her: a radiant maze, its towers silvered and polished until they looked soaked in moonlight. Every shining wall reflected the banners, advertisements, and neon symbols rising like little suns along the avenues.
Below, she heard them laugh.
They lived with smiles on their faces.
Happy, all of them.
Children tugged at their parents' sleeves, begging for food stalls and balloon vendors. Friends shared drinks on open terraces. Lovers leaned against railings of transparent polymer and admired the view as if nothing in the world was broken. Families of blood, families found, families made by choice — all of them radiant, careless, full of light.
As if the world hadn't burned.
As if Beacon hadn't lain in ruins once.
As if Grimm weren't clawing at the earth beyond the horizon.
With one step she passed above the lip of a building, then another step sent her soaring from its edge. The city rose before her in its endless glory.
Rooftops shaped like cathedral spires, lattices of wrought iron fused with glass walkways, cables strung like silver veins from one tower to another. Gargoyles sculpted from carbon alloy crouched above gardens suspended midair. Blue lanterns and gold lanterns blinked along the plaza floors. Streetcars glided without sound along transparent rails. Every cornerstone of the place felt touched by some overzealous artist who wanted beauty to swallow function and never let it go.
Bits of old architecture — arches, gothic frameworks, carved pillars — were patched into modern structures as if Arcadia had stolen them from some forgotten continent. Even the rain that misted from pipes in the upper decks looked curated, sparkling like powdered diamonds.
Cinder Fall hated it.
She hated all of it.
A paradise where disease had been erased.
Where sickness was treated before it even arrived.
Where death had been pushed back like an embarrassment.
They were promised joy — and they had received it.
That angered her more than any lie.
The city of Arcadia stood like a miracle carved from arrogance, untouched by suffering, unbothered by the nightmares clawing at the Shield outside its limits. Grimm howled beyond those walls, forgotten. Raiders threw themselves at the barrier and dissolved, forgotten. All the world's misery pressed its forehead against Arcadia's shell and got silence in return.
Let them profit a last time, she thought with cold satisfaction.
If things go my way, this will be the final night they smile.
Her boots touched the edge of a penthouse rooftop. The wind settled. The lights stilled. For a moment Arcadia gleamed beneath her as if it were carved from some sacred metal.
She had succeeded in entering the city.
That alone was a victory.
Now she only needed to take the second step.
If she killed the man who had built this place — the piece at the center of this paradise — the miracle would tumble like a child's toy kicked down a stairwell. Arcadia would break. The smiling people would learn what misery tasted like again. The illusion of safety would rip apart, the same way Beacon once collapsed.
Cinder Fall only had to kill Jaune Arc.
The thought soothed her.
A decade of hatred, obsession, and humiliation balanced on that single name.
Years ago, when Beacon fell —
when the sky turned to fire and the ground split open —
when she drove her arrow into Pyrrha Nikos —
when that foolish girl tried to shield him —
Cinder should have ended Jaune then.
He had been nothing at the time.
A bug beneath a boot.
Yet she let him crawl away.
He evolved from nuisance to problem.
From problem to threat.
She would not make that mistake again.
The rooftop access panel slid aside with a whisper of metal. Cinder glided through the shadowed frame. She moved like something no one had sculpted or trained: weightless, patient, a ribbon of black flame. Her cloak kissed the floor without a sound. The penthouse swallowed her whole.
It was a cathedral of wealth.
Tall windows curved along the outer wall, granting a view of the sleeping streets far below. Furniture made of polished steel and dark wood sat under floating lamps. Bookshelves filled with tomes and scrolls stretched toward a ceiling painted like a sunrise. She expected labs and weaponry. Instead, she found warmth. Clean air. A scent of roasted herbs.
And then she saw him.
Jaune Arc stood in the kitchen, back turned to her.
Not armor. Not battle stance.
He was slicing tomatoes, onions, herbs — his hands moving with a calmness that made her teeth grind.
Even from the angle she stood, the transformation of the past ten years could not be denied. Muscle shaped his shoulders, arms, chest. The shirt he wore might once have been chosen for looseness, but it clung to him, fabric stretched and defeated. His hair — long, gold, tied into a loose ponytail — brushed the middle of his back. His face was too clean, too unblemished, the kind of perfection only aura or a semblance could sculpt. His eyes — when the overhead light struck them — burned bright blue.
It irritated her.
He had no right to glow like that.
A shame, really, that his existence was so infuriating.
Had he been less of a nuisance, less of a threat to her plans, he might have served as a pleasant distraction for a few weeks. She could almost picture his mouth below hers, his throat under her hand.
But fantasies were brittle things, and she crushed them at once.
He kept chopping vegetables.
Domestic. Peaceful.
As if the world bowed to him.
'Disgusting.'
This was not the scene she expected from the man Salem once spoke of. According to her master's grudging admissions, Jaune Arc had resurrected an age of wonders. Weapons, shields, healing arts — all reshaped beyond comprehension. If history kept its stories straight, those powers outmatched even what the men of the first humanity once wielded when the gods were still on Remnant.
Yet here he was, cooking dinner.
His back remained turned.
That meant she could end it now.
Her hand slid to her hair. The ornament she hid there — a slender black needle shaped like those once worn across the old kingdoms of Mistral and Vacuo — slipped loose. She drew it out and held it between two fingers.
Her feet placed themselves apart, weight settling, shoulder tilting. Her arms rose, not in a clumsy imitation of archery, but with the fluid poise of someone who held death as an art. Her right hand pulled back, drawing invisible string. Her left hand steadied the needle.
Heat gathered under her skin.
Crimson light crawled up her wrists.
Flame curled out, bending itself into shape.
A bow materialized — the same infernal weapon she had used to strike Pyrrha Nikos down upon the tower of Beacon. Its limbs glowed like molten glass. The string shimmered, almost a whip of red.
The needle grew between her fingers, stretching into a full arrow, slender as a whisper. Inside its core, something darker than smoke twisted. Salem had gifted her the prototype, but Cinder had made adjustments. She always made adjustments.
Once, she drank half the power of a Fall Maiden through a soul-devouring Grimm. That creature had hollowed Amber from within. Yet this new creation went beyond hollowing.
This arrow was no simple weapon.
It was a parasite.
A reaper.
Something meant to chew apart the spirit and leave nothing behind.
If it struck Jaune Arc, it would steal every secret inside his soul. Every technique, every discovery, every mystery that allowed Arcadia to exist. His semblance. His knowledge. His legacy. All of it harvested, all of it devoured.
Salem believed that absorbing his soul would let her surpass the lost gods. She had said so with certainty.
But Salem had forgotten one detail:
Cinder Fall never shared power.
She altered the Grimm-forged parasite so that the soul it consumed would flow into her — not Salem. The parasite would ascend her, and only her. She would become the highest being alive, a goddess among ruins.
Had she been weaker, perhaps she would have hesitated at destroying his soul so completely that even the afterlife would spit him out. But hesitation was a luxury for sentimental fools.
She smiled, teeth bright as a knife's edge.
The arrow rested against the bowstring.
She released it.
It flew like a streak of obsidian lightning.
For an instant she saw his head begin to turn.
Too late.
The arrow struck his chest, right where his heart should be.
Something black erupted from the impact — tendrils, veins, threads of rotten light. They coiled, slashing across the room, linking her to him. Energy poured through those veins, rushing into her like war drums.
She laughed.
And she did not stop.
A decade of rage and hunger boiled through her.
She could feel it — the transfer beginning, her body quivering under the rush of the key to divinity.
Jaune Arc would fall.
Arcadia would fall.
The gods themselves would be her equal.
Then something strange cut through her glee:
Nothing happened.
The tendrils froze in midair.
They shrank, not tightened.
Her lungs hitched.
"Huh?"
Jaune Arc did not scream.
Did not collapse.
He simply set the knife down, wiped his hands with a towel, and looked at her with the mild exasperation of someone interrupted during a recipe.
"Have you finally stopped laughing," he asked, "and realized something is wrong?"
The cold inside her spine sharpened.
No pain in him.
No strain.
If anything, he looked bored.
Her voice arrived in a whisper.
"How?"
He rolled his shoulders, as though answering a tedious question. "That little trick might have worked on anyone else. Clever modification, I admit. A soul-eater that scours the spirit clean before shattering it." His tone remained light, almost thoughtful. "Could have worked on Ozma. Might have worked on Ruby and her silver eyes. Possibly even a relic spirit."
He leaned a hip against the counter.
"It's just unfortunate for you that when it comes to souls — Grimm, human, or divine — I'm the strongest alive."
She lunged backward. Or tried to.
Her body did nothing.
Not a twitch.
Not a breath out of place.
Her heartbeat raced, but the rest of her felt forged in stone.
"You must be wondering why your limbs won't move," he continued. "Well, you tried destroying my soul. So I destroyed the limbs of yours."
Her stare trembled.
"The body mirrors the soul. Destroy the soul's limbs, the physical ones stop working. Simple. People will argue, theorize, write books. None of it matters."
Her throat squeezed, voice trapped.
"How is it possible?" she whispered.
"We all believed my semblance was aura amplification," he said, walking toward her with unhurried steps. "I liked the idea. Using it, I saved Weiss after you speared her at Haven. Helped my team. Helped strangers. But five years ago, everything shifted."
His steps rang lightly across the polished floor.
"I met Gilles. Brilliant woman. Strange habits. Terrifying curiosity. She told me something that changed everything: if aura comes from the soul, and my semblance manipulates aura, then I was touching souls. Directly. Shaping them."
He paused an arm-length away, as if observing a specimen.
"So we tested. We learned. I asked myself: if I could strengthen a soul… could I weaken one? Multiply by negative instead of positive? Could I amplify fragility until it became a poison that hurt whoever tried to use their aura?"
Her mouth went dry.
"It worked," he said simply. "We learned to adjust the soul. Study it. Cut it apart and rebuild it. Transplant it. Copy it. Arcadia was born from those discoveries."
His eyes lowered, voice growing softer — not weak, but thoughtful.
"I became what I wanted to be as a child. A hero. I saved millions. I built soldiers who the Grimm cannot approach. I built a shield out of Ruby's light so that humanity could sleep without nightmares at their door. They chant my name. Some worship me. I have a family again. Nora and Ren have a daughter — Brynhildr — and they made me her godfather."
He met her gaze.
The blue in his eyes glowed like the calm of winter.
"I have everything I ever wanted… and yet something stays bitter at the back of my tongue."
His jaw tightened.
"Each time I taste it, I remember you."
Her heartbeat pounded.
"I remember Beacon falling. The students screaming. The teachers cut down. I remember Pyrrha."
The name landed with weight.
"She kissed me before she died. She pushed me away so I would live. She thought I'd understand her heart in time."
For a moment, his voice broke on the edge of something human. Something wounded and old.
"You killed her. You killed Beacon. You killed Penny. You let civilians choke on ash while the Grimm chewed their bones. You left scars that will never fade."
The softness vanished.
Cold took its place.
"And yet you walked into Arcadia tonight as if you deserved it."
He lifted his hand.
Smiled.
Gentle.
Beautiful.
It was an angelic smile — and it terrified her more than any scream.
His fingers touched her cheek.
Pain exploded.
Her scream tore from a throat no one else could hear. It wasn't heat or flame. It was the feeling of her body being rewritten. Bones bent. Skin tightened. Organs twisted like knots pulled too tight. Her flesh shrank, folded, curved inward. Nails — dozens, hundreds — seemed to carve spirals down her ribs.
She saw her own limbs twist into shapes beyond recognition.
Silk flesh, hardened.
Every inch polished, fragile, translucent.
She was becoming something small.
Tiny.
Breakable.
And her mind kept screaming.
Somewhere through that agony, she heard his voice. Muffled, as if she were listening from under water.
"I could have killed you," he murmured. "But death is gentle. You don't deserve gentle."
Her spine collapsed inward.
Her knees vanished.
Her voice cracked into silence.
"I saw your memories. Your desires. You wanted eternity. So I grant it. You will be eternal. And useless. And helpless."
Something warm rested beneath her.
A table? A shelf?
She could not tell. Her world blurred.
A door opened.
Small footsteps tapped across the floor.
"Uncle Jaune!"
Her pain buzzed like broken glass, but she heard him answer with playful scolding.
"Slowly, Brynhildr. We don't want you tripping and earning a nickname like… crater face. Your Aunt Ruby carried that one for years."
A little gasp.
"Crater face? But I thought you were the only one with a nickname. And it was vomit boy."
"False accusations," he replied in a dramatic sigh. "Sit, sit. Let me tell you the true version."
Heavy footsteps approached — to her they felt like the march of a giant.
A child's voice spoke again.
"Since when do you have a glass slipper, Uncle Jaune?"
"Pretty recently," he said. "But don't worry. It's nothing important."
Even through the pain, she tried to understand.
Her mind pushed against the dark.
She forced her senses outward.
A mirror stood across from her.
Her reflection stared back — gentle contours, elegant arch, a heel shaped like a frozen tear.
She was a shoe.
A flawless glass slipper.
Small enough for a child's hand to lift.
Cinder tried to scream.
But she had no mouth anymore,
and she must scream.
While writing the last chapter of Alter, I thought a little bit about Jaune's semblance and this is what I came with. I mean, isn't the amplification of the soul manipulation of it in some ways? Anyway, what do y'all think? Also, if you had Jaune canonical Semblance, how would you try to jailbreak it?