"You should have removed him from the board."

General Ironwood didn't say kill but the absence of a single word didn't do much for Jaune's queasiness. The emergency meeting had been called after he reported his dream to Glynda – well, Ozpin really, but Doctor Oobleck was there and didn't het know about Oswald, so he officially reported it to Glynda and Oswald was there as a trusted member of staff.

Or maybe Oobleck knew the truth, Jaune had no idea. It wasn't really his business either.

"Absolutely not!" Oobleck barked, much to Jaune's relief. "Mr Arc is a student and a young man not out his education. Being forced to take a life in self-defence is one thing, but I will not stand for anyone suggesting his Semblance should be used as a weapon. Not against his will. Pressuring someone to use their Semblance to murder someone else is a step too far, and a worrying one to take!"

"Agreed," said Glynda. Ironwood let out an annoyed sigh. "General, we all understand the benefits of Adam Taurus' death, especially given how dedicated he apparently is to his cause, but it is our job to find and stop him. The responsibility should not rest on the shoulders of a student. Mr Arc did the right thing in informing us."

"Yes. Yes. My apologies." It was half-hearted at best from the man, but he didn't want to get himself kicked out of Beacon a second time. "What I meant to say is that it would have been better had it happened, not that he should have, or that he should feel bad for not having."

Jaune didn't believe that but he nodded along anyway. Adam had said the same thing, but he got the feeling General Ironwood wouldn't like hearing that he and a terrorist had similar mentalities. In all fairness, Jaune wondered if it wasn't because both were soldiers in their own right. The only difference was their methods and legalities.

Although, in a sense, both flouted the laws like they didn't matter.

Anything for their goals.

I feel like the more I learn thanks to my Semblance, the more my trust in things is eroded. And here I thought things were bad when I was just uncovering hangups and traumas from my friends.

At least he could help soothe those.

"A worrying concern, if you will, is that the White Fang understands Mr Arc's Semblance." Oswald spoke a little differently to Ozpin, which implied to Jaune that not everyone here knew who he was. "Should we not be worried for his safety? While I'm sure no one here is an outright member, there may well be sympathisers among the students."

"I'd be happy to station my people here," said Ironwood.

Glynda and Oobleck both grimaced.

"That won't be necessary," said Glynda. "We shall handle this ourselves. And Mr Arc will, of course, be required to stay limited to Beacon. I'm sorry about that—"

"It's fine, Miss Goodwitch. I'd probably come under attack the second I step foot in Vale." He let out a depreciative smile. "I never expected a Semblance around being sucked into people's dreams to lead to all this."

"None of us could have," said Oobleck. "I, too, miss the days when it was just you struggling to sleep and vowing to keep the secrets of your friends. It would still be that if not for Cinder Fall, so don't blame yourself. You uncovered a plot that could have cost many lives."

Ironwood grunted. "For all our issues, your Semblance has been a net positive. Take some small pride in that."

Take some "small pride". Even now, Ironwood couldn't resist being an asshole. Jaune nodded again, content to remain silent as they discussed efforts to locate and capture Adam. He didn't really feel it. Things had felt easier when Adam was some monstrous boogieman as opposed to just a regular guy who felt he couldn't stop what he was doing because it would let everyone down.

Sunk cost fallacy, he thought it was called. The old idea that you'd invested too much to back out now, and so had to keep going. Jaune wanted to say he was wrong, but if his own team had died to buy him the chance to become a huntsman, he didn't think he'd be able to just change his mind and retire. But how long would his empathy last? If Adam came and killed one of his friends, he'd be straight back to hating the guy.

This is so confusing. I respect him and I hate him but I let him go, so any future deaths will be on my head now. Jaune grimaced. I guess I'll have to be the one to face him if he ever does attack Beacon.

It was a shame he couldn't ask Blake for advice without exposing himself, and he wasn't sure he wanted to talk to Blake right now either. He still felt she'd made the right choice, the good choice, but his emotions were scattered enough as it was without adding hers to the pile. Oobleck must have noticed something wrong because he placed a hand on Jaune's shoulder.

"Does Mr Arc need to be here for this? I think he could do with a little time with me." Glynda nodded and let them go, and Oobleck escorted him to the elevator. "You look troubled," he said, inside. "Would you like to talk about it in my office?"

"Please. If that's okay?"

"Of course it is. Come on."

The walk to Oobleck's office was in silence, but the moment they were inside and the door was locked the words came out. A deluge of questions and concerns and confusions that Oobleck listened to silently, letting Jaune get it all out. Somewhere amidst them, he ended up sitting down and nursing a hot cup of coffee.

Then a second, once he finished the first.

Oobleck let him speak for a full thirty minutes without once interrupting.

"—and I don't know," Jaune finished, lamely. "Part of me agrees with what Adam said, that I'll be in some way responsible for his actions after letting him go, but another part of me thinks Adam was right to stay loyal to the White Fang. Which makes no sense, because they're awful and should be stopped, but if he leaves then he's pissing on the sacrifices of everyone who trusted him."

"Hmmm." Oobleck hummed and sipped his own drink. "Let's unpack that a little, shall we? We'll start with the last concern. Adam's reasoning. First of all, I think it's important for you to separate the idea that you support his decision with the fact that you understand his decision. We can all understand why a hungry man would turn to crime to feed himself, but that does not mean we support it. Your confusion comes because you're a very empathic young man, and your Semblance has only made you more so. You are used to seeing people's deepest feelings and keeping them secret inside you. In a way, that's made you better at sympathising with and helping people, but it also means you're easily swayed."

"You often see the reasoning behind decisions where others don't – and almost every decision has its reasons, be it suicide, murder, or even terrorism. Most people can never understand why someone is pushed to such extremes, simply saying they would never do the same. You, on the other hand, get to see and experience the reasons that pushed them so far. And make no mistake, Jaune, we all have the potential to become terrorists. We all have the potential to become monsters, murders, rapists, whatever crime you might think of. We also have the potential to become saviours, doctors, activists and humanitarians. It is our experiences that shape us and, from what you've told me, Adam has had some particularly bad ones."

Jaune couldn't help but nod along. "I know. The scar, the brand, it's just... he sees it every day, feels it every time he blinks, and he's so over it that he doesn't even have nightmares about it anymore. How bad is it when a traumatic event seeps into you so much that it ceases to be a trauma? Because I doubt he's gotten over it in a healthy way."

"Almost certainly not. You'll find in psychology that 'getting over it' is a more nuanced thing than many realise. Trauma in general is more complicated than most think. To simplify it a little, there are two common routes to resolving trauma. The first is what most people think of when they say 'getting over it' and that's to healthily accept and move on. The second is far worse, and often happens to those who suffer from depression and never receive treatment. It's when they accept it as a part of their life and give up fighting it. It's when a person suffering from depression simply gets used to it and becomes like that permanently."

"It may look like they've moved on and gotten better, but the truth is they've just gotten used to living with their condition and stopped fighting it. Stopped seeing it as a bad thing, like an addict who gives up on quitting and accepts they'll be smoking for the rest of their life. In a way, they can look happy, even relaxed, but that's not because they have recovered. It's because they no longer fight. And, sometimes, giving in can feel easier than continuing what feels like a losing battle."

Giving in was easier...

Like how Ren considered giving in and pretending to return Nora's feelings when he didn't feel anything, or when Pyrrha was going to give up on her feelings for him and keep them secret. Or how Ruby stopped worrying about Yang being better than her because she'd just accepted it as a fact. Why worry about being inferior when you could just accept it? Jaune felt sick.

"Is... Is that it, then? There's no turning back?"

"There's always the option to turn back and seek help," Oobleck said, firmly. "Few things in life are final, Jaune. The problem is that a lot of people hold to this notion that they are somehow stronger for having dealt with their problems alone. And they mistake this twisted acceptance of their misery as them having beaten it."

"Look at those others," he said, in a fake voice. "They're on medicine and therapy for their depression, but here I am coping with it on my own. I'm stronger than them." He let out an irritated sigh. "When in truth they're just harming themselves more. Giving up isn't strength. Accepting something you wish you could change isn't strength. If you are unhealthy and overweight and you're happy with it, then fine, but if you hate the way you look but refuse to try and lose weight because you'll 'probably fail anyway', then that isn't strength. That isn't beating anything. That's weakness, Jaune. That's defeatism."

"But there are some things we can't change," said Jaune, thinking of Pyrrha's feelings for him. "Things we shouldn't force if it hurts others, right?"

"Of course. I'm giving you easy examples and life is rarely easy. The point I'm making is that there are some who look as though they are over something, when they are not. Adam strikes me as this. He believes he is past what happened to him when, in truth, he isn't. He's simply wrapped himself in a cloak made of his own pain and keeps telling himself he's strong for having bested the nightmares and the pain."

Right. Adam was the one they were talking about, not Pyrrha. The comparisons weren't fair to her, nor were they to Ruby. Though he wondered if he couldn't say something to her anyway, to cheer her up.

It made him think of Weiss, too. Weiss had accepted that her family didn't love her – her parents, anyway. Winter seemed to hold more affection. Weiss acted like she was fine with it, like it didn't bother her, but was that her really resolving the issue, or was it just easier for her to accept her mother and father would never care, and therefore give up on any hopes for a reconciliation?

And was it any of his business? Almost certainly not.

Nor was he their therapist.

Jaune groaned.

"Onto the first point, however," said Oobleck. "And that's responsibility. Something any psychologist learns early on is that the human mind is not some puzzle to be solved. People may think that is what therapy is, and we certainly perform studies to try and solve problems, but it's not that simple. People are a bundle of nature and nurture, shaped by their experiences but also things like genetics and hormones. Belief, culture, preferences, even hopes and doubts and fears."

"If a student comes to me, as you have, I do my best to help them, but I cannot promise to fix them and I cannot hold myself responsible if that doesn't happen." Oobleck paused to let that sink in. "I do my best for you, Jaune, but even I know I can't guarantee you peace."

"You do, though. You've helped me so much."

Oobleck smiled. "It does my heart good to hear that. We try, we really do, but we don't hold the answers to all questions. Often, those answers are inside the person asking them – and I don't mean that in some cliché manner, either. What I mean is that a patient in therapy is seeking an answer that is personal to them. The reasons why they feel the way they do, the conditions that led to it. Trauma is personal, and so the answer to that trauma must also be personal. Our job is to help you find it yourself. But we cannot give it to you."

Jaune closed his eyes. "And I cannot give it to Adam."

"You cannot," Oobleck agreed, pleased Jaune had found it. And yet again, a perfect example, as Oobleck didn't tell him the answer but led him to realising it on his own. "As such, you cannot hold yourself responsible for what Adam does. The media does this all the time, blaming the police for not stopping a killer when they first arrested him for a minor crime, or blaming a teachers in a school – or even parents – for their children becoming monsters. You simply cannot stop another person doing what they choose to do."

"I could have killed him like Ironwood said."

"Yes, but he would have been replaced with another. One we know nothing about. And if you kill someone now for what they might do, then what's to stop you when you come across the next? And the one after? What if you discover a student is a White Fang sympathiser? Do you kill them as well?"

"No, I—"

"It's hypothetical, Jaune. I know you wouldn't. You refrained from killing a wanted terrorist so I know you wouldn't kill a student."

"..." Jaune sighed and slumped back. "Right..."

"What I'm getting at is that General Ironwood – and your conscience – is pushing a very dangerous 'ends justify the means' mentality, with little to no regard for your personal feelings. It's the same problem as the first issue in a sense. Sacrificing your happiness to fix what you perceive as a problem, rather than accepting that you shouldn't be aiming to fix your own mind, but to help it – and yourself – resolve your issues."

"Is it not the same thing?"

Oobleck smiled. "Not at all. Anxiety, depression, guilt, trauma. They're not broken parts of you, despite how a lot of people see them. They're not signs that something is wrong with you. They are symptoms of things that are making you unhappy, be that your looks, fitness, lack of success or romance in life or any one of a million other factors, up to and including bad experiences in the past. They are understandable reactions your psyche is having to these traumas. Sometimes they are inflated, yes, and that's something to work on, but they're not in themselves evil. They're not Grimm that can be slain. Terms like 'fix' imply a final solution. The real answer is to understand what makes you feel that way and slowly work on adapting yourself and resolving the issues. But, again, it's easy to have an 'ends justify the means' mentality with your own mental health and just say that it's better if you get over it more forcefully. If you just fix the issue and move on."

"I think I get it... so, if someone had an inferiority complex, they might convince themselves it's better to just accept that and move on to become a better huntsman, because it's better to help innocent people then worry about you feeling worse than someone else."

Oobleck let out a sigh. "Yes, and now I am left wondering which of my students that is you're unsubtly referring to." He pinched the bridge of his nose while Jaune laughed awkwardly. "Don't worry, inferiority complexes are so common in schools that I'd be surprised if half the student body isn't suffering. But, yes, it's a good example. Easier – and better – to simply accept you're worse and focus on getting good grades than it is to address why you feel worse and why you feel you should be better. At least from a purely results-focused perspective."

Because more huntresses was good, and Ruby should just focus on being a good leader and not dealing with her inferiority. It wasn't just Ruby, either. Blake was wracked by guilt but just bottled it up and told herself it was best not to bother her team. Yang had her own issues and didn't want to let them upset anyone, least of all Ruby. Weiss, too. And Nora and Ren and Pyrrha and even Cardin, for crying out loud.

"We're really shit, aren't we?" Jaune asked. "Teenagers."

Oobleck looked stunned, then burst out laughing. "Oh Jaune," he wept, wiping at his eye. "You poor naïve young man. Do you really think us adults have it any better? I assure you we've just gotten better at pretending we have things under control. None of us really do."

"That doesn't fill me with confidence..."

"It shouldn't. But at least it'll fill you with wisdom. Everyone has their issues, Jaune. Everyone. Adam's situation, while regrettable, isn't new in any way. I'm sure even Cinder has her reasons but that won't stop us ending her plans. And those plans would continue whether or not you existed, so don't concern yourself with thoughts of being responsible for their actions. You're not. The only thing you are responsible for is your own actions, or lack thereof. Remember that. And hold it dear to you."

His own actions or lack thereof...

It made him wonder how much he'd really done to help his friends. Enough to be a good friend, enough to make sure they knew he cared, but could he have done more...? Maybe. Should he feel bad about not having done so? No. Because he hadn't realised. He'd simply said a few nice words, helped them feel better, then left them to their problems.

But knowing more now, and knowing they weren't resolving their issues but pushing them aside, he suddenly felt like there was more he could do. And far from it making him feel bad, it made him feel excited.

"Sir," he begged. "Can you give me some advice on how to help people resolve their problems? How I can actively help them discover the answers on their own instead of trying to force them into accepting my point of view?"

Doctor Oobleck smiled proudly. "I can. I most certainly can."