Bab 34: Aura Awakening
A/N: Just a reminder, new chapter here means two more chapters over on my P atreon, where my patrons are currently voting on the future direction of this story.
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For a brief second, Jaune considers refusing. If nothing else, has Boudicca Nikos even earned the right to awaken his aura? Shouldn't he be offering that opportunity to someone like Summer instead? Or maybe even Salem. But no, he's pretty sure Salem wouldn't know how to awaken aura. She didn't even seem to have one herself, in fact.
Which left it between Boudicca and Summer, and of the two of them, only one was offering to try and awaken his right here and right now.
Gripping Boudicca by the hips, Jaune yanks his cock out of her cunt and spins her around. The beautiful red head gasps as her back hits the wall, and a moment later she moans quite happily as he thrusts back into her, lifting one of his new maid's legs up into the air. Capturing her lips with his own, Jaune kisses Boudicca deeply for a second.
She submits easily, wrapping her arms around his neck and happily melting before his cock. In that moment, Jaune makes up his mind. Sure, it's fairly obvious to him that Boudicca wants to awaken his aura and make him more powerful so she can bask in her humiliation fetish even more. However, she's also proving more than willing to let the matter drop entirely in this moment, not even trying to fight to have her voice be heard. If he never brings it up again, he expects she'll never bring it up either.
Breaking their lip locks, Jaune rests his forehead against hers for a moment, his cock going still inside of Boudicca Niko's cunt yet again.
"… What do we need to do?"
Her green eyes flicker and then widen as she recognizes the meaning of his words. Panting, she slowly unwinds her hands from behind his neck and grasps him by the sides of his head instead.
"Just… stay calm."
Jaune blinks at that, one eyebrow lifting up as Boudicca begins to chant of all things.
"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory. Rising above it all, we become infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul and by my honor pledge to protect thee."
As she speaks, she begins to glow a bright, crimson red. Her aura manifesting itself, and Jaune grunts as he feels the sheer strength and proximity of her soul against his Grimm flesh. He feels a light burning sensation, but nothing he can't handle.
"Jaune… what is she doing?"
That said, it must still look quite strange from the outside. Summer's voice calls over from where she and Pyrrha have been watching him make use of his new maid. Glancing at them, Jaune gives Summer a carefree smile.
"Not to worry, I-!"
And then it hits him. He grunts, the words stolen from his lips at the same time that the breath is abruptly taken from his lungs. Boudicca grunts as well, and they both shudder in unison. His head whips back around and their eyes meet… and even before she says it, Jaune knows what she's going to say.
"It's not… it's not enough. You need m-more…"
Jaune nods in agreement. Something is happening. He can feel it deep inside. Boudicca is not reaching into a gaping hole of nothingness. However, where she's going it is very, VERY dark and she needs more aura to light the way. He watches as the glow of the Mistralian General's aura intensifies even further. He feels as the representation of her soul sears his flesh.
It's nothing too painful, at least physically. Metaphysically is another thing entirely. Jaune didn't know what Salem had done with his soul when she'd resurrected him as a Grimm. He was as much Jaune as he was what she'd tried to make him, but he knew she hadn't intended that to happen.
Had she ignored his soul entirely when setting out to make her companion? Had she torn his soul to pieces but not done a good enough job and so he ended up reasserting himself rapidly? Or had she tried to lock his soul away, only for it to simply… not work as she expected? Jaune didn't know. He'd never bothered to ask such things.
But now he kind of wished he did. He suspected that knowing the nature and state of his soul might just have allowed him to help Boudicca Niko in her self-appointed task.
As it is, he's not sure she'll have enough aura. He himself might not be feeling much of the burn, but it's obvious from the sweat gathering on Boudicca's suddenly pale face that SHE is. Jaune can safely say he understands how Aura Awakening works now. Someone with aura, and likely some amount of training, uses a part of THEIR aura to effectively jumpstart the aura of the person they're trying to unlock. Like a torch being used to light an entire corridor of lamps.
Except, eventually the torch is going to run out. It only has a limited amount of flame. And in this analogy, Boudicca wasn't trying to light a simple corridor… she was trying to light an entire palace.
He can see her beginning to flag. Even with her immense strength, even with her experience and training, she simply doesn't have enough aura to awaken his. Recognizing this, Jaune grabs hold of Boudicca, resting his forehead against her own.
"Thank you for trying, but it's not working. You can stop now, Boudicca."
"… C-Can't… can't… stop…"
Her chattering teeth and pained voice send a jolt through Jaune and he pulls back to see that she's beginning to violently shake. And indeed, when he looks inward a second time… he realizes she's right. She can't stop. Now that she's initiated things, the black pit that is his soul's resting place is trying to suck her in. She's not even giving up her aura freely anymore. It's taking it greedily, hungrily.
… Will this kill Boudicca, or produce another Grimm Humanoid? One thing is for certain… Jaune doesn't want either of those two things to happen. But his options are rapidly dwindling, and it takes him a second to decide what to do.
"Summer! Pyrrha!"
To their credit, the other two human women in the room are at his side in a heartbeat. They take in the view, with Summer catching on to what's happening far more quickly due to how the blind woman uses her aura in the first place.
"Jaune…"
"She's trying to awaken my aura. But it's sucking her in. I need you both to pull her back out. Fast."
They grab onto Boudicca and him immediately, and Jaune watches as their bodies light up with aura as well. Pyrrha's is a color of red similar to her mother's, while Summer's is a bright white. Regardless, Jaune grimaces as their inclusion only serves to burn him further. The light of the human soul is anathema to that of the Grimm. His body begins to hiss, his flesh bubbling as the proximity of three humans using their auras at maximum strength affects him greatly.
Not that its anywhere close to enough to kill him. They could and were certainly disfiguring him like this, but internally he was just fine. If one didn't count the way his black pit of a 'soul' was currently sucking up not just Boudicca… but also Pyrrha and Summer now. Except, rather than trying to drag Boudicca out as he'd told them to, the two are diving in head first. Their own auras added to the Mistralian General's, they're hard at work trying to awaken HIS aura even now.
"I said to pull her out!"
"We can't, Jaune! The process has been initiated. It cannot stop! Not without courting death!"
Jaune snarls but accepts Summer's words at face value. He has to, because she quickly becomes incapable of speech soon after that. Her and Pyrrha both glow just as brightly as Boudicca did now… and as they do so, as all three bring their auras to bear upon his soul, Jaune feels something happening. Boudicca by herself was nearly swallowed up in the darkness. But three blazingly bright human souls working in conjunction… slowly but surely, the darkness is pulled back.
He can feel it more than see it, but as they fight together, as they drag out his human soul, Jaune senses their 'hands' closing around the part of him that was Jaune Arc. That has always been Jaune Arc. That will always be Jaune Arc. It's then that he knows for a fact what Salem did when she originally made him. How the Queen of Grimm set about making her ideal partner.
She did not ignore his human soul. She did not tear it to pieces. Nor did she lock it up. She… enshrined it. She protected it. She set it upon a pedestal and yes, surrounded it by shadows… but also gave it a coating to keep the shadows from consuming it.
All this time, Jaune has known that his human memories and feelings are much clearer than the millions of Grimm that were mashed together to create his Grimm half. Feeling human emotions, looking at the memories of Jaune Arc, it's always been like looking at things in color, while his Grimm memories and emotions have been in black and white, colorless.
Only now, however, does Jaune realize why that is. It's because from the very beginning, Salem had made sure that his human soul was kept safe. She'd been the one, from the very start, to make sure he would not awaken as just another Grimm monster but be something new… something capable of dethroning her, punishing her, and putting her in her place. But also of loving her, cherishing her, and forgiving her for her crimes.
Jaune's breath comes out in a shuddering gasp as the three women grab onto his soul with all of their might and yank him out into the light. His skin burns, but he barely feels that in comparison to the sudden sensation of his aura awakening and the light of his soul being brought out into the open.
There's a bright flash of light that blinds even Jaune… and then a moment later, darkness overtakes him. It's a strange feeling, because ever since becoming Grimm, Jaune hasn't HAD to sleep. He's done it to rest, but he's never been knocked unconscious against his will. And yet, in that moment as the glow fades from around the four of them, he finds himself falling to the floor all the same, darkness rushing in.
Boudicca is still impaled on his cock as she falls with him, and Summer and Pyrrha are still clutching at the two of them as they drop bonelessly as well. Landing in a pile, the four of them pass out on the spot, the Aura Awakening turning out to be far more than ANY of them bargained for.
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"H-Hi! I'm Ruby Rose. I hope we can be friends!"
"Greetings, Ruby Rose. My designation is Penny Polendina. I have not had a friend before. I would be interested in exploring such a thing."
"Whoa. Interesting way of talking there, Penny. You don't get out much, do you?"
"Yaaaang! Leave her alone!"
Not for the first time, Winter Schnee's jaw clenches as she sits in the pilot's seat of the bullhead. General Ironwood had assured her that Vale would be assigning two full-blown Huntresses to this particular joint operation. That the only one who would be green would be the android that Winter had been saddled with. His specific words had been that he and Headmaster Ozpin were putting together a 'proper Hunter's Team to deal with the threat to Remnant.
… If Winter didn't have the utmost respect for the General, she would have turned the bullhead around and flown right back to Atlas, court marshal be damned. This was ridiculous! She was effectively being made to babysit children!
The war with Mistral had just begun right when they'd finally left known civilization. Winter should have been out there. Maybe not on the frontlines, because she WAS an Atlesian Specialist and not a foot soldier, but she could have done her part. Sure, infiltrating Mistral when she had the distinctive features of a Schnee would have been difficult, but even still… tch.
That had been General Ironwood's primary excuse for sending her on this mission. That and his faith in her abilities. Apparently, she wouldn't be all that useful in the coming war. As skilled as she was, she was too noticeable to go undercover, too obvious for any clandestine operations and ultimately would have been sidelined for most of the war anyways. Or so he said.
Winter was beginning to suspect she'd been hoodwinked. But then, if this was some sort of trick… well, General Ironwood could have chosen a more believable lie, she supposed. In fact, the complete ridiculousness of his story had been what convinced Winter of its veracity in the first place. It made too much damn sense that there was in fact an intelligent mind behind the Grimm. After all this time, the Kingdoms should have been able to prevail if the Grimm were mindless beasts. That they'd been kept penned in was the mark of a sapient enemy.
It was a little harder to swallow the idea that this Queen Salem had pulled back her Grimm solely to make the Kingdoms destroy each other through infighting, but then again, all Winter had to do was look at the state of things with Mistral and she was forced to stomach that fact as well.
In the end, apparently Headmaster Ozpin and General Ironwood were two of the only people in all of Remnant who knew the truth. Everyone else was playing right into the Queen of the Grimm's hands and ultimately giving her exactly what she wanted.
Winter's hands grip down tighter at the controls she's using to fly the bullhead. It was up to them. It was all on their shoulders. And frankly, Winter had never felt a heavier weight. Her secret weapons were apparently a silver-eyed girl from Signal and an untested prototype android with aura.
Meanwhile, the second oldest member of the group was a first year student at Beacon Academy, clearly brought along solely because she was the silver-eyed girl's sister.
It was… less than ideal. Far, far less than ideal. But Winter didn't exactly have a choice and-
THUMP!
She damn near almost jerks the piloting controls to the side as she's suddenly torn from her inner thoughts by the sound of something smacking into the bullhead's frontal cone. Looking to her left, Winter's eyes widen as she sees a small Nevermore keeping pace with her. The Grimm's own eyes meet hers and it gently drifts in again to give the cone another bump before continuing its flight.
… What the actual fuck.
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