章 14: 14
AN: Small note for Chapter "The Magician Inversed"
There were some simulation rolls for Julius and An Ren as well as Kuroyuri itself, just to spice up things for the future. Li Ren was the only character fated to die. Couldn't see anything else happening as he'd have to confront the Nuckelavee without Aura for the story to make sense no matter what.
Neopolitain laid over their new teacher's desk, holding their old parasol with the hidden blade in the crook of an armpit, throwing a red ribbon into the air, pretending that it was a stream of blood that she was bleeding to death from the boredom of the lecture.
Trivia had already gotten a new weapon, this older temporary object having been replaced by Jaune already, but they kept it out of sentimentality.
It was theirs now. No take backs.
Trivia didn't much care for Aurelia, her new private tutor, but she still wanted to learn how to fight from the teacher from Patch.
It might have been a dumb idea, asking her parents to get Huntsman training, but her mother had decided it would be a good way to inspire some discipline, especially since it was the first time Trivia had asked for something big like this. Carrot and stick, she'd said.
Her father had taken this as her finally trying to grow up and gone around asking for Huntsman teachers willing to be a home tutor.
They'd found Aurelia, some overachieving teacher at Signal an hour away in Patch that was willing to commit some time on the days she didn't attend classes. She worked alongside a man named Taiyang (the one from back in the mall when she first met Jaune) in field exercise classes twice a week and had plenty of time for such a commute.
Trivia was only putting up with it for her own selfish reasons, though. Her parents were free to feel however they wanted.
Something had tried to break Jaune a month or so back. He'd come to her a mess and they'd spent their weekly near midnight meetings with ice cream and cuddles in a movie theater with some dumb cartoon that made him laugh, instead of doing something more exciting like hunting down muggers and stealing from the gangs in the city.
Vale really was the city that never slept. At least half of it was. There was still so much they could have done.
She still enjoyed their time and there was something exciting about how much he clung to her touch and how he'd go along without argument with whatever she wanted like an adorable puppy, but the novelty was just that. A novelty.
It had also made her furious. She felt as if the only person that should be allowed to break Jaune like that was only her and Neo. They were the same, she and Jaune. Halves of the same coin. He was hers and she was his.
Trivia liked Jaune when he took charge and decided things, even if he was younger. Maybe she was just more of a follower. She certainly let Neapolitan boss her around more than she should.
It was just so much more fun that way. She'd enjoyed how he'd push back when she was 'bad' as he always insisted so self-assuredly that she and Neopolitain were good girls. It made her heart tremble in a way that almost believed it.
But Trivia knew she and Neopolitan were probably bad girls. That suited her just fine.
They wanted to take whatever they wanted. They preferred taking what they wante. It was irrevocable proof that it was something she herself earned. Not gained from her father's money or her mother's deluded scts of affection.
Trivia was mostly sure that she only truly loved herself.
Their Semblance let them get away with it, even if they let Jaune see them steal and take. His panicked expressions were too vibrant and exciting. He was the only one that could understand what she felt and wanted at a look and it burned her up inside.
Somehow him paying for her things had become ok. Because she'd earned it through his care for her. Genuine. Real. Not like her father who desired to control her.
Jaune understood her and wished for Trivia to be free.
Even her parents couldn't understand her. But Trivia was fine with that now. Even feeling brave enough to act out against them at home on occasion. Never anything too big. Small acts of defiance, but it was more than she'd ever had the courage for before.
It was enough that her father thought she was 'growing a spine' and 'would be speaking before long'.
Despite that she only listened and obeyed just enough to get what she wanted. Her parents thought she was finally growing up, oblivious to the fact she was just using them.
It was odd how awful she was at dealing with her parents before. Well, technically she was still awful at dealing with her parents. It was just that she had goals now. Purpose aside from just having fun and doing whatever she wanted.
They were like her, but more stupid, selfish and forgetting that their daughter was a human being, not a doll.
She'd give them the doll they wanted in exchange for what she needed. As long as they'd never take more than she was willing to give them. What she was willing to sacrifice for her freedom.
For her nights under the neon lit skies with Jaune.
Trivia was sure that this feeling must have been love. TV talked about it all the time, other girls in the street would chatter about their crushes, her mother pretended to love her father.
Ugh. When would Aurelia get into sparring and teaching her how to fight more? It was the only part of their time together that was enjoyable.
Ok the gymnastics could be fun too. Maybe in another life she could have been a gymnast.
But sitting out these lectures just for the hour or two of physical training at the end was torture. Not like it was with Jaune.
Everything was more fun with Jaune.
Jaune was teaching her something he called parkour. How to leap and jump and roll about on urban landscapes, to move through the city like it was one continuous track. How was everything with Jaune more fun?
She was doing the same with gymnastics, and seeing little Jaune bend, roll, and cartwheel about was fun.
Aurelia's voice droned on about the Kingdoms and something else worthless as Trivia daydreamed, tapping on her scroll to claim she was listening, and just bored and wanting to get into something physical.
He'd given her a new parasol, much lighter and prettier than the ugly gray and blue he'd had given as a temporary means to defend herself.
He'd made it himself. Trivia wouldn't have believed it if another six or seven year old had told her that, but she knew what it looked like when Jaune lied. He'd made it, just for her.
Hers.
Not paid for by her father's money because he wanted her obedience. Not given by her mother because she was trying to keep Trivia out of her hair.
He'd given it to her so she could do what she wanted with it. For better or for worse, he said.
It was hers.
The pretty lace on white and pink was a design he'd found on the internet from some fashion magazine, a few intricate black lines weaving elegant shapes in the fabric. The material was also tougher than it looked, even if it was slightly sheer and see through. It wouldn't block bullets without her using her Aura, but was blade resistant and Jaune had applied something he said was so small she wouldn't see it. That it would repair bits of damage over time.
It was hers. Hers.
Jaune rambled on about nano something. She didn't really remember being more excited for her own weapon. A needle-like blade that could extend with a twist from the tip for a nasty surprise and the long cane blade hidden within its shaft.
She was still deciding on a name to give it. She was torn between Hush and Whisper. Maybe she'd call it both, a name for each of the hidden blades.
Finally Aurelia shut up about the boring stuff and brought Trivia out to the courtyard to learn to fence.
She'd wanted Trivia to start conditioning only with gymnastics because she was young, but Trivia had weedled and begged to get some fencing in as well.
Their training rapiers were a bit thicker and sturdier than the whipper, lighter blades people often saw in the movies. These rapiers were meant to pierce the bone armor of Grimm. They were weapons to kill.
Neo walked on her hands, delicate and perfect as usual, as she balanced her way around the courtyard.
Trivia felt satisfaction as her instructor taught her how to thrust and parry (slashing was rarer, but still a part of her training), correcting her form and giving her a somewhat mockingly light spar that Trivia lost.
It was inevitable, she wasn't like Jaune, all fast and powerful in a way that a child shouldn't have been.
But what she was learning was enough to catch people by surprise.
She had her Semblance to help with that too.
She and Neo had been practicing in secret.
Sometimes Trivia debated on taking that knowledge and applying it to her parents. To just cut away her current life and run away and live with Jaune.
Even though she'd debate those thoughts sometimes, she could somehow never bring herself to. She didn't exactly love her parents, but they were her parents still. The thought of actually doing that was weirdly uncomfortable and she didn't understand why.
The day ended with some more gymnastics, which Trivia found she was actually really good at.
Truly talented, enough that Aurelia would recommend getting more professional training in it and that it'd be safer than being a Huntress, but Trivia argued her down for now.
No matter how nimble and acrobatic she was, especially with Aura to enhance her, that additional training Friday night training she offered to give would cut into the time she'd spend with Jaune that night.
This was all just a means to an end. It was pointless if it conflicted with the reason that it all began anyways.
His time with Yang and Ruby was good for peace of mind. A call back to days where things felt it all made more sense, even with the craziness of his summer in Atlas.
Of days before Kuroyuri and his guilt.
It was a calm, quiet two hours from eight to ten. Like clockwork every Friday evening.
Those quiet hours flew by, filled with the small creature comfort of brushing Yang's hair and seeing Ruby and Zwei fight over her gift from him, the stuffed wolf plushy Drei.
It was actually a Death Ward Doll that could take the appearance of whatever animal Jaune wanted, including some creatures that didn't even exist on Remnant.
It had been made by some rich wizard in a city called Waterdeep in the world called Faerun for a noble's daughter. It'd protect her from any accident that'd result in her death. Just once, but hopefully she'd never need it ever.
It would be destroyed by taking whatever mortal wound she would, so he was especially hoping that she'd never need it. It had quickly become her favorite plushy, after all. Yang said she carried it everywhere like it was a safety blanket.
Yang had taken to wearing her Ribbon of Midgard to keep her hair back in a ponytail for training or as a light scarf. Sometimes it'd be tied a bit tighter in a pretty bow on the right side of her neck like the choker that Trivia would now always wear that matched his shackles.
It too allowed Jaune to change its color and he'd adjusted it to the layered orange on black that it was now, matching Yang's favorite shirt.
Apparently that used to be one of Taiyangs before his daughter stole it from him.
It wasn't quite as directly life saving as his gift to Ruby, but it was apparently infused with the love and will of an Ancient One (whatever that meant) through something called the Lifestream from a place called Midgard for a SOLDIER.
He didn't know why that word was all capitalized.
Either way it prevented any status effects, including poison. After seeing what one scorpion Faunus could do with his poisoned stinger, Jaune didn't think poison was anything to sneeze at.
Still the two girls would fall asleep quickly enough, their normal bedtimes being closer to nine and he'd leave for Vale to keep Trivia and Neapolitan company.
They'd go and sometimes just hit up the town, messing around in arcades and getting sweet treats. Occasionally shopping for clothes and random accessories where he'd spend his half of their gang-robbed loot on things he and the girls wanted, as Neo insisted on hoarding their half.
He didn't know what their family situation was so he didn't ask. He didn't really want the Lien anyways, it was always more about keeping the money out of the hands of the bad guys. Plus Juniper told him if that money entered the economy through legitimate transactions, that was a good thing.
He didn't exactly understand, but that meant spending what he stole from the bad guys was probably important.
He'd also make sure to sneak back some goodies for Nora and Ren for helping him keep their silence about his Friday night escapades regularly as a result.
Sometimes their time passed teaching Trivia and Neo how to defend themselves. Their Semblance was amazing. It was super flexible, rewarded quick thinking and creativity and could do so much.
But even with a solid weapon that both appeared unassuming but more defensive than it would seem at first glance in Hush and Whisper, their combat training was limited.
Trivia claimed they'd begun to learn from a personal instructor and it showed, in a good way he promised, but they were still twelve going on thirteen and not from a Huntsman family, or they'd have started training anywhere from eight to ten.
Unlike him, who had decades of combat training from an ancient hero burned into his mind, she was technically anywhere from two to five years behind compared to someone her age that grew up in a Huntsman family. The thugs they were facing had next to none, but that meant the playing field was more evened at best since the were bigger and stronger than her.
Still her creativity, the bat-shit flexibility of her Semblance, her actual flexibility, and vicious nature worked well against street thugs and he could see her becoming a very scary fighter in the future. He was actually kind of envious and hoped his Semblance would become something cool like that.
Even so, she'd gotten a late start and Jaune had every intention of helping her catch up in all the ways he could.
He'd begun sharing how to do parkour from his SR Rarity Ability: Journeyman Parkour Mastery and she'd given him some gymnastics exercises for flexibility and acrobatics.
Juniper mentioned that apparently there was a difference between male and female gymnastics training, but Jaune didn't exactly have the ability to be picky. He'd just make do. Being more acrobatic suited him anyways and he'd been rather limber since the Ninkai Tonic.
It did mean that he ended up having to go and hit up their next target, a group of drug dealers by the docks, dressed in a flashy bright green girl's gymnastics leotard with two diagonal midnight streaks across the torso, much to Trivia's silent snickers and Neopolitain's howls of teary-eyed, soundless laughter.
He was starting to regret that his acceptance of the conditions for them doing their hero work the right way involved them dressing him up as a girl.
He'd argue that them getting to choose a different outfit every time wasn't really fair, but it was better than the girls stealing from normal people instead. It was definitely more than a little embarrassing, but nobody would know who it was under the wig and mask.
He'd fabricated a pair of compressible micro fabric domino masks with an elastic strap that would contour perfectly to his and Trivia's faces. They were good identity concealers and wouldn't affect their ability to fight or move a lot as they held in place perfectly.
He made sure they had spares, but Neopolitain just pointed to her face and made a mask appear and disappear at will.
He'd pointed out that if anything went wrong and they ran out of Aura that would disappear but she'd smile sadly and waved him off.
She meant if that happened, it wouldn't matter anymore.
Jaune decided he'd never let it happen then.
It was harder to hide his tail in the almost skintight outfit though, pressing against the fabric on the back of his waist like he was hiding a knife or something under it.
He also wasn't sure how he felt about skin tight stockings. They felt fine, good even, fabric-wise on the legs, but they weren't made for male body parts where it mattered.
He wondered if they made stockings for boys.
Still it had oddly given him a weird tactical advantage when the drug dealers were too confused to react in time to him knocking them unconscious with the flat side of his Winged-Spear before they could even cry out for help.
"Gosh how are so many criminals without Aura?" Jaune wondered, taking some zip ties and binding the unconscious thugs wrists before pulling out an oversized black pea coat meant for a teenager, aka too big for him, to bundle up in, its bottom edges dragging at the ground as he rolled up the sleeves enough that it rested against his wrists.
It was a little difficult with nitrile gloves on, but it was still better than leaving fingerprints everywhere.
Getting black ones for children had been the somewhat difficult part. Especially when they needed separate sizes for him and the girls.
How did grown up girls dress like this? It was only early October and he was freezing!
They had the prettier and objectively aesthetically better clothes seven out of ten times, but boys clothes were more comfortable and warm.
He watched as Trivia and Neopolitan gathered the Lien and random assorted valuables in the basement of the laundromat they found themselves in. Sneaking in had been easy under the power of Triva and Neo's Semblance. The issue had been the door itself.
Apparently the girls didn't actually know how to pick any locks, only having been lucky in that their criminal foes hadn't been the smartest with their windows and doors to this point.
Jaune swore that he'd fabricate some auto pickers to jam into any lock going forwards when he got back home for next week. As the girls apologized with hugs to keep him warm while they waited in the dark and cold stairwell.
They had to linger under the invisibility of Trivia's Aura in the stairwell until one of the thugs opened the door to use the bathroom, his trip put to a stop by the bottom of Jaune's well placed platform boots.
He was currently relieving himself in his unconsciousness.
Jaune grimaced as he found a box of baking powder on the walls, pouring it on the man's groin to soak up the scent of urine.
Trivia shrugged at him as Neo treated the packaged piles of narcotics (some bundles of powder, others packets of green herbs) like some kind of throne on the table the girls had piled it on. They'd have to dump it into Jaune's inventory then in the sewers later when they were free to do so like the last time they'd stumbled into a small drug dispensary.
Jaune rolled his eyes as he pretended to bow in worship of Neo on top of her 'throne', only to pause awkwardly when one of the table legs suddenly buckled and cracked sending her tumbling silently with an expression of adorable shock on her face as she fell on her back, rolling with the momentum and landing on her feet.
Jaune couldn't stop the giggles that erupted from his lips.
Her arms flailed for a second as she readjusted herself, making him laugh harder.
Trivia hid a smile behind both hands before holding up said hands to form a 9 and 5 with her hands.
"I don't know. 9.5 out of 10 seems kind of generous." Jaune laughed.
He was glad for moments like this to cut loose and unwind. He wasn't sure if it was healthy, but it was definitely cathartic.
Juniper always told him to seek healthy outlets for his sadness or regrets, but Jaune wasn't really sure what that meant. Still, his Big Brother was currently floating about outside the building just to be on watch against any potential intruders and wasn't there to chastise him for playing around with the contraband.
All he knew was these moments with Trivia, going out and beating up bad guys was fun. Fun and felt important, like he was making a real change. Shutting down illegal activities and getting drugs off the street was fun.
He enjoyed his time with Ren and Nora, his family, Yang and Ruby, with Team STRQ.
But only being with Trivia and Neo allowed him to just cut loose. Maybe because Neo was a bit of a wildcat and Trivia always followed her friend along. Who even knew at this point? Was he helping the girls?
Or were they helping him?
Neo threw Lien at him, a flurry of paper and plastic, making him giggle and dart to the side to dodge.
Trivia found a box of what looked like dime bags of brightly colored candy, throwing them at Neo and Jaune.
"Ahk! Hey don't actually throw the drugs!" Jaune warned. "That's actually dangerous! What if it was a powder?!"
Neo grinned as she pulled up a random unlabeled cardboard box and smashed it on the ground, just to add to the chaos.
It spilled a pile of colorful Dust fireworks on the ground.
Jaune tensed. Why the HELL was that in there?
The three of them stared down, eyes wide.
"Nobody-"
One of the Dust crystal components began to glow with a crackle.
Jaune leapt to Trivia and turned to bolt to the door with the older girl in his arms in a bridal carry as Neo leapt for the stairs ahead of them all as she pulled the door open. The three of them leapt through the door as a series of small whizzes, pops, and explosions set off behind them as the door slammed shut.
He'd have to stop back inside as fast as he could and hope the criminals were alive.
Bad guys like that dying wasn't a huge issue, but killing people in general was something that had to be frowned upon.
Two tween girls and a crossdressing boy in a wig burst into a Laundromat from a door labeled EMPLOYEES ONLY, completely forgetting to use Neo and Trivia's Semblance to enter a state of invisibility.
Luckily they were all wearing masks as a random civilian snapped a photo on his Scroll with a look of confusion on his face. He turned back at the girls, realizing that they'd opened up the parasol of Whisper and protected their visual traits from being visible, an extra layer of security on top of their masks.
"Oh great. I'm the only one he took a photo of." Jaune groaned, walking over to the wall and kicking in the glass covering the Ice Dust Fire Extinguisher, the shatterpane triggering a fire alarm. "You two get out to the emergency back out point!"
He pulled out the heavy Extinguisher with a small grunt only for Trivia to grab his arm with a worried face from behind Whisper.
"I'll be fine! I can't leave those drug dealers to die in ou-their drug fire." He 'corrected' quickly, leaning in to give Trivia a reassuring hug from behind the parasol's shade. "I got this."
He whipped out a rebreather from his inventory as Neo gave him a small kiss on the cheek for luck, making him flush just a tinge.
It wasn't because it felt like a scene out of a Spruce Willow movie where the hero rushed into the fire to save people as his female friend asked him to come back safely, he swore!
The rebreather clicked beneath his teeth with a clack, oxygen filling his lungs, tasting too cold and metallic in his mouth.
He ignored another flash of Scroll photography as he leapt down the stairs, the black and green wig on his head fluttering.
"Open up!" He hissed from behind the mask, slamming through the steel door with both feet outstretched in a battering ram dive kick.
The hiss of expelling Ice Dust was already firing at full blast as he landed, back on the ground as fire roiled between the concrete floor and his Aura, too warm but protecting him from heat and burns.
Immediately he targeted the pile of five unconscious drug dealers in the corner, luckily their burns mostly cosmetic and from the illegal fireworks that these idiots were keeping down here rather than any drastic chemical reactions from the burning narcotics.
At least that's what his snap instinct medical knowledge flooded into his head.
He gave them a quick once over with the Ice Dust Extinguisher just to be safe.
"Good, they're alive-"
"Jaune?! What happened!?" Juniper flew down into the basement. "Why is everything on fire?!"
"They had fireworks in here for some reason!" Jaune defended, turning the nozzle of the Extinguisher to the edges of the room, applying a layer of frost to cut the spread of chemical flame before redirecting it to the pile of drugs that refused to go out. "It was an accident! And the dealers are scorched but alive!"
"It better have been!"
"The fire isn't going out!" Jaune was panicking just a little, even though the Extinguisher was going at full blast, the molten drugs were roaring in fire, still trying to expand.
"The inventory! Swipe the inventory over it, see if you can shove it in somehow!"
Jaune without thinking began to reach out for it only for Juniper to grab his wrist.
"Summon the inventory on top of it, don't reach into molten flame!"
"R-right!"
Good news was that luckily the inventory registered the Trash quality item of 'Molten Assorted Narcotics'.
The bad news was that the displacement of air caused oxygen to surge into the missing mass of fuel, causing a roaring fireball of force that launched Jaune back into a basement shelf, shattering through the wood shelving.
"Oof! Ow!" Jaune winced as he landed very uncomfortably on his tail. "Ok, that was awful. Lucky the coat absorbed some of the force."
"Lucky you didn't get yourselves killed. Jaune you said you'd be careful!"
"I-I was! It was an accident I promise!" He swore, covering for Neo as he scrambled back to his feet. "It won't happen again!"
Juniper held a hand to his temple, Jaune couldn't stop himself from staring at where his brother's left arm was missing, still feeling guilty of the day when they'd first met and he'd been given his Aura.
The same Aura that protected him again and again. It made him feel like he was betraying his brother, somehow.
"Just… let's get these morons up to the ground floor so they don't burn themselves to death like idiots a second time."
Jaune agreed as he dragged the drug dealers up to the Laundromat, dragging up two per hand at a time with a little bit of effort.
He glared at another flash of a Scroll photograph, feeling the micro compression fabric of his domino mask twist and raise with his covered eyebrow.
And a good thing too, as a blond eyebrow would look weird when he had black and green hair currently.
"Are you serious right now, sir? There was a Dust Firework induced drug fire below a moment ago! What're you still doing in here?"
"Gotta take pictures or nobody'd believe what the hell I just witnessed" The dark skinned human man shrugged. "Somebody might buy it from me too. Prolly the news. I could use the pocket money."
Jaune rolled his eyes, doubling back for the last dealer and leaping up the stairs in a single bound and dumping him on top of the other criminals, the half-conscious thugs groaning.
He walked up to the man with the Scroll, ignoring the other two people that stayed in the Laundromat instead of the others that had intelligently ran out the storefront.
A flicker of green and blue sheets of paper Lien flickered into Jaune's left hand in a stack as he pointed it at the photograph as sirens began to echo in the distance.
"I'll pay you to delete those photos right now."
"What? Noooooo… is what I want to say… but how much?"
"Are you…" Jaune blinked. "Are you bargaining with me right now?"
"I mean… if the shoe fits, I guess. I got photos of you and two other girls run out with-"
"Ah ah ah." Jaune added another stack of Lien from out of his inventory. All money he'd taken from criminals and not worth worrying over anyways. "Start with that one with the three of us and this is yours."
"Deal!" The man tapped and showed himself deleting the photo with him, Trivia, and Neo all bursting out with a panicked expression through their masks.
Huh.
He'd missed the man taking that one.
He then deleted the second photo with the girls hidden by the parasol.
"VPD! Everyone come out with your-"
Jaune just shoved the bills into the man's hand as the police showed up on the scene.
"Take it! Delete it all!" He hissed leaping at a small window meant for ventilation, smashing through it as his Aura flashed to defend himself from the impact and the shattered glass.
"Hey you! Stop-"
Jaune just ran up the side of a building before leaping to the next one, twisting into the alleyways as he disappeared into Vale to meet with Trivia and Neo after this weird not quite disaster.
He couldn't help the peals of laughter erupting from his lips as he evaded the police.
Why was this so fun?!
Juniper pat Jaune's back as the boy groaned at a video of some news clip from Vale, tugging a bit at his bunny ears.
"-so the girl, the Green Hornet y'all are callin' her, offers me some stacks of Lien to delete the pics of her and her partners, right? But the police confiscated the Scroll pics before I could delete the rest. The eighty-K Lien only covered a bit over half the fine from destruction of evidence, apparently, so that's why I sold a copy of what remained to you guys at the Vale News Network!"
Jaune groaned again.
"That's right folks! This is VNN's newest hit scoop reporter Lisa Lavender, bringing you the hottes-"
Jaune turned off his Scroll and threw it at his bed.
"I can already feel Trivia and Neo laughing at me." Jaune flopped onto the ground, mortified. "I'm never gonna hear the end of this. I'm never watching Valean news ever again."
"Yeah, I'm sure those two won't let you live this down."
"Juniperrrrrr." Jaune groaned.
"Girls always get the last laugh, Jaune." He laughed, thinking back on his days with Team RWBY. "Sooner you learn that the easier life gets."
Jaune just groaned into his hands as Juniper laughed.
"I don't even know this Lavender lady! What the hell is a Green Hornet? I sound like a Villain!"
"Oh you will." Jaune shrugged, recalling the white haired reporter that would by the time Jaune was seventeen become their head news anchor. "She'll be big, you know."
And Jaune might have just jump started her career, finally getting caught on camera after a month of crime busting throughout Vale.
"Kill me…."
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット