บท 37: 37
"...Isn't Jaune usually back by this point?"
It was Ruby's voice, small and worried, clutching at the wolf plushy she always so proudly boasted that was a gift from her master that broke the silence.
"He said he'd be catching a movie and be a bit longer than normal." Ren assured, patting the girl's shoulder. "Nothing to fuss over."
"Mmmm. We should at least send a message and make sure he's ok though, right?" Yang sat up and stretched, leaving her Scroll on the ground in the game controller setting after their most recent round of MariaKart 5. "Couldn't hurt."
Emerald simply whipped out her Scroll to send a quick message to her master.
Then frowned.
"...out of range."
That was odd. Her master should have been in Vale fulfilling a promise that he maintained regularly.
"Uh… Lemme get my mom Raven and see if she can't figure out where he is just in case?"
"Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of us keeping my brother's disappearing habits under wraps?"
"Psh, naw Farbs. Mom Raven can sense the general location of anyone that she's connected to with her Semblance. She's probably known about his impromptu trips to Vale or wherever on his own for a while?"
Emerald saw Ren blink in surprise, she herself was a bit surprised to hear Yang's accurate guess. Admittedly she didn't think Yang an idiot, but she wasn't the brightest of light bulbs.
"How'd you know?" She heard Ren ask.
Yang shrugged.
"He asked me to drop off a pair of his weird shadow Semblance mice things of him in Vale when I stuck with dad on an errand like… it was the first fall after Atlas, so uh, four? Four years ago. I assume Jaune's got them a bit everywhere nowadays. Wouldn't surprise me if he snuck some on one of the shipments to Vacuo either." Yang shrugged casually. "Only four other Kingdoms he could be in. I just don't know why or with who. It's his business though and he'll tell us if it was super important."
Emerald noted the small smile Blake gave Yang, clearly appreciating while unofficial the blonde girl certainly considered Menagerie a Kingdom of equal standing.
"She… did say that she knew Jaune was visiting Friday nights just to brush your hair." Ruby pointed out, getting an embarrassed look from her half-sister.
"Yang! Now that's just plain selfish." Blake glared a bit at her blonde best friend. "Jaune's already so busy all the time! You really shouldn't take advantage of him like that."
"Hey, if you asked he'll make time for you too, you know? It's not like I even monopolize his Fridays if he's taking care of something else after seeing me!"
Yang pouted a bit at her own words.
"If we consider what time Vale's probably in from the timezone difference… means he's meeting the person he always does after me anyways…" She leaned her cheek on a clenched fist, her other hand flicking at her Scroll poutingly.
"Do you not know whom my master visits?"
"Do you?" Yang glared with a mocking tone. "Miss I am my master's blade?"
"I do not." Emerald admitted casually. "What my master does with his own time is his own matter. My duty as a blade is not to ask questions."
And that was the truth of it. Her personal feelings towards such things didn't matter. Her master, Jaune, demanded almost comically, nothing from her, but gave her all his trust. She merely strove to do the same. It was what he was owed least of all.
"...Only person I can think of is that one girl he helped when we were first in Vale together? But she's like, five or something years older than us. Why would she hang out with an eleven year old?"
"...Is this a bad moment to point out Jaune's initial reaction to Winter Schnee?" Farbiglas lifted her index finger in the air. "He was quite smitten for a while."
Emerald nodded at the comment from Farbiglas, recalling the photo of Jaune and Winter posing with an autograph of his. Even though she was clearly attempting to stir the pot for her own amusement, the facts remained.
"There is no trend to the positive, but that fact does ring true." Emerald hummed. "And my master is prone to help those in need as long as the reasoning suits his tastes."
"God I don't even remember what she even looked like or what her deal was." Yang muttered angrily, not quite as under her breath as she must have believed, "It was four years ago and just a random five minutes in a mall. I think she was getting bullied?"
"There's no way Jauney wouldn't have cleared a bully problem after four years." Nora sat up, eyes glinting excitedly. "I smell a con-SPIRACY! Guard Dog Nora! Engage!"
The orange haired girl that was akin to Emerald, someone that lived with someone as the focal point to her existence, bounced up excitedly as her own pseudo-master Ren reached out to calm her down.
His touch on her shoulder alone was enough for the girl to vibrate with excitement in place, though she took no further action.
She was less polished and focused than Emerald, as she'd been taken into a position of more personal importance to Jaune and his family, a Bloodhound and a Blade were still rather similar in nature.
"So… are we still going to approach your mother Raven?" Blake inquired, through her eyes glimmered with the light of subtle jealousy that Yang's gimmered with too easily and often. "Just to be extra cautious, right?"
"Y'know, like, that's a good idea, right? We should, just incase, y'know?" Yang stood up quickly, walking towards the door with a quickened pace. "I'll be right back!"
"I'll come with." Blake volunteered, also standing up, her heavier lower body letting her stand up without bending her knees much, as her feet anchored on the ground more easily.
"As this is about my master, I too shall follow along." Emerald sat up at a more controlled pace, secretly a bit glad to be out of sitting in a kneeled seiza.
Just because she'd conditioned herself that it was of little issue did not mean that it was a very comfortable pose, after all.
"Fine, you come with, I guess." Yang gruffly shrugged. "Might as well at this point."
"Hmm?" Raven felt her Scroll buzz in her pocket.
A notification that she'd lost connection to the Parabellum camp in Mistral popped up on her screen.
"What's the matter, Rae?" Summer asked as she prepped some vegetables, working shoulder to shoulder with Noelle Arc. "Something the matter?"
"Nothing like that." Raven assured. "Probably one of my dumbasses touched something they shouldn't have. Booster relay in Mistral camp went down. I'll be back."
"Alright, stay safe, Raven! Don't hesitate to double back for me if anything's wrong!" Summer leaned over to plant a kiss on her cheek, making her feel warm. "S'more's just around the corner, so I'm ready lickety-split."
Raven kissed her back, her lips lingering on Summer's cheek, craving her lips instead, but she held herself back.
She'd just get more later.
Her hand just swiped the air, opening a portal to Vernal before walking through.
"Mo-"
Ah. Drat. Yang must have wanted somethi-
The thought of that was interrupted as she witnessed a bolt of lightning descend and strike one of the tents of her camp.
"WHERE IS YOUR FUCKING LEADER?!"
"The fuck are you doing to my goddamn camp?!" Raven roared at the Spring Maiden (shit what was her name again?) "What the hell is this about?!"
The air was heavy and thick, the feeling of magic suffused into the atmosphere, crackling with ozone.
Shit.
"Raven Branwen. I'm not rolling over for you anymore. Clearly you don't have anything either. Just running away like me. You just put on a front of control. You're no fucking different from that manipulative bastard!"
"...Gods, you've lost it haven't you?" Raven sighed, as she initially didn't even draw her blade until she noticed an arm laying out of the entrance of a burning tent, the body of its owner still inside. "...You better not have killed any of my clansmen. For your own fucking sake."
"What does that matter? As if mere bandits are worth anything to a noblewoman of Mistral! I've had enough of your games, Branwen."
"Fuck you, we've been legit for almost four years now. Plus didn't you say you were disowned?" Raven felt fury well up in her, drawing a green odachi Dust-alloy blade from Omen's revolving sheath. "I'm going to kick your ass and if any of my men are dead, I'm going to take a finger for every one you've murdered."
"Threats upon empty threats. All an attempt at control! You're all just the same! At this point I'm better off finding her and sheltering by the winning side! Worthles-"
There was a lot Raven was willing to overlook for a Maiden.
More than she was willing to admit. The promise of power had always been a weakness of hers since she was a child and she'd considered in a worst case to even potentially be rid of her and see if either she or Vernal might receive a Maiden's might, as much of a death sentence that it might become.
But potentially criminal thoughts aside, she'd truly had every intention of just keeping the young woman under her protection, if anything because the fate of the world might depend on it.
She zig-zagged thrice, using her Wind Omen odachi to help propel her with faster bursts of momentum as the balls of her feet dug streaks into the dirt, sending clouds of brown behind her as green winds flashed and spread them to the wind. The hyper-accelerated momentum shifted her momentum back and forth fast enough to know that she'd become borderline unseen for short bursts as she flickered in the crazy bitch's vision.
Twin slashes of cutting winds leapt from her blade as one was blocked by a short burst of atmosphere swelling like a wall, only for the second slash to cut through and smash violently against the Spring Maiden's Aura, sending her flying back slightly, twisting to right herself in the air.
A staccato of three bursts of much weaker lightning descended from the sky, Raven dodging the two that pinned her in by a hair as her pulse quickened in her veins.
It might only take a single bolt of magic lightning to put her down long enough for her to be bombarded to her death afterwards. She had to fight on a razor's edge, thinking every bolt that could strike her would kill her in a single blow.
But she'd never forgive someone trying to defect to the Queen of the FUCKING Grimm right in front of her. She'd knock this bitch unconscious and let her be the parasite's fucking problem again.
Even Raven would have never fallen so low. There was running from a problem but that was still significantly better than selling your soul to the devil.
And especially since she didn't want the rest of her family involved in this, Raven had to take care of her alone. She'd made the mistake of trying to help a like-minded soul. She'd take responsibility for that alone.
She should have just sold her off to Qrow the moment the bitch showed up.
The crack of a high power rifle rang in the air, blasting against the Spring Maiden's back, the crazy bitch yelling in pain and turning to drop a crack of thunder and lightning on an already scorched figure standing at the opening of a burning tent.
"Greene!" Raven roared with anger.
He had been one of her Bonded.
He wasn't anymore.
"I changed my mind… You're dead."
Her target had aerial superiority, but that also meant she had no cover. As long as you could hit her form, that was a vulnerability that Raven would take advantage of.
Overcharging Omen she flung a viridian crescent of wind to act as wall of force, being matched by the Spring Maiden in turn, as her alloy-blade shattered.
The revolving sheath rotated as Raven slammed the hilt of her weapon into the sheath, drawing a neon yellow katana blade.
If this blue blood wanted to play with thunder-
Aura channeling into her legs, she twisted up line a buzzsaw, her blade spinning vertically in a circle time and time again as she burst into a ring of yellow lightning, grinding into the former noblewoman's back, getting her to scream in pain as the shock bypassed her Aura.
Raven would show her lightning.
At the peak of her spin she followed with a thrust that would have found purchase in the Maiden's heart, maybe even forcing it to a stop, but a magic wave of wind spun Raven to the side, only causing her to graze her shoulder.
All her hair began to rise on end.
"I'LL KILL YOU!"
Raven just twisted as she planted her foot into the torso of the blue blooded bitch, separating them as a crack of lightning descended from above.
The movie was mostly over and Jaune was enjoying his time.
It was some dumb rom-com about a Huntsman and a Huntress who were childhood friends that got separated when Grimm attacked a settlement and they'd moved to different Kingdoms.
He was a Beacon boy with stars in his eyes and she was an Atlas Specialist that had forgotten how to love and was learning again with a lot more will they wont they than necessary with plenty of 'action' in between when they'd fight awful CGI Grimm.
Trivia, Neo, and he himself had a lot of fun pointing out what was nonsense and the few times the actors actually pulled off a cool move that might even work sometimes.
He was being forced to sit on Triv's lap so that she could cuddle him from behind as she rested her chin on his head. He wasn't so embarrassed by such a thing. Especially when they had the privacy of a whole theater room just for themselves, having been disguised as a rich elderly couple via Trivia and Neo's Semblance as they'd entered.
He held the large fountain drink in his hands, a straw for both him and Trivia to sip from while Neo draped her back across his lap like a lazy housecat, occasionally stretching to lean over to the box of kettlecorn and feed him or Trivia a bite.
Which is why he felt extra bad when six of his Shadows sent him a notice of imminent death from far to the East and he unknowingly leapt to his feet, sending Neo tumbling for a split second before he caught her with an arm.
"Sorry!" He yelped, squinting with a frown. "No, I don't need to run to the bathroom. I-I have to go. Someone's in danger."
Juniper who'd been floating as if dreaming snapped awake.
"What? Who?"
"I don't know!"
It was towards Mistral. His dad? Saphron who was taking an extra summer class?
Shit he wasn't positive. His Shadows were just mice, they lacked intellect, thus they were too busy flooding the sensation of DANGER that he couldn't concentrate on who he was already connecting to for a warp.
"I'll be right back!" He declared, realizing too late that Neo had already grabbed an ankle and Trivia had put a hand on his shoulder, both refusing to let him go off alone.
The cold sensation of falling backwards into a swirling pool of cold tendrils engulfed him as he strung a connection to his Shadows.
His ears rang as lighting and thunder crashed in front of him as he appeared on the other end, someone flying backwards overhead as they dodged the burst of lighting.
He instantly felt a presence that he'd only felt from his own Command Seals before.
"Magic?" He muttered, looking up at a woman flying overhead, bleeding from a wound across her arm, raving bloody murder as she screamed obscenities and promises of death. "But that's impossible."
"No. A Maiden." Jaune heard Juniper mutter horrified. "Is this how it happened?"
What did that mean?
"What the FUCK are you doing here, Jaune?!" He heard Raven (somehow of course Raven was involved) shout from behind him as he scattered alongside Trivia and Neo, the two girls leaving behind an illusion of the three of them shattering into pink shards of glass.
But Raven didn't sound all too surprised at the effects of Overactive Imagination, just firing arcs of crimson flame at the flying mage lady without even a gram of belief that he and his friends were dead.
"Fucking I'll kick you ass later, brat, help me bring her ass out the sky! I can't fucking fly!"
The scaled bodysuit of his Augmented Drachen Mail (Female) slipped over his form under his black hoodie and shorts, the skintight black dragon scales rippling as streaks of them turned gold as they wrapped around his form.
Utilizing the enhanced jumping ability of his armor (sans all the metal bits that might draw lighting to himself) he leapt shattering out from his invisibility, slamming a roundhouse into the side of the woman's head.
Her Aura had already been gone, unable to match up to Raven, only holding on due to magic and aerial superiority.
It sent her flying to the side, landing on the ground, a leg twisting under her in a way that it shouldn't.
"Ooh." Jaune's feet formed a platform of air to kill his momentum, allowing him to simply fall out of the sky and on the ground without issue. His face twisted in a cringe of empathy at her screaming in pain over her clearly broken leg. "Shit, I can fix that don't wo-"
A blast of electric force erupted from the woman's body, sending currents of paralyzing pain through him and across the whole of the Parabellum camp.
In a muted scream of pain, he was flung back, his body flipping ragdoll as it made contact with the heated glassing soil. He even saw his Big Brother Juniper be affected by the magic lightning his form screaming in pain, his lower body beginning to dissapate.
His body hit dirt again, flipping and spinning once more.
He saw Trivia, yellow bolts of lighting crawling over her body, reaching out for Neo who shattered into pink shards of light.
His heart stopped as he landed face first into cold mud, bits of glass pressing painfully into the Aura of his cheek, eyes wide but the mud was kept out of his irises by the sheen of Aura raging from his form.
Neo. Big Brother Juniper. Neo. BIG BROTHER!
Rage erupted from his form, seeing only red.
"AaAaAaHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Durindana answered its master's call, flashing into his grip without interfacing with the Inventory. "CONSUME THE FLAME OF HOPE!"
Prana erupted in crimson from his right hand like a volcanic eruption.
"Jaune, no! You can't-"
Raven's words were lost to him as he turned his head, his senses going numb with white hot fury.
There was a burn across the right side of her face, her eye having turned a milky white as blistered red skin crawled from her temple to her chin, some of the hair on the right side of her face having been burnt away over her ear.
His gaze turned back to the woman clutching her broken leg, shrouded in a dirty pink cloak, as black flames erupted from the eyes within her hood.
She had to die.
His arm reached back.
"Breach. Durindana!"
There was no blast of light, no flood of explosive force. No need for such a thing. Jaune didn't desire the weapon's Anti-Army capability. He demanded Anti-Unit. The Noble Phantasm simply obliged the demand of its master.
Without fanfare, without the explosive force he'd unleashed this weapon in his past, Durindana flew.
The golden blade of the Noble Phantasm that had once been the partner of Hector of Troy simply became but a beam of black-gold light, striking through the heart of the pink cloaked mage, drilling a hole through her and the tree behind her, as if erasing a hole into the world as the weapon continued to fly for untold meters through the woods of Mistral, leaving but a void in the shape of a circle as it's trajectory continued unimpeded.
He didn't care about the woman's black eyes glaring at him with waning wisps of flame, wishing death upon him as he ran to Trivia to hold the girl in his arms.
"Not Neo. No. I'm sorry."
Trivia's Aura however felt different.
Before she'd always had an odd gap to it. Always stretching, always a muted vanilla and chocolate, swirling but not complete, as if some sort of rock held in place, like a boulder dividing a flowing river in two.
But now it was warm. The scent of strawberries in summer, fresh cream and warm chocolate.
Her teary eyes were filled with sadness but also joy. Neo was a part of her now. As it should have been. Completing the other.
"Oh." He muttered softly, tears in his eyes as his tail began to wag.
She was complete.
"Oh. Thank the gods you two are ok."
He could still fix things. Everything was going to be ok.
"...curse… you…"
Jaune felt his tail stop.
"Hey." He growled, "You've done enough. Have the decency to just die silently."
He had so much he had to fix now. Whatever had happened to Trivia and Neo needed addressing. Helping Raven fix her camp. Fixing Raven's eye. His brother's currently weakening form, bleeding prana.
"So shut up."
The woman in pink, Juniper had called her a Maiden, coughed up blood, the crimson liquid spilling fresh from her lips as she leaned back against the tree behind her, the hole in her torso appeared as if red flesh extended into ringed wood.
"...fuck you, animal. I… curse you. She'll suffer because of you."
Fury filled his form. She was threatening Trivia/Neopolitan even now?!
He raised a hand, staring the woman dead in the eye.
"You can't do anything once you're dead."
She was on death's door. Nothing he could do would save her now. Not without giving her something she didn't deserve. Nor did he wish to save her.
But she'd not only taken Raven's eye, shattered Neo, HURT HIS BROTHER JUNIPER SOMEHOW and now she was going to monologue her death cries?!
No. But he'd have the decency to make it quick.
Durindana came back, maintaining its current momentum, leaving a hole in the tree behind the Maiden's head, spilling crimson onto the glassed soil in front of her broken body as the spear returned to his hand.
Not a single droplet of blood or viscera was left upon the pristine blade.
Thus: pink and brown flames then erupted from Trivia's eyes.
Nothing had gone right today.
She'd fucked up. Pretty majorly.
"So." Jaune spoke quietly, too calmly for a boy that'd just killed a woman in cold blood. "Not all Maidens are evil."
"Yup. The rest are on the good side." Raven laid on her back as her numbed face was treated by his hands.
She was sure he'd have forced her to lay embarrassingly in his lap as he worked if that Trivia girl, the illusion girl, the new Spring Maiden wasn't already occupying it, her eyes still wet with tears, as she knelt by Jaune's chair.
For now her clansmen were working on picking up the pieces and preparing for a pyre for Greene and Shay, their best event planner and scout respectively. Only two had died, but the thing that stung was that they'd died for pretty much nothing.
It almost made her want to laugh. Meanwhile the former Maiden's body (apparently her name had been Kiana Hizuka) was being left for the wild beasts to feast somewhere in the woods.
"I gave her some shelter because she was supposed to be on our side, just having some personal issues with Beacon's Headmaster. Then she went crazy and declared she was going to join the enemy right as I got into camp today."
"...Enemy?" His hands didn't pause though his words did.
"You're not old enough to know everything yet. But it's the one that more or less controls the Grimm."
It told a lot of how practiced Jaune had become, dealing with patients in Menagerie, that even lost in thought his hands kept on, grafting what the kid called angelskin over where her face had been burnt by an errant bolt of lightning.
It'd almost stunned her long enough to cost her life.
She'd been lucky that she'd overloaded her remaining Wind Alloy-Blade, the katana form and had been knocking her back right as she'd been struck.
It did shatter what's her face's Aura and cut her deep across the shoulder in trade either way. Raven still had her Aura thanks to her skill, but lightning alone already bypassed Aura. Magic Lightning though? Shit.
It could have been much worse than an eye.
"Ok. I could sedate you now and replace your eye…"
Raven sensed a but.
"...or I could give you a gift."
"What do you mean?" Her throat was dry at the sudden expectation.
Jaune had been given gifts of magic by Juniper. Powers from the bygone age of magic. The Era of Gods. And she knew Jaune didn't have a manipulative bone in his little body. If there was a silver lining to take with her day, she'd be glad for it.
Jaune sighed.
"I'm buying more favors from you. I'm offering this because I want something Raven." The kid was serious, but as serious as his tone was, Raven didn't feel pressured at all. "Not that I don't trust you, crazy as you can be, but the thought of you but stronger honestly scares me a little."
"Heh. Alright. I'll owe you more. As if you're not already sitting on a stack of favors."
Raven was already honestly pretty deep in debt to the brat, but weirdly owing the kid felt alright. Not like when she'd owe others at least.
Kid rarely wanted much and always gave more than he asked for anyways.
"She said she was cursing me. That she'd make me suffer through Triv and Neo. I want to protect her."
She could hear the soft rustling of the girl's fingers clenching his cotton shorts as the girl in question laid her face down in his lap.
Fucking kid was just collecting at this point, wasn't he? Fucking brat. He was worse than Taiyang ever was.
Raven sighed.
"...She's like, Beacon age, isn't she?"
"Turning seventeen at the end of spring. Her tutor's written her a letter of rec and everything. Aurelia something, actually works at Signal with Taiyang, though she almost quit last year after an accident with a student on a field exercise dying to an Ursa. She's… been thinking about it. She's grown a lot."
He sounded proud of her. In the same way he sounded when he saw Yang and Ruby grow. Fucking brat. She dreaded having to watch over him when he'd properly enter puberty.
"Yeah I'm aware, I've known about your little vigilante shenanigans for a while."
"Whu-"
"Look. I'm proud of ya. Robbing criminals, heh. That's real funny, brat. What a good brat." Raven mocked (teased), "Taking after your Auntie Raven, skirt included. Pft!"
She could feel Jaune's Aura flare with faint irritation as a small heaviness began to fill the air from the new Spring Maiden who was burying her face in the boy's lap. Even so, she had zero fear.
The boy had the illusion girl wrapped around his little bratty fingers. Huh. Didn't he mention that Emerald's Semblance was illusion based, too? This a trend?
"Look, I'll pass something to Qrow and he'll handle it with the par-Ozpin. She shouldn't trust him fully though. He's-"
"Manipulative. I know. Big Brother Juniper's already warned me. Give him an inch and he'll take a mile, so don't give him that inch without having two miles first."
Raven laughed, closing her good eye.
"Good man, that Juniper."
"He's the best." Jaune agreed. "The Maiden, she… she hit him too when she knocked me back. When she blasted all of us. He's alright now after I provided more… well he's resting. He's not too durable when he isn't manifested physically, I think."
The brat actually sounded really worried and scared.
Raven let out a cold hiss of air. Maiden powers could hurt spirits, huh? That did make some sense. She reached out blindly, finding his knee as he sat on his chair beside the table she was laying on, giving a reassuring squeeze.
Magic was fucky, huh? She wanted that shit.
"I'll give it to you. As payment."
She whistled. Jaune's mind reading at work. Yeah, she wanted that good shit.
"My brother gets something for free, but I gotta lose an eye for magic bullshit. Man Remnant ain't fair."
"It's shit." She heard Jaune agree.
Two taps against the scale armored lap of her brat from the illusion girl agreed, the heaviness of magic lingering still around her body.
"If anyone asks, you answer the same as Qrow."
"My Semblance evolved? That's always been the flimsiest excuse for bullshit a Huntsman wants to keep in their back pocket. You know less than one in a hundred Huntsmen actually experience that?"
"Doesn't matter. Who could prove you wrong?"
"Magic itself. It feels different from Aura. Heavier and thicker."
"Yeah. Normally. This might not. I mean, nobody notices Qrow's Luck Reversal Charm. This is a bit more powerful than that but-"
"Gimme."
"Raven, you're my mother's age. Please act it."
"I'm guessing a magic eye. I want it. Think of it as all the birthday gifts you've missed."
"Gods, have some patience. Also I haven't missed a birthday yet! I literally sent you to a vacation resort last time with your whole family!"
She heard the girl, Trivia, tap at his thigh.
"Yeah. She's a grown up child, Tri-Neo. Do you believe her?"
Raven snorted at the worst merging of two names she'd ever heard.
"Trivia in private? Alright, Neo. Whatever you want."
Fucking hell. Yang had her work cut out for her.
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